Exactly one year after the release of its Diversity and inclusion charter, IMPALA, the European independent music companies’ association has released its first annual report on diversity and inclusion.

IMPALA has launched a collaboration with Julie’s Bicycle to build the first bespoke carbon calculator for the independent sector. The calculator will help IMPALA’s members measure their carbon footprint and identify hotspots.

Today, the UK government published its response to the Parliament’s DCMS committee report on the Economics of streaming. Read IMPALA’s position on the government’s response.

IMPALA has elected a new board for a term of two years. The new Irish association of independent record labels AIM Ireland steps up and no less than 16 new representatives are already confirmed to join the governing body of the association.

The 4th One Step Ahead report “Understanding the digital music debates” is now available with a webinar for members taking place on 23 September at 2pm CET.

EU Commissioner Thierry Breton has acknowledged existing concerns about the impact of the RAAP EU court ruling on European performers and producers and confirmed the launch of a study to evaluate the consequences. This is part of an official answer to a question posed by several European parliamentarians, led by Spanish MEP Ibán García Del Blanco, in which Commissioner Breton confirms that the European Commission will soon launch a study to investigate the consequences of the ruling.

Today, the UK DCMS Committee released its report on the economics of streaming, with the headline conclusion that reform is needed. Some of the recommendations are in line with IMPALA’s assessment of today’s streaming economy. However, IMPALA does not share the view that “equitable remuneration” is part of the solution.

IMPALA and IAO propose an approach that involves creating a new cultural area with a single touring permit, instead of treating Europe as a number of distinct blocs and countries. The music market is geographic and covers all countries and economic/political groupings in the region including EU, EFTA, EU neighbourhood countries, as well as individual countries such as the UK.  

IMPALA joins 75 organisations in “Claiming a front row seat for music” to ensure music is at the heart of policy making as the sector slowly emerges from the Covid crisis. Read the letter and our specific asks.

Our monthly quick-fire webinar on the One Step Ahead project will take place on Wednesday 23rd June at 11am CET. The quick-fire editions of IMPALA’s Digital Hour with CMU are all about speedy updates on recent and upcoming One Step Ahead reports. It’s also the opportunity for members to ask questions and share ideas that will inform and influence our future research.

IMPALA, along with 107 other EU and US based cultural and creative organisations, have asked the EU and US to address visa issues during the EU-US Summit taking place in Brussels today. A letter was sent ahead of the summit seeking action to improve visa relations for artists and other cultural workers.

IMPALA joins 17 rightholder organisations in raising concerns with part of the european commission guidance on article 17 of the copyright directive and asking member states to stay faithful to the text of the directive.

Tomorrow is an important day for EU-US relations. It is also an important day for culture and music. The EU and the USA are global leaders and have two of the strongest music markets in the world. Underpinned by copyright, revenues from performance and broadcast are crucial.

Today is the deadline for EU member state to transpose the EU copyright directive into their national legislation. On Friday, the European Commission published its long-awaited guidance on the application of the directive’s Article 17. The EC has confirmed that the guidance is non-binding.

The third One Step Ahead report, “A DIVERSIFYING DIGITAL MARKET – CAPITALISING ON THE NEW OPPORTUNITIES” is now available, with a webinar on 10 June at 3pm CET for IMPALA members.

For the first anniversary of Blackout Tuesday, IMPALA has called on independent businesses to help build a picture of the sector’s diversity across Europe and map best practices for the future. IMPALA is asking as many businesses as possible to use the anniversary as an occasion to contribute to the debate by responding to IMPALA’s diversity and inclusion survey.

As part of IMPALA’s schedule for European Diversity Month, IMPALA is hosting a roundtable today to discuss mentoring in the music sector with MEWEM. The session takes place digitally with mentees from MEWEM France programme and Helen Smith from IMPALA, godmother of MEWEM France.

