Will Page

Last updated
Will Page
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Economist, author

Will Page is a British economist, author, podcaster and DJ. He is the former Chief Economist at streaming music service Spotify, [1] a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, [2] and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Contents

Career

Page graduated with an MSc in Economics at the University of Edinburgh in 2002. His Master's thesis ‘Germany's Mezzogiorno Revisited’ looked at the problems facing East Germany ten years after German Reunification. The paper was published by Deutsche Bank in 2003, and cited in 2005 by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times .

Early Career

From 2002–2006 Page worked for the Government Economic Service at the Scottish Executive, working for the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser and Department of Finance. [3] He contributed to the Scottish Executive Economic Discussion Paper Series with a publication on ‘Infrastructure Investment & Economic Growth’. [4] While there he moonlighted as a music journalist for the magazine Straight No Chaser . [5] [6]

PRS for Music

From 2006–2012 Page was Chief Economist at PRS for Music, a non-profit collection society representing writers, composers and music publishers in the UK. [7]

In this role he published writing about topics such as the economic strength of the UK music industry [8] [9] and Long Tail theory in the music industry. [10] and on the success of Radiohead's In Rainbows album.

In 2008 he co-authored an influential paper in which he challenged Chris Anderson's popular Long Tail theory, showing that the demand for digital music instead followed a log-normal distribution. [11] [12] In another paper, In Rainbows, On Torrents written with Eric Garland, Page discussed whether Radiohead's innovative pay-what-you-wish release of its seventh album could compete with illegal free downloads, and observed that it could not, with two million copies of the album shared on file-sharing networks within a month of release; as the Washington Post summed it up, "legal free was trumped by illegal free." [13] [14] [15]

In May 2010 Page helped save the new music radio station BBC 6 Music. [16]

Spotify

Page joined Spotify as Chief Economist in 2012. [17] In this role he was deeply involved in Spotify's industry outreach and lobbying efforts. [2]

Early in his career at Spotify, he focussed heavily on the impact the Swedish streaming service was having on music piracy. Focussing on The Netherlands he established that "piracy [in the Netherlands] overall is now lower, and artists that engage with Spotify see less piracy." [18] This work led to a study on Spotify's relationship with festivals in the Netherlands [19] and a similar study on piracy in Australia that showed a decrease in downloads from 2012 to 2014. [20]

Page's focus then moved to the transformative impact Spotify was having on the music business generally, and how it exposed concepts like 'catalogue' and 'frontline' as antiquated and not fit for purpose. In a seminal study on the band Imagine Dragons, he demonstrated how artists will often see more streams in the second year of release than the first. [21]

He was an expert witness in the US Copyright Royalty Board's Determination of Rates and Terms for Making and Distributing Phonorecords, often termed "Phonorecords III", regarding mechanical streaming rates. [22] He challenged the claims that Spotify was at fault for cannibalizing revenues from downloads by showing how Canada's iTunes revenues, for example, went into decline without the presence of streaming services like Spotify. [23]

Throughout his tenure at Spotify he championed the global value of copyright by piecing together three sources of revenue that are typically presented independently: the IFPI Global Music Report; CISAC's Global Collections Report; and Music & Copyright value of music publishing. [24] [25] [26] [27] His work included an annual analysis on the global value of copyright. [28]

His work also looked at data on how songs were becoming hits for artists like Lorde as streaming took hold, [29] and drew attention to the value of the UK music industry as a national export. [30]

In 2019 he left Spotify to transition from economist to author, having contracted with Simon and Schuster in the UK and Little Brown & Company in the US to write a consumer-facing book about disruption in various industries. [2] The book, titled Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles for Pivoting Through Disruption, came out in 2021.

