Music Business

music business trends Benji Rogers

Benji Rogers: Trends that will drive the Music Business in 2025

As the year winds down, we asked a handful of the new music industry’s finest professionals to help us identify the music business trends and technologies that will drive 2025. Today, Benji Rogers shares what he sees at the start of a “an extremely transformative era in the music and creative industries.”

by Benji Rogers, partner Lark42 and co-president Sureel AI

In 2025, we are on the cusp of an extremely transformative era in the music and creative industries, with AI making things much better–or much worse–for creators and rightsholders. Here are my three predictions for 2025, keeping in mind that the seeds for this future will be sown during this crucial year:

music business trends Benji Rogers

1. Attribution Share Becomes the New Market Share 

(Attribution share gets adopted: 50%)

If “Attribution” becomes the music industry buzzword of 2025, then we will know there’s a more than 50% chance that labels and publishers will seize the AI opportunity and the benefits that can flow from an Attribution-based licensing future. How much creators’ songs and recordings influence AI models is the lodestar to which the ship must be directed, and the normalization of this concept and word attribution will signify the correct heading. The balance shifted to dignified fair licensing vs. suing will have been achieved. It is all to win and to lose in 2025. 

Which leads to point 2…

2. No Attribution, No License! 

The First Good–and Sadly More Very Bad–Deals 

(More bad deals than good: 100%)

There’s a small chance publishers and songwriters will unite to set favorable terms with AI companies. Attribution shares economic ups and downsides, underscoring the urgency for all stakeholders to act swiftly and collaboratively. Songwriters, artists, CMOs, PROs, trade organizations, labels, publishers, distributors, and most importantly, AI companies must come together and agree to accurate attributions’ mutual benefit to all parties involved.

The first smart deals between rightsholders and AI companies made in 2025 will adhere to the following non-negotiable principles:

(see A Music Rights Holders Checklist for Licensing AI Companies) 

Conversely, more ill-conceived, short-term deals will emerge that essentially give away the store in exchange for short-term gain by neglecting these fair, practical, and mutually beneficial terms. Even worse would be lawsuits that set bad precedents and impede progress.

3. A One-Off Chance to Flip The Split  

(Publishers flip the split: 15%)

Implicit in the above licensing deals is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to flip the traditional 70/30 revenue split that today favors the sound recording owners’ revenue share from streaming platforms, to one that favors publishers with AI platforms. But given the increased importance of compositional elements in AI-generated music, attribution data shows us that more benefit is likely to be owed to the songwriters’ share whenever a user prompts a new song (copyright!?) into existence.

The stakes are incredibly high. In CISAC’s estimation, 24% of music creators’ revenues could be at risk due to generative AI by 2028. If an artist’s works are not included in the attribution share economy, the benefit will go to the AI companies and their investors. 

The industry’s response to this challenge in 2025 will define the next decade or two. Using legacy approaches like the market share/streaming economy to guide us, is the surest way toward a future that no one in the creative industry would ever want.

If the numbers add up, potential AI music revenues are set to hit $16 billion annually by 2028 in a $42 billion market. Adding to this the challenges posed by synthetic data, ill-conceived lawsuits, and our industry’s general slowness when trying to come together, rightly underscores the critical importance of getting these deals fairly made, with ownership reasonably–and then accurately–attributed in 2025.

Bruce Houghton on 12/27/2024 in Music Business | Permalink | Comments (0)
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