During the two first quartals of each year, companies publish their annual report of the previous year. We would like to resume here some informations about the number of the sales in UK. Why in UK ? Because it’s the second largest source of repertoire in the world behind the USA. The British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) Association published the combined results about the sales of its members. It’s interesting to compare the evolution of CD’s vs downloads. Here are the results :

Physical albums : in 2008 = 123.3 / in 2007 = 131.8
Digital albums : in 2008 = 10.3 / in 2007 = 6.2
Total albums : in 2008 133.6 / in 2007 = 138.0

Physical singles : in 2008 = 4.8 / in 2007 = 8.6
Digital singles : in 2008 = 110.3 / in 2007 = 77.9
Total singles : in 2008 = 115.1 / in 2007 = 86.5

Total physical : in 2008 = 123.8 / in 2007 = 132.7
Total digital : in 2008 = 21.3 / in 2007 = 14.0

Total : in 2008 = 145.1 / in 2007 = 146.7 (-1,1%)

(Units in million)

Source : Music & Copyright, jan. 2009

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When we heard about this new service called Album-only for the first time, we thought that it was a back to past. Since iTunes Music Store has been available, we use to buy music track by track. So we have the opportunity to buy only the tracks we like.

Why now, some tracks are only available with the entire album on ITMS ? John Glaser, journalist at the New York Times, takes absolutely offence because he can not buy only one track of a movie soundtrack. At first sight, this seems to be a disagreeable constraint.

Closely it is not so stupid. Imagine that you release your album with 15 tracks. You have your own label. The entire album and each track of it are available through ITMS. Apple pays royalties to you for any downloaded track.

Now, a third party, another label, would like to release a compilation with your track. He asks you to deal a licence with him and he agrees to pay royalties (% of his net receipts) to you. If you give him the opportunity to sell track by track his compilation it could reduce the sales of the track of your own album in a large proportion. It should be more favourable for you if you deal a non-exclusive licence without being allowed to sell track by track the compilation but only the entire album. If the fan would like to buy the track only, he will buy it from your album and not from the compilation. The royalties paid by ITMS will be higher for you as you needn’t to share it with the third party label.

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Who is the author of a musical work when the composer uses some royalty-free loops? It's a frequently asked question.

The answer always depends on the terms and conditions of the royalty-free loops services.

In the case of the GarageBand software, the license agreement says that you may use the Apple and third party audio loop content, containes in or otherwise included with the Apple Software, on a royalty-free basis, to create your own original music compositition or audio projects. You may broadcast and/or distribute your own music compositions or audio projects that were created using the audio content. On the contrary, you may not commercialize or distribute on a individual basis the audio loops.

The swiss law provides that only a physical person may be author LDA cf. art. 6. A society or a software couldn't be a creator.

In conclusion, only a person can be the author of a musical work. So you should be considered as the author of the musical work which is made of loops. But only the terms and conditions of the services are crucial to know if you can exploit commercially the result of your creation.

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