Music Business Roundup: US Copyright, Super Bowl Music Placements, and More

Updated:

January 11, 2017 10:56 am

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Each week on Songwriter U, Songspace recaps the top stories in the world of music business. Here’s everything you need to know from the week ending on February 5th.

US Copyright Office
The United States Copyright Office released an extensive report about modernizing the current system. Some of the key points include having the performance right for sound recordings extend to terrestrial radio and making pre-1972 sound recordings part of federal jurisdiction so that there is less confusion. There were also many changes that affect PROs presented, such as the ability to opt-out of interactive streaming.
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Super Bowl Music Placements
This past Sunday the Super Bowl commercials had some pretty great synch choices, with artists like Marc Scibilia getting increased exposure from their music being played. The top three publishers each had a fair amount of synchs, and the increasing cost of Super Bowl commercial airtime means that songwriters and artists have been getting paid more for the spots.
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Sirius XM Results
Sirius XM satellite radio had better than expected results in the last quarter of 2014, reporting they added a net of 576,689 subscribers over the period. They also reported a lower subscriber drop rate, as well as increased profits over the year before.
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Pandora Earnings
While Sirius XM did better than expected, Pandora did the opposite: missing the Wall Street Journal predictions, which lead to stock prices dropping significantly. Though their earnings did not meet expectations, they still reached some milestones including 1 billion song streams per day on certain dates.
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Taylor Swift Copyrights
Taylor Swift and her representatives recently copyrighted many phrases found in songs off of her recent album 1989 like “this sick beat” and “nice to meet you, where you been?” Attorney Martin Schwimmer suggests this move is not just to deter others from using the phrases, but could be due to a large merchandising push of her own.
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