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 MUSIC MARKETING TIPS, MUST-KNOW SKILLS & ESSENTIAL NEWS
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Hi <<First Name>>, and welcome to The Knowledge – Music Ally's weekly nuzzle up to the modern music industry. This is the newsletter that fully supports the campaign to force Jeff Bezos to buy and eat the Mona Lisa. Below are highlights of the news, analysis and learning that make up our industry-standard subscriber services

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Knowledge is power!

This week's Knowledge – in-depth and at-a-glance:


📬 BULLETIN NEWS: Labels under fire in UK's music streaming inquiry report
💥 NEED TO KNOW: Everything you Need To Know about NFTs, brought you by Music Ally 
💸 CRYPTO: Why the music biz should get to grips with cryptocurrencies' trading volatility
🤔 A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA... Our favourite unusual stuff found online this week
 
Note:  Ⓜ️ = link to Music Ally subscriber content
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🎧 TL; DR? Listen to Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow give brief, deep analysis of important music business stuff in the Music Ally Focus Podcast

🛀 It's short: episodes take as long as brushing your teeth & taking a shower ...the perfect podcast for introducing music biz analysis into your morning ablutions!
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📬 BULLETIN NEWS: Labels under fire as UK's music streaming inquiry report calls for "complete reset" of streaming market

Music Ally has reported (very) extensively on the hearings at the British parliament’s inquiry into the economics of music streaming. Even if you don't live in the UK, this report is investigation is very profound – the government of a major music market investigating in great depth the reality of making money via music streaming. Now, the report has been published, and it's chock-full of very bold recommendations that might have major labels sweating.

🎙 Music Ally's editor Joe Sparrow and head of insight Stuart Dredge discuss this report in our latest Music Ally Focus podcast.

  • This paragraph sums the report up nicely: "Streaming has undoubtedly helped save the music industry following two decades of digital piracy but it is clear that what has been saved does not work for everyone. The issues ostensibly created by streaming simply reflect more fundamental, structural problems within the recorded music industry. Streaming needs a complete reset."
  • The committee has trained its fire on rightsholders and how money flows through their systems – with particular attention to the three major labels – and made these recommendations:
    • Introducing broadcast-style equitable remuneration (ER) for streaming
    • An investigation by the UK’s competition watchdog the CMA into major labels’ market power and business practices
    • Legislation giving artists a “right to recapture” their works after 20 years
    • Calling for songs (and thus songwriters and publishers) to get a bigger share of streaming royalties
  • All very strong and bullish stuff. Parties on all sides responded quickly:
    • the BPI, representing UK labels, voiced concern that these ideas would stifle music innovation and income in the UK;
    • while Musician Tom Gray founded the Broken Record campaign that sparked the inquiry says the report "reflects an industry that is pocketing a fortune while failing UK performers and songwriters."
So what happens now? We've tried to forecast what will happen – read our in-depth analysis here, listen to the podcast episode here, and check out all our reporting on this topic below.

👉 Music Ally archive: UK Streaming Inquiry
Learn with us: For over a decade, Music Ally has upskilled people in all levels of the music industry: from major label teams, to Indies, managers, and DIY artists. Our Learning Hub is designed so that everyone – from students to CEOs – can get the edge they need. Always up-to-date with the newest digital marketing knowledge and future-facing strategies: Music Ally trains the best to be the best.
💥 NEED TO KNOW: Everything you Need To Know about NFTs – brought you by Music Ally 

Music Ally has launched a new series of easy-to understand, information-rich mini-guides on the must-know music industry trends, technologies, and startups. It's called "Need To Know" and we kick it off with – what else – a video about NFTs, narrated by our head of training, Marlen Hüllbrock.

Each video is only 10 minutes long and walks you through the whole topic from bottom-to-top.
  • You can watch knowing absolutely nothing; and after ten minutes, you'll be up to speed.
  • They're designed for doing: so you can immediately get involved, choose the right platforms, and create new business opportunities.
  • Or why not impress your boss with your new insight, and convince them to invest in a cool new strategy? (You can thanks us later.)
Special chill-out bonus feature: The videos are full of extra-soothing colour gradients – so you will learn about NFTs *and* experience calming inner bliss.

Watch Need To Know: NFTs now!
🆓 GET COMPLIMENTARY ACCESS TO MUSIC ALLY: sponsored subscriptions – giving full access to our news, reporting and analysis – are available to people who work for independent labels, artist management, or music publishing companies. To find out if you qualify, please contact rocio@musically.com.
💸 CRYPTO: Why you should understand the trading volatility of the coins behind NFTs

And while we're nattering about NFTs, Music Ally editor Joe Sparrow has been digging into "the mysterious and anonymous forces that swish around under the surface of crypto, in the depths of the system".
  • Why should you care? Well, if you have any interest in how crypto tech connects with the music business – for instance NFTs or DeFi – then you should start to know what stablecoins are, understand Bitcoin's wild volatility, and get a feel for how the wider crypto market works. 
  • "If NFTs are a bunch of colourful pleasure boats bobbing about near the shoreline, the frantic buy-and-sell of cryptocurrency activity is the deep, dark waters beneath. And down there, it’s confusing – and sometimes a little worrying," he warns.
  • However, the piece takes a balanced view overall: "The crypto world is a great place to be convinced that you’re investing into riches when you’re actually losing your shirt; but it’s also the place where a new, exciting platform layer is being built that may provide something close to the panacea that the hype suggests..."
Don’t forget that, in the future, NFTs are almost certainly not going to be about selling wildly expensive gifs: they’re going to be cheap, accessible, fan-friendly digital items that are used to show fandom all over the digital ecosystem. So now's a good time to understand it all a bit better. Read the full article here.
 
👉 Music Ally archive: Bitcoin and NFTs
🤔 A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...

And finally… our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the ‘A Little Something Extra’ section at the bottom of the email. Here's a few of the best recent links and a couple of Knowledge extras:
  • When two games about getting people into endless property debt collide! Yes, Animal Crossing Monopoly is here...
  • Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC are forming a band called ‘Back-Sync’, which feels completely normal for 2020, frankly
  • Say what you like about Google, but it's given us a break from streaming inquiries and internet fights with its new virtual tour of British gardens today, and for that we thank it.
  • Weird Spotify Playlists is a Twitter account hunting down some of the quirkier collections on the streaming service.
Music Ally is a knowledge company for the global music business. See our recently launched Learning Hub which contains over 30 videos of up to date and fully certified content. We also offer in-house learning and development as well as marketing strategy and implementation for labels, managers, artists and publishers. Talk to Anthony to find out more or set up a call.
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