Live Nation president and CEO Michael Rapino. Photo Credit: Live Nation

Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) has posted a slight YoY revenue decrease for Q3 2024 – including due to a 17% falloff in ticketing. However, execs appear optimistic that the DOJ’s antitrust suit could soon be in the rearview, and LYV jumped during after-hours trading.

The Ticketmaster parent posted its third-quarter financials this afternoon, amid, among other things, a high-stakes DOJ antitrust lawsuit. Predictably, given the forthcoming administration change, the topic quickly came up during Live Nation’s Q3 earnings call.

“It’s still very early in the transition process, so we’re hesitant to say too much,” relayed Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold. “But absolutely, we are hopeful that we’ll see a return to the more traditional antitrust approach. Where the agencies have generally tried to find ways to solve problems they see with targeted remedies, that minimize government intervention in the marketplace.

“And without getting into specifics, at least some parts of the case, we think – believe reflect a much more interventionist philosophy today than you’d expect of a Republican administration. Obviously, the request to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster would be an example of that highly interventionist approach. So we’ll obviously be ready to engage as soon as they are,” proceeded Berchtold.

Back to the business’s core Q3 financials – Live Nation, which has teed up an investor presentation for Wednesday, kept the conference call relatively short – overall revenue came in at $7.65 billion on the quarter (down 6% YoY), per the report.

As a pertinent aside, Live Nation revised the Q3 2023 figures as well. “For context, what we had is a non-cash, non-operating-tax adjustment that we had to make,” elaborated Berchtold. “This has to do with when we purchased Ocesa and the difference between statutory and U.S. GAAP accounting on some non-consolidated investments.

“So it was just on the U.S. side – we paid the taxes in Mexico, we missed it in the U.S. … Working through with the auditors, we made the decision, it made sense to restate those numbers,” the CFO continued.

Within Q3 2024’s revenue, concerts, as usual, led the pack with a $6.58 billion contribution (down 6% YoY); ticketing’s aforementioned 17% YoY decline resulted in a sum of $693.7 million for the quarter.

Rounding out total revenue, sponsorship and advertising reached $390.3 million in Q3 (up 6% YoY), with a loss of $13.5 million attributed to other and eliminations. On the volume front, Live Nation pointed to a 13% YoY hike to approximately 40,000 Q3 events, “fueled by arenas and amphitheaters and double-digit growth in theater and club shows.”

Notwithstanding the revenue dips, though, Live Nation adjusted operating income neared $910 million during Q3 2024 – up 4% YoY, including a 39% YoY spike for concerts to a “record” $474.1 million, the breakdown shows. Nevertheless, ticketing’s operating income slipped roughly 33% YoY to $235.7 million, the resource relays.

Shifting to Live Nation’s performance across 2024’s initial nine months, total revenue grew 3% YoY to $17.47 billion, $14.45 billion of which stemmed from concerts (up 4% YoY), the document indicates.

Lastly, CEO Michael Rapino took the opportunity to predict “an even bigger 2025” for Live Nation, shares in which were up 6.1%, at about $130 a pop, during after-hours trading at the time of writing.

The Euronext Amsterdam building. Photo Credit: Bootuitjes

Billionaire businessman Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square has a long history of investor activism – but can it compel Universal Music Group to exit the Euronext Amsterdam?

As things stand, the major label appears to maintain that the answer is “no.” We previously explored the multifaceted situation at length, including details pertaining to Pershing Square’s UMG ownership (which currently sits at 10.25% and, for a time years back, was expected to involve a SPAC play), the push for a pivot from the Euronext Amsterdam, and UMG’s response.

“Pershing has the right to request a listing in the US subject to a Pershing entity selling at least $500 million in UMG shares as part of the listing,” Universal Music spelled out in a formal release. “Pershing does not have any right to require UMG to become a US domiciled company or delist from Euronext Amsterdam.”

(In his initial tweet on the subject, Ackman, who’s also pursuing Pershing Square Holdings’ departure from the Euronext Amsterdam, confirmed plans to spearhead Universal Music’s U.S. listing “no later than some time next year” in any event.)

The leading label intends to “endeavor in good faith to comply with its contractual obligations with respect to undertaking the process of a US listing at the request of Pershing,” per the straightforward remarks.

However, any non-contractually-obligated decisions regarding UMG’s country of domicile and more “will be based on an analysis taking into account what is value maximizing and in the best interests of all the shareholders of the company.”

In other words, Universal Music isn’t quite on board at present – though it’s worth reiterating a couple key points on this front.

First, the UMG board member Ackman emphasized the “highly material benefits” of shifting the music company to the States and attributed the business’s stock-price woes in part to its listing status.

“UMG trades at a large discount to its intrinsic value with limited liquidity in significant part due to it not having its primary listing on the @NYSE or @NasdaqExchange and not being eligible for S&P 500 and other index inclusion,” Ackman relayed on X.

We’ve already covered those stock-price woes extensively – referring to a roughly 20% falloff between UMG’s peak over the summer and its present value. Particularly into the new year, it’ll be interesting to see if a possible resolution lies at the intersection of Ackman’s goal and the business’s inherent objective of maximizing shareholder value.

Next, the prior activist-investor maneuvers of Ackman and Pershing Square are insightful.

There’s ample ground to cover here, with a whole lot having changed since the 2000s. But perhaps the most pertinent example can be found in the decades-old spinoff of Tim Hortons from Wendy’s.

“Back then – because we couldn’t get a return phone call,” Ackman explained in a Bloomberg interview. “We were a tiny little fund circa 2004, we hired Blackstone, which had an investment bank at the time. And we hired them to put together a fairness opinion, if you will, of what Wendy’s would be worth if they spun off Tim Hortons.

“And then we wrote a letter to the board, we attached the Blackstone valuation (which was nearly double where the stock was trading). And then six weeks later, magically they spun off Tim Hortons,” he proceeded.

As highlighted, there’s a lot more to chart in this area – with the bigger takeaway being that Ackman and Pershing Square have a track record of successful activist-investor moves. Time will tell whether that track record translates into a big shift (geographical and otherwise) for UMG.

Hipgnosis has revealed a nearly $1.5 billion asset-backed securitization (ABS). Photo Credit: Hipgnosis

Another day, yet another asset-backed securitization – this time from Blackstone’s Hipgnosis, which has formally announced a $1.47 billion deal.

The appropriate catalog investor reached out with word of the securitization, which arrives on the heels of similar moves from Concord as well as Duetti. However, as many know, the newest ABS also follows a hard-fought battle for Hipgnosis Songs Fund, or the Merck Mercuriadis-founded fund that scooped up all manner of prominent song rights during a much-publicized landgrab.

Multiple twists and turns later, the Hipgnosis Songs Fund saga concluded earlier this year, when Blackstone topped the aforementioned Concord with a roughly $1.6 billion bid to take the company private.

Royalties from the over 45,000-track catalog in question, featuring works from Neil Young, Christine McVie, Rodney Jerkins, Dierks Bentley, and more, are backing the $1.47 billion ABS, per Blackstone and Hipgnosis.

(Technically, several other high-profile catalog deals, including with the likes of Justin Bieber, were spearheaded by Hipgnosis Song Management, which had been under Blackstone’s control long before the HSF privatization. Those distinct song rights don’t appear to have factored into today’s asset-backed securitization, though HSM itself rolled out a smaller ABS back in August 2022.)

As we’ve charted in detail, a surprising number of Hipgnosis entities, including but definitely not limited to the main Hipgnosis Songs Fund as well as its Hipgnosis Song Management “investment advisor,” were making moves at the brand’s peak.

But with the take-private dust having largely settled, and with Blackstone now fully behind each of the involved companies, the release pertaining to the securitization refers to the overarching operation simply as “Hipgnosis.”

Returning to the actual MUFG Securities-structured ABS, the notes at hand, having received an A- rating from KBRA, attracted 25 investors, per Hipgnosis and Blackstone.

Therefore representing “one of the most diversified ABS issuance for music rights to date,” the securitization will enable Hipgnosis to pay down “existing debt in full and support future acquisitions,” higher-ups indicated.

“With this ABS refinancing completed,” Hipgnosis CEO Ben Katovsky and CFO Dan Pounder elaborated in a joint statement, “we will continue to work on expanding the investor base with further institutionalisation of the asset class leveraging Hipgnosis’ proprietary technology and data analytics platform across underwriting, monitoring and reporting.”

On the debt front, the previously highlighted Hipgnosis Songs Fund buyout also saw Blackstone assume the company’s sizable pile of debt, which had prevented the business from exploring additional IP purchases (and complicated operations in different ways) for some time before it was taken private.

And when it comes to future acquisitions, it will, of course, be interesting to see which bodies of work Hipgnosis buys down the line. As things stand, the sub-sector is populated by more deep-pocketed potential purchasers than ever, and Hipgnosis remains entangled in an ugly payments-related battle with Barry Manilow.

In one of early November’s music industry hires and promotions, WK Records named Azucena Olvera (pictured) general manager. Photo Credit: WK

Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of November 8th, 2024.

If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com. And, keep track of all the latest music industry hires here.

SongVest

SongVest has brought PledgeMusic co-founder Jayce Varden aboard as chief strategy officer.

WK Records

SiriusXM and Pandora vet Azucena Olvera has signed on as WK Records’ general manager.

Warner Chappell Music Benelux

Lekeisha Irion, who joined WCM Benelux in early 2023, has been elevated to A&R head.

iHeartMedia

Besides moving to lay off hundreds of employees, iHeartMedia is upping multiple team members: Steve DeLusant (a longtime iHeart sales exec) has been tapped as region president for New York, and Adam Kurtz (who’s been Chicago’s SVP of sales for about seven years) is holding the same role in the Windy City.

Musixmatch

Musixmatch has promoted both Vevo founder Rio Caraeff (previously chief business officer) and Uber vet Marco Paglia (formerly chief product officer) to co-president.

AEG Global

AEG Global Partnerships has enlisted former OUTFRONT Media sales higher-up Brenda Cruz to serve as senior director of global partnerships for out of home.

Sony Music Publishing

Sony Music Publishing’s Racheal Conte, who’s been part of the company since 2012, has been raised to VP of sample clearance, legal, and business affairs.

Songwriters Hall of Fame

Nile Rodgers has been reelected as chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which has also confirmed CFO and treasurer Tom Kelly, secretary Mary Jo Mennella, and deputy secretary Linda Buckley to fresh terms.

Lastly, SVPs David Israelite (NMPA), Elizabeth Matthews (ASCAP), and Mike O’Neill (BMI) have likewise been reelected.

Gigantic Tickets

The U.K.’s Gigantic Tickets has made three promotions: nine-year exec Simon Carpenter is now co-CEO and a board director, lead web developer Joe Lilley is officially co-CTO, and Kelly McKinney has been bumped from event manager to operations head.

Deezer

Deezer has boosted content director Pedro Kurtz to operations director for the Americas.

Reliant

Reliant Talent Agency has hired former Paradigm booking agent Keith Richards as a festival agent.

Additionally, the firm has promoted senior agents Ron Kaplan and Garry Buck to EVP, while booking coordinators Robert Baugh, Cole Speed, and Kailey Edgerton have become agents.

Atlantic Music Group

Homemade Projects president Alana Dolgin has joined Atlantic Music as its first president of digital marketing.