Our monthly quick-fire webinar on the One Step Ahead project will take place on Thursday 27th May at 3pm CET. The quick-fire editions of IMPALA’s Digital Hour with CMU are all about speedy updates on recent and upcoming One Step Ahead reports. It’s also the opportunity for members to ask questions and share ideas that will inform and influence our future research.

Never before has data on the independent sector been so important. With ten days to go till the deadline, IMPALA has issued a call to all independent music companies across Europe to fill out the WINTEL survey. The survey is open until June 4th and all independent companies with some activity in the recorded music business can participate.

Today, the European Parliament gave the final seal of approval to the EU’s culture programme Creative Europe for the period 2021-2027.
With a budget of €2.4bn in current prices, it will be the biggest yet and the programme will have a new focus on music, inclusion and promotion of female talent.

Sony’s acquisition of AWAL and Kobalt neighbouring rights from Kobalt music group, is being investigated in the UK, after the deal was announced in February. IMPALA has raised concerns that the move squeezes the independents further in an already very concentrated market.

To mark European Diversity Month, IMPALA is conducting the first European diversity and inclusion survey for the independent music sector. IMPALA’s diversity task force worked hand in hand with associations and advisers such as Keith Harris OBE, Vick Bain from vbain consulting and Arit Eminue from DiVA Apprenticeships.

Our monthly quick-fire webinar on the One Step Ahead project will take place on Monday 26th April at 3pm CET. The quick-fire editions of IMPALA’s Digital Hour with CMU are all about speedy updates on recent and upcoming One Step Ahead reports. It’s also the opportunity for members to ask questions and share ideas that will inform and influence our future research.

IMPALA will be releasing a special 20MinutesWith podcast on IMPALA’s sustainability programme, and guidance for members. These events coincide with Music Declares Emergency’s #turnupthevolume week highlighting the work on sustainability taking place across the music sector.

IMPALA announces an ambitious sustainability programme –
climate charter, task force, overall targets, tools and guidance. Voluntary for members, overall aim is net positive sector by 2030.

IMPALA, the European independent music companies’ association in Europe, has published a ten point plan to reform streaming. We see music services as partners, and our aim is to make streaming fairer and provide a dynamic, compelling and responsible future for creators and for fans.

Our monthly quick-fire webinar on the One Step Ahead project will take place on Thursday 25th March at 3pm CET. The quick-fire editions of IMPALA’s Digital Hour with CMU are all about speedy updates on recent and upcoming One Step Ahead reports. It’s also the opportunity for members to ask questions and share ideas that will inform and influence our future research.

Let’s secure a future for culture & cultural life in Europe. IMPALA is one of over 110 European networks urging Member States to make culture a priority in their recovery plans and to reactivate cultural life in Europe.

IMPALA, the European association of independent music companies, is launching its new IMPALA Campus project, an EU-funded training programme for recorded music professionals and self-releasing artists. Four workshops will take place in the spring and summer of 2021, each one in partnership with a leading music conference across Europe.

Promoting a diverse and inclusive European independent music sector is a key priority for IMPALA all year long. International Women’s day is a great opportunity to put the spotlight on the women contributing to IMPALA’s work with our board and various projects in the independent sector.

The second report of IMPALA’s One Step Ahead project is out, with a webinar on 18 February at 3pm CET for IMPALA members. The report “Marketing Power Through Data And Networks” is available only to IMPALA members and talks about the key role labels play and how that has evolved.

The 11th edition of IMPALA’s Album of the Year award goes to Austrian band My Ugly Clementine for “Vitamin C”, released on Austrian record label Ink Music. My Ugly Clementine fought off stiff competition from a shortlist of 25 albums across Europe.

This new study from EY, called Rebuilding Europe: the cultural and creative economy before and after COVID-19, captures the figures behind Europe’s thriving cultural and creative economy before the pandemic, and the staggering effects of venue and shop closures and health measures.

On 21st January, IMPALA held its third Digital Hour webinar with CMU.

This edition was all about speedy updates on recent and upcoming One Step Ahead reports. It was the opportunity for members to ask questions and share ideas that will inform and influence our future research.

