Music Ally Independent Journalism Statement

Music Ally is a multi-pronged company. Our journalism – news, analysis and research reports – is mainly funded by individual and corporate subscriptions, but in recent years we have launched sponsor-supported versions for independent labels, managers, publishers and collecting societies.

Meanwhile, we run conferences; do training both through our online learning hub and in-person for clients; and offer marketing strategy services to music companies and artists. We’ve recently launched our SI:X music/tech startups contest, and our MUdaL hybrid editorial+events+training initiative in Latin America.

It’s a truly exciting time! We’re bringing our knowledge to more people in new formats, but that brings with it commercial relationships with a number of the companies we write about in our journalism.

Editorial integrity

Our editorial integrity is the core of Music Ally’s culture and business. So, two things:

  1. Music Ally’s commercial relationships do not influence our journalism. We don’t cover companies we do business with more often or more positively as a result, nor do we cover their rivals less or more negatively.
  2. We’ll let you judge whether this is true by offering maximum transparency. This page lists the companies we currently have (or have recently had) commercial relationships with, so you can assess our independence accordingly.

Internally, our ethos has always been clear. We’ve had partnerships with large DSPs like Spotify, Amazon and YouTube while covering the fiercest criticism of streaming economics, artist royalties and the ‘value gap’.

Major labels are some of our largest corporate subscribers, but we don’t shy away from industry criticism of them. Linkfire is a long-time sponsor of our conferences, but we write regularly about its rivals in the smart-links space.

The BPI and the Broken Record campaign may be opposed, but working on events with the former hasn’t reduced our coverage of the latter. And so on. We know this, but we think it’s important to disclose those relationships here, so you can judge our coverage for yourself.

The list of those current and recent partnerships follows, and will be updated regularly:

Corporate Subscriptions

Our five largest corporate subscribers by value in 2021 were Spotify, Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony Music and Google. None of them accounted for more than 6% of our revenues for that year.

Sponsored Subscriptions

If you work for a collecting society, an independent label, independent publisher, management company or music/tech startup, you can subscribe to Music Ally for free thanks to our sponsor partners, with support from industry trade bodies.

  • The independent labels subscription is currently sponsored by Verifi Media and Spotify for Artists, in association with WIN.
  • The independent publishers subscription is currently sponsored by Curve and Spotify.
  • The management subscription is currently sponsored by Pandora and Audius, in association with IMMF.
  • The PROs subscription is currently sponsored by ICE and Audoo.

The Japanese-language version of Music Ally is sponsored by Cotolab, Spaceshower Fuga, and Recochoku, in association with IMCJ and FMPJ.

Past sponsors of these subscriptions include FUGA and Songtrust.

Events and Conferences

The NY:LON Connect conference that we co-run with Music Biz in January 2023 is being held in association with Orfium and Viberate, and hosted by Reed Smith.

Our Sandbox Summit Web3 Special in June 2022 was held in association with Cirkay, Fanaply and Global Rockstar, and supported by Tuned Global.

We have worked on a number of the BPI’s ‘Insight Session’ events in recent years, working with the industry body on the programmes and subsequent reports.

Past sponsors of our own events include Linkfire, The Orchard, Vevo, MQA, AdRev, Nielsen, 7digital, Chartmetric and ICE.

Training and Learning

Launched in October 2022, the MUdaL online learning centre and knowledge network for Latin America was conceived and developed by Music Ally and Relatable, with the support of Spotify for Artists as the headline sponsor.

Also in October 2022 we launched a free five-course video series on our learning hub called the Amazon Music for Artists Pro Series. It’s a commercial partnership with Amazon Music.

We are a partner for the Music Business Academy for Africa training program. The 2022 edition is powered by YouTube Music.

Music Ally SI:X

Launched in September 2022, our music/tech startups contest and mentorship program is being held in association with Amazon Music, FUGA, PRS for Music, The Raine Group, Reed Smith, and Universal Music Group.

Partner Content

Occasionally we publish Partner Content, which is created by brand partners in liaison with the Editorial Team. While this content is not written by us, we work closely with Partners to ensure that it adheres to the same levels of quality, thoughtfulness, and usefulness as our own work. This content is published in the Partner Content category and posts are prefaced to clearly signify them as Partner Content.

Other Commercial Relationships

And finally… Orfium was a partner for our 20th birthday party in September 2022, sponsoring a branded cocktail at the bar!

Last updated: 24/11/22

*Music Ally is accredited as a Living Wage Employer. We are based in London, a region where nearly a fifth of all jobs (19%) pay less than the real Living Wage – around 785,000 jobs. The real Living Wage is the only rate calculated according to the costs of living. It provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum.

Music Ally is an equal opportunities employer. For details of our policy please click here