金融时报:披头士音乐平安夜登陆流媒体

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2021年10月22日

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披头士音乐平安夜登陆流媒体

全世界的披头士乐队(Beatles)粉丝今年将得到一份圣诞厚礼：这个偶像乐队的所有唱片将于周四早晨在各大流媒体平台上线。对很多用户来说，这不仅代表的是一张他们听了多年的唱片数字化这么简单，而是“情怀”的问题。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

coup政变[kuː]

label商标['leɪb(ə)l]

lossmaking总是亏损的['lɒs,meɪkɪŋ]

segment分割['segm(ə)nt]

tribute贡品['trɪbjuːt]

The Beatles follow long and winding road to streaming services （478 words）

By Henry Mance, Media Correspondent

The Beatles'songs will be available on music streaming services from tomorrow, after the group's management company reached a deal with Spotify, Apple Music and other providers.

The move is a coup for the streaming companies, which have been attacked by artists such as Taylor Swift for their royalty rates, and which were unable to agree immediate access to Adele's new album.

All 13 of The Beatles' studio albums will go live at 12.01am local time on December 24 on nine music services: Amazon Prime, Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play, Microsoft-owned Groove, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify and Tidal.

The Beatles' recordings are controlled by Apple Corps, the band's own management company, and music label EMI. They did not appear on Apple iTunes until 2010, seven years after the launch of the download store, following what Steve Jobs, then chief executive, described as “a long and winding road”.

“In many ways this is quite early for The Beatles. Their estate is always fashionably late to the digital party,” said Mark Mulligan, a music industry analyst with Midia Research. “2016 is a coming of age for streaming.”

Although criticised for their payments by artists, streaming services are lossmaking, with income from advertising and subscriptions unable to cover the cost of royalties, marketing and technology development.

Unlike video streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, music streaming companies do not own content rights and seek to offer a comprehensive catalogue. They also face strong competition from YouTube, the Google-owned video platform, which argues that it does not have to pay to license music.

Major record labels earned $2.2bn from streaming services last year, but such revenues are also likely to undermine sales from CDs and individual downloads. The trade-off is crucial for The Beatles, whose label has continued to exploit the band's back catalogue, including a deluxe reissue of the 1 album this year.

However, Mr Mulligan said that The Beatles were unlikely to lose many album sales by being on streaming services because their fans are segmented across different platforms.

Although terms of the royalty payments were not disclosed, The Beatles' management company would have received “an amazing deal”, Mr Mulligan said.

The Beatles' absence from streaming services has given voice to tribute bands and other artists who have recorded their songs. A version of Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles Tribute Band has been streamed 7.4m times on Spotify. However, that is likely to have earned the tribute band only a few thousand pounds, according to estimated royalty rates.

The solo catalogues of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison are already available on streaming services. Lennon's version of Imagine has been streamed 21m times on Spotify — although that lags behind well behind the 256m plays racked up by Four Five Seconds, a collaboration between Mr McCartney, Rihanna and Kanye West that was released earlier this year.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.Who attacked s streaming services for royalty rates?

A.Taylor Swift

B.Radiohead

C.AC/DC

D.Prince

答案(1)

2.How many studio albums of The Beatles' will go live on Christmas Eve?

A.24

B.9

C.4

D.13