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Business News Digital Education & Events The Great Escape 2014 Top Stories
Dan Le Sac on the streaming debate, ahead of Global Digital Markets at The Great Escape
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 29 April 2014
Ahead of next week’s Great Escape, where Dan Le Sac will be leading a review of what the artist community thinks about streaming music following this year’s high profile Thom Yorke initiated debate, CMU Business Editor Chris Cooke has been talking to the producer about what he thinks.
“Yorke and Godrich have certainly helped to bring the debate back into people’s minds”, he says of the discussions that have taken place this year. “But it was definitely something that was already being debated by bands. It’s just a shame that it takes established and financially stable artists to focus people’s attention when the issue more heavily effects newer and less successful acts”.
Asked if he thinks the problem is as much confusion about the way streaming services pay royalties, Le Sac continues: “Yes, but it’s not just the artist domain! Ask the average indie label what they earn from a monetised YouTube video and they couldn’t tell you. The issue with ad funding is that the fees advertisers pay are often variable, so from the top down there’s no clarity of rates. Introducing various flat rates across the board would help matters, but there would be too many hoops to jump through to make that work”.
The streaming music debate will feature as part of a half-day insights strand called Global Digital Markets at next week’s Great Escape Convention, taking place on Friday 9 May from 2pm in The Old Courtroom.
The strand will also feature Adrian Pope from [PIAS] and David Gould from Sony Music discussing regional differences in digital trends, the founders of Bloom.fm and O2 Tracks on alternative approaches to the streaming proposition, and Skint Records co-founder Damian Harris, Secretly Label Group’s Hannah Overton, Believe Digital’s Lee Morrison and Songdrop’s Brittney Bean all considering the next five years in digital music. More info here.
Although on stage this year, Le Sac regularly participates in The Great Escape as a delegate. Encouraging more artists to do likewise, he said: “The music industry is becoming a place where artists are empowered to self-release and self-manage, the convention gives me the opportunity to meet the people and gather the information I need to do these things well”.
Read the interview with Dan Le Sac here.
