Rock Paper Scanner: Curated Music Innovation News in Your Inbox
At Rock Paper Scissors, our team keeps an eye on big-picture music innovation trends as they evolve. Every week, I distill what we’re tracking into my Rock Paper Scanner newsletter, a hand-selected, trendspotting collection of music industry news, including key stories on industry revenue numbers, AI, the creator economy, the live music and recording landscapes, partnerships & acquisitions, and more. Find out what I shared in last week’s newsletter below.
I started the scanner for friends and Rock Paper Scissors clients, and now I’m opening it up to the world. Get my curated news feed in your inbox every Friday: click here to sign up.
Each Rock Paper Scanner is packed with essential stories, but only RPS clients get extra insights with investment, acquisition, and partnership news!
INDUSTRY REVENUE
| Sony generated $2.52bn from recorded music and publishing in calendar Q4 2023, up 14% YoY Music Business Worldwide MBW crunches the numbers from Sony Corp’s latest quarterly earnings announcement The major record companies (and Merlin) saw their Spotify market share fall again in 2023. But even before ‘artist-centric’ changes, the decline started slowing. Music Business Worldwide Spotify’s annual report reveals an interesting trend around the joint market share of major record… SM Entertainment trims 2025 revenue goal by 22% after Q4 2023 revenue falls 3.4% Music Business Worldwide The K-pop giant has trimmed its revenue target for 2025 from KRW 1.8 trillion to KRW 1.4 trillion … Global Music Subscription Market Sees Growth, Led by Emerging Markets MIDiA Blog [London – 8th February, 2024] – MIDiA Research, a leading research and insights firm, has unveiled… |
BIG PICTURE: MUSIC BIZ, LIVE, & SOCIAL
| Overnight Success Is Very Rare in Music — And There’s Data to Prove It Billboard What’s the best way to become a superstar? First, become a successful mainstream artist. That’s… Streaming Audio Accounts for Just 34% of Listening, Edison Report Says Digital Music News A new research report suggests U.S. listeners age 13+ spend around 20% of their listening time… Landmark ELVIS Act Builds Momentum in Tennessee House to Protect Voice & Likeness Against Unethical AI Digital Music News The landmark ELVIS Act builds momentum in the Tennessee House to protect voice, image, and likeness… Pew Research study reveals TikTok isn’t as popular as people think hypebot Common wisdom is that the video-sharing site TikTok is Gen Z’s social platform of choice and that… TikTok is experimenting with an exclusive chat room for paying fans called ‘Sub Space’ Music Business Worldwide Sub Space enables live-streaming creators to launch topic threads and conduct polls, among other… Only 19% of artists on Spotify had over 1,000 monthly listeners in 2023 Music Business Worldwide As MBW has previously pointed out, there will be a minimum number of unique listeners required for… Spotify partners with Bandsintown to supercharge live music discovery hypebot Shows listed on the global live music discovery platform Bandsintown will now also appear on… The MLC sues Pandora for underpaying royalties and late fees Music Business Worldwide “Our team repeatedly sought to resolve this issue directly with Pandora, but Pandora has refused to… YouTube adds ‘vertical live’ to promote livestreams in Shorts Music Ally YouTube channels and creators making Shorts have seen their viewcounts soar. Now people who are… 85% of TikTok and 84% of YouTube videos include music hypebot A new analysis shows just how high the stacks are in the battle between TikTok and UMG and… |
FRESH FLAVOR
| Anthropic trained its AI to rip off copyrighted lyrics, music publishers allege in escalating court battle Music Business Worldwide UMG, Concord and ABKCO allege that Anthropic’s AI chatbot is still spitting out copyrighted lyrics,… What New Opportunities Do Vision Pro and VR Headsets Bring to Music? Billboard When Apple launched its new $3,500 Vision Pro virtual reality headset this past week, the… Buying Beats Online Is Common, Convenient and Risky Billboard An advantage of being an aspiring artist in 2023, rather than 1983 or even 2003, is having… Metaverse studio Karta expands to ZEPETO, targeting fashion-forward audience Music Business Worldwide ZEPETO has built a user base of 400 million on the strength of its virtual fashion marketplace … |
EXTRA CREDIT
| This AI-based music synthesizer might just change how you make music MusicTech Introducing SPIN, which allows you to make compositions using the AI language model MusicGen. When… How a musician accused of fraud got his music back on Spotify, iTunes Ars Technica Enlarge / Musician Benn Jordan, who performs under the alias The Flashbulb, successfully defended… Round sees music potential for Reels’ 1.8bn active users Music Ally With no resolution yet in TikTok’s fight with Universal Music Group, attention is inevitably… Super Bowl Synch Report: Publishers Score Up to $1M Per Ad Billboard At the end of BMW’s new Super Bowl ad, actor Christopher Walken sits down to dine at a restaurant… Usher’s Record-Breaking Night on Apple Music—1,200% Rise in Streams Digital Music News Usher went big for his Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show, making Apple Music’s numbers go even bigger…. |
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About Rock Paper Scissors:
Founded in 1999, Rock Paper Scissors, Inc. is a music tech PR firm composed of a diverse team of communicators, creatives, and business minds. We have represented thousands of projects from six continents. Our roster includes clients in music technology, music gear, B2B music agencies, music consumer products and apps, artist-facing and label services, music sync platforms, music AI, fintech for music, and much more.
Get in touch:
- Contact our team so we can start crystallizing, articulating, and amplifying what makes your company unique.
- Learn more about the services rock paper scissors offers.
- See the success other music tech companies have earned thanks to Rock Paper Scissors PR campaigns.
About Dmitri Vietze:
Born in Nashville, Dmitri moved to NYC as a teen where he busked in the subways while studying music at “the Fame High School” for Music and the Arts. After earning his business degree, he leaned into his entrepreneurial bent and launched rock paper scissors in 1999. His vision was to combine cutting edge technology and deep organic storytelling to help clients crystallize their missions in compelling ways and amplify them in innovative ways.
He continues to lead the company from music to tech and into other fields that are changing the world every day. When others told him that the company he envisioned would not succeed in college town Bloomington, Indiana, he took that as a challenge and has built a collaborative team that leans into the Midwestern ethic of hard work, warmth, and caring. Dmitri stays at the cutting edge of music tech innovation by hosting the weekly Music Tectonics podcast and the annual Music Tectonics conference. He can also be found speaking on stage at conferences ranging from SXSW to Music Biz on new approaches to publicity, innovation, and resourcefulness.