2020 was a unique year, marked by the coronavirus pandemic. The creativity of European independent labels throughout the year really stood out and their release schedules were a highlight.

Alyona Alyona (ua), Inhaler (ie), Julia Bardo (it), Lous and the Yakuza (be), Melenas (es), Rimon (nl), Sassy 009 (no), Vildá (fi) are the winners of the Music Moves Europe Talent Awards 2021.

As the realities of restriction of movement for musicians and crews between the UK and the EU start to become apparent, there have been accusations from both sides that negotiators rejected reasonable arrangements to facilitate touring.

IMPALA has initiated a new three-year collaboration with Vick Bain from vbain consulting and Arit Eminue of DiVA Apprenticeships to provide diversity and inclusion training to members.

Trade associations (TAs) are a vital piece of the independent music ecosystem, offering advocacy, education, and community resources to independents. TAs operate as a global network, and consist of independent labels, distributors, and rights-holders from specific regions around the world.

The 2021 Music Moves Europe Talent Awards Ceremony becomes fully digital. On Friday 15 January, starting at 20:00 hrs, the winners will be revealed of this annual EU prize for popular and contemporary music which is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme. The Public Choice Winner will be announced by the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel.

Within the framework of IMPALA’s One Step Ahead project and to kick-start the new year, IMPALA and CMU present ‘State of Play 2021’, a one-hour webinar that will provide a guide to the digital music market as we head into 2021.

IMPALA has launched a new podcast series 20MinutesWith curated by Juliana Koranteng, the business journalist specialising in the international media and entertainment businesses.
The series is a year-long programme, part of IMPALA’s celebrations for its 20th anniversary.

Today, the European Commission published its long-awaited and concurrent proposals for a Digital Services Act (DSA) and a Digital Markets Act (DMA).

IMPALA welcomes today’s agreement on the next Creative Europe programme, the EU’s only programme dedicated to culture.

This year, IMPALA’s Outstanding Contribution Award goes to the #Love Record Stores campaign. Jason Rackham, MD of [PIAS] UK, created and led the campaign which has grown into a successful international movement.

The very first report of IMPALA’s new One Step Ahead project is out, and it’s all about playlists in the music streaming market, with a webinar on 11 December at 3pm CET for IMPALA members.

Nine months after the start of the Covid-19 crisis, with most of Europe at varying stages of second wave lockdown and gradual deconfinement expected, IMPALA’s Covid-19 Task Force has issued a new call for action.

The music sector supports two million jobs and contributes €81.9 billion annually to the economy across the 27 EU Member States and the UK (EU28), according to The Economic Impact of Music in Europe, an in-depth study by Oxford Economics that was commissioned by IFPI.

Earlier today, EU institutions reached a preliminary political agreement on the future EU budget 2021-2027, ending months of deadlock.

If confirmed, the agreement represents very welcome news for the cultural sector, as Creative Europe – the only EU programme fully dedicated to culture – would see its budget increase to €2.2bn, up from the current €1.46bn for the 2014-2020 programme.

IMPALA has teamed up with music business consultancy CMU Insights to launch One Step Ahead, a new digital intelligence facility to enable independent music companies across Europe to navigate and identify trends, developments, challenges and opportunities in the digital music market.

110 organisations from across the cultural and creative sector have published a joint call on the EU and its Members States to place culture at the core of each and every recovery plan.

IMPALA has adopted a Diversity and Inclusion Charter setting out a series of twelve commitments for the organisation, which it will report on annually.

Today, 21 organisations from across the cultural and creative sector wrote to members of the European Parliament to ask them to support a number of amendments tabled on the draft Report on a Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Today, 26 organisations from across Europe’s cultural and creative sectors wrote to European Commissioners Thierry Breton (Internal Market) and Paolo Gentiloni (Economy) regarding the EU’s flagship investment programme InvestEU.

Tonight, the nominees for the Music Moves Europe Talent Awards were announced at the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany in presence of the European Commissioner for Culture, Mariya Gabriel.

