Tag: AIM
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European copyright vote stalls progress of Article 13

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

If this week has felt like a bit too much European policymaking at the top of this bulletin, apologies. But the debate around the draft Copyright Directive, and particularly its Article 13, is something that’s being watched closely around the world. By now you may know that yesterday’s vote in the European Parliament did not go the way much of the music industry and its allies had hoped: 318 votes to reject the directive in its current form, versus 278 to approve it, with 31 abstentions.

Reactions from the music industry fall into two camps: those rolling up their sleeves for the next stage of amending the proposed legislation before it gets a full debate in the European Parliament, and those training their fire on technology companies (Google in particular) and decrying yesterday’s vote as a wasted opportunity.

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Article 13 lobbying goes up to the wire – so what next?

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

Today sees the crucial European Parliament vote on the proposed new EU Copyright Directive, including the ‘Article 13’ that’s been the focus of so much attention for the music industry. Lobbying around the proposed approach to safe harbours and copyright-filtering requirements for online platforms of all sizes has continued up to the wire, with the music industry waiting until yesterday to deploy one of its key weapons: a Beatle.

“Unfortunately, the value gap jeopardises the music ecosystem. We need an Internet that is fair and sustainable for all. But today some User Upload Content platforms refuse to compensate artists and all music creators fairly for their work, while they exploit it for their own profit,” suggested the letter signed by Sir Paul McCartney, and published through the IFPI for the attention of European politicians.

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Consolidated Independent co-founder warns of indie threats

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

The opening address at AIM’s Music Connected conference in London last Friday came from Paul Sanders, co-founder of Consolidated Independent. He delivered a warning around the ability to stay independent, for music companies and tech startups alike.

“As independents we’re usually small, and it’s very hard to get the concentration of expertise in one place to get the investment into the technology and the processes you need, to be an independent business in a world that is coalescing around what we call hyper-scale platforms,” said Sanders. “Without that expertise, and without access to that expertise, it is too easy to lose independence.”

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RoboPop: how will AI and machine-learning affect the music industry?

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

From copyright, production and A&R to consumption, sync and advertising, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning are already having an impact on the modern music industry. A panel at AIM’s Music Connected conference in London today explored this from an independent perspective.

The panel included Lydia Gregory from FeedForward AI; Simon Wheeler from Beggars Group; and Sophie Goossens from Reed Smith. Jeremy Silver from Digital Catapult moderated.

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Case study: marketing Laura Marling’s Semper Femina album

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

Laura Marling’s last album, ‘Semper Femina’, is a wonderful piece of work: something I’ve returned to again and again since its release, discovering new details every time.

Hats off to that, then. But also to the team that worked hard on the marketing campaign for an album, released through More Alarming Records via Kobalt Music Recordings, that went top five in the UK and also made an impact elsewhere in the world.

At AIM’s Indie-Con conference in London today, some of that team talked about the campaign: Abi Dawson from management company Everybody’s Management, and Kobalt Music Recordings product manager Helen Barrass and general manager Paul Trueman. AIM CEO Paul Pacifico moderated.

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AIM and WIN call for ‘no more manels’ at conferences

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

It’s still rare to find a music-industry conference without at least one ‘manel’ – an all-male panel. Indie bodies WIN and AIM are trying to see off the sausagefests with their public-speaking workshops for women in the industry.

This morning, they announced that they have now trained more than 100 women in the first six months of the initiative, including attendees from the live, labels, publishing, management and legal arms of the industry.

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How indie labels cut through the noise in 2017 (#midem)

Avatar photo by Eamonn Forde

More music is being released by more artists than ever before in 2017, while streaming services are upping their efforts to provide human and algorithmic curation.

How are independent labels cutting through all the noise to help their artists reach audiences and build careers? A panel at the Midem conference today organised by UK trade body AIM discussed the challenges.

The panel included CTRL Management’s Nadia Khan; Kobalt Music Recordings’ Nathan Liddle-Hulme; XL Recordings’ Caroline Simionescu-Marin; and Secretly Group’s Michelle Kambasha. AIM’s Lara Baker moderated.

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British music optimism in 2017: talent, exports, hard work

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British music will have a high profile at Midem 2017, thanks to the British Music at Midem stand; more than 150 British delegates and companies; and six British artists performing at the evening showcases.

That presence is backed by a strong sense of optimism across the British industry, based as much on successes abroad as it is rising industry revenues at home.

While Adele and then Ed Sheeran have been the poster artists for large-scale global success, they are accompanied by a much wider swathe of artists, songwriters, music companies and tech startups making their names around the world.

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‘Mostly awful’ virtual-reality music videos failing to impress Vevo

Avatar photo by Eamonn Forde

A fair few people in the music industry think that virtual reality (VR) could be the next big leap forward for music videos and live performances alike. However, there are plenty of sceptics.

Some of them were on the ‘Capturing Live Performance’ panel at AIM’s Music Connected conference in London yesterday, expressing their caution about the quality and reach of current VR content.

“We see about 80 premieres a week on our site and maybe one of them is VR or 360,” said James Moodie, senior manager of talent and music at Vevo. “Without being too harsh, they are mostly awful. I think there are very few good ones and I think that is down to the lack of tech right now – as well as the budgets. When you look at headsets and what they cost, until they are an accessible mainstream format, I don’t think we will be running into them headfirst.”

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Indie labels talk tech: startups, bots, virtual reality and more

Avatar photo by Eamonn Forde

Messaging bots, virtual reality and other whizzy new technologies have potential for the music industry, but how will that play out for independent labels and artists, who rarely have large R&D budgets?

That was the key question in the closing panel at AIM’s Music Connected conference in London yesterday, moderated by Music Ally’s Stuart Dredge.

Among the topics: an alleged paucity of invention currently happening in music technology; where the industry still needs to play catch up with what’s out there; why VR may only going to work for the top 1% of acts when bankrolled by major brands; and where bots can start to take the pressure off music marketing departments.

The session opened with Mark Mulligan of MIDiA Research puncturing the hype bubble around music and technology in 2017, saying that true inventions are thin on the ground in 2017.