Photo Credit: Filipe Vicente / Setor VIP

Merry Christmas, Mariah Carey: A federal judge is reportedly partial to tossing a copyright infringement action centering on “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

That interesting development just recently entered the media spotlight, after one Andy Stone first sued back in 2022. DMN has tracked the courtroom confrontation every step of the way since then – including when the initial filing was dismissed and then followed by a substantially similar complaint (submitted this time in California) in November 2023.

According to the straightforward newer suit, Stone, a Louisiana-based artist known professionally as Vince Vance, co-wrote a work called “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Penned in 1988, recorded sometime thereafter, and released the following year, the country effort is, of course, distinct from Carey’s perennial holiday hit.

With the other songwriter on the less-famous “All I Want for Christmas Is You” also aboard as a plaintiff, the suit maintains that Carey’s 1994 release of the same name lifted several elements without authorization.

Among other things, this alleged infringement encompasses the “compositional structure of an extended comparison between a loved one and trappings of seasonal luxury, and further includes several of Plaintiffs’ lyrical phrases,” per the text.

Unsurprisingly, one of these lyrical phrases is “all I want for Christmas is you,” according to the appropriate track and the action, which explores the Carey release’s commercial prominence, the works’ purported technical overlap (“the songs share a similar syncopated chord pattern”), and a whole lot else.

Now, with the holiday season as well as the “All I Want for Christmas Is You” machine ramping up, the presiding judge could be preparing to toss the case altogether.

As laid out in the latest legal documents, both sides are seeking summary judgement, with the defendants urging the court to grant a sanctions motion to boot.

“Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment is also frivolous because it makes arguments that could not plausibly satisfy the extrinsic test as a matter of law on the record here,” the sanctions push reads in part. “For example, Plaintiffs’ experts failed to analyze prior art and failed to distinguish between protectable and unprotectable elements of expression.”

Moving beyond the multifaceted particulars of these arguments, Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani is “inclined” to grant summary judgement and do away with the case, per Rolling Stone.

More interesting yet – stated bluntly, it’s hardly uncommon for infringement battles to come and go in the contemporary music space – the court is reportedly weighing in earnest the defendants’ sought sanctions over the allegedly “frivolous” suit.

At the time of this writing, a related order hadn’t made its way into the docket, and it remains to be seen whether sanctions are actually in the cards. However, against the backdrop of allegedly questionable copyright complaints – and, in some instances, related trials – empowering defendants to pursue damages for allegedly meritless actions could have far-reaching consequences.

A live performance from SZA, whose SOS, despite having debuted in late 2022, generated the most Q3 2024 revenue of any Sony Music release. Photo Credit: Erin Cazes

Sony Music achieved double-digit YoY revenue growth in Q3 2024 thanks in part to a relatively strong streaming showing as well as an over 22% spike in physical sales.

Those and other performance particulars for July, August, and September of 2024 (the second fiscal quarter) came to light in a newly released earnings report from the overarching Sony Group Corp. All told, the conglomerate attributed about $2.91 billion (¥444 billion) in external sales to its music operations for the three-month stretch, up 11.18% YoY.

As usual, though, that multifaceted sum includes the “visual media and platform” segment, itself consisting of mobile gaming and more. Excluding this industry-adjacent contribution, Sony Music revenue came in at $2.50 billion (¥381.77 billion) in calendar Q3, up closer to 13.46% YoY.

(Also worth reiterating is that Sony Music collects revenue in a number of currencies and reports in yen, with a sizable average Q3 exchange rate of $1 to ¥149.5 pinpointed in the report.)

Behind the sum, recorded music streaming revenue finished at $1.24 billion (¥189.47 billion), up 8.98% YoY, according to the Sony Music earnings report, as recorded music physical sales delivered $167.07 million (¥25.48 billion), a YoY increase of 22.26%.

For further context, Sony Music artists’ top Q3 releases by recorded revenue were SZA’s SOS (2022), David Gilmour’s Luck and Strange (2024), Travis Scott’s Utopia (2023), Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You (2024), Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter (2024), and Harry Styles’ Harry’s House (2022), respectively.

Bearing in mind the presence of a few years-old projects on the list, Sony Music reiterated the U.S. recorded music market’s 73% catalog-consumption rate (referring specifically to the listenership share behind projects at least 18 months old).

Building on the point, higher-ups confirmed they’re looking to capitalize on NIL rights by pursuing “additional monetization opportunities such as merchandising and experiential live events that use these rights.”

Returning to the core financials, Sony Music Publishing revenue for 2024’s third quarter was $600.63 million (¥91.53 billion), up 10.65% YoY. Therein, streaming accounted for $347 million or so (¥52.93 billion), a 9.28% YoY jump.

Overall, Sony Music’s Q3 operating income reached $592.21 million (¥90.36 billion), an 11.56% YoY boost. However, visual media and platform kicked in “slightly less than 20%” of the figure, per the breakdown.

Late last month, Universal Music Group posted its own calendar Q3 financials, and Warner Music Group is set to unveil its performance data for the same period (the fourth quarter of its fiscal year) on Thursday, November 21st.

Spotify stock has cracked $400 per share for the first time, and all eyes are now on the business’s upcoming Q3 2024 earnings report.

Spotify shares (NYSE: SPOT) have officially cracked a record high of over $400 apiece. Now, days out from a much-anticipated Q3 earnings report, will the stock rise even higher?

A number of analysts seem to think so, with several decidedly bullish target prices having been disclosed in the past week or so alone. The last time Spotify stock neared the elusive $400-per-share price point (and saw target prices predicting continued growth yet) was way back in early 2021, amid a Joe Rogan Experience-fueled valuation surge.

However, for reasons including profitability woes and broader market trends, SPOT not only failed to jump past $400 at the time, but proceeded to embark on a downward spiral that ultimately brought it to the low-$70s the following year. Shares then rode gradual momentum through the $100s during 2023, amid the beginning of an aggressive focus on operational efficiency.

Stated differently, Spotify ceased dropping cash on all manner of companies and content, instead prioritizing profitability. Having brought on a new CFO earlier in 2024, CEO Daniel Ek is adamant that this focus on remaining in the black is here to stay.

Among other things, the retooled approach means there’s more than ever riding on quarterly subscription figures and profit margins – a point worth keeping in mind as Spotify prepares to post its Q3 financials next Tuesday, November 12th.

With all that said, many maintain that SPOT’s best days are ahead. That includes The Motley Fool analyst Travis Hoium, who believes Spotify will “beat the market over the next five years” and could have “10x potential” moving forward.

“With the help of advertisements, growth in podcasts, growth in video, I think Spotify could grow revenue double digits and expand margins over the next decade,” Hoium said.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley has set a $430 SPOT target price, while Deutsche Bank yesterday opted for a $440-per-share target due to anticipated subscriber gains, expansions in audiobooks and more, and the perceived potential for price increases in emerging markets.

Lastly, Rosenblatt Securities recently settled on a $438 Spotify stock target, and KeyBanc Capital Markets, not stopping there, decided on an astonishing $490 SPOT target.

Of course, time will tell whether the forecasts prove accurate – with quite a lot riding on Spotify’s Q3 earnings as mentioned above. Already, though, Spotify’s market cap has surpassed a whopping $80 billion or so; shares were hovering around the $400 mark at the time of writing. At the current dollar-euro exchange rate, that’s approximately $34 billion larger than the market cap of today’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group.

A Hot Girl Summer Tour performance from Megan Thee Stallion, who, along with GloRilla and others, is facing a copyright infringement suit centering on ‘Wanna Be.’ Photo Credit: Live Nation

Copyright infringement stemming from a sample within a sample? Rapper Plies is suing GloRilla, Megan Thee Stallion, Soulja Boy, and Cardi B for allegedly using his work in multiple tracks without authorization.

Plies (who owns Slip-N-Slide Records, per the complaint) and several others with credits on “Me & My Goons” (2008) submitted the action to a California federal court. Besides the noted artists, the long list of defendants includes Universal Music Group, its Interscope Records, and Megan Thee Stallion’s Hot Girl Productions, to name a few.

Diving straight into the claims, Plies dropped his third studio album, Da REAList, via Slip-N-Slide back in December 2008. Running 65 minutes, the project includes the mentioned “Me & My Goons” as its opening track.

As described in the firmly worded suit, Soulja Boy lifted without permission “substantial elements” of “Me & My Goons” in 2010’s “Pretty Boy Swag.” The relatively concise legal text doesn’t appear to dive into exactly why Plies and his team didn’t call out this alleged infringement at once.

However, it does maintain that the newer song, more than briefly sampling the older effort, “interpolated, replayed, and/or reproduced distinctive and protected elements of the underlying” creation at hand.

And while it perhaps goes without saying given the complaint, Plies is taking issue with the allegedly unapproved usage.

Contrasting most of the industry’s other unauthorized-sample lawsuits, though, that usage allegedly laid the groundwork for additional infringement yet. Earlier in 2024, Soulja Boy “authorized” Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla to sample “Pretty Boy Swag,” according to Plies.

Consequently, the situation became even more involved when Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla released the resulting song, “Wanna Be,” this past April. Like (or more specifically via) “Pretty Boy Swag,” that work features elements of “Me & My Goons” without permission, the filing parties allege – as does the “Wanna Be” remix from the same two artists as well as Cardi B, per Plies.

Predictably, pre-action discussions didn’t produce the desired resolution for the plaintiffs, who say the defendants have thus far “failed to take corrective actions, including offering compensation, credit, or otherwise resolving the matter.”

All told, Plies and his collaborators, suing for vicarious and contributory infringement alike, believe the alleged unauthorized usages have fueled lost payments, damage to Plies’ “reputation and goodwill in the music industry,” and more.

Closer to the top of 2024, Travis Scott was slapped with a sample-centered infringement complaint. Meanwhile, Daddy Yankee and the Black Eyed Peas are grappling with a separate sample-focused infringement suit, which is still in full swing after the defendants in September denied the allegations.

A new ‘Share to TikTok’ feature is enabling users to post and message to the short-form app about tracks from Spotify as well as Apple Music. Photo Credit: Spotify

It just got even easier for fans to share music on TikTok – according to the ByteDance-owned app itself, which has unveiled fresh integrations with Spotify as well as Apple Music.

A Spotify rep reached out today with word of the appropriate tie-up, and TikTok disclosed both integrations via a formal release. Said integrations have arrived about one year after TikTok debuted an “Add to Music App” feature.

As its name suggests, that feature, expanded late last month, enables TikTokers to save music from the app directly to playlists on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

To put it mildly, quite a lot has changed during the past year. A now-resolved TikTok-Universal Music licensing dispute has made way for an ugly battle between TikTok and indies, for instance, and major-label artists’ TikTok initiatives are still in full swing.

Furthermore, the video-sharing app has abandoned its music-streaming ambitions by shutting down the standalone TikTok Music service. Needless to say, the move certainly didn’t hurt TikTok’s relationship with Apple Music and Spotify, which have one less competitor in emerging markets.

Building on those pertinent background details, Spotify users on iOS and Android can plug tracks, playlists, whole albums, podcasts, and audiobooks to TikTok via the music service’s “share” option.

That includes sending tracks via TikTok DMs or posting them to the main feed; different TikTokers are then able to access the works (the media at hand will open in Spotify, of course) with a tap of their own, and the same is true when it comes to Apple Music.

In a statement, TikTok and ByteDance global head of music business development Ole Obermann pointed to “hundreds of millions of track saves and billions of streams” for Add to Music App on third-party platforms.