As the European Commission consultation on article 17 guidance closes later today, IMPALA joins a wide-ranging group of rightholder organisations in expressing serious concerns with the Commission’s direction of travel.

Performance artist Marina Abramović, singer-songwriters Björk and MØ, dance choreographer Anne-Teresa De Keersmaeker, film directors Agnieszka Holland, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, electronic music pionneer Jean-Michel Jarre, theatre director Ivo Van Hove, conceptual visual artist Daniel Buren, film music composer Alberto Iglesias and writer Nina George are among the many acclaimed names behind this call.

Earlier this week, Music Declares Emergency and IMPALA had a video meeting with Mariya Gabriel, the European Commissioner responsible for culture, innovation, research, education and youth.

On 19 June, EU leaders will meet in Brussels to discuss the Commission’s proposed recovery fund and EU long-term budget.

Ahead of this meeting, 94 organisations representing the whole spectrum of Europe’s cultural and creative sector have issued a joint call for strong and systemic support measures at EU and national level to recover from the crisis.

In support of #BlackOutTuesday IMPALA is pausing all normal business and postponing its members and board meeting scheduled for 2 June.

As the EU’s Ministers of Culture prepare to meet tomorrow to discuss the impact of Covid-19 on cultural and creative sectors, IMPALA reiterates its call for an ambitious 5-year recovery strategy for this sector.

IMPALA proposes a timeline with ten steps designed to sync with the EU’s own recovery planning. This roadmap forms the basis of a 5-year recovery strategy focussing on one of Europe’s key industries, and one of the first and hardest hit by the current crisis – the cultural and creative sectors.

IMPALA proposes a timeline with ten steps designed to sync with the EU’s own recovery planning. This roadmap forms the basis of a 5-year recovery strategy focussing on one of Europe’s key industries, and one of the first and hardest hit by the current crisis – the cultural and creative sectors.

Merlin, the digital licensing hub for the world’s independent music sector, has today announced the promotion of Charlie Lexton to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer (COO).

Promoting the #LoveRecordStores campaign, independent music companies see supporting local record shops as a vital part of getting through the current crisis.

Following the adoption of IMPALA’s ten point crisis plan, the organisation’s Covid-19 task force has launched a mapping tool to measure results for the independent music sector in Europe.

This open letter signed by nearly 40 pan-European music organisations from across the spectrum was sent today to EU institutions and member states.

IMPALA’s Covid-19 Task Force has published a package of ten recommendations seeking urgent action at EU, national and sector level. The aim is to try and secure a co-ordinated approach across Europe to minimise the impact of Covid-19 on the independent music sector.

IMPALA, the European independent music companies association, has set up a Covid-19 Task Force to help address the effects of the current crisis on the independent sector in Europe.

The 10th edition of IMPALA’s Album of the Year award goes to German artist Apparat, for “LP5”, released on British independent label Mute. Apparat fought off stiff competition from a shortlist of 22 albums from across Europe.

As EU leaders meet in Brussels to try and agree the EU’s long-term budget 2021-2027, IMPALA urges leaders to take a stance on culture in the negotiations.

Today, the European Commission presented its new strategy to shape Europe’s digital future. This includes a review of competition policy and other key policy areas to deliver a fair and competitive economy.

On Friday, Music Declares Emergency and IMPALA met with Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s executive vice president in charge of the EU’s fight against climate change.

Today marks the official start of Brexit. The UK and the EU will now negotiate the exact terms upon which they part company.

2019 has been an incredible year for European independents, with 22 nominees for this 10th edition of our album of the year award. Once again, this shortlist showcases how Europe’s independent music sector is thriving in diversity.

The European copyright directive brings clear benefits for creators, citizens and of course start-ups. It was years in the making and should also be available in the UK.

IMPALA’s Helen Smith on how Brexit will impact the indie sector. With just days to go until Brexit at 11pm on Friday, January 31, there’s still uncertainty surrounding key areas for the music industry.