London School of Economics

In 2020 Page was made a fellow of the London School of Economics Marshall Institute, and has continued his affiliation with its European Institute from 2021 through the present. With Chris Dalla Riva he wrote the paper "‘Glocalisation’ of Music Streaming within and across Europe" for the LSE. It explored the unexpected rise of local artists on global streaming services. [31] [32] [33]

Tarzan Economics

In May 2021 his book Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles for Pivoting Through Disruption was published by Simon and Schuster in the UK and by Little, Brown and Company in the US. The book argued that industries need to find ways to work with, not against, disruption, [34] and that the experience of the music industry bears lessons for other sectors. [35] The book has secured five translations to date: into Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and German. On Audible, the book is narrated by Angus King. [36]

In his post-Spotify career Page continued to report on the total global value of music copyright [37] and other aspects of the music business, such as the impact of COVID-19, [38] new developments in streaming services, [39] and artists' objections to streaming services' practices. [40]

Podcast

Beginning in May 2021 Page and Richard Kramer have co-hosted "Bubble Trouble," a podcast on the Magnificent Noise network discussing inconvenient truths about financial markets. [41]

Documentary

In 2019, Page was an executive producer of the documentary Black Stars of Highlife which traced the history of Highlife music from its origins in Ghana and through its many fusions, telling a story of musical cross-pollination between the West and West Africa.

DJ

Page has released an annual DJ mix on MixCloud. [42] Carole King provided the introduction for the most recent, titled "Believe in Humanity" after King's song of that name. [43]


Publications

Books

Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles for Pivoting Through Disruption, Little, Brown and Company, 2021 [34]

Academic Papers and Studies

2023: "‘Glocalisation’ of Music Streaming within and across Europe" – inspired by British artists having accounted for all of the Top 10 in Britain's end-of-year singles chart in 2022, this study found that in most countries studied, the share of domestic artists and songs in a country's Top 10 had increased: "Contrary to the perverse effects of globalisation where large markets often dominate small, we uncover evidence of local markets growing in their domestic identity." [31] [32]

2021: "Twitch's Rockonomics" – a study of how live streaming and live music could coexist after the COVID-19 pandemic [44]

2015–Present: Annual reports on the global value of music copyright, [24] analyses showing, for example, that the total value had increased from $25 billion in 2015 [25] to $39.6 billion in 2021, [26] and that the percentage of the total from streaming rose from 22% in 2016 to 54% in 2020. [27]

2016–2019: Discussion papers for Society of Economics Research on Copyright Issues:

  • 2019: "'User-centric' revisited: The unintended consequences of royalty distribution" [45]
  • 2018: "Money in, money out: Lessons from CMOs in allocating and distributing licensing revenue" [46]
  • 2017: "The causes and consequences of allocating revenue between mechanical and performing rights" [47]
  • 2016: "Can two societies ever be better than one?" [48]

2012–2019: Various publications for Spotify on subjects such as online privacy, online advertising, and social media, such as "Does the music industry's definition of 'catalogue' need an upgrade?" [49]

For PRS 2006–2012:

Journalism

Financial Times articles including:

The Economist

Numerous articles for Billboard including:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Streaming media</span> Multimedia delivery method

Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. Streaming refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Federation of the Phonographic Industry</span> Organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a non-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland and founded in Italy in 1933 by Francesco Braga. It operates a secretariat based in London, with regional offices in Brussels, Hong Kong, Miami, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Nairobi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PRS for Music</span> British music rights society

PRS for Music Limited is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertakes collective rights management for musical works on behalf of its 160,000 members. PRS for Music was formed in 1997 following the MCPS-PRS Alliance. In 2009, PRS and MCPS-PRS Alliance realigned their brands and became PRS for Music.

A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item of such, but there are also other modes and metrics of compensation. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society</span> Performing rights organisation in the United Kingdom

The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) is an organisation that collects royalties and protects rights for music publisher, song writer and composer members, when their music is reproduced, in any format – including online, physical and synchronised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music industry</span> Companies and individuals that create and sell music

The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts.

The open music model is an economic and technological framework for the recording industry based on research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It predicts that the playback of prerecorded music will be regarded as a service rather than as individually sold products, and that the only system for the digital distribution of music that will be viable against piracy is a subscription-based system supporting file sharing and free of digital rights management. The research also indicated that US$9 per month for unlimited use would be the market clearing price at that time, but recommended $5 per month as the long-term optimal price.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phonographic Performance Limited</span> British music licensing company

Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) is a British music copyright collective. It is a private limited company that is registered in the UK. PPL was founded by Decca Records and EMI and incorporated on 12 May 1934, and undertakes collective rights management of sound recordings on behalf of its record-company members, and distributes the fees collected to both its record company (rights holder) members and performer members. As of 2019, PPL collected royalties for over 110,000 performers and recording rightsholders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright infringement</span> Usage of a copyrighted work without the authors permission

Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.