“Today’s launch of ‘Share to TikTok’ is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to support music discovery and artist promotion in partnership with music streaming services,” the former Warner Music exec Obermann communicated.

“Since its launch, ‘Add To Music App’ has already been responsible for hundreds of millions of track saves and billions of streams on our partner music streaming services. ‘Share to TikTok’ takes the user experience full circle, and will be an amazing way of promoting artists and tracks to the TikTok community,” he finished.

Notwithstanding its growing list of operational hurdles, TikTok remains popular – so it’ll be interesting to monitor Share to TikTok’s effectiveness in driving streams and especially new listeners moving forward.

Bigger picture, TikTok’s expanded Apple Music and Spotify partnerships represent two of many ongoing integrations at the intersection of the social media and music worlds; Instagram in October rolled out an “Add Song to Spotify” feature through which users can save on-platform tracks to the streaming service.

(Spotify head Daniel Ek and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in August penned a joint letter to EU regulators and lawmakers decrying the perceived “fragmented regulatory structure” surrounding AI in Europe.)

To be sure, the past year has seen TikTok quietly score deals with Ticketmaster (specifically an expansion of a prior agreement), AXS, CTS Eventim, and Eventbrite alike.

Discord-focused fanbase-development and -monetization startup Levellr has announced a $1.75 million raise, brought on a new chairman, and disclosed expansion plans for 2025. Photo Credit: Alexander Shatov

About 14 months after scoring a $1 million pre-seed round, Discord-focused fanbase-development startup Levellr has announced a $1.75 million raise.

London-headquartered Levellr, which says its north of 65 clients include both Warner Music and Universal Music, just recently disclosed the newer capital influx. According to the three-year-old business, execs from companies including Riot Games, Amazon, and Discord itself participated in the round and are poised to provide valuable “insights and connections” moving forward.

Now with 22 team members across the U.S. and Europe, Levellr says it intends to take its operations “to the next level” with the fresh funding. Those plans include forthcoming support (expected to arrive sometime next year) for Reddit. As things stand, Levellr software integrates directly into Discord and Telegram, per higher-ups.

Closer to the present, SuperAwesome founder Dylan Collins has come aboard as chairman. Elaborating on the move in a long-form LinkedIn post, Collins touched on the perceived commercial potential of Discord for brands.

“The ‘why Levellr?’ question is maybe best answered with ‘why Discord?’,” Collins wrote in part. “Discord continues to grow (now ~200m MAU), especially in interesting verticals (gaming, music, sport, crypto, AI) but fundamentally propelled by the Gen Z/Alpha demographic rotation*** which is still early.”

Bringing the focus back to the core industry, different platforms with generally young userbases, chief among them Roblox, have proven lucrative on multiple levels in recent years.

Coldplay made its way into the digital world with a promotional effort last month, but October’s headlines weren’t entirely positive for Roblox. And Fortnite, the userbase of which is reportedly a bit older than Roblox’s, has welcomed Weezer, Snoop Dogg, and several other artists during the past month alone.

Meanwhile, the broader superfan-monetization space – based on Levellr’s declaration that “a Discord user can be six times more valuable than a non-Discord user,” there’s considerable overlap here – is receiving more attention than ever from the music sphere.

At the points’ intersection, August saw Amazon Music dive into Discord with a “Listening Party” activity. Additional fanbase-development strategies yet, on Discord and elsewhere, are presumably forthcoming in the final stretch of 2024 and particularly the new year.

As of November 6th, 2024, Universal Music Group stock remains down over 20% from its value in early May.

About one week removed from the release of its Q3 2024 earnings report, Universal Music Group is still struggling on the stock-price front – raising questions about, among other things, its streaming-growth trajectory.

When the market closed today, Universal Music Group stock (UMG on the Euronext Amsterdam) was worth $24.80 (€23.12) per share. That price is essentially flat from the past month but remains nearly 21% beneath where UMG stood six months ago.

Of course, quite a lot has changed in the last half of a year. To be sure, May brought the end of a much-publicized licensing showdown between Universal Music and TikTok, but the high-stakes dispute is little more than a distant memory now.

Despite these and a variety of other developments, however, UMG’s initial share-price plummet can be traced to the company’s Q2 2024 earnings announcement. As we reported at the time, concerns of a streaming plateau, apparently fueled by a subscription-growth slowdown in the second quarter, set in motion a double-digit price decline for the stock.

That decline has yet to reverse following not just UMG’s Q3 2024 earnings report – more on this in a moment – but an aggressive revenue forecast detailed by execs during their 2024 Capital Markets Day presentation. Running through 2028’s end, this forecast refers to anticipated 8% to 10% compound annual growth for subscription revenue.

At the intersection of the stock-price slip, the forecast, and the widely known importance of streaming in the contemporary music space, then, UMG shares’ path forward is tied to subscription revenue in several ways.

Following the point to its logical conclusion, will Universal Music’s aggressive paid-listening forecast prove accurate?

While only time will reveal a definitive answer for the coming four years, we don’t lack insight at present. First, at least as things stand, UMG hasn’t quite met the ambitious forecast; recorded music subscription revenue grew 7.6% YoY to $1.22 billion (€1.14 billion) in Q3 2024, up from Q2’s YoY expansion but beneath the sought minimum 8% CAGR.

Next, execs haven’t hesitated to describe (at the aforementioned Capital Markets Day presentation and during the more recent Q3 earnings call) how they believe the growth will come to fruition. At the top level, CEO Lucian Grainge emphasized his high hopes for an ongoing “Streaming 2.0” initiative, with plans to provide “further updates in the weeks and months ahead.”

It will, of course, be interesting to see what those updates entail. Already, Hybe-partnered UMG hasn’t hesitated to spell out that enhanced superfan monetization, seemingly via targeted artist-specific offerings as well as more expensive streaming tiers, is a big part of the strategy.

Could that be enough to drive the targeted subscription CAGR, particularly given the company’s substantial market penetration? Once again, only time will tell – though it’s worth reiterating that UMG believes approximately 20% of current streaming subscribers are willing to pay for a higher-priced “Premium” tier, per COO Boyd Muir.

Finally, execs have indicated that they’re banking on a sizable piece of the CAGR coming from continued subscriber-base expansions. In other words, there’s an ongoing effort to simultaneously reach new subscribers and compel existing paid users to cough up more for extra features, with high stakes for the business’s market value.

Katseye, the international girl group formed jointly by Geffen and Hybe. Photo Credit: TV Ten

Are K-pop fans getting tired of K-pop music? Hybe has revealed rocky Q3 2024 financials, including a nearly 19% YoY slip in recorded music revenue as well as a 98.6% YoY net profit falloff.

The professional home of BTS, NewJeans, and Seventeen posted those financials in Korean as well as English today. According to the resource, Hybe’s Q3 2024 revenue approached $376.98 million (₩527.85 billion), down 1.9% YoY and close to 18% quarterly.

Within the sum, the aforementioned recorded music category suffered an 18.8% YoY decrease to $153.21 million (₩214.49 billion); the quarter’s relatively light release schedule included Enhypen’s Romance: Untold, Le Sserafim’s Crazy EP, and a debut EP entitled SIS (Soft Is Strong) from Geffen and Hybe’s jointly developed Katseye girl group.

(With physical remaining decidedly strong in the K-pop world, about one-third of total recorded music sales derived from streaming, per execs.)

Next, concerts revenue dipped 14.8% YoY to $52.85 million (₩73.99 billion), the breakdown shows, while ads and appearances rounded out the “artist-direct” category with a 9.8% YoY improvement to $24.64 million (₩34.50 billion). (BTS’ Jin, having completed his mandatory military service in mid-June, made a substantial contribution to the latter category, CEO Lee Jae-sang said during Hybe’s earnings call.)

But Q3 wasn’t free of positives for Hybe: Merchandise and licensing revenue jumped 15.7% YoY to $70.73 million (₩99.14 billion), “contents” revenue spiked 63.6% YoY to $56.90 million (₩79.76 billion), and Hybe’s Weverse superfan platform drove 23.4% YoY growth in the fan-club category ($18.54 million/₩25.97 billion total).

Now with 9.7 million monthly active users, Weverse rolled out several features and appearance-related improvements in Q3 and is beginning to lean aggressively into advertising, higher-ups explained in more words. A label-focused subscription membership, with VOD downloads, ad-free use, and different features, is in the works as well.

Lastly, in terms of core financials, Hybe’s Q3 2024 operating profit fell 25.4% YoY to $36.68 million/₩54.19 billion; the previously highlighted net profit came in at $1.03 million (₩1.44 billion), according to the report.

Returning to the initially mentioned question – are K-pop fans getting tired of K-pop music? – the top-level answer, as demonstrated by the ongoing sales attributable to new releases, appears to be “no.”

However, execs have for some time acknowledged a need to diversify beyond the genre, hence Hybe’s purchase of Exile Music, Quality Control, and more. Running with the point, the Latin-focused Exile is preparing to debut a “localized” act, Hybe indicated during the Q3 earnings call, and a growing list of non-K-pop artists are joining Weverse.

Also tied to Q4 are a variety of album and EP releases for Hybe. Seventeen kicked off the fourth quarter by dropping Spill the Feels last month, Enhypen’s teed up a “repackaged edition” of its second album for November 11th, and Jin’s debut solo album (entitled Happy) is set to release on the 15th, to name a few.

Plus, as of this coming June, all seven BTS members will have completed their military service, the company emphasized. During today’s trading, Hybe stock (KRX: 352820) was essentially flat at $144.35/₩202,000 per share.

GEMA has officially published a collection of 10 AI principles. Photo Credit: Markus Spiske

About two weeks after disclosing new details about its licensing framework for generative AI, GEMA has now unveiled an official “AI charter.”

The Berlin-based society reached out with that 10-principle charter today. Previously, September saw GEMA outline an ambitious royalties framework for music created via generative AI – complete with derivative-track compensation for professionals whose works trained the underlying models.

That set the stage for the initially mentioned late-October details as well as the just-published AI charter. Importantly, said charter isn’t an in-depth collection of detail-oriented policy proposals. By GEMA’s own description, the concise resource “shall serve as food for thought and provide guidelines for a responsible use of generative AI.”

Running with the point, at least a few of the principles reiterate general ideas. “Generative AI is obligated to the well-being of people,” the first principle reads, with the second underscoring that “intellectual property rights are protected” notwithstanding the unprecedented technology at hand.

But the third principle explores in relative detail what’s perhaps the most significant element of GEMA’s generative AI compensation model. Not limiting its vision to once-off training payments, the entity believes creators and rightsholders should receive a piece of derivative tracks’ royalties and long-term revenue to boot.

“On the contrary,” this section reads in part, “the economic advantages must be considered which arise through AI content being generated (e.g. income from subscriptions) and are achieved in the market through ensuing exploitation (e.g. as background music or AI generated music on music platforms on the internet).

“In addition, the competitive situation with the works created by people must be taken into consideration. After all, these very works made AI content possible in the first place. This also must apply in cases where synthetic data was used for training the AI. Synthetic data are, in turn, based on works created by people whose creative power continues in such content when generating AI music,” the relevant text proceeds.

The remaining principles touch on well-treaded (albeit meaningful) areas including the need for generative AI training transparency and NIL protections against unauthorized soundalike works. (In the States, many in the industry are advocating for the related NO FAKES Act, which arrived in Congress earlier in 2024 and would establish a federal right of publicity.)

