Exploration Weekly - US Streams Rise 10.6% in H1 2021 / BMI Urges Against RMLC’s Single Rate Court Hearing / Canada Extends Copyright Protection

Aaron Davis -



According to Luminate’s 2022 Midyear Report, on-demand song streams in the US were up 10.6% over the first half of 2021. Country and Latin additionally continued to show streaming gains, while vinyl saw a plateau after enjoying more than a decade of growth.

BMI recently filed court papers against a combined radio royalty rate court hearing with ASCAP, which was proposed by the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) last month. BMI urges to keep the rate proceedings separate from any rate proceedings for ASCAP.

Canada extended copyright protection for musical works by 20 years - from life-plus-50 years to life-plus-70 years. The ruling will come into effect on a date still to be determined by the Canadian government. It will also bring the country’s copyright framework for rights holders in line with international standards.

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Exploration Weekly - July 15, 2022

Midyear Music Report: US Streams Rise a Solid 10.6%, Per Luminate; Latin and Country Heat Up, While Vinyl Growth Cools

Continued growth in streaming is delivering another upbeat year for the music business, both in the U.S. and globally, according to Luminate’s 2022 Midyear Report. The study also shows Latin and country continuing to gain ground in streaming, with Bad Bunny proving a catalyst for the former. But the report’s biggest surprise might be that vinyl might be plateauing after it enjoyed more than a decade of growth. On-demand song streams showed a 10.6% lift over the first half of 2021 in the U.S., Luminate reports, and global streaming growth continues to be even more pronounced, as 1.6 trillion audio plays worldwide represents 24.7% growth over H1 2021. Country and Latin continued to thrive in this year’s first half.

BMI Files Legal Arguments Against a Combined Radio Royalty Rate Court Hearing with ASCAP

US collecting society BMI has filed court papers seeking a ruling that confirms that the American radio industry cannot force a single rate court hearing to consider what royalty rates should be paid to both it and rival society ASCAP. The Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) – which reps the US commercial radio sector in music licensing matters – last month filed a motion with a court in New York seeking an unprecedented combined rate court hearing that would involve both BMI and ASCAP. In BMI’s recent legal filing, it says a key condition was that “the decree require that all BMI rate proceedings be entirely separate from any rate proceedings for ASCAP…” With all that in mind, “....BMI and ASCAP rate-setting proceedings must be separate; they cannot be before the same judge in separate proceedings; and they certainly cannot be consolidated in a single proceeding before the same judge”.

Canada Extends Copyright for Musical Works by 20 Years

Canada’s Parliament has extended copyright protection for musical works by 20 years — from life-plus-50 years to life-plus-70 years — as set out in the terms of a 2018 trade agreement between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. The extension reached royal assent on June 23 and will come into force on a date still to be determined by the government. It will bring Canada’s copyright framework for authors of musical works in line with international standards — a longtime goal of the country’s music publishers and a requirement of the new Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Swedish Songwriters and Publishers Bounced Back After a Tough 2020 - Here’s Why

STIM, the Swedish collection society for publishers and songwriters, reported total royalty receipts at 2.153 billion SEK ($250.8 million), or a 12.4% increase over the prior year’s total. And when other income is added, total revenue came in at 2.161 billion SEK ($251.8 million) in 2021, or a 12.8% increase over the prior year’s total. “Despite the major impact of the pandemic on the music industry, it is the organization’s second highest [revenue] figure ever,” STIM said in a statement, adding that streaming is fueling the growth. Meanwhile, distributions to members were almost 1.842 billion SEK ($214 million), or a 10.1% increase over the prior year’s collections.

YouTube Says Shorts are Helping Artists Add More Subscribers

A blog post from the YouTube Music team offered a new stat this week. “In April of this year, Shorts containing content sampled from long-form videos generated over 100 billion views.” That’s all kinds of videos, not just music, but it does include official music videos, livestreams, lyric videos and user-generated music content. YouTube Music also made this claim: “Official artist channels uploading both Shorts and long-form video are seeing better overall watch time and subscriber growth relative to those only uploading long-form.” Last month, the company announced that its YouTube Shorts videos were generating 30bn daily views, and being watched by more than 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users.

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