News

Dear Manager,

It’s been a month since my last update so I thought it was time for an update from MMF HQ.

There has been no slowdown over Easter. Thank you to all of you who participated in our Open Meeting on Dissecting the Digital Dollar, helping to shape Part 2 of the report due in the summer. We’re nearly at the end of the series of roundtables taking the industry and our members perspectives on what the key issues are around streaming and what we might do to address these. As well as listening to you in the UK we’ve also now run roundtables in France, LA, New York and in Canada so we get a truly international perspective.

We contributed to the Intellectual Property Office’s ‘Music 2025’ workshop led by Pete Jenner with participants from across the industry. Much of the focus was on data problems and the potential of BlockChain (and other initiatives) potentially to deal with these. There will be two follow up working groups on 1. Registries and Data and 2. Technical Developments and business models with another seminar in the autumn. FAC is also discussing a potential additional workstream on Transparency exploring where the real issues lie.

Following up from our How To Guides on Royalty Statements and touring the USA we published a ‘How to Make the Most of Streaming‘ with input from leading experts as well as some of our members. It’s worth a read if you haven’t already. There are more to come in this series, if there are any particular issues you’d like us to explore please let me know.

We now have a network of interested managers globally who receive our weekly update ‘ICYMI: In Case You Missed It’ and we held our 3rd successful Coachella Mixer brunch in LA which was well attended with some leading US managers present.

We’ve had a busy month meeting with: Merlin, Apple, Sony, Warners, Musicians Union, Supapass, DCMS/BIS on Secondary Ticketing, JAMES, Music Royalty Co, MMF NL, Maria Eagle MP, Weav., IPO, UK Music, Beggars, Believe Digital, CrowdMix, Songkick, ERA and BT Sport.

On that note don’t miss our upcoming Summer Party at the Olympic Park on 14th July hosted by BT Sport where you’ll have the opportunity to listen to leading experts talk about how to build broadcast into your launch and sync strategies followed by a BBQ, rounders game and beer in the park. You can RSVP here.

Mental Health Awareness week runs from the 16th – 22nd May, which covers The Great Escape, where several of our members will take part in a panel discussing how the industry might better support managers and artists, as well as how and when managers deal with issues related to mental health, substance abuse, stress and anxiety for their artists. If you would like to speak to someone at the MMF in relation to this, please email fiona@themmf.net.

I’m going to MIDEM for the first time in June. If any of you are planning on being there you can use the code IMMF2016 to get a 50% discount. It would also be great to meet up and hear what you’re up to, if you have time for a coffee please email me on annabella@themmf.net.

If you haven’t been along to our induction day yet, you can book at half price 50% using discount code 15MMF50 for June 14th here.

Finally on the issue of secondary ticketing and industrial touting, MMF Board Member Adam Tudhope has set up a petition to ensure that the Government fully address the issues when Professor Waterson reports at the end of May.

Please sign and share: “Support #ToutsOut and get government to protect music, arts and sports fans from touts. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/128969”

Best,
Annabella