The UK Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS), which represents 65,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, has today announced a 2.6% rise in annual revenues to £623m. Online revenues from legal licensed digital music services grew 72.7% to £30.4m. Wait, wasn’t illegal P2P file sharing by broadband ISP users supposed to be killing music? Hmm.Similarly back in January the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) issued its Digital Music Report 2010, which revealed that global digital music trade revenues reached £2.6 billion (up 12%) in 2009 (here). IFPI still managed to blame piracy for a decline, despite the obvious contradiction.
Robert Ashcroft, Chief Executive of PRS for Music, said:
"In a tough trading year for all of us I’m pleased we were able to deliver a small increase in royalty revenues, allowing the nation’s music creators to keep creating music that is heard and appreciated around the world. This growth reflects in particular our increased efforts to license those benefiting from the use of British music overseas, our continued pursuit of legitimate alternatives to online piracy and, as always, the creative talent of our authors, composers and publishers.
2009 was the first year in which the growth in revenues from the legal digital market compensated for the decline in revenues from traditional CDs and DVDs, though we remain cautious as to whether this represents a true turning point. The next decade does however promise further growth in earnings from the legal digital market as well as the use of British music overseas."
"In a tough trading year for all of us I’m pleased we were able to deliver a small increase in royalty revenues, allowing the nation’s music creators to keep creating music that is heard and appreciated around the world. This growth reflects in particular our increased efforts to license those benefiting from the use of British music overseas, our continued pursuit of legitimate alternatives to online piracy and, as always, the creative talent of our authors, composers and publishers.
2009 was the first year in which the growth in revenues from the legal digital market compensated for the decline in revenues from traditional CDs and DVDs, though we remain cautious as to whether this represents a true turning point. The next decade does however promise further growth in earnings from the legal digital market as well as the use of British music overseas."
Unlike most other reports the PRS does at least manage to avoid making the same contradictions as IFPI and other rights holders have; often speaking of decline at the alleged behest of piracy while at the same time reporting growing revenues from digital downloads. Presenting the worst case scenario is obviously beneficial for them and helps when writing the government’s copyright policy, but it may not be an entirely accurate representation.
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