Plus, bearing in mind the ongoing implementation of the sweeping AI Act and the European Union’s unique regulatory environment, any company offering “AI systems that will be rolled out in the EU or that affect people in the EU must stick to the EU regulations,” another principle emphasizes.

Lastly, in terms of brass-tacks takeaways, sizable AI players must engage in “collective negotiations” with rightsholders, per GEMA. “The large digital corporations must find their way back to respecting copyright,” the “negotiations at eye level” principle states.

While it perhaps goes without saying, outlining plans to secure rightsholder compensation from generative AI is only the first of several involved steps. But especially because multiple artificial intelligence companies are adamant that training on protected materials constitutes fair use, it’ll be worth closely monitoring the effort – besides different regulatory pushes and ongoing litigation.

Core music industry funding increased in October 2024, but the YTD total is noticeably smaller than its 2023 counterpart. Photo Credit: Vladimir Solomianyi

Core music industry funding achieved a significant year-over-year increase during October, though the YTD total remains well beneath its 2023 counterpart, according to an analysis of DMN Pro data.

These and other valuable takeaways come specifically from the Music Industry Funding Tracker, DMN Pro’s searchable, filterable database of funding rounds from in and around the industry. Previously, we crunched the numbers and identified a substantial Q3 2024 industry-funding falloff from the same three-month period in 2023.

But at least when it comes to the core music space, the trend let up during Q4 2024’s first month, which delivered seven raises worth a cumulative $1.13 billion or so. Technically, that’s lower than the $2.02 billion (courtesy of six rounds) attributable to October 2023.

However, as noted, the comprehensive resource compiles pertinent industry-adjacent rounds as well – like the $2 billion that Anthropic scored in October 2023. Minus the AI giant’s massive contribution, the month’s industry funding came in at $24.03 million last year. (Additionally, Lounges.tv didn’t publicly attach a value to its October 2023 raise.)

By contrast, just one of October 2024’s raises, Twitter/X competitor Bluesky’s $15 million Series A, fell outside the core industry. Of course, that round is materially smaller than Anthropic’s $2 billion capital commitment from October 2023.

Is the funding boost a sign of things to come during the remainder of 2024 and possibly the new year? While we can’t say for certain at present, that doesn’t mean we’re without telling insights.

Focusing on the bigger picture, music IP investments are here to stay. Though that won’t necessarily come as a surprise (especially given 2024’s steady stream of high-profile catalog purchases), it’s worth pointing out because there are only so many bodies of work for buyers to bet on. Despite an increasingly large pile of wrapped song-rights purchases, capital is continuing to pour into the sub-sector.

For October 2024 alone, that refers to nearly $1 billion in total proceeds from the asset-backed securitizations of Concord ($850 million) and Duetti ($80 million on top of a $34 million equity raise). Earlier in 2024, the likes of Iconic Artists Group ($1 billion) and Duetti (this time a $90 million venture round) unveiled separate raises.

To underscore the obvious, catalog-earmarked capital must wind up somewhere – with additional deals yet presumably forthcoming in 2025 and beyond. On the other hand, it’s unclear whether this type of publicly disclosed music industry funding, already in the billions in a year that’s seen a YoY decline in cumulative raises, will approach the same level next year.

Closing with a quick look at where overall YTD music industry funding sits through October, total raises (adjacent and otherwise) as registered by the Music Industry Funding Tracker are down about 68.4% YoY, at $3.16 billion from just shy of $10 billion in January-October 2023.

A performance from Post Malone, one of the many Universal Music artists whose works have allegedly been infringed upon by Believe. Photo Credit: Adam Bielawski

Yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) slapped Believe and its TuneCore subsidiary with a massive copyright infringement action. Here’s a closer look at the over $500 million complaint – and the defendants’ alleged “illegal actions.”

DMN first reported on the straightforward suit moments after its filing in a New York federal court. Just to recap, the 34-page complaint accuses Believe as well as its TuneCore distributor of failing to vet third parties’ allegedly infringing works, distributing them to DSPs such as YouTube anyway, and “wrongfully” collecting certain royalties to boot.

While it perhaps goes without saying given the half-billion-dollar damages payment sought by UMG, the alleged infringement encompasses all manner of commercially prominent works. The latter include but definitely aren’t limited to recordings from the Bee Gees, Daddy Yankee, Elton John, Lil Wayne, and Weezer.

Believe’s Alleged Infringement At a Glance: “Modified Versions,” Unauthorized “Remixes,” and More Distributed “Without Any Effective Review to Identify Infringing Copies”

Beginning on the core distribution side – adjacent allegations extend a bit further than that – Believe and TuneCore have “relentlessly pursued the goal of distributing as many tracks as possible,” per the plaintiffs.

For Paris-headquartered Believe, that refers to a purported practice of distributing “the tracks it receives (including those from questionable sources with no prior history of creating sound recordings)” sans infringement-related due diligence, according to the legal text.

“Many” of the “obviously infringing tracks” at hand “are ‘sped up’ versions of Plaintiffs’ popular recordings,” the suit indicates.

“Believe is well aware that such tracks are popular on certain digital services and are more likely to evade the checks that digital music services use to detect infringing material on their platforms,” according to UMG.

Nevertheless, Believe “has derived a direct financial benefit attributable to the infringement” when it comes to terms that “entitle it to retain a percentage of” the allegedly infringing songs’ streaming royalties.

All told, “the infringing tracks distributed and purportedly licensed by Believe have been streamed (i.e., publicly performed), downloaded or reproduced in videos hundreds of millions of times across the digital music ecosystem on a wide variety of digital music services,” UMG maintains.

Content ID Shenanigans? Believe “Compounded” Alleged “Unlawful Conduct” via False Claims on YouTube, Lawsuit Shows

Not stopping there, Universal Music is further accusing Believe of compounding alleged “unlawful” distribution conduct via “spurious assertions of copyright ownership” on YouTube.

“In numerous cases,” some of the relevant lines read, “Believe has used YouTube’s Content ID system to claim copyright ownership in Plaintiffs’ owned or distributed recordings embodied in tracks Believe distributed to YouTube.” That includes “numerous instances where” a work “was simply an infringing copy of” a UMG recording, per the plaintiffs.

Consequently, Believe has allegedly forced Universal Music “to incur the burden and expense of routinely contesting Believe’s incorrect claims of ownership.” And as described by Universal Music, “Believe did not even contest” the appropriate claims in many instances.

In those situations, however, the defendants did allegedly proceed “to distribute and purport to license the exact same tracks to other digital music services,” continuing “to collect royalties on those tracks from these other providers,” the suit spells out.

Believe Fires Back Against Universal Music’s Lawsuit: “We Strongly Refute These Claims”

DMN reached out to Believe – which, in the not-so-distant past, looked as though it might become a subsidiary of Warner Music Group – and received a to-the-point comment attributed to a company spokesperson.

“Believe and TuneCore do not comment on pending litigation,” said Believe spokesperson relayed. “As companies that work with artists and labels around the world, we take the respect of copyright very seriously. We strongly refute these claims, and the statements made by Universal Music Group and will fight them.

“We have developed robust tools and processes to tackle this industrywide challenge, working collaboratively with partners and peers and will continue to do so. We have been at the forefront of the digital music ecosystem for nearly 20 years, supporting the development of independent artists and labels, and have been awarded Tier 1 status and included in the Preferred Partner Program across all music stores,” the expansion-minded business concluded.

Quincy Jones has passed away at 91. Photo Credit: Canadian Film Centre

Veteran producer and longtime industry figure Quincy Jones has passed away at the age of 91.

Quincy Jones’ team announced the news in a statement, indicating that the 28-time Grammy winner (and 80-time nominee) had passed in his Bel Air home surrounded by family and friends. Beyond this statement, reps for the Rock Hall of Famer (inducted in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category) hadn’t provided a cause of death or additional details at the time of writing.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the statement reads. “And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.

“He is truly one of a kind and we will miss him dearly; we take comfort and immense pride in knowing that the love and joy, that were the essence of his being, was shared with the world through all that he created. Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones’ heart will beat for eternity.”

The Chicago native arrived on the music scene decades back; Clarence Avant, who helped launch his career and the careers of others, passed in August of 2023.

Jones secured early collaborations (including as arranger and/or producer) with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Sammy Davis Jr., to name just a few.

Concentrated in the late 50s and 60s, those tie-ups (besides the release of multiple solo albums across several decades) set the stage for producer credits on high-profile works in the 70s and 80s. Said credits extend to Aretha Franklin’s 1973 album Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky) and, in what are probably the most noteworthy examples, Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987).

(Sony Music scooped up a sizable stake in Jackson’s body of work earlier in 2024 despite legal challenges from the artist’s family; Jones had at least one credits-related dispute with Jackson’s estate over the years.)

In the film world, Jones produced and scored 1985’s The Color Purple, on top of scoring a number of different movies yet; the newest of these projects, Lola, released this past February.

Back to the core industry, recent years had seen Jones make headlines for his investments in a variety of companies. Also in February, for instance, the Grammy Legend Award recipient joined ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus in backing music-rights company Salt.

On social media, fans, members of the music community, and others are offering kind words and celebrating the life of Jones.

“We have lost one of the all time greats,” wrote Darius Rucker. “The world will miss Quincy Jones. Rest my friend.”

“My Celestial twin Quincy was a titan in the musical world,” penned actor Michael Caine. “He was a wonderful and unique human being, lucky to have known him.”

“We join billions of music fans around the world,” Warner Chappell CEO Guy Moot and COO Carianne Marshall relayed in joint remarks, “as we mourn the loss of the great Quincy Jones, and celebrate his immeasurable contributions to culture. Words like titan, genius, GOAT, will be used today and he deserves it all.

“Quincy was a producer, artist, composer, and activist, but above all, he was a songwriter. He leaves behind an extraordinarily powerful, diverse body of work that will light the way for future generations. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends,” the execs concluded.

“Quincy Jones, a true musical genius whose impact transcended generations,” a fan posted. “His creativity and passion shaped the sound of our lives, leaving a legacy that will forever inspire. Thank you, Quincy, for the rhythm of your heart and the magic you brought to my childhood.”

An arbitration panel has officially set a 2023-2026 licensing rate for SESAC and the RMLC. Photo Credit: SESAC

One lengthy dispute – and one arbitration proceeding – later, the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) and SESAC have resolved their rate-negotiation disagreement for 2023-2026.

Both the performance rights organization and the radio representative confirmed the development following an involved battle concerning payment particulars. Unsurprisingly, said battle saw the PRO pushing for better compensation while the RMLC pursued lower rates more in line with those behind its ASCAP and BMI agreements.

(The RMLC, membership in which encompasses about 10,000 terrestrial stations in the U.S., previously described “SESAC’s demand” as an effort to obtain “a very substantial rate increase over the prior license rate.”)

Moreover, this wasn’t the RMLC’s first licensing-confrontation rodeo with a PRO – or even its first dust-up with Blackstone’s SESAC. To be sure, a related release put out in 2017 by the RMLC about a separate showdown is noticeably similar to comments pertaining to the newer battle.

In any event, with SESAC having kicked off the aforesaid arbitration proceeding in April of 2023, the relevant panel has opted for a 0.2824% rate on each station’s net revenue, up roughly 10.4% from 0.2557%, per radio trades including Radio Ink.

According to the same source, a substantial discount will remain in place for non-music stations – though “specific long-form terms are still being finalized.” And while only time will reveal the exact terms (and potentially the rate sought by SESAC when talks first began) at hand, SESAC president and COO Scott Jungmichel touted the decision as a victory.

