IC Community Newsletter #74
The Amazonification of independent music + our roundup of industry news & the releases from the community we're digging
“Did Sony’s Rob Stringer just hand regulators the case to tank Universal’s Downtown dreams?” That’s the question posed in Sam Taylor’s June 16 piece on Complete Music Update, and he comes out swinging:
Sony Music boss Rob Stringer spent Friday boasting to investors about his company’s data dominance. He laid out, with remarkable candour, how Sony leverages the indie distribution data it controls to know exactly what catalogues are worth, which emerging artists to sign, and where the market is heading.
And in doing so, he made the perfect case for why regulators should block Universal Music’s acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings. He probably didn’t realise he was doing that - though cynics might argue he knew exactly what he was doing.
Our own Hunter Giles summed it up neatly on LinkedIn, underscoring the danger for indie labels:
The Amazonification of the music industry is here.
Sony is openly bragging to investors about using data from The Orchard and AWAL to compete against the very indies the latter are meant to be serving.
Universal is trying to do the same with their attempted Downtown / FUGA acquisition.
Quite like how a retailer on Amazon is always being analyzed, and if Amazon sees an opportunity to replicate its products and devastate that business, they take it. As Bezos once said, "your margin is my opportunity."
Indie labels using major (or about to be major) distribution: your margin is now their opportunity.
If we value the diversity and creative risk-taking that defines independent music, we can’t expect that the same players working to erode it will provide impartial infrastructure. We need tools and platforms that preserve independence. IC exists to help indie labels stay in control, see their own data clearly, and share royalties transparently with artists… without feeding the majors more leverage.
—Mark
IC Updates
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Indie Intel
All the news that’s fit to summarize.
Music Ally's Stuart Dredge spotlights the hypocrisy in Budweiser's Cannes Lions-winning campaign that used one-second clips of major artists without paying royalties. The creative agency actually celebrated this cost-cutting measure in their award submission, despite claiming music was the campaign's entire foundation.
Maarten's latest MUSIC x piece dismantles our fixation on originality, arguing that music's value lies in emotional connection, not uniqueness. Through the lens of mimesis and the Harrison plagiarism saga, he proposes that monetization rights emerge from authentic creative expression rather than novelty.
Ashley King reports in Digital Music News that Deezer is now tagging AI-generated music, revealing a staggering 18% of daily uploads are fully AI-created and a whopping 70% of those AI track streams are fraudulent. Score one for transparency while the rest of the streaming world looks the other way.
Independent country artist Tony Justice is fighting back against AI music theft. Music Business Worldwide's Mandy Dalugdug details how Justice's class-action suits against Suno and Udio challenge their "fair use" defense, citing recent US Copyright Office guidance that training on copyrighted works constitutes infringement.
EU regulators have officially begun investigating Universal Music's $775 million Downtown acquisition, reports Sam Taylor for CMU. With a July 22 deadline looming, indie groups are fighting to block the deal, warning it would give the major dangerous control over distribution networks that independent labels depend on to reach audiences.
New Releases
Music from catalogs in the IC community that caught our attention since last time.
🎧 Tenerife meets Uganda on Discrepant's "Island Slang," where Lagoss & Abagwagwa meld free jazz, dub, and psychedelia in a polyrhythmic 7-tracker →
🎧 Treasure Island delivers the "Visione EP" on Manual Smiles, a Trance-A-Lento excursion through acid-drenched Balearica with a remix from Bliss Inc. →
🎧 Sunday Drive Records presents Dan Darrah's "There's A Place," merging Toronto lo-fi with classic pop sensibilities reminiscent of 60s luminaries →
🎧 Session vet Kyle Broadbooks steps from sideman to spotlight on "Excursions," a Catapult Recordings release steeped in mid-century jazz traditions →
🎧 California wordsmith Fashawn teams with Marc Spano on "Capital," a razor-sharp boom bap meditation on success and survival via Old Soul Music. →
🎧 fabric Records taps Melbourne expat Pretty Girl for a sunrise-seeking deep house and garage entry to their “fabric Presents” mix series →
🎧 OSMIUM's self-titled Invada debut explores human-machine interfaces through ancient sounds, custom robotics, and otherworldly vocalizations. →
Obsessed
Each edition, the IC team shares the gems they’re into right now.
From Ari
From Hunter
From Mark