美国音乐业创近二十年最佳表现 流媒体贡献半壁江山仍遭非议

美国音乐产业哭穷已经不短时间，总在指责很多网站为音乐支付的版权费很少，例如视频网站YouTube，还有其他一些吸引不少广告的流媒体服务网站。但现在还这么说底气越发不足。

美国唱片工业协会（RIAA）本周二公布，2016年行业收入达到近二十年来最佳，全美音乐唱片零售销售额增长11.4%，增至77亿美元，为1998年以来最大增幅。

销量大增主要源于流媒体服务，产生的销售额超过了CD和其他实体产品。RIAA称，唱片业年销售额一半以上都来自流媒体，这尚属首次。

不过，唱片行业并未改变论调，还是坚称YouTube为音乐服务支付的版权费不够。RIAA本周四报告的序言里指出，虽然2016年“行业整体明显好转”，但总营业收入只有1999年的一半，CD等实体产品的销量和数字音乐的下载量持续下滑。

RIAA会长加里•舍尔曼在一篇点评行业的文章中指出，行业取得“一定成功”是在顶住音乐授权和版权法律压力的前提下，原创没有得到任何保护。

“在YouTube上音乐视频每获得1000点击，作者才能挣1美元，而在苹果和Spotify上，同样的流量可以让音乐人赚得7美元甚至更多，这很不合理，”舍尔曼说，“为什么会这样？因为YouTube之类平台钻法律漏洞，付给原创者的钱远低于应有的价值。”

RIAA接着指出，美国的《数字千年版权法》（Digital Millennium Copyright Act）存在漏洞，YouTube正是利用法律中所谓的“安全港”条款在网站上保留侵权的音乐，只要通知YouTube侵权时其采取行动就可以免受惩罚。

2016年，Spotify、苹果旗下音乐服务Apple Music 、Tidal等流媒体平台支付RIAA的版权费用合计39亿美元，较上年增长近70%。五年来，流媒体渠道音乐唱片收入中占比由9%升至51%。

RIAA称，付费订阅贡献的收入增幅最大，增长至两倍还多，达到25亿美元，约占音乐唱片新增收入的三分之一。

RIAA表示，在Pandora和YouTube等平台上，2016年广告主支持下的点播订阅服务的收入增长了26%，贡献了4.69亿美元。数字音乐下载的销售额却较2015年减少了22%。（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审稿：夏林

The U.S. music industry has been crying poor for some time, arguing that YouTube and other ad-supported streaming services don't pay enough money in licensing fees for the music they use. But that message may be harder to sell now.

In 2016, the record industry had its best year in nearly two decades, the Record Industry Association of America said on Thursday. Total U.S. retail sales from recorded music rose 11.4% last year, to $7.7 billion, the biggest gain since 1998.

The bulk of that growth came from streaming services, which have overtaken sales of compact discs and other physical products. For the first time, streaming provided more than 50% of the industry's annual revenues, the RIAA said.

The industry isn't giving up its claim that YouTube is underpaying for the music played on the service, however. In the preamble to its report on Thursday, the RIAA noted that while 2016 was a "substantial overall improvement for the industry," total revenues are still half what they were in 1999, and that sales of physical products like CDs and digital downloads continue to decline.

In an essay about the industry's results, RIAA president Cary Sherman said that the business had achieved its "modest success" in spite of current music licensing and copyright laws, not because of them.

"It makes no sense that it takes a thousand on-demand streams of a song for creators to earn $1 on YouTube, while services like Apple and Spotify pay creators $7 or more for those same streams," Sherman said. "Why does this happen? Because a platform like YouTube wrongly exploits legal loopholes to pay creators at rates well below the true value of music."

The RIAA continues to argue that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is misguided, and that YouTube benefits from the "safe harbor" provisions in the act, which allow it to host even copyright-infringing music provided it takes action when notified of any infringement.

Total revenues paid to the RIAA by streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and others amounted to $3.9 billion, an increase of almost 70% from a year earlier. In just five years, streaming has gone from 9% of recorded music revenues to 51% of the total.

Revenues from paid subscriptions showed the most growth, more than doubling to $2.5 billion, the RIAA said, accounting for about a third of all the growth in recorded music revenue.

The industry group said that RIAA revenue from on-demand subscription services supported by advertising, which would include services like Pandora and YouTube, rose 26% and contributed $469 million of the total last year. Sales of digital downloads, however, declined by 22% compared to 2015.