European independent-music body Impala is never shy about putting forward its views on how the music industry should develop. The latest example being its five-point plan to”transform the digital music market” as it reaches the milestone of one billion streaming subscribers.
Note the word ‘digital’ there: the plan brings together Impala’s key lobbying priorities around both the streaming economy and AI, as well as climate-impact and tech innovation issues.
The top-line summaries of the five steps are as follows:
- “Increase revenues and share them fairly, close value gaps”
- “Supercharge support for new, emerging and diverse music”
- “Establish trust through industry-wide provenance labelling”
- “Stop fraud and AI dilution, embrace responsible models”
- “Reduce climate impact and strengthen collective innovation”
There are few surprises here if you’ve been following Impala’s work and campaigns, but the plan (which you can read in full here) does a good job of bringing everything together clearly.
It’s also a thoughtful document rather than a shouty one: looking for areas the wider industry can agree on, and potential for collaboration and united fronts. It doesn’t dodge the tensions between the independent sector and major labels, but the tone is measured.
Indeed, there are plenty of aspects that the majors will agree with: ensuring music gets a fair share of bundled subscriptions; exploring higher-value superfan tiers (but also “rethinking free tiers”); boosting local curation on DSPs; cracking down on fraud and AI slop; and stepping up climate efforts.
On the tensions side, Impala’s plan calls for ‘monetisation thresholds based on number of plays or listeners” to be removed, or at least “reworked and reduced” if it is proved that they do help to tackle streaming fraud.
“As our plan concludes, if we succeed with our shared ambition, connections with fans will be stronger and more working artists and labels at different levels in the ecosystem will be able to make a living from their art,” said Impala’s executive chair Helen Smith.
“One billion subscribers indicates a mature digital music market capable of delivering widespread success. We see this as a moment for an ambitious but achievable plan to create a well-functioning market where genuine music flourishes and all attempts to game the system are stamped out,” added Gee Davy, AIM CEO and co-chair of Impala’s working group.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
