Music Creators’ Earnings in the Digital Era 2021 (IPO)

A research paper from the IPO

From:
Competition and Markets Authority
Published
25 March 2022
Category:
Ad hoc research
Original publisher:
Intellectual Property Office
Research area:
Advertising and marketing, Future connectivity and internet, Media and entertainment, Retail and digital commerce, Technology
Research topic:
Advertising spend, Digital economy, Digital transformation, General and vertical search, Intellectual property, Music streaming, TV, video and on-demand
Research publish date:
23 September 2021

Abstract

In recent years, hundreds of online sources, in mainstream and independent outlets, blogs and social media have debated issues concerning the earnings of musicians in ‘the digital era’. As we show in this report, a particularly controversial issue has been the level of earnings that musicians can achieve in a new music system where audio streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, and video streaming services that provide access to music, most notably YouTube, are increasingly central. But as we also show, many contributions to public debate on these and other matters reveal important misunderstandings of the system by which musicians earn money from royalties for copyrighted works. The overall aim of this research is to collate and provide objective evidence to facilitate constructive and informed debate about music creators’ earnings.

Citation

Intellectual Property Office, Music Creators’ Earnings in the Digital Era (2021) [online] Available at: Music Creators Earnings, the Digital Era, and On-Demand Streaming Revenues [Accessed 10 February 2022]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/music-creators-earnings-in-the-digital-era

Published 25 March 2022
Contents