MUSIC BUSINESS RESOURCES FROM CMU
Dissecting The Digital Dollar
CMU has been working with the UK’s Music Managers Forum since 2015 on the ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ project, helping managers, artists and songwriters navigate and understand how music streaming works, and all the various ongoing debates about the digital music business.
This work has resulted in a series of reports, guides and other resources for MMF members, and has informed the organisation’s campaigns to bring about positive change in the streaming market. The reports and guides were then updated and compiled into the ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ book.
CMU’s Chris Cooke also continues to consult on trends, developments and debates in the music streaming sector for both the MMF and the wider Council Of Music Makers, which also includes the Musicians’ Union, the Featured Artists Coalition, the Ivors Academy and the Music Producers Guild.
As a leading expert on digital licensing and the streaming market, CMU’s Chris Cooke also delivers masterclasses and in-house team training on the sector, and presents speed briefings about the economics of streaming and diversifying digital market at music conferences and events all over the world.
THE DIGITAL DOLLAR BOOK
 The growth of music streaming over the last decade has dramatically changed the business of recorded music. Instead of sharing in the proceeds of a physical or digital sale, music-makers and rightsholders are now participating in new commercial models based on revenue share and micro-payments. ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ explains how the streaming business works, how the music industry has licensed the digital platforms and how digital royalties flow through the system. To help you understand this complex licensing model, it also provides a beginner’s guide to music copyright, record and publishing contracts, and the collective licensing system. When first published as a report by the UK’s Music Managers Forum in 2015, ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ also raised a number of issues which were subsequently discussed at a series of roundtables in 2016 involving artists, songwriters, labels, publishers, lawyers, accountants and managers. The Third Edition of the book, published in July 2020, includes an updated version of the original report – covering recent market trends and copyright reforms – as well as a summary of the roundtable discussions, and four Digital Dollar guides providing further insight on label deals, transparency, fan data and song royalty chains. |
SONG ROYALTY GUIDES
In addition to the main ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ book, MMF has also published a series of free ‘Digital Dollar’ guides. That includes two guides that delve more deeply into how songwriters get paid when their songs are streamed, and the issues around licensing and metadata which impact on how much they earn.
| THE SONG ROYALTIES GUIDE | published May 2019 This guide explains the complexities and issues with the way streaming services pay songwriters. It outlines the deals done between the streaming business and the music publishing sector, and how this results in a series of royalty chains along which an assortment of delays, deductions and disputes can occur, impacting on how much money actually gets through. |
| THE SONG ROYALTIES MANIFESTO | published May 2022 This guide proposes a new way for licensing song rights and processing song royalties in the streaming domain, which would address current issues that mean the streaming income of songwriters is subject to delays and deductions, and monies might not flow at all due to bad data and disputes. |