“The arbitration award reflects another failure of the RMLC to impose regulated rates on SESAC since SESAC and the RMLC concluded their settlement in 2015,” Jungmichel relayed in a statement provided to DMN. “The panel awarded SESAC an over 10% increase while rejecting the RMLC’s attempts to lower the rate, turn back the clock, and yoke SESAC to the regulated rates paid by ASCAP and BMI.

“In addition, the revenue base subject to the fee is significantly greater than the revenue upon which station groups had sought to pay under the 2017 award,” concluded the SESAC higher-up of nearly five years.

DMN also reached out to the RMLC for comment, but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing. In any event, it wasn’t all too long ago that the RMLC put to rest a separate dispute with Irving Azoff’s Global Music Rights.

Meanwhile, the latter PRO last year settled a pair of missing-payments complaints it’d filed against Red Wolf Broadcasting and One Putt Broadcasting, before spearheading a different action yet, this time against Vermont Broadcast Associates, at the top of 2024. GMR voluntarily dropped the suit with prejudice in April.

Billboard has now removed CDs (and other physical sales) from its Market Watch breakdown, which compiles Luminate data. Photo Credit: Mick Haupt

The latest installment of Billboard’s weekly “Market Watch” sales breakdown is here – minus figures pertaining to CDs and all other physical formats, which have been removed from the commercial snapshot.

As many already know, that U.S.-focused commercial snapshot consists of data provided by Luminate, which elicited strong indie-retail pushback after retooling its sales-calculation methodology at the top of 2024.

Followed by additional pivots in the wake of further opposition, this recalibration (at least according to critics) effectively excluded a number of record stores’ sales from the appropriate calculations – and spurred the creation of a rival indie-sales chart.

While substantial, that controversy was in retrospect only the tip of the iceberg. Previously, we explored in detail an apparent discrepancy between Luminate’s view of the Market Watch data and the way the relevant stats had been laid out by Billboard.

In a nutshell, the latter was pointing to a massive year-over-year decline in stateside vinyl sales – a stark contrast to, among other things, RIAA data and the wider resurgence often attributed to the format.

After DMN Pro tracked an ugly disagreement between higher-ups at the companies (which share a corporate parent), Billboard booted vinyl figures, presumably temporarily, from Market Watch altogether.

And last week, we noted that the “weekly national music consumption report” showed a 19.1% YoY decline for CD sales, once again contrasting stats from the RIAA and others.

Now, the curious episode has taken yet another strange turn: As initially highlighted – and as things stand – CDs and physical music sales generally are no longer part of Market Watch.

As a matter of fact, the entire “Album Consumption Units by Format” section, previously featuring CD, vinyl, track-equivalent, audio-on-demand-equivalent, digital, and “other” data, is absent from Market Watch for the week of October 24th.

Predictably, when they were live, all those categories save audio-on-demand equivalent displayed material YTD sales declines from 2023, a Wayback Machine screengrab indicates. Similarly, Billboard’s “Album Sale by Age” analysis of Luminate data, likewise absent from Market Watch at present, suggested sizable sales falloffs for both current and catalog releases.

It’s unclear exactly how the increasingly involved episode plays out from here – but given Luminate’s reach in the sales-data space, a statement (and an eventual formal update to Market Watch) would probably be a good place to start.

Due in part to the benefit of hindsight, we can see that it definitely wasn’t a great idea to spring for year-over-year sales comparisons amid Luminate’s above-mentioned methodology changes.

Even in the current Market Watch installment, Billboard maintains that “the new modeled methodology more accurately represents the independent retail market” – simultaneously emphasizing that “there is not available comparable historical data to provide an accurate year-over-year trend regarding physical sales, including vinyl.”

When it comes to Luminate data, then, that leaves a couple main possibilities, and neither is exactly encouraging for the figures in question. Most conspicuously, the adjusted approach to measuring sales might actually be more accurate – which, in keeping with the aforesaid YoY falloffs formerly displayed on Market Watch, would mean historical stats could have been inflated.

Furthermore, beneath this top-level consideration, Luminate may be registering, to some extent, a genuine sales slip.

(l to r) Live Nation Venues president Tom See, Rock Hall of Famer Dave Matthews (holding a guitar made from aluminum cans recycled on tour), and Live Nation head of global sustainability Lucy August-Perna. Photo Credit: Sanjay Suchak

It turns out staging huge tours can be environmentally friendly – at least according to Live Nation and the Dave Matthews Band, which say they’ve organized the “first zero waste tour.”

Live Nation and the more than three-decade-old Dave Matthews Band reached out with a variety of hard numbers about that zero-waste tour. As told by the involved parties, the descriptor (and the appropriate figures) pertains specifically to shows delivered at 18 Live Nation venues in the U.S.

The Virginia-based group had previously announced its sustainability-focused plans for those concerts, mentioning the expected presence of “free water refill stations,” “zero-waste stations to collect disposable items,” and, building on the latter, “onsite green teams hand-sorting all concert waste.”

All told, north of 400 crew members are said to have contributed to the effort, and “over 90% of waste from fans…was reused, composted, recycled, or donated,” per Live Nation – with the figure having hit 99% at certain venues.

(A minute-long video places the overall percentage at 93%, and “donated” presumably refers to clothing and other non-recyclable junk left behind by attendees.)

Also according to the Ticketmaster parent, approximately 100,000 pounds of trash were “diverted from landfill,” and “3,200 meals were donated to local community organizations” in connection with the initiative. Lastly, 1,500 aluminum cans recycled on the tour “were used to create a series of top-of-the-line aluminum guitars gifted to Dave Matthews for charity.”

Though it perhaps goes without saying, there are substantial costs associated with staging zero-waste (or low-waste) concerts – meaning that doing so will prove financially challenging for even well-known acts.

Of course, a significant amount of time, energy, money, and trouble would be saved if fans simply cleaned up after themselves; Coachella and Stagecoach attendees left behind an estimated 24 tons of trash, clothing, and gear this year, for instance.

In any event, it remains to be seen whether the Dave Matthews Band’s zero-waste framework can also apply to different concert series. Closer to the top of 2024, Live Nation, Warner Music, and Coldplay partnered with MIT on “a comprehensive study of the live music industry’s carbon footprint.”

Initially expected to wrap in July, said study was extended in late June “to allow for more comprehensive data collection and analysis,” Live Nation said. The resource’s release is now tentatively expected for sometime this fall.

In one of late October and early November’s music industry hires, promotions, and departures, Josh Wyatt (pictured) became Avant Gardner’s first CEO. Photo Credit: Avant Gardner

Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of November 1st, 2024.

If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com. And, keep track of all the latest music industry hires here.

Warner Chappell Music + Warner Chappell Korea

Warner Chappell has promoted seven-year team member Daniel Lang to SVP of global society relations and digital rights. Additionally, former Kakao exec Sophia Hong has signed on as Warner Chappell Korea’s MD.

CD Baby

Downtown’s CD Baby has elevated Nicholas Salomone, who’s been with the company for nearly eight years, to SVP of business development and revenue.

TuneCore

Former seven-year Spotify FP&A higher-up Atticus Shelley is now VP of finance for Believe’s TuneCore.

Avant Gardner

Hospitality vet Josh Wyatt has become CEO of New York City’s Avant Gardner.

Mavin Global

Mavin Records founding member Tega Oghenejobo has been upped to president and COO at Mavin Global.

Red Bull Records

Red Bull Records has brought on Leif Janzen, formerly senior director of digital marketing at Capitol Music Group, as VP of digital marketing.

UMPG

Universal Music Publishing Group has promoted EVP Jennifer Knoepfle to head of U.S. A&R.

In the fresh role, the former Sony Music Publishing exec Knoepfle has bumped senior A&R managers Daniella Rasho (now director of global A&R) and Deeba Abrishamchi (director of U.S. A&R).

Lastly, Spotify and Polydor vet Hollie Boston has come aboard as director of U.S. A&R.

UMG

Universal Music has boosted CFO and operations president Boyd Muir to the newly created role of COO.

Spotify

After more than five years with the company, Spotify global head of music Jeremy Erlich is stepping down to pursue an as-yet-undisclosed entrepreneurial endeavor.

Tidal

Tidal is preparing to lay off “a number” of team members, reportedly referring to as many as 100 individuals, per owner Jack Dorsey.

DistroKid

DistroKid has placed 37 unionized employees on administrative leave “pending layoffs,” according to the appropriate union.

Lede Company

The Lede Company has established a music office in Nashville, with over six-year team member Cara Hutchison leading the division and Jess Anderson (previously part of Big Loud) serving as a publicist.

Empire

Empire has hired Jeffrey Yoo as SVP of East Asia.

Goldenvoice

AEG Presents’ Goldenvoice has announced a hire and multiple promotions. On the hire front, Candace Mandracia, who previously spent over 22 years with Live Nation, has joined as a talent buyer focusing on “shows in the San Diego area.”

Shifting to promotions, multi-year talent buyer Becky Rosen-Checa is poised to begin overseeing “bookings for the Fox Theater Pomona in addition to one-off LA area shows.”

Additionally, Chavanté Flakes (having joined the overarching AEG Presents in 2022) has been promoted to talent buyer at Los Angeles’ The Novo, with Montreh Nariman-Hassanabadi boosted from talent buyer assistant to talent buyer proper.

Jen

Former TikTok music exec Isabel Quinteros is officially SVP of marketing and industry relations for Jen Music AI.

TikTok/SoundOn

TikTok’s SoundOn distribution and promotion unit has elevated more than two-year team member Josh Mateer to A&R head for the U.K. and Europe.

Madlib, who’s suing his manager for ‘pervasive mismanagement.’ Photo Credit: Gergely Csatari

Veteran producer and DJ Madlib is suing his manager for allegedly failing to perform a variety of duties while simultaneously “engaging in persistent and pervasive mismanagement.”

Madlib (real name Otis Jackson Jr.) fired off the brief-but-multifaceted complaint yesterday, about 14 years after exiting Stones Throw Records and setting out “to own and control his music.” The latter objective laid the groundwork for a tie-up with former (and allegedly “fired”) Stone’s Throw exec Eothen Alapatt.

Known professionally as Egon, Alapatt had already founded Now-Again Records and, per the legal text, agreed to form and run a distinct company owned by Madlib and dedicated to his “career and the production, recording and distribution of his recorded music,” with the resulting profits to “be shared between” the two individuals.

Enter Madicine Show, which purportedly focused on Madlib’s career and was unilaterally controlled by Egon. That control allegedly extended to “all of the entity’s bank accounts” as well as “all of the decisions regarding incoming and outgoing monies” – including payments to Madlib himself.

Moreover, distribution pacts, social media management, tax filings, personnel decisions, and a whole lot else allegedly fell under Egon’s exclusive purview at Madicine Show. A few years after Madicine’s inception, a second entity, Rapp Cats, was established to zero in on Madlib’s merch and physical releases, per the legal text.

According once again to the suit, Egon also had control of this company and handled the business-related decisions at hand.

Predictably, given the legal action, all was not well behind the scenes; Madlib “recently discovered” that Egon was “engaged in rank self-dealing,” referring in part to “concealing information from [Madlib] and repeatedly breaching his duties.”

First up on Madlib’s laundry list of qualms is Egon’s alleged decision to “improperly” insert the aforementioned Now-Again “as middleman between” Madicine’s primary distributor, Ingrooves.

