Music Publishing News Weekly Roundup 6.20.2014: SoundExchange, Amazon Prime Music, YouTube
SoundExchange announced a record-setting first quartrer distribution of digital royalties. The independent performing rights organization announced that $162.4 million were distributed to artists and labels in the first quarter of 2014, marking their largest Q1 payment to date. The report also indicated that SoundExchange payments represented 8.4% of all recorded revenue in the US in 2013.
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Amazon Prime Music is now available for Prime members in the US. Amazon's new streaming service will compete with Spotify and Apple. According to Amazon, members will have access to over a million songs. Amazon hopes that the new service will increase Prime subscriptions.
YouTube is threatening to block content controlled by certain labels with the launch of their new music subscription service. Some labels are refusing to license content for YouTube's new service. Vevo, however, says it will continue to make videos available from many of the independent labels that may not license content to YouTube.
