Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be certain you caught the 5 largest tales to hit our headlines over the previous seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their revenue and cut back their touring prices.
We’re every week into the brand new 12 months, and the music enterprise is selecting up the tempo once more after some well-deserved Vacation OOO’s and ZZZ’s.
Within the M&An area, Downtown acquired London-headquartered music expertise firm Curve Royalty Programs.
In the meantime, Spherical Hill acquired a catalog of producer royalties and associated rights from legendary rock producer Steve Lillywhite.
Elsewhere, it was introduced that the again catalog of Grammy-winning hip-hop trio De La Soul is ready to roll out on digital streaming companies for the primary time on March 3, via a brand new partnership with Reservoir Media and Reservoir-owned Chrysalis Records.
We additionally discovered this week that Hip-hop duo Black Sheep, finest recognized for the 1991 album A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes, are suing Universal Music Group over its Spotify fairness possession in a category motion lawsuit.
TikTok rival Triller, in the meantime, which didn’t IPO in This autumn 2022, is reportedly being sued by Common over unpaid license charges.
Plus, MBW explored 5 stats that can set the scene for a number of the standout happenings, tensions, and hopes of the music enterprise in 2023.
Right here we go once more. The music enterprise is gently ushering itself again into motion following some much-needed Vacation respite.
However what does 2023 maintain in retailer for the business and its key gamers?
Nicely, to be utterly sincere with you, we don’t precisely know. How on earth might we?
(That’s one of many key flaws, isn’t it, about this excellent business? Amongst its many, many attributes: Too many individuals pretending they know what couldn’t presumably be recognized about the way forward for the music enterprise, when the way forward for the music enterprise has proven itself – time and time once more – to be one of many least predictable issues within the industrial universe.)
Anyway, right here’s what we do know. We do know that the next 5 stats actually set the scene for a number of the standout happenings, tensions, and hopes of the music biz in 2023.
And we do know that you simply’re most likely going to be higher armed for no matter this 12 months throws on the music rights business if you happen to perceive why every of them is so necessary…
It’s not typically that Music Enterprise Worldwide is itself cited in a major lawsuit within the music enterprise, however that’s the case at present.
Earlier than we get into the weeds on how that occurred, right here’s the thin on the swimsuit: Hip-hop duo Black Sheep, finest recognized the 1991 album A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes, are suing Common Music Group in a category motion lawsuit, filed yesterday (January 4) in New York.
NYC-based Andres Titus and William McLean, through their attorneys, make three principal claims:
(i) That Black Sheep and different artists signed to Common ought to have been paid 50% of royalties from Spotify since 2011 attributable to a clause of their contracts pertaining to “internet receipts”;
(ii) That UMG agreed to just accept decrease royalty charges from Spotify in trade for receiving fairness within the streaming service again in 2008; and
(iii) That Black Sheep and different artists also needs to have obtained 50% of UMG’s Spotify fairness (or the worth of it) as a result of, based on the duo’s swimsuit, this may be “proportional” to their royalty contract.
Black Sheep argue that Common owes it and different artists roughly $750 million in unpaid royalties because of these three claims.
Common has known as Titus and McLean’s declare that it accepted decrease royalty charges in trade for Spotify fairness “patently false and absurd”. UMG added in an announcement that it has “a well-established observe report of preventing for artist compensation…”
The music rights house has been kicked into motion this week with the information that Round Hill Music has acquired a catalog of producer royalties and associated rights from legendary rock producer Steve Lillywhite.
The corporate says that Lillywhite’s manufacturing work contains “a number of the most profitable songs and albums of all time” spanning artists from U2, The Killers and Morrissey, to The Speaking Heads and The Rolling Stones.
Spherical Hill introduced the deal this week, simply weeks after MBW reported that it had spent greater than $200 million throughout 40 acquisitions in 2022.
Spherical Hill didn’t disclose the scale of the cope with Lillywhite, though business sources estimate that, based mostly on the royalties’ annual earnings, the price-tag would doubtless have been within the area of $10 million…
Triller has been hit with a lawsuit from Common Music Group over unpaid licensing charges.
On Thursday (January 5), UMG filed a lawsuit towards the US-based TikTok rival claiming that it has not paid licensing charges for the previous three quarters.
The swimsuit additionally claims that the corporate hasn’t offered quarterly utilization reviews outlining using the main’s music on the Triller app.
This information was first reported by Selection, which reviews that UMG says in its criticism that it has additionally terminated its settlement with Triller.…
Downtown Music Holdings has acquired London-headquartered music expertise firm Curve Royalty Programs.
The latter firm was based in 2019 by Tom Allen, Richard Leach and Ray Bush, all veterans of music corporations equivalent to Cooking Vinyl, Important Music and ADA.
Curve is the most recent in a collection of strategic acquisitions made by Downtown in recent times.
Along with Curve, New York-based Downtown has acquired corporations together with B2B music tech and companies platform FUGA and indie distributor CD Baby. Downtown has additionally made investments within the likes of Beatbread and Vampr…