Meanwhile, Egon, once again via Now-Again, allegedly took “and apparently continues to take a fee off the top of any income generated by the sale or other distribution of” Madicine projects, referring mainly to releases from Madlib.

A Madlib-commissioned “forensic accounting” of Madicine and Rapp Cats, spanning 2018 through 2022, is said to have uncovered “several accounting irregularities as well as a lack of any backup documentation for” hundreds of thousands of dollars in “consulting” and “reimbursement” payments to Egon and others.

The alleged irregularities and lack of backup documents encompassed as well “the majority of inbound deposits to the two entities’ bank accounts (totaling in the several millions of dollars),” on top of different areas yet, per the suit.

Additionally, Egon has allegedly “failed and refused to produce the full and complete books and records of” Madicine and Rapp Cats – besides allegedly failing to allow a distribution-focused audit of Now-Again’s Madicine relationship, refusing to provide Madlib’s “newly retained professional team” with documents, and preventing Madlib from accessing multiple social handles and platforms to boot.

Lastly, Egon allegedly “directed a single lawyer and single accountant to represent him” along with Madlib (who wasn’t consulted about the decision), Now-Again, Madicine, and Rapp Cats alike.

All told, he and the other defendants (also including Rapp Cats’ Jeff Jank and Now-Again itself) are facing a demand for “a judicially supervised wind up and dissolution” of Rapp Cats and Madicine.

Egon himself and Now-Again have been accused of breach of fiduciary duty – with Madlib further seeking a court declaration that he’s effectively terminated any rights (from recorded music to trademarks and various areas in between) granted to Madicine and Rapp Cats.

DMN reached out to Egon for comment but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

An interior shot of Deezer’s Paris headquarters. Photo Credit: Deezer

Deezer’s Q3 2024 revenue neared $146 million (€134 million) thanks in part to the company’s continued growth in France and ongoing partnership expansions.

Paris-headquartered Deezer (Euronext: DEEZR) revealed these and different performance specifics in its third-quarter earnings report today. The revenue total represents an 11% YoY boost and consists of $93.40 million/€85.8 million from direct streaming operations (up 4.1% YoY), $45.18 million/€41.5 million from partnerships (up 21.3% YoY), and $7.29 million/€6.7 million from other sources (up 63.8% YoY).

By market, the Alexis Lanternier-led business generated over half its Q3 2024 revenue from operations in France ($85.44 million/€78.5 million, up 9.4% YoY), with the remaining $60.41 million/€55.5 million (up 13.5% YoY) having derived from all other regions.

Shifting to the subscribership side, Deezer is now approaching 10 million paid-access users; Q3 2024’s subscriber total grew 4.1% YoY despite a 1.4% YoY slip for direct subs (5.2 million). Meanwhile, the Access Industries-owned platform attributed the remaining 4.7 million subscriptions to partnerships (an 11% YoY Improvement).

As a pertinent aside, Q3 2023 data was updated “to offset the impact of” approximately 400,000 inactive Family accounts’ removal from the service. “We removed nearly 400,000 inactive Family accounts from our subscriber base,” Deezer CFO Carl de Place elaborated during the earnings call, “mainly from our direct segment in France and the rest of the world. … And this is a contractual thing due to the nature of agreements with the providers.

“We don’t expect that trend to continue materially in the next quarter. The bigger reason for that is that once the user reaches a certain seniority and is inactive, we do pay some penalties. We continue to remove those users, but the effect would be much less significant than what we’ve seen for this quarter,” he concluded.

Regarding the relatively strong subscriber showing, worth noting is that Deezer has by its own description ramped up festival sponsorships in France. Amid a pre-implementation dispute over the European nation’s “streaming tax,” which is now in effect, Spotify axed its involvement with multiple festivals.

The leading music streaming platform later upped its prices in France to boot – though Deezer has done the same on multiple occasions and, as underscored by execs during the Q3 earnings call, may well do so again in the near future.

It should also be highlighted that Deezer’s partnership subscriptions (with, among others, DAZN, another Access Industries subsidiary) are less lucrative than their direct counterparts. For Q3 2024, that refers specifically to monthly ARPU of $5.49/€5.4 for direct and $3.05/€2.8 for the partnership category.

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2024, Deezer reiterated “its objective to achieve 10% revenue growth” on the year. During today’s trading, however, DEEZR slipped 7.42% to about $1.57/€1.44 per share.

Universal Music Group head Lucian Grainge. Photo Credit: UMG

Amid continued streaming-plateau concerns, Universal Music Group (UMG) has posted its Q3 2024 financials – complete with flat recorded music streaming subscription revenue and a slight ad-supported revenue improvement.

These and other interesting performance details emerged in the leading label’s just-released third-quarter earnings report. As many will recall, UMG shares parted with over 20% of their value in the wake of the Q2 report, seemingly due to investor concerns about a possible streaming plateau.

Subsequently, an expansion-minded Universal Music put out an aggressive streaming forecast, predicting an 8-10% annual subscription-revenue expansion on the recorded side, running through 2028.

In other words, the Q3 2024 earnings specifics are important on multiple levels for UMG, which attached $3.12 billion (€2.87 billion) in total revenue to the three-month stretch (up 4.3% YoY).

Behind the sum, $2.34 billion/€2.15 billion came from recorded music (up 5.4% YoY but down 2.5% quarterly), with a flat €500 million/$544.15 million attributed to publishing (up 1.8% YoY but down 2.2% quarterly). Even so, recorded music streaming revenue (subscription and ad-supported) grew by just under 1% from the second quarter, the relevant documents show.

However, the category’s boost wasn’t the result of a subscription-revenue spike. On the contrary, subscriptions contributed an identical amount ($1.24 billion/€1.14 billion) to recorded music revenue in Q2 and Q3, with the latter representing a 7.6% YoY bump.

But in falling less than 1% YoY to $385.26 million/€354 million, Q3 ad-supported recorded revenue improved noticeably from Q2’s $373.29 million/€343 million (which was down 4.2% YoY).

Rounding out UMG’s Q3 2024 recorded revenue, permanent downloads slipped 28.8% YoY to $45.71 million/€42 million, as physical revenue from vinyl and CDs plummeted 2% YoY and over 19% quarterly to $313.43 million (€288 million). Lastly, licensing and other sources experienced a 20.4% YoY hike (3.2% quarterly) to $353.73 million/€325 million in Q3, the report indicates.

Top sellers on the quarter mostly included the usual suspects – Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Post Malone plus Sabrina Carpenter as well as Chappell Roan – and UMG chalked up the physical-revenue decrease to Q3 2023’s “strong CD sales in Japan.”

Shifting to publishing, the aforementioned €500 million (up 14.2% YoY when excluding Q3 2023’s Phonorecords III revenue influx) resulted mainly from digital sources’ $321.05 million/€295 million. That sub-total increased only slightly YoY and fell 5.1% from Q2 2024.

From there, the narrowly defined sync category put up $69.65 million/€64 million (a 16.4% YoY improvement and a $3.26 million/€3 million quarterly increase) in Q3 2024 publishing revenue for Universal Music.

Performance royalties accounted for another $109.92 million/€101 million (down 4.7% YoY and about 1% quarterly), as mechanical ($30.47 million/€28 million, up 12% YoY) as well as other ($13.06 million/€12 million, up 9.1% YoY but down almost 8% quarterly) made up publishing’s remaining revenue.

Finally, merchandising and other brought UMG $257.95 million/€237 million in Q3 2024 (up 4.4% YoY).

UMG’s Q3 2024 earnings call was free of groundbreaking developments; CFO Boyd Muir has been elevated to COO, and superfan monetization as well as premium tiers are still central objectives for the company. Meanwhile, execs are adamant that certain quarters’ relatively modest streaming showings will ultimately make way for continued long-term growth.

“In 2011, when Spotify entered the U.S. market, over that period of time in the U.S., there has been 40% inflation, and there has been one 10% price increase,” UMG chief digital officer Michael Nash weighed in during one interesting portion of the call’s investor Q&A.

“So it’s almost like we’re reducing the price of this incredibly attractive value proposition over time, and that’s obviously not the direction that makes sense from the standpoint of the interest that we have in advocating for our artists and working with our partners to maximize the value of music,” the exec proceeded.

Overall, EBITDA cracked $605.15 million/€556 million in Q3 2024 for UMG, shares in which dipped by about 1.4% today to $25.12/€23.08 per share.

An aerial shot of the highest-population city in California, which has the largest music industry GDP of any U.S. state. Photo Credit: Matthias Münning

Just how much money does the music industry contribute to the United States’ GDP? Courtesy of a new report, we have an answer to the question – on top of more intricate information about specific states’ own contributions.

That report comes from the RIAA, which tapped Secretariat’s Robert Stoner and Jéssica Dutra to create the top-level music industry GDP analysis as well as the state-level breakdown. The third such deep-dive published since 2018, the report focuses chiefly on 2017-versus-2020 comparisons and rather unsurprisingly draws from all manner of data sources.

Those sources include the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the private sector, to name just a few. On the private-sector front, the RIAA pointed to supplemental contributions from indie labels and venues, PROs, music museums, and others yet.

Moving beyond the details and similarly involved methodology particulars, the overall U.S. music industry is said to have achieved a GDP of $211.8 billion in 2020 – 0.9% of the broader economy’s nearly $24 trillion GDP and a roughly 18% boost from 2017.

Predictably, California led the pack within the $211.8 billion sum, kicking in $51.4 billion in 2020 music industry GDP. New York followed with $24.9 billion, the report shows, as Florida placed third ($9.3 billion), Texas took the fourth spot ($8.2 billion), and Tennessee rounded out the top five ($7.5 billion).

The top-six states by total music industry GDP in 2020. Photo Credit: RIAA

Regarding music industry GDP’s percentage of each state’s total gross domestic product, Tennessee took the uppermost position with 1.7%, followed closely by California (1.5%) and then New York (1.3%). At the risk of diving too far into the details – the RIAA has put out a website featuring comprehensive state-by-state information – Florida’s positioning is interesting against the backdrop of continued Latin music growth.

Shifting to U.S. music industry employment specifics, the sector is said to have “supported,” both directly and indirectly, 2,539,280 jobs as of 2020 – a jump of 373,737 from 2017.

Spanning “a wide array of occupations,” those positions were heavily concentrated (nearly 43%) in the mentioned top-five states by industry GDP.

Closing with a look at the actual earnings of companies (and their employees) by NAICS code, manufacturers of musical instruments, audio and video equipment, and music software achieved the largest cumulative boost across 2017 and 2020, 43% to $8.26 billion, per the report.

(“Earnings” here refers to “wages, salaries and proprietors’ income,” besides employers’ health-insurance contributions, and extends to direct industry impact as well as “ripple” revenue.)

Next, in terms of cumulative percentage change between 2017 and 2020, agents, managers, promoters, and artists themselves enjoyed a 17.8% hike to almost $60 billion, according to the resource. The multifaceted music production and distribution category (encompassing publishers, studios, radio stations, and much more) saw a 13.2% earnings spike to $36.03 billion, followed by 10.7% for music schools ($116.12 million) and then 2.1% for retail establishments ($5.86 billion).

Megan Thee Stallion, who’s suing a social media commentator for alleged harassment, kicking off her Hot Girl Summer Tour. Photo Credit: Live Nation

Megan Thee Stallion is suing social media commentator Milagro Cooper for allegedly acting on behalf of Tory Lanez “as an online rumor mill churning out falsehoods.”

