Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be certain that 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 maximize their earnings and scale back their touring prices.
Spotify has dominated the music enterprise information cycle for the previous a number of days, with one bombshell after one other dropping all through the previous week.
On Monday (December 4), we received phrase that the music streaming service is shedding 17% of its international workforce, amounting to over 1,500 positions. That’s on high of two prior rounds of job cuts earlier this 12 months, which decreased headcount by a cumulative 700.
A number of days earlier, MBW broke the information that Jenny Hermanson, Spotify’s MD for the Nordic area, is leaving the corporate, having spent 14 years on the agency, eight of these in her present function. And on Thursday, SPOT’s MD for the UK and Eire, Tom Connaughton, additionally introduced his exit.
However information of this exodus of territory managers was eclipsed on Thursday night time by the information that Chief Monetary Officer Paul Vogel is leaving.
And in response to an SEC submitting from Tuesday (December 5), simply 24 hours after SPOT’s layoff announcement, Vogel cashed out 47,859 Spotify shares – banking him USD $9.377 million.
In non-Spotify information, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl weighed in on the European Union’s AI Act, which is being described because the world’s first critical try to manage synthetic intelligence by way of the legislation.
In the meantime, in an interview with MBW, Capitol Music Group Chair and CEO Michelle Jubelirer discusses Ice Spice, The Beatles, and reinventing CMG.
Elsewhere, Sony Music Publishing Chairman and CEO Jon Platt was named because the 2024 Grammy Salute To Business Icons honoree, whereas music rights firm Affect Media Companions introduced what it referred to as a “main partnership deal” with Grammy Award-winning artist and songwriter Enrique Iglesias.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek introduced on Thursday that the corporate’s Chief Monetary Officer, Paul Vogel, is leaving the agency.
The information comes simply three days after Ek confirmed that his agency is to put off 17% of its international workforce – round 1,500 staff – resulting from a “hole between our monetary objective state and our present operational prices”.
Vogel will formally depart Spotify on the finish of Q1 2024.
Apparently, MBW has noticed in an SEC submitting that on Tuesday this week (December 5), Vogel cashed out 47,859 shares in Spotify – banking him USD $9.377 million.
That cash-out came about simply 24 hours after Spotify’s newest international layoffs have been introduced…
This week, the European Union’s AI Act stands on the precipice of turning into a landmark authorized framework for synthetic intelligence. Broadly thought to be the world’s first critical try to manage AI by way of the legislation, the invoice is coming into the ultimate section of the legislative course of, with the EU Parliament, European Fee and European Council ruling on what it should embrace – and what it received’t.
Evidently, EU lawmakers have been lobbied by many sides of the AI debate in current months. This contains music copyright homeowners eager to guard the worth of songs, recordings, and the ‘identify and likeness’ of established stars. It additionally contains international tech giants who’ve argued that generative AI’s ingestion of copyrighted materials, in lots of cases, must be given a authorized free go beneath so-called ‘honest use‘ exemptions.
Since beginning his job as CEO of Warner Music Group at first of this 12 months, Robert Kyncl has established himself as one of many leisure trade’s foremost voices on the alternatives – and the challenges – that AI creates for music.
In February, Kyncl referred to as generative AI “one of the transformative issues that humanity has ever seen”. Since then, he’s been constant together with his core message: with regards to participating with AI, artists should have a alternative…
New York-headquartered music rights firm Affect Media Companions has struck what it calls a “main partnership deal” with Grammy Award-winning artist and songwriter Enrique Iglesias.
Citing sources, Bloomberg experiences that the deal, which it says contains the acquisition of the Latin famous person’s recorded music catalog, is “valued at 9 figures” and that it contains his total catalog up to now.
Affect Media says in a press launch that, along with “partnering on the rights administration of [his] recordings spanning the size of his skilled profession”, the partnership additionally contains Enrique Iglesias’ Identify, Picture, and Likeness (NIL) rights “to develop future licensing alternatives”.
The settlement with Iglesias marks the primary NIL deal for Affect Media for the reason that firm’s inception.
In an replace to its unique press launch, Affect Media says that it’s partnering with Iglesias “on the rights administration of his pre-2021 recorded music rights together with his unbiased masters and the Universal recorded music royalties together with Identify, Picture, and Likeness (NIL) rights to develop future licensing alternatives”…
Forward of the 66th Grammy Awards, Sony Music Publishing Chairman and CEO Jon Platt has been named because the 2024 Grammy Salute To Business Icons honoree.
The Grammy Salute To Business Icons honor is given in the course of the invitation-only Pre-Grammy Gala held on February 3, 2024, hosted by the Recording Academy and Clive Davis.
“Some of the influential figures within the trade, Jon has constantly set the bar for management in music,” stated Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy.
The Recording Academy notes that, since his appointment to Sony Music Publishing (SMP) in 2019, Platt “has labored to revitalize the corporate’s Songwriters First mission”…
Michelle Jubelirer took over as Chair and CEO of Capitol Music Group (CMG) two years in the past, amid a pandemic and following a sequence of management modifications that left the corporate in turmoil.
CMG “confronted eroding market share, low morale, and a stagnant artist roster,” Jubelirer instructed MBW in an interview.
Two years later, it’s clear she’s been capable of flip the Capitol ship round.
“As a result of I had spent nearly a decade right here, I used to be uniquely located to convey each a contemporary perspective to the job and construct a contemporary tradition throughout the firm, whereas nonetheless honoring Capitol’s legacy in profound methods,” she stated.
“That means, we could possibly be an organization that excels at launching and growing Ice Spice, and, on the identical time, convey actual innovation and full-throttle dedication to the discharge of a brand new single from The Beatles. And every part in between…” (MBW)