Deezer is a French music rental service.

Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 527 million monthly active users, including 210 million paying subscribers, as of March 2023. Spotify is listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the rise of digital media on the internet and computers as a central and primary means to record, distribute, store, and play music caused widespread economic changes in the music industry. The rise of digital media with high-speed internet access fundamentally changed the relationships between artists, record companies, promoters, retail music stores, the technology industry, and consumers. The rise of digital music consumption options contributed to several fundamental changes in consumption. One significant change in the music industry was the remarkable decline of conventional album sales on CD and vinyl. With the à la carte sales models increasing in popularity, consumers no longer downloaded entire albums but rather chose single songs.

A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream digital copyright restricted songs on-demand from a centralized library provided by the service. Some services may offer free tiers with limitations, such as advertising and limits on use. They typically incorporate a recommendation engine to help users discover other songs they may enjoy based on their listening history and other factors, as well as the ability to create and share public playlists with other users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Ek</span> Swedish CEO and founder of Spotify

Daniel Ek is a Swedish billionaire entrepreneur and technologist. He is the co-founder and CEO of music streaming service Spotify.

The Indian Music Industry (IMI) is a trust that represents the recording industry distributors in India. It was founded on February 28, 1936, as Indian Phonographic Industry (IPI). It is the 2nd oldest music industry organization in the world that was involved in protecting copyrights of music producers and supporting growth of music entertainment industry. In 1994, it was renamed as Indian Music Industry (IMI) and represented India at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). It is also registered with the West Bengal Societies Registration Act. All major music labels in India are part of this association. Record companies like Saregama (HMV), Universal Music Group (India), Tips Industries, Sony Music India, Virgin Records, Magnasound Records, Aditya Music, Times Music, Zee Music Company and T-Series several other prominent international, national and regional labels are part of the IMI. The IMI represents over 75% of all legal music sales in India.

Merlin is a digital rights music licensing partner for independent record labels, distributors, and other music rights holders around the world. It was founded in 2007 with Charles Caldas as the chief executive. In January 2020, Jeremy Sirota stepped into the role of Merlin CEO. The company is a member-based organization representing the digital licensing rights for hundreds of independent labels and distributors in nearly every country around the globe. As of 2019, Merlin has paid out over two billion dollars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music piracy</span> Copying and distribution of music without the consent of creators or copyright holders

Music piracy is the copying and distributing of recordings of a piece of music for which the rights owners did not give consent. In the contemporary legal environment, it is a form of copyright infringement, which may be either a civil wrong or a crime depending on jurisdiction. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw much controversy over the ethics of redistributing media content, how much production and distribution companies in the media were losing, and the very scope of what ought to be considered piracy – and cases involving the piracy of music were among the most frequently discussed in the debate.

Lost sales, also referred to as lost revenue, income or profit, is a term used in the context of Internet piracy to refer to sales that did not occur because potential customers have chosen not to buy a product but to obtain it from an illegal source for a lower cost or for no cost. Figures for lost sales usually assume that consumers who use pirated content would always choose to purchase the product at the market rate, if the illegal sources were not available.

Spotify, a music streaming company, has attracted significant criticism since its 2006 launch, mainly over artist compensation. Unlike physical sales or downloads, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the artist's "market share"—the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements. Multiple artists have criticised the policy, most notably Thom Yorke and Taylor Swift, who temporarily withdrew their music from the service.

