Music Publishing 2004

We expect the music publishing market to grow from $3.7 billion in 2003 to $5 billion in 2010. Performance, mobile phone ring tone and synchronisation revenues will be the most important drivers of growth in the near term, with legitimate downloads becoming significant in the medium-term (a big if given piracy, but one that we still are confident about). These will offset the expected decline in mechanical copyright revenues derived from physical sales of recorded music, as volumes continue to fall. There are however worrying signs that the standard mechanical copyright rates currently being applied (according to an expired agreement) may be reduced, which has the potential to negate the expected market growth.