Merlin, the digital licensing hub for the world’s independent music sector, has entered into a multi-territory partnership with TikTok, the world’s leading destination for short-form mobile video with a mission to inspire creativity and bring joy.

The Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) has announced its newly elected board of directors. Five new directors join the WIN Board: Francesca Trainini (PMI), Garry West (Compass Records), Jörg Heidemann (VUT), Lisa Levy (Robbins Entertainment), and Zena White (Partisan Records).

Helen Smith’s name almost certainly draws curses in Shenzhen, China (the headquarters of Tencent Holdings), and with highfliers in the boardrooms of media, streaming, label, and music publishing giants around the world.

Merlin, the global digital rights agency for the world’s independent label sector, has today announced the appointment of Jeremy Sirota as the organisation’s new CEO.

For its first edition, Digital Music Days ended with a special closure ceremony. Helen Smith, Executive Chair of IMPALA and Carmo Cruz, Director of AMAEI, congratulated Charles Caldas for a decade of defending and promoting local and international independent music across the globe.

This year, IMPALA’s Outstanding Contribution Award goes to Music Declares Emergency, the UK organisation formed by a collection of artists, music professionals, individuals and members of leading environmental charity for the creative industries, Julie’s Bicycle, in 2019.

Joint letter in support of a sectorial focus on music in Creative Europe (2021-2027)

IMPALA is to formally oppose the strategic partnership between Tencent Holdings and Universal Music Group.

IMPALA is gearing up to oppose Tencent’s buyout of a 10% stake of Universal Music Group with an option to add a further 10%. IMPALA is also concerned about who might buy the additional UMG stakes that are up for grabs.

Creative Europe Programme 2021-2027. Investing in our culture is investing in our future : Open letter to EU leaders from Europe’s cultural and creative sectors.

Below is a statement from WIN and IFPI about an essential new data exchange project. This initiative is driven by WIN on behalf of IMPALA and other organisations in the independent sector worldwide.

Today, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) jointly published the third edition of their “Intellectual property rights intensive industries (IPR) and economic performance in the European Union” study.

IMPALA held its annual general meeting at Reeperbahn festival in Hamburg this weekend. A new 32-strong board was elected for a term of two years. Six new board members were elected: E7LG – Eleven Seven Label Group (United Kingdom) and SCL/Lusitanian (Portugal), plus four national associations with HAIL (Hungary), INDIERO (Romania), RUNDA (covering all 7 ex-Yugoslavia territories as well as Albania) and VTMÖ (Austria).

Dear Member of the European Parliament. We are writing to you as a group of 26 organisations from across the music sector to ask you to support the Preparatory Action “Music Moves Europe: boosting European music diversity and talent” by adopting the corresponding amendment (CULT 5962) to the EU 2020 EU budget, and the proposed budget of €3 million.

Today, the nominees for the Music Moves Europe Talent Awards 2020 were announced at the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany. This annual EU prize for popular and contemporary music celebrates emerging artists who represent the European sound of today and tomorrow.

Today, the President of the incoming European Commission Ursula Von Der Leyen unveiled her proposed team of Commissioners.

Following her confirmation earlier today as the new President of the European Commission, IMPALA wishes Ursula von der Leyen a warm welcome at the helm of the EU’s executive body and outlines its priorities for the new commission.

Today a code has been signed by a group of technology companies and music sector organisations including IMPALA to agree best practices to combat stream farms and other forms of streaming manipulation.

This interview was conducted by journalist Lars Brandle and was originally published in The Industry Observer.

Merlin, the global digital rights agency for the independent label sector, has today published its 2019 Membership Report & Survey – revealing a 63% year-on-year increase in member payments (April 2018 – March 2019) to $845m.

As part of its renewed partnership with MIDEM, IMPALA hosted and co-organised a series of panels and keynotes alongside the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), Merlin, the global digital rights agency for independents, and the Independent Music Publishers Forum (IMPF). Together, we talked about labels, new business models, young publishers, and the digital business.