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan-repped Megan Thee Stallion submitted the straightforward complaint to a Florida federal court, naming Cooper as the sole defendant. As laid out in the action, this defendant operates accounts on X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube alike.

A cursory glance at the appropriate profiles indicates that the host weighs in on a variety of pop-culture topics; in Cooper’s own words, the media at hand “fills you in on everything going on in urban culture.”

But as described by Megan Thee Stallion and her legal team, Cooper is only a “social media grifter who traffics in false and sensationalist narratives.” And the latter narratives include “a years-long campaign of harassment” against the plaintiff.

Furthermore, Cooper spearheaded this alleged campaign on behalf of Tory Lanez, per the action, which specifically attributes the alleged harassment to the defendant’s “close relationship with Mr. Peterson [Lanez] and his father.”

While the legal text doesn’t dive too far into this purported close relationship – by now, most know of Lanez’s decade-long prison sentence in connection with Megan Thee Stallion’s shooting – it does provide multiple examples allegedly supporting the harassment-campaign claims.

Earlier this week, for instance, Milagro Cooper “made the false and outlandish claim that the firearm” used to shoot Megan Thee Stallion “had gone missing.” Those remarks “recklessly disregarded the truth” about the weapon, which “remains in the custody of the Los Angeles Police Department,” per the suit.

Next, on top of allegedly attending the relevant trial and livestreaming “her falsehoods during hearings,” Cooper allegedly made a number of related remarks on the subject towards 2022’s end. (The main complaint features screenshots of these years-old tweets.)

And perhaps most seriously, the defendant allegedly directed her followers to “a deepfake video purporting to show an artificially created version of” Megan Thee Stallion “engaging in sexually explicit acts.”

Needless to say, the artist hadn’t approved of the AI-generated clip, and per the complaint, it’s unclear who actually made the deepfake video.

All told, the “disparaging remarks” allegedly harmed Megan Thee Stallion’s “mental and emotional state,” inflicted “significant personal and economic harm,” and damaged the plaintiff’s “reputation and standing as a professional musician” – with further economic harm stemming from efforts to remove various “bots” allegedly interacting with the media at hand.

Though questionable takes aren’t barred under U.S. law, Megan Thee Stallion (who, incidentally, joined Hybe’s Weverse yesterday) is suing specifically for “promotion of an altered sexual depiction,” cyberstalking, “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” and invasion of privacy.

Cooper today briefly addressed the suit during an X livestream (albeit while clarifying that the comments didn’t constitute an official statement, which will come from her attorneys) and in multiple tweets, one of which touched on plans to launch a countersuit.

Hybe CEO Lee Jae-sang, who’s apologized for comments made about rival K-pop agencies’ under-18 talent in internal company documents. Photo Credit: Hybe

Another day, another wave of K-pop drama – or more specifically waves, one involving comments made in Hybe internal documents about the physical appearances of competitors’ underage talent.

Though this latest K-pop controversy is just beginning to make stateside headlines, it actually stems from an October 24th hearing in South Korea’s National Assembly. According to the Korea Times, that hearing coincided with an audit spearheaded by the legislative body’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee.

Execs including Hybe COO Kim Tae-ho were on hand for the corresponding grilling, per the Times. (As clarified in an article-end disclaimer, the Times’ Hankook Ilbo sister publication first covered the episode; AI translated that piece into English, and Times editors revised the work prior to publication.)

Lawmakers promptly zeroed in on a copy of Hybe’s “Weekly Music Industry Report,” described as a competitive-landscape analysis circulated among execs and containing remarks pertaining to various rival agencies’ acts.

Of course, some of those groups feature members under the age of 18; ousted SM founder Lee Soo-man’s A2O Entertainment, for instance, recently debuted with “rookies” as young as 12.

But that didn’t stop the report’s author (more on this in a moment) from reportedly alleging that certain of the talent had debuted “at an awkward age,” with “none of their features” standing out as a result.

Additional ill-advised comments maintained that the artists (whose names were redacted from the public copy) had “overdone” plastic surgery, and different remarks yet attacked the child entertainers as “shockingly unattractive,” the Times reported.

Irked lawmakers emphasized that the descriptions could constitute violations of various child-protection laws. And Hybe’s aforementioned COO, for his part, attempted to downplay the report as an unofficial recap of various individuals’ online opinions as opposed to the company’s formal stance.

While time will reveal whether there’s any serious fallout to speak of, at present, the professional home of BTS has already issued an apology from CEO Lee Jae-sang, nixed the weekly report in question, and reassigned the purported author to an HR role, according to the Korea Herald.

In any event, it goes without saying that the fiasco isn’t a good look for Hybe, which seems to be grappling with fresh criticism from at least one of its acts.

Seventeen member Seungkwan, signed to Hybe’s Pledis Entertainment, recently penned a social media post about his inability to “remain silent,” with the lengthy Korean-language text touching on, among other things, K-pop professionals’ grueling schedules and demanding workloads.

Lastly, regarding the initial usage of “waves,” Hybe is still embroiled in an ugly dispute with Min Hee-jin, the former CEO of its Ador subsidiary.

A court has now rejected the ousted Ador head’s bid for reinstatement, the Herald indicated. However, Min Hee-jin intends to keep on battling for her previous role, including based on the belief that the overarching shareholder agreement remains in force notwithstanding her dismissal.

An aerial shot of Beijing, where Outdustry is headquartered, according to its LinkedIn profile. Photo Credit: Ran Liwen

A little over one month following the launch of Universal Music China Greater Bay Area, Virgin Music Group (VMG) has scooped up Beijing-headquartered Outdustry.

16-year-old Outdustry, which bills itself as “an artist services and rights management business for the new music industry,” took to social media to disclose the sale today; VMG confirmed the news in a formal release that was emailed to DMN.

With a focus on breaking global talent in both China and India, Outdustry says it’s “overseen marketing” for the likes of Adele, Dua Lipa, Laufey, and Diplo, to name a few. And while the “neutral independent” descriptor featured prominently on Outdustry’s website might need to be reworked in the wake of the sale, the company is touting the deal as “a win-win relationship.”

(Amid continued concerns about major-label-fueled consolidation on the indie side, it’s worth reiterating that Outdustry team members “run Merlin in China,” per the same website.)

On the organizational front, the namesake Outdustry Records is set to become “an affiliated label” of VMG, the Outdustry Songs publishing unit will proceed as an imprint of UMPG, and the sold company’s marketing services “will also continue to operate under the Outdustry brand, open for business as usual to third party clients.”

Next, Outdustry founder and CEO Ed Peto will continue leading his “team of 20 hotshot music industry professionals” while simultaneously serving as VMG’s head of international strategy in London.

“Bringing everything we’ve built at Outdustry into Virgin Music Group represents an enormous opportunity to expand our vision globally,” Peto communicated. “It’s never been a more exciting time to be working in music and I’m looking forward to working closely with the incredible team that Nat [Pastor] and JT [Myers] have assembled to create more opportunities for independent music entrepreneurs and artists all around the world.”

Needless to say, in light of today’s purchase, UMG’s global buildout ambitions definitely extend to China, the recorded music market of which, as underscored by streaming-platform earnings reports and IFPI data, is certainly continuing to grow.

Admittedly, though, limitations remain when it comes to capitalizing on this growth. There are several elements to the multifaceted sub-topic, but Live Nation head Michael Rapino touched on the subject during a Bloomberg sit down earlier this month. China is “too hard” to crack and isn’t “a good business,” per the exec, who indicated as well that “they won’t let most artists in, because they censor all the lyrics.”

(It might be a different story for some genres and artists; East Goes Global, which aims to help acts and celebrities find success in China, just recently emphasized The Chainsmokers’ touring and social media results in the nation.)

Taking a step back, Universal Music’s buyout-powered push for bolstered emerging-market results doesn’t begin and end with China, where Believe and others are likewise hunting for growth. Virgin Music Group kicked off 2024 with the purchase of Saban Music Latin, from which it signed multiple acts, for instance.

Photo Credit: TikTok

Long live the album: TikTok is seemingly expanding its Add to Music App feature, through which users can save music to standalone services like Spotify, to include album pre-saves.

The Add to Music App buildout was first spotted by Music Ally, and TikTok subsequently confirmed ongoing tests of a full-album pre-save option. Add to Music App itself is now approaching its one-year anniversary; late 2023 saw the tool roll out in additional markets, and TikTokers in another 163 nations gained access this past February.

Now, evidently looking to capitalize on the across-the-board availability and to underscore its marketing capabilities, TikTok is reportedly enabling users to pre-save whole albums. As laid out by the mentioned outlet, a portion of these users can already add forthcoming albums (like Rosie, which Blackpink’s Rosé is set to drop in December) to Spotify and Apple Music.

From there, added full-length projects will automatically appear in one’s library upon release, per the available description. Though album pre-saves’ precise promotional effectiveness remains to be seen for some acts, certain well-established artists are presumably poised to enjoy commercial bumps from the tool.

Of course, that’s assuming album pre-saves ultimately receive a full-scale release. And that’s also assuming the popular video-sharing app isn’t forced to cease operating in the world’s biggest music market and economy this coming January.

As things stand, the January 19th sale-or-shutdown deadline established under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is still in place.

Meanwhile, the controversial platform is grappling with several other operational obstacles. Keeping the focus on litigation and regulatory scrutiny for a moment, closer to October’s beginning, over a dozen U.S. states sued the ByteDance-owned app over its alleged “perilous effects on children.”

Today, Reuters reported that Brazil’s Collective Defense Institute had filed a pair of lawsuits, alleging data-protection shortcomings and undisclosed mental-health risks for minors who use the app, against TikTok. Those complaints are reportedly seeking nearly $530 million in damages.

And on the licensing side, amid an abrupt TikTok-Merlin split, far-reaching questions remain about the platform’s relationship with the indie music community moving forward.

While time will tell how these challenges play out for TikTok, the short-form giant is hardly without competition at present. This growing list includes not only prominent rivals like YouTube’s Shorts and Instagram’s Reels, but lesser-discussed players such as a revamped Triller, Loops, and Connyct, to name a few.

Photo Credit: Duetti

About eight months after closing a $90 million round, indie-focused catalog investor Duetti has announced $114 million in fresh funding.

Duetti reached out today with word of its latest capital influx, stemming in large part from an $80 million asset-backed securitization. Touted by representatives as “the first instance of independent music rights being securitized with institutional Wall Street investors,” this Barclays-structured securitization arrived on the heels of Concord’s own ABS.

Meanwhile, the remaining $34 million resulted from equity financing attributable to Flexpoint Ford as well as existing backers Nyca Partners and Viola Ventures, according to Duetti. Unsurprisingly, the company, which says it deals in tracks that are at least two years old with north of 500,000 annual streams apiece, intends to use the newly obtained capital to bankroll additional IP purchases.

But Duetti also touched on plans to “expand its proprietary forecasting, pricing, sourcing, and marketing technology” with the just-secured $114 million. These tech improvements will fuel “even better data-driven deals with fast turnarounds,” according to the business, which is eyeing a variety of marketing and sync opportunities to boot.

Plus, reps pointed to New York City-based Duetti’s objective of expanding in cities including Los Angeles and Miami. All told, the company has raised north of $235 million since launch – “more than any other music startup in the past three years,” per the same reps.

