Music Export

Music export is complicated to define, because music has a live and recorded element. In recorded music, the author, the performer and the producer are eligible for copyright and neighboring right royalties. In live music, the author and the performer are eligible for revenues, and they may or may not have a different nationality, and the concert promoter and booking manager may earn profits in another country.

Finding out the domestic country for the author, the performer and the producer may be a very difficult task. While language is very important in most genres of popular music and in world music, language affiliation is usually a help only in small nation repertoires. But the language of a song is so important that it may be the target variable of cultural policy tools such as radio or audiovisual quotas. In classical and world music, the author may not be known or eligible for royalties anymore. In popular music and some jazz, the author and performer are usually the same artists. Nevertheless, the complexity remains. In contemporary classical music, jazz and some genres of popular music, language is not an issue because the music is instrumental, or the human voice has no real natural language connection.

Music Export & Music Import

In our view, music export and music import cannot be separated from each other. Every single European market is a net importer of recorded music, given that there are no music markets where the domestic music market share exceeds 50%. In live music, domestic music traditionally is market leader in all markets, but the concentration of ticket revenues in large arena concerts and the growth of festivals is threatening the positions of domestic live music. The competition among songs, label and national repertoires is increasing very significantly with the rise of global streaming.

In the recorded markets, radio and audiovisual quotas and an activist role of public broadcasters could maintain a 15-30 percent market share for local artists even in smaller markets. The rise of music streaming and SVOD streaming in audiovisual works makes many of these gatekeepers irrelevant unless they find their audience and role in the new streaming channels.

In the live performances, some countries, especially Hungary, Serbia, Croatia and Poland found ways to create very significant export revenues for programming large festivals aimed at Western European audiences. While these solutions create vital export revenues for the music ecosystem, i.e. for promoters and technicians, it creates less opportunity for local artists. There is a growing pressure on domestic bands to extend their tour network abroad, given that the depth of domestic tour network is shrinking due to global and EU-wide small venue problem.

Artificial intelligence and algorithms

In the 21st century the total global repertoire of the last 60 years is in simultaneous competition with each other. Close to 100 million sound recordings are available in most markets. In this global competition, most music is sold by AI algorithms.

How CEEMID intelligence can help?

  • Teach new algorithms that help defending the declining domestic markets, and recommend vibrant, new local music to local audiences, and connect them on live performances, too;

  • Extend market insight and tour scheduling for the whole European market, with cost, audience demography, audience taste, revenue forecast intelligence;

  • Design quota schemes and public broadcaster strategies that maintain the public mandate in the 21st century;

  • Design music grants that give the correct incentives to the right people. Help both foreign market reach and domestic market cultivation with correct ex ante and ex post evaluations;

  • Given the complexity of the concept of ‘music export’ in the context of cultural affiliation, language, artist residence, potential separation of composer, performer and producer, music export and import is a difficult topic that requires professional, fact-driven advocacy.

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