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 cut back their touring prices.
This week noticed a seismic shake-up within the US music rights enterprise, with the announcement that efficiency rights group BMI has been bought to personal fairness agency New Mountain Capital.
The worth tag hasn’t been disclosed, however BMI did say it will kick $100 million of the sale’s proceeds to its songwriter and writer “associates”.
One other key a part of the announcement is that CapitalG – aka Google/Alphabet’s “unbiased progress fund” – will purchase a passive minority stake in BMI.
Additionally this week, Spotify confirmed particulars of modifications coming to its payout mannequin in 2024. Among the many modifications (as MBW first reported final month) is a brand new minimal stream threshold earlier than any monitor begins producing royalties on the platform.
In the meantime, in our MBW Explains collection, we ask why Sony Music Entertainment is the one one of many three main recording corporations that hasn’t signed as much as YouTube‘s Dream Observe experiment, which makes use of AI to allow creators to clone the vocals of famous person artists. Elsewhere, MBW reported on Universal Music Group‘s submission to the US Copyright Workplace‘s discover of inquiry about copyright and AI.
Lastly, a brand new report from US market monitor Luminate, commissioned by TikTok, discovered that 62% of TikTok customers in the US pay for a music streaming subscription, in comparison with 43% of all customers.
For a while we’ve recognized that personal fairness agency New Mountain Capital (NMC) – majority-owner of music biz valuer Citrin Cooperman – has been in talks to accumulate BMI. Now it appears to be like like a accomplished deal.
NMC, which has over USD$45 billion in belongings underneath administration, confirmed on Tuesday (November 21) that it’ll “lead a shareholder group” to accumulate a majority stake in BMI.
Probably the most stunning a part of BMI’s official announcement in the present day? NMC’s ‘shareholder group’ contains an arm of Google mother or father Alphabet. CapitalG – aka Google/Alphabet’s “unbiased progress fund” – will purchase a passive minority stake within the PRO.
Moreover, BMI’s present shareholders will allocate $100 million of the proceeds of the proposed sale to songwriter, composer and writer associates “in recognition of [their] creativity” shortly after the transaction closes…
MBW broke the information final month that main modifications have been coming to Spotify‘s royalty mannequin in Q1 2024. Now Spotify has confirmed exactly what these modifications are.
The music streaming firm has printed a brand new weblog publish on Spotify for Artists introducing what it calls “new insurance policies to higher help these most depending on streaming revenues as a part of their livelihood”.
Spotify’s new insurance policies purpose to sort out three core points: (1) To “additional deter syntheticstreaming“; (2) To “higher distribute smallfunds that aren’t reaching artists”; and (3) “rein in these making an attempt to sport the system with noise”.
The streaming firm claims that by addressing these points, it will likely be capable of drive “an extra $1 billion in income towards rising {and professional} artists over the subsequent 5 years”…
On November 16, YouTube unveiled a revolutionary new experiment – ‘Dream Observe’ – enabling creators to clone the vocals, by way of AI tech and with the official consent of well-known stars.
But one thing conspicuous is lacking: any endorsement by any means from the world’s second-biggest recording firm, Sony Music Leisure, or its artists.
Sources near Sony Music’s HQ in New York have prompt to MBW that the corporate is taking an “artist-led” strategy to its experiments with any AI platform that may manipulate the work (or voice) of its roster.
Within the case of YouTube’s ‘Dream Observe‘, MBW understands, SME first supplied the chance to take part to numerous its artists, however this group didn’t present enthusiasm about collaborating…
Common Music Group has been one of the outspoken advocates for the safety of copyright amid the proliferation of AI-powered voice-mimicking, and melody, chord and lyric-generating know-how this yr.
Lately, UMG submitted a written response to the US Copyright Workplace’s Discover of Inquiry regarding synthetic intelligence and copyright.
Within the submission, UMG acknowledged that coaching AI utilizing unlicensed songs and recordings is “something however truthful use“; that’s is “adamantly against an opt-out system” for coaching AI fashions on copyrighted content material; and that it’s “prepared and keen to discover licensing content material to generative AI corporations”…
A brand new market evaluation sheds some gentle on why ByteDance-owned quick video platform TikTok has centered so intensely on increasing its companies within the music world, with the agency reporting to be a significant driver of music consumption and spending.
In keeping with the evaluation, commissioned by TikTok and carried out by US market monitor Luminate, 62% of US TikTok customers pay for a music streaming service, in comparison with 43% of all customers.
Together with each paid and ad-supported streaming companies, roughly 9 out of 10 TikTok customers in every market studied used not less than one music streaming service.
Within the US, 89% of TikTok customers subscribed to not less than one music streaming service, in comparison with 74% of general customers, whereas within the UK, 85% of TikTok customers had a streaming service account, in comparison with 62% of customers general.
The evaluation discovered that TikTok customers are additionally bigger spenders on music off-platform as nicely. By broad margins, they’re extra prone to purchase merch and attend reside reveals than the common client…
