The Association of Music Industry is founded

28.04.2022

The production center “Velvet Music”, the label “The First Musical” and the creative association “Gazgolder” created the Association of Music Industry. Members of the newly founded Association hope that their cooperation will help establish a dialogue between the music industry and the state, as well as draw public attention to many old and new problems of the music industry in general.

According to the founders of the Association, the main problems of the music industry today are a dramatic reduction in potential distribution channels and the impossibility of obtaining stable income for members of the music industry. Once YouTube Music and Spotify left Russian market, the opportunity to make money on your music has become so transcendent that it is almost invisible. The most annoying thing is that you can still post music videos on YouTube, but ads are disabled for all videos from Russia, which means that there will be no income from these videos.

Another big problem is piracy. Copyright holders have fought piracy with varying success for long years. Some extremely important milestones have been crossed in the last couple of years, but due to recent events in the world, this entire struggle has practically gone to dust, as music piracy has flourished like never before. Many people again remembered RuTracker. The government is also setting a very bad example. Not so long ago, the State Duma considered the possibility of conducting parallel imports, that is, importing goods without the permission of the copyright holders. If this can be done on a national scale, then what prevents ordinary people from engaging in “parallel import of music”?

The founders of the Association believe that the entire music industry should have a unified voice that will draw the attention of the state to the most acute problems. As planned, the Association of Music Industry should become such a voice.

Any legal entity and individual entrepreneur who is engaged in the creation, promotion, and distribution of music can become a member of the Association. The next step in the development of the Association will be to attract all kinds of streaming services.

At the moment, the Association is trying to solve the problem with the foreign catalog of copyright holders. The fact is that some organizations related to collective management of rights have suspended their cooperation with Russian Authors’ Society. That is why the Association of Music Industry is now trying to simplify communication between industry members and authorities. However, in order for foreign copyright holders to start reckoning with the Russian music industry again, it is necessary to unite most of the market participants under the same banner.