{"id":79196,"date":"2020-03-02T21:08:58","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=79196"},"modified":"2020-03-02T21:39:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:39:41","slug":"diy-artists-generated-821m-in-2019-and-amuse-is-launching-a-pro-subscription-tier-just-for-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/diy-artists-generated-821m-in-2019-and-amuse-is-launching-a-pro-subscription-tier-just-for-them\/","title":{"rendered":"DIY artists generated $821m in 2019 \u2013 now Amuse is launching a Pro subscription tier to ‘accelerate their careers’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amuse has fast become one of the most recognizable names in the independent artist market \u2013 not least as the Swedish-born company offers a completely free, no-frills digital distribution service<\/a> for DIY acts.<\/p>\n

Previously, Amuse’s business model was essentially two-tiered: the firm would monitor the artists uploading their music via its free tier, and then attempt to sign the hottest of these acts to its in-house record label.<\/a> (Amuse’s label signs artists hand-picked by Amuse’s A&R team, licensing rights for a set period while splitting any resultant profits 50\/50 with its acts. It has so far licensed over 500 tracks worldwide.)<\/p>\n

Now, Amuse is set to launch a third key pillar to its business, offering DIY artists more advanced tools, on top of basic digital distribution, for a monthly fee.<\/p>\n

Amuse Pro will offer any artist, label or producer who subscribes features such as: a royalty splits tool; team accounts; multiple artist profiles; what Amuse calls “quicker releases”; and additional support.<\/p>\n

Amuse Pro users can also distribute their music to social media platforms including TikTok and Instagram.<\/p>\n

A subscription to the service, which is set to launch next week, starts at $7.99 per month or $59.99 per year.<\/p>\n

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Who might Amuse be targeting with Amuse Pro? Why, a rapidly-expanding independent artist marketplace, of course.<\/p>\n

Amuse’s announcement of Pro comes as the company releases an important set of fresh market research, carried out by the respected folks at London-based Midia.<\/p>\n

The resultant report, \u201cThe Changing Nature of Music Creation\u201d<\/a>, reveals that the ‘artist direct’ sector (i.e. self-releasing acts using services like Amuse, TuneCore, CD Baby and Ditto) generated an estimated $821m globally in 2019 \u2013 up 25% on the $643m the same sector generated in 2018.<\/p>\n

According to Midia, that $821m was enough for these self-releasing artists to claim a 3.9% global share of the recorded music market last year.<\/p>\n

(To put that into context, MBW estimates that if all these DIY acts were a single major entity, their $821m revenues would have likely made them the fourth biggest recorded music company in the world last year \u2013 smaller than Warner Music Group but bigger than BMG.)<\/p>\n

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What’s more, says Midia’s report<\/a>, when these self-releasing (‘artist direct’) acts are combined with artists who retain ownership of their copyrights but who are signed to ‘label services’ companies (like AWAL, Caroline, ADA, Believe or The Orchard), the total revenue generated by ‘independent’ artists last year stood at a very significant $1.6bn.<\/p>\n

Midia estimated that there were 3.7m artists self-releasing on major digital services last year, with a further 400,000 signed to ‘label services’ companies.<\/p>\n

Two other key findings from Midia:<\/p>\n