“We believe we are leading the way in educating the capital markets on the significant long-term value of the independent music sector,” weighed in Duetti co-founder and CEO Lior Tibon. “The number of independent artists is growing at an unprecedented rate, and Duetti is here to ensure they have access to differentiated financing solutions.

“Duetti will now be able to utilize more diverse and efficient financing sources, enabling us to significantly expand and offer more funding options for independent artists, outside of the major label ecosystem,” concluded the former Deutsche Bank associate and Tidal COO Tibon.

Shifting the focus to the broader catalog landscape, October of 2024, in keeping with well-documented trends, has delivered fewer purchases than its 2023 counterpart. (DMN Pro’s one-stop Music Industry Funding Tracker has compiled these and other deals along with dates, valuation information, the exact rights at hand, and more.)

Nevertheless, the current month has brought several particularly high-value transactions – among them Sony Music’s reportedly $400 million deal for Pink Floyd’s recordings and NIL, Litmus Music’s pact with Randy Newman, and Concord’s $217.3 million play for a collection of Daddy Yankee assets.

A performance from Alice Cooper at Wacken Open Air, one of the festivals under the Superstruct banner. Photo Credit: Frank Schwichtenberg

About four months after KKR revealed the acquisition of Superstruct Entertainment, CVC has officially taken a stake in the European concert giant.

Luxembourg-headquartered CVC just recently announced that it had moved to get in on the live entertainment action, after the BMG stakeholder KKR in June unveiled the reportedly $1.4 billion purchase of Superstruct.

Founded in 2017, the events organizer is said to own north of 80 festivals, among them Wacken Open Air and Tinderbox, held across 10 countries. KKR’s initial buyout disclosure didn’t mention CVC, but the latter says it’s “invested alongside” the original purchaser, with the appropriate transaction having “now closed.”

Unsurprisingly, the parties opted against diving into the financials associated with CVC’s involvement. However, CVC, which trades under the same ticker on the Euronext Amsterdam and is said to have over $200 billion in assets under management, is poised to help Superstruct on “its mission of creating best-in-class live experiences,” according to the brass-tacks release.

That refers in part to “working closely with entrepreneurs, creative visionaries and business-minded professionals” to assist Superstruct in “driving innovation and setting the standards for live entertainment,” the overview-focused text proceeds.

While the former Stage Entertainment owner CVC’s precise contributions to the post-sale Superstruct remain to be seen, it’s worth noting that the investment firm’s portfolio extends to multiple digital marketing businesses, Authentic Brands Group, at least one travel agency, and a whole lot else.

Bigger picture, despite festival-attendance woes, the collapse of Festicket, and the ongoing dominance of Live Nation, KKR and CVC are hardly alone in looking to cash in on the live space.

(Incidentally, Live Nation’s shares cracked another 52-week high, this time of $119.40 apiece, yesterday. Still staring down a Justice Department antitrust suit, the Ticketmaster parent is scheduled to post its third-quarter earnings on November 12th.)

CTS Eventim over the summer closed its approximately $330 million purchase of various Vivendi ticketing and festival assets outside France.  Also on the ticketing front, notwithstanding Festicket’s mentioned demise, the likes of TickPick and Seat Unique have scored sizable investments on the year.

In keeping with the apparent investor optimism fueling those investments, another ticketing platform yet, Dice, is reportedly exploring a sale that would value it in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Meanwhile, though the process has experienced multiple delays, StubHub’s sought $16.5 billion IPO reportedly remains on the table.

At least according to Billboard’s breakdown of Luminate data, U.S. CD sales have declined substantially to this point in 2024. Photo Credit: Mick Haupt

It’s a tale of two CD sales stats: Luminate is pointing to a 19.1% year-over-year falloff in the format’s stateside units moved – a stark contrast to the 3.3% YoY units-sold growth attached to the same category for H1 2024 by the RIAA.

The data discrepancy has entered the media spotlight on the heels of Billboard’s removal of Luminate-powered vinyl sales figures. And that step arrived against the backdrop of a DMN Pro investigation into vinyl’s 33.3% year-over-year commercial slip in the States as (previously) displayed on Billboard.

Our latest weekly report explores the apparent controversy (complete with disagreements between Billboard and Luminate notwithstanding their shared corporate ownership) surrounding the figure. Meanwhile, the episode is casting doubt upon U.S. sales figures and the precise status of the “vinyl comeback” that’s so often touted.

Now, with the vinyl debate far from settled, additional questions are being raised on the CD side – in part because of Billboard’s present breakdown of the format’s U.S. sales.

According to the appropriate Luminate-based resource’s “Album Consumption Units By Format” section, CD sales in the category have numbered 22.2 million during 2024, down 19.1% year over year from 2023’s 27.4 million.

And while overall album sales (including standalone digital products as well as album- and track-equivalent units) have suffered an even more pronounced YTD falloff, per the resource, the physical dip is especially significant.

This is largely due to how it differs from the RIAA’s initially mentioned H1 2024 data. According to the latter half-year summary, which calculates physical sales’ worth at estimated retail value, 16.8 million CDs were sold in the States between January and June of 2024. That’s up 3.3% YoY from 16.2 million, with a smaller 0.3% bump on the value front ($236 million to $236.7 million).

Of course, those improvements, though modest, are a lot more positive than the nearly 20% YoY sales decrease identified by Billboard’s analysis of Luminate data.

What, then, are the reasons for the discrepancy? There are several components to the multifaceted question’s answer, but at the top level, Luminate’s much-publicized methodology changes should be reiterated.

To the dismay of the indie retail community, those changes went into effect at the top of 2024 and, in practice, allegedly booted a substantial portion of locally owned record stores’ sales data from calculations.

The revamped tracking system was altered in late April – a point also covered in DMN Pro’s deep dive into the subject – and unknowns remain about how exactly the methodology pivots are affecting both data comparisons and Luminate’s actual 2024 figures.

As described by a disclaimer from Billboard, Luminate’s methodology maneuvering “more accurately represents the independent retail market,” but nevertheless means there’s “not available comparable historical data to provide an accurate year-over-year trend regarding physical sales, including vinyl.”

Following that idea to its logical conclusion, at least through the current year’s end, it’d seemingly be advisable to continue reporting and collecting sales data without attempting to illustrate YoY trends. Furthermore, other pertinent questions remain: What’s happening to the physical sales that are seemingly failing to register or, alternatively, what do the smaller-but-more-accurate figures mean for historical data?

Consequently, it’ll be interesting to see whether the relevant stats join their vinyl counterparts in being removed, perhaps temporarily, from Billboard’s “Market Watch” data.

A live performance from the Plain White T’s, one of the many acts who have recorded music featured in the over million-song catalog of Concord. Photo Credit: Justin Higuch

Concord has officially issued another $850 million in senior notes secured by royalties from all manner of commercially prominent works.

Nashville-headquartered Concord today confirmed the close of its third securitization, which we previously highlighted earlier in October. At the time of this initial coverage, however, the focus was largely on a $217.3 million catalog purchase bankrolled by the notes.

Though Concord didn’t immediately disclose the exact assets involved, higher-ups subsequently elaborated that the play encompassed a substantial portion of Daddy Yankee’s body of work.

All told, the five-year notes are said to be backed by “royalties from a pool of catalogs containing over one million songs,” recorded by the likes of the Beatles, Phil Collins, Genesis, and many others.

Furthermore, with its overall music IP valuation now billed at approximately $5.1 billion, Concord hasn’t hesitated to spell out that “additional acquisitions” yet could be in the cards for the just-obtained capital.

Also forthcoming (albeit not directly acknowledged in Concord’s official release) is a new California office for the company, which is set to relocate its Golden State division from Los Angeles to Beverly Hills sometime during Q3 2025, according to Connect CRE.

That lease will cover a 32,241-square-foot space, including a penthouse and the entire sixth floor of the 110,000-square-foot building at hand, per the mentioned source.

Long allied with Apollo (NYSE: APO), Concord tapped the latter’s Apollo Global Securities unit to structure and lead an investor syndicate for the securitization, higher-ups communicated. FTI Consulting was the transaction’s “backup manager,” Concord relayed as well.

In a statement, Concord head Bob Valentine touted the securitization as “another significant milestone,” thanked Sony Music-partnered Apollo “for helping us create a long-term capital structure that supports our growth,” and emphasized a continued focus “on our artists and the incredible art they create.”

Meanwhile, Concord itself described the securities as one component of an “ongoing effort to strategically grow and monetize its music assets and position the company as a consequential force in the music industry.”

Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see exactly which moves come with that “consequential force” push. As many will recall, Concord didn’t ultimately purchase Hipgnosis Songs Fund, but it did submit multiple bids for the far-reaching collection of music IP.

Additionally, the business’s Mojo Music & Media and Round Hill buyouts brought a cumulative total of $606.3 million worth of music IP into the fold, a KBRA analysis revealed.

SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man, who’s debuted a K-pop agency called A2O Entertainment. Photo Credit: NewsInStar

SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man has launched a new K-pop agency called A2O Entertainment, which has already revealed its initial signings.

A2O just recently made its formal debut, including with a brief YouTube video showcasing its early talent and with a website available in English, Korean, and Mandarin alike. Last time we checked in on Lee Soo-man, reports over the summer suggested that he was preparing to re-enter the K-pop arena after selling 14.8% of SM to Hybe.

That sizable stock sale kicked off an ugly takeover battle, with the professional home of BTS having attempted in earnest to secure a 40% controlling stake in its SM rival. Ultimately, the maneuver didn’t pan out for Hybe; multiple twists and turns later, Kakao managed to obtain the controlling SM interest.

Hybe has since dumped millions in SM shares, South Korean regulators only signed off on Kakao’s SM investment (with several conditions) this past May, and Kakao execs are still grappling with stock-manipulation charges in connection with the SM takeover.

Returning to Lee Soo-man’s latest venture, The Korea Times and others have indicated that the SM founder cannot participate “in any entertainment business activities in Korea for the next three years” due to the terms of his deal with Hybe.

Needless to say, that non-compete clause will directly affect the operations of A2O Entertainment, which is billing itself specifically as “a collaborative global artist development platform.”

In keeping with the “collaborative” descriptor and the decidedly young appearances of those featured in the agency’s teaser, A2O talent is being organized in four groups. The “low teen boys” category includes males 15 and under, whereas the “high teen boys” counterpart is for males 16 and up. These same age guidelines are in place for two female categories, per A2O.

While long-term career development (and scouting necessarily young artists) has always been a priority in K-pop, A2O is evidently taking things a step further with its “rookies,” the youngest of whom is just 12 years old, according to fan communities.

Among different things, that means the individuals could be releasing projects via A2O for decades to come. As described by the agency, fans will follow each above-mentioned group’s training process, with the “low teen” members eventually graduating to “high teen” as the latter begin officially dropping music.

Though other concrete details about A2O and its rookies are few and far between at present, the involved persons don’t look to hail from South Korea, per regional coverage and the aforementioned fan sites – with seemingly all but one signee (who’s from Japan) having been born in China.

Plus, A2O has already established profiles on Chinese social and video platforms including Weibo, Bilibili, and Douyin. “CAWMAN,” A2O relayed as well, “is an acronym created from the first letters of Cartoon, Animation, Webtoon, Motion Picture, Avatar, and Novel.” Said acronym “hints at the innovative future of the content A2O will showcase,” the agency spelled out.

Regarding separate efforts to apply the