September 2024 Updates

We’ve been publishing a series of TW Explainers on our ThisWeek Culture website – handy guides to key aspects of the culture business. The latest one provides a summary of the key debates around ticketing, including all-in pricing, secondary ticketing, dynamic pricing and ticket levies. You can check out all the explainers here.

I set up this ‘Hallelujah’ playlist earlier this year to illustrate the difference between ISRC and ISWC in a music metadata workshop, but today I actually listened to it on my tube ride into Central London and back. It kind of works. Then again, we did once play Blur’s ‘Parklife’ 21 times in a row on a student radio show I co-presented back in the 1990s, so maybe I’m unusually conditioned for musical repetitiveness!

I mentioned recently that I’m expanding my copyright training into other sectors, and that includes the communications industry. I’ve developed a brand new course that runs through everything people working in marketing, PR and communications need to know when using and creating content to ensure they are compliant with copyright law. If you’re working in that sector – or know people who are – there’s info about this course here.

There’s been some major changes within the major label system over the last year, with some very senior execs departing, leading to much speculation as to what projects they’ll pop back up with next. Universal Music UK’s long-serving CEO David Joseph has just announced his decision to depart… to go and study religion and theology at Kings College London. Had there been time to speculate about his next project, I suspect few would have speculated that. Though I’ve got some good YouTube recommendations for him. Anyway, here’s my CMU report on his departure memo.

Ten years ago this week I was exchanging emails with then MMF CEO Jon Webster about a possible project that, a couple of months later, became the ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ project. So I guess I have been working with the Music Managers Forum – and the brilliant MMF team and board – for more or less a decade now. For the last six years that’s included outgoing Chair and Vice Chair Paul Craig and Kwame Kwaten, who have a very interesting conversation on this podcast I managed to check out yesterday.

The last ever daily edition of the Evening Standard is published today and, even though I’ve not picked up a copy in years, it feels like the end of an era. Do you remember that short weird period when there were THREE evening papers in London: The Standard, The London Paper and London Lite? Anyway, The Standard was a newspaper I read regularly when I first moved to London and I even got to work on some interesting music projects with it in the mid-2000s as part of the BigTime programme which included these CDs. Goodbye Evening Standard!

Not only has Leyton FINALLY got a proper fish and chip shop, but it is less than two minutes walk from my desk. Which is very exciting. Though given how often I ate at Edinburgh’s City Restaurant fish and chip shop when we stayed in that Fringe flat just across the road, this is possibly not a very healthy development.

I’ve plugged a couple of special offer CMU Masterclass bundles recently, both of which will soon expire. So I thought I’d plug them again! The code BACKTOWORK gets you extra special prices. One brings together three copyright sessions – how music copyright works, how music licensing works and how music data works. The other includes two deep dives on music licensing, one focused on streaming, the other on sync.

As you know, I spend a lot of my time talking and teaching about music copyright. I’ve now put together a copyright seminar for the wider creative industries, aimed at companies working in theatre, dance, film, TV, comedy and other performing arts. If that might be of interest to you – or someone you know – you’ll find all the info you need here.

So this is exciting. Our Pathways Into Music Foundation has teamed up with the brilliant Un-Convention to present the Music Industry + Music Education Conference in Manchester on 23 Nov. We’ll be bringing together lots of people involved in educating and supporting future music talent, from within education and industry. Get information and tickets, and suggest speakers, here.

I’ve got another very special offer on our CMU Masterclasses for you – this time on a bundle that brings together two deep dive sessions on music licensing. One covers the digital market and digital licensing, while the other explains the ins and outs of sync licensing. For a limited time you can access both sessions for just £54.45 if you use the discount code BACKTOWORK. Info here.

So, there’s been a lot of talk about ticket pricing for major shows this week, hasn’t there? I think most of what I said on this 2022 Shot & Chaser podcast called ‘Why are concert tickets so expensive?’ still stands, except for the COVID recovery excuse I guess, that’s pretty much gone now. Meanwhile, here’s my reporting on the backlash to Oasis and all that dynamic pricing.

We have a very special offer available this week on one of our CMU masterclass bundles, getting you access to my sessions explaining how music copyright and music licensing work, plus a session running through everything you need to know about music data. Use the code BACKTOWORK to get access to all three of these masterclasses for just £70.95. Info here.

I’m in Denmark today for the Musikforlæggerne conference. The morning proceedings are in Danish until my monolingualism forces everything into English this afternoon. Though I am talking about global licensing, markets and revenues, so that almost justifies it being in English, right? Despite failing to convince the border guard at Copenhagen airport yesterday that discussing global music rights and revenues was exciting, I’m excited about today’s discussions!