References

  1. ↑ Leo Sidran (24 January 2023), Former Spotify executive Will Page: The internet can't scale intimacy, WBGO, retrieved 19 May 2023
  2. 1 2 3 Tim Ingham (19 July 2019). "SPOTIFY'S CHIEF ECONOMIST, WILL PAGE, IS LEAVING THE COMPANY". Music Business Worldwide. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  3. ↑ Jason Joven (6 July 2020). "Digital Disruption and Music Economics With Former Spotify Chief Economist Will Page". Chartmetric. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  4. ↑ Will Page (18 December 2005), "Infrastructure Investment & Economic Growth" (PDF), Scottish Executive , retrieved 19 May 2023
  5. ↑ Eric J. Lawrence (22 August 2018). "Straight No Chaser magazine profile on KCRW!". KCRW. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  6. ↑ Will Page (1 April 2007). "Black Lily Film + Music Festival May 4-6 2007" (PDF). Retrieved 23 May 2023.{{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  7. ↑ Joe Sparrow (4 August 2022), Will Page analyses lockdown’s effect on UK music and predicts bounce-back, MusicAlly, retrieved 19 May 2023
  8. ↑ "Interview With Will Page, Music Industry Economist". Techdirt . April 29, 2010.
  9. ↑ Page, Will (August 2011). "Adding Up The Music Industry 2010". PRS for Music Economic Insight. 23.
  10. ↑ Report Challenges Long Tail Theory on P2P Networks, Wired, 14 May 2009, retrieved 19 May 2023
  11. ↑ Patrick Foster (7 November 2008). "Long Tail theory contradicted as study reveals 10m digital music tracks unsold: Digital sales figures dent niche market theory" . Retrieved 23 May 2023..
  12. ↑ Andrew Orlowski (August 1, 2008), "Chopping the Long Tail down to size", The Register
  13. ↑ Robert Andrews (August 1, 2008), "Radiohead Downloaders Preferred Illegal P2P To Legal Free", Washington Post
  14. ↑ Eric Garland (16 November 2009), The 'In Rainbows' Experiment: Did It Work? , retrieved 23 May 2023
  15. ↑ Buskirk, Eliot Van (2008-07-31). "New In Rainbows Numbers Offer Lessons for Music Industry". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  16. 1 2 Will Page (20 May 2010), A songwriter’s perspective on 6 Music , retrieved 23 May 2023
  17. ↑ Glenn Peoples (9 October 2012), Spotify Nabs Will Page, Former PRS for Music Chief Economist, Billboard, retrieved 19 May 2023
  18. ↑ Will Page, Adventures in the Netherlands: Spotify, Piracy and the new Dutch experience (PDF), Spotify, retrieved 7 June 2023
  19. ↑ Will Page, Adventures in the Lowlands: Best practice for Spotify, social media and festivals (PDF), Spotify, retrieved 7 June 2023
  20. ↑ Ernesto Van der Sar (10 September 2014), Spotify: Aussie Music Piracy Down 20% The Year After Our Launch, Torrentfreak, retrieved 7 June 2023
  21. ↑ "Does the music industry's definition of 'catalogue' need an upgrade?". Music Business Worldwide. 2017-12-05. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  22. ↑ INTRODUCTORY MEMORANDUM TO THE WRITTEN DIRECT STATEMENT OF SPOTIFY USA INC. (PDF), CRB, retrieved 19 May 2023
  23. ↑ DETERMINATION OF RATES AND TERMS FOR MAKING AND DISTRIBUTING PHONORECORDS (PHONORECORDS III): WRITTEN REBUTTAL TESTIMONY OF WILL PAGE (PDF), CRB, retrieved 7 June 2023
  24. 1 2 THE GLOBAL VALUE OF MUSIC COPYRIGHT TOPPED $28BN IN 2017, Music Business Worldwide, 9 April 2019, retrieved 23 May 2023
  25. 1 2 $25 BILLION: THE BEST NUMBER TO HAPPEN TO THE GLOBAL MUSIC BUSINESS IN A VERY LONG TIME., Music Business Worldwide, 10 December 2015, retrieved 23 May 2023
  26. 1 2 Emmanuel Legrand (6 November 2022), Will Page report values music copyright at $39.6 billion in 2021, up 18% year-on-year, Creative Industries News, retrieved 23 May 2023
  27. 1 2 Music Copyright Value Hit $32.5B in 2020, With Streaming Taking Its Biggest Slice Yet, Billboard, 18 November 2021, retrieved 23 May 2023
  28. ↑ "The global value of music copyright topped $28bn in 2017". Music Business Worldwide. 2019-04-09. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  29. ↑ Tom Cheredar (2013-08-21). "Spotify shares new data on how songs are becoming hits in the digital age". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  30. ↑ Moore, Matthew (2019-01-11). "Spotify data shows the world loves British pop". The Times. ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  31. 1 2 Janan Ganesh (2 June 2023), Music markets are ‘glocalising’ — and the English-speaking world better get used to it, Financial Times, retrieved 23 May 2023
  32. 1 2 Will Page; Chris Dalla Riva (1 May 2023), ‘Glocalisation’ of Music Streaming within and across Europe (PDF), The London School of Economics and Political Science, retrieved 8 June 2023
  33. ↑ Lucas Shaw (11 June 2023), The Next Phase of the Global Streaming Wars, Bloomberg, retrieved 16 June 2023
  34. 1 2 Amy X. Wang (5 May 2021), An Ex-Spotify Exec Breaks Down Modern Music’s ‘Tarzan Economics’, Rolling Stone, retrieved 19 May 2023
  35. ↑ Sebastian Scotney (31 March 2021), Will Page: Tarzan Economics - a 'rockonomist' writes, The Arts Desk, retrieved 19 May 2023
  36. ↑ Tarzan Economics, Audible, retrieved 21 June 2023
  37. ↑ Peoples, Glenn (3 November 2022). "Global Music Copyright Revenue Grew 18% in 2021". Billboard. ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  38. 1 2 Will Page (24 June 2020), Examining COVID-19’s Impact on Britain’s Live and Recorded Music Industries, Billboard, retrieved 19 May 2023
  39. ↑ James Hall (13 March 2023), Can Apple really start a classical-music revolution?, The Telegraph, retrieved 19 May 2023
  40. ↑ Will Page (4 February 2022), Everyone’s a winner in Spotify’s face-off with Neil Young, Financial Times, retrieved 19 May 2023
  41. ↑ Brad Hill (3 June 2021), Magnificent Noise launches first self-distro’d podcast, “Bubble Trouble” with Will Page, Kurt Hanson's Radio & Internet News, retrieved 23 May 2023
  42. ↑ Ashley Norris (24 April 2022), Former Spotify Chief Economist, Will Page, on lessons learned from the digital transformation of the music industry, FIPP, retrieved 24 May 2023
  43. ↑ Will Page, 2023 Believe in Humanity, Mixcloud, retrieved 8 June 2023
  44. ↑ Tim McArtney (30 June 2021), Can musicians make a living from Twitch? A new report suggests they can, Happy, retrieved 23 May 2023
  45. ↑ 'User-centric' revisited: The unintended consequences of royalty distribution (PDF), Society of Economics Research on Copyright Issues Music & Copyright Newsletter, 17 October 2016, retrieved 2 June 2023
  46. ↑ Simon Dyson (29 August 2018), Money in, money out: Lessons from CMOs in allocating and distributing licensing revenue (PDF), Society of Economics Research on Copyright Issues Music & Copyright Newsletter, retrieved 24 May 2023
  47. ↑ Simon Dyson (17 October 2017), The causes and consequences of allocating revenue between mechanical and performing rights (PDF), Society of Economics Research on Copyright Issues Music & Copyright Newsletter, retrieved 2 June 2023
  48. ↑ Simon Dyson (17 October 2016), Can two societies ever be better than one? (PDF), Society of Economics Research on Copyright Issues Music & Copyright Newsletter, retrieved 2 June 2023
  49. ↑ Will Page (5 December 2017), Does the music industry's definition of 'catalogue' need an upgrade?, Music Business Worldwide, retrieved 24 May 2023
  50. ↑ Will Page and Chris Carey (4 August 2010), Adding up the UK music industry 2010, Economic Insight, retrieved 23 May 2023
  51. ↑ Will Page (12 August 2022), Roar of the live music crowd drowns out stadium income from sport, Financial Times, retrieved 24 May 2023
  52. ↑ Will Page (28 April 2022), Vinyl, the music format that came back from the dead, Financial Times, retrieved 24 May 2023
  53. ↑ Will Page (4 February 2022), Everyone’s a winner in Spotify’s face-off with Neil Young, Financial Times, retrieved 24 May 2023
  54. ↑ Will Page (19 February 2021), The music industry makes more money but has more mouths to feed, Financial Times, retrieved 24 May 2023
  55. ↑ Will Page (17 December 2021), Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan and the future of streaming, Financial Times, retrieved 24 May 2023
  56. ↑ Will Page (2 February 2022), Spotify, Joe Rogan and the Wild West of online audio (PDF), The Economist, retrieved 24 May 2023
  57. ↑ Will Page (2 February 2022), And the winner is...who cares? (PDF), The Economist, retrieved 24 May 2023
  58. ↑ Will Page (28 February 2020), Is The Music Copyright Business Worth More Than Ever?, Billboard, retrieved 23 May 2023
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