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Issue Nº 21Live · May 23, 2026Weekly · Tuesdays

The Brief.

A weekly dispatch on streaming, royalties, marketing and the music industry — written from real campaign data, not theory.

In the archive

278 dispatches

Read by

5,000+ artists

All Streaming103 Marketing65 Business44 Touring13 Money36 Career17

Business

Filed under Business

A financial analyst's desk at midnight: stacked printed Luminate, MIDiA Research, and Billboard quarterly reports with red-pen margin annotations and bracketed key figures, an open spiral notebook with handwritten Q1 totals, a pair of reading glasses resting on a Bloomberg Terminal printout, a half-empty mug of black coffee, and a single warm desk lamp casting amber light across worn walnut.

Music Industry Q1 2026 Data Report: 12 Numbers That Define the Quarter

Daniel Brooks21 min read

A music manager's office at dusk: open laptop showing a quarterly artist royalty statement with highlighted line items, a signed management agreement on letterhead, a half-empty coffee mug with a coaster ring, a framed gold record on the brick wall behind, and a single warm desk lamp casting shadow across stacked tour budgets and a worn leather notebook.

Music Manager Commission Structures 2026: What's Fair

Lena Kova19 min read

A dimly lit office desk at night: a printed Royal.io shutdown announcement face-up on the desk, two physical 7-inch vinyl singles stacked beside it as the quiet comparison, an open MacBook displaying a generic crypto-style downward chart silhouette, a half-finished mug of coffee with a cold ring around the rim, a single warm-temperature desk lamp casting amber light across a worn walnut surface, scattered notebook with handwritten margin notes and a pencil resting across the page.

Music NFTs and Web3: The 2026 Post-Mortem (What Worked, What Died, What's Left)

Daniel Brooks23 min read

A trust-and-safety analyst's late-night office: three large monitors arranged in a shallow arc showing anomaly-detection dashboards with stacked time-series graphs, a heatmap of suspicious geographic clustering, and a flagged-stream review queue, with chrome-only silhouettes never legible; a worn leather notebook open to handwritten margin notes, a half-finished mug of black coffee, and a single warm desk lamp casting amber light across a walnut desk.

Streaming Fraud Crackdown 2026: How Spotify, Apple, and Distributors Are Killing Fake Streams

Daniel Brooks24 min read

A music industry analyst's home office at night: open notebook with handwritten quarterly streaming forecast notes, printed Nikkei stock chart with margin annotations, Sennheiser HD600 headphones, glass of whiskey with melting ice, and a terracotta plant on a wooden desk illuminated by a single warm desk lamp.

Music Streaming Market Share 2026: Latest Subscriber Data

Daniel Brooks20 min read

A music industry M&A analyst's lower Manhattan office at 10pm: stacked term sheets with red-pen marginalia, half-drunk espresso cup, MacBook Pro angled to the side, analog wristwatch, sleek black desk phone, and brass desk lamp on a wooden desk with city skyline visible through the window.

AI Music Company Funding Tracker 2026: Valuations + ARR

Daniel Brooks17 min read

An independent songwriter's home-office desk at dusk: stacked PRO and MLC quarterly statements with handwritten margin notes in red pen, a desk calculator with a curling paper tape, a marked-up split-sheet spreadsheet printout with highlighter on missing ISWCs, a battered hardcover royalty ledger, a chipped ceramic mug of black coffee, a Yamaha HS5 monitor visible in the background, and a single warm desk lamp throwing amber light across a scuffed oak desk.

Music Royalty Audit Guide 2026: How to Find the Money You're Owed

Daniel Brooks24 min read

A music publishing administrator's evening desk: open laptop showing a side-by-side comparison spreadsheet of five publishing admin services, a printed quarterly royalty statement with handwritten margin notes, two stacked admin contracts, a coffee mug, and a small brass desk lamp casting warm light over weathered wood.

Songtrust vs Sentric vs Songtradr: Admin Compared 2026

Daniel Brooks15 min read

A music supervisor's late-night office: stacked production binders flagged with colored sticky tabs, an open contract with handwritten margin notes in pencil, Sennheiser HD600 headphones resting on a leather notebook, a half-full glass tumbler with melting ice, a calibrated screening monitor showing a paused dialogue scene, and a single warm desk lamp casting amber light across a worn walnut desk.

Sync Licensing Rate Card 2026: Real Fees by Medium

Daniel Brooks22 min read

A music industry analyst's late-night desk: a stack of printed industry reports flagged with colored sticky tabs and pencil margin notes, an open spiral notebook with handwritten percentage figures and arrows, a basic desk calculator with a long receipt tape curled across the wood, two ceramic coffee mugs with cold rings, a closed laptop pushed to the side, and a single warm desk lamp casting amber light across a worn walnut surface in a quiet windowless office.

The 2026 State of the Indie Music Industry: 14 Numbers That Define It

Daniel Brooks23 min read

An independent record store interior at golden hour: stacks of new vinyl LPs on a worn wooden counter with handwritten price tags, a customer in a wool coat thumbing through a classic-rock bin in the background, soft natural light from a street-facing window, a Fleetwood Mac Rumours sleeve visible on the front display, and a dust-covered turntable on a side shelf.

Vinyl Sales 2026: Industry Report (RIAA + Discogs Data)

Daniel Brooks23 min read

Ditto vs DistroKid for Music Distribution (2026)

Daniel Brooks9 min read

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