Industry weighs in on proposed ’global release day’

Last month global music business trade body the IFPI confirmed discussions were underway with stakeholders for a simultaneous global release day.

The proposed day for single and album releases is Friday at 00:01 local time around the world from next August. However, the date isn’t set in stone and while trade bodies in the US have agreed it’s a good idea, some aren’t budging on their current release day of Tuesday and expect other countries to follow suit. There’s also the issue of single releases, which are often tailored to each country and staggered over time depending on the campaign strategy. We asked members of the Australian music industry to offer their reactions.

Michael Gudinski AM
Mushroom Group

It’s something that people have played around with over the years in many different countries in many different ways. I think it’s a great thing, it’s vital for major records with the way things leak. Australia’s been in a fortunate position as far as America is concerned; I think it’s a great thing for everyone to focus on the same day.

For some newer acts I think you’ll find companies have got different philosophies because they like to perhaps only put it out on digital, or hold the release, for example single releases are never going to be released on the same day because different countries go with different singles. [An artist] could be up to their third or fourth single before their first single breaks in America; for example Vance Joy, we’re up to our third single and Riptide is just rocking up the charts [in the US], but it’s taken this long […]. Different countries want different singles so I think they’re going to have a problem with that. Some countries won’t even release certain things, there might be a strategy in the set up but the pros are that it standardises everything but I think they’re going to have major problems with single releases purely because it’s a different strategy to new and breaking artists as it is to established artists. Artists need to do a lot of promotion for singles and it’s very difficult to be in a lot of countries at the one time.

I think in general, the principle of it is fantastic and from an Australian point of you we’d be first anyway but it’s good to standardise it from an industry point of view.

Luke Logemann
Head of Recorded Music, UNIFIED

In the past two years, all of our releases have had an increasing amount of international interest. As a result, our marketing push and content strategy have incorporated a world set up, and our artists and brand are constantly faced with having to communicate different release days and messages to a growing worldwide fanbase. Having one Global Release Day will eliminate this issue, and give us a clear message to deliver to our ever growing fanbase around the world.

Jeremy Fabinyi
General Manager, AMPAL

AMPAL is in favour of anything that helps to discourage unauthorised use of our members’ works. The music industry has demonstrated that price and availability can no longer be used as an excuse for online copyright infringement. However I do foresee some practical problems in implementing a Global Release Day – particularly taking into account differing time zones and accepted practices in the various territories and the need to treat individual markets and artists in different ways……

Marianna Annas
Manager, ABC Music Publishing

ABC Music Publishing would support any initiative that reinforces the value of music (which has been hugely undermined by unauthorised uses) to fans and consumers. We also recognise that specific release strategies and artist management plans may not always necessarily be consistent with a global release. To that extent we would hope that artists’ best interests would prevail or at least balanced with the issue of global availability.

Mick Tarbuk
Label Director, Shock
 Records

I completely agree with the IFPI in regards to a new global release date, it makes complete sense in today’s age. It won’t solve all our piracy problems but it will rejuvenate ‘release day’ allowing fans and the like from all over the world to discover new music on the same day.

Nathan McLay
Future Classic, Founder

Global release day makes sense. Future Classic always tries to sync releases internationally for our artists.