Situation on the music market: the Digital leg to stand on, more than ever, become a life insurance

retail and record stores closed for a short time, many of the suspended publications, and with the concert stop is also advertising continues to be the best and a good platform for the sale of recorded music the way The conditions were and remain difficult, although the Live sector is doing, of course, far worse. "If such a crisis would have come ten years ago, would have had our industry segment, the label side of a giant problem," says Florian Press, the Chairman of the Board of the Federal Association of music industry (BVMI) in conversation with the F. A. Z.

Benjamin Fischer

editor in the economy.

"Our digital leg to stand on, more than ever, become a life insurance." There are even signs that show total sales on the German market for music recordings in the first half of the year, in spite of the appreciable losses in the physical business overall growth. "The fear of some that the financial consequences of the crisis, massive Streaming and subscriptions will be terminated, has not happened so far," says Press.

the duration of the nuisance Youtube

A constant nuisance to stay, however, the music-Streaming Video: "About half the music consumption takes place via platforms such as Youtube, but do not acquire a fair licenses for it, so that their share of the industry revenue is only 3 percent." The Audio Streaming via services like Spotify, in contrast, was 2019 for more than 55 percent of sales.

A consequence of the crisis will show, however, only with a delay: the distributions of The collecting society for performance rights (GVL), which is licensed for performing artists and phonogram producers for the use of publications is expected to decrease to 2020. The sun, for example, to the public, since in the various stores less music was played, says Press.

In the Wake of the pandemic it has become, meanwhile, the representatives of prominent artists such as Helene Fischer and Peter Maffay-fired debate around a user-centric billing model in a Streaming fairly quiet. At the core of it is that in the UCP (the"User Centric Payment System") mentioned in the model are distributed to the subscription of a user's posts, only by him belonged to the artists or their partners.

Complicated streaming debate

musicians receive no money directly from the streaming services, but distributions of its Labels, publishers and distributors, as well as by the collecting societies. According to the currently popular "Pro-Rata"model, the services, all users from collecting fees in a pot and pour according to an internal distribution key to the right of the owner of the music pieces. This is based on the total number of Streams of an artist on a platform. The critics of the current system consider this to be opaque and complain, that anyway often streamed artist would be even better. Just less well-known musicians would benefit from a changeover.

the Association of independent music entrepreneurs (VUT) supports the call for a transition to UCP, not least because it is difficult to manipulation attempts. Opponents of a conversion warn about higher administrative costs, which could reduce the payouts. Extensive, reliable information on the actual consequences of user-centric distribution system, in practice, are not yet available, however.

, And without the broad Agreement in the industry, a change seems hardly possible. According to BVMI CEO Express the opinions to the UCP, however, is strong: "There are pages of the smaller and larger market participants, supporters and critics of a user-centric settlement model."