A topline number in today's RIAA Mid-Year 2017 Music Industry Revenue Report is snapping heads back — thanks to streaming revenues, the overall rate of growth has doubled over 2016's figure. Last year's first half saw 8 percent growth compared to 17 percent this year.
RIAA Chairman/CEO Cary Sherman explains on Medium how this change in the rate of change is happening because music is the "fuel" and "dominates" the cultural shift that is unpredictably making new forms of social interaction possible.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NCFI2Gz8BFs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The digital transition has become a state of steady transformation, helping to contribute to the next big change by clicks and taps — ultimately, hundreds of millions of clicks and taps. For instance, many YouTube influencers can now support themselves, sharing what's new in the world and changing it at the same time. Also, the streaming-based success of Chance The Rapper became old news at lightning speed, overshadowed in part by his contagious philanthropy.
"That investment, that innovation, that entrepreneurialism is welcome and hard-earned, but it should not be taken for granted," Sherman warns, speaking for the business side of music. "The fragile progress we have achieved so far is threatened by outdated or abused laws."
Recording Academy Advocacy efforts strive to correct this imbalance and persuade those like-minded to get on board. Just as engineers for racecars and spacecraft know how to boost engine performance by optimizing the fuel mix, the lift music provides can be made more powerful by introducing more fairness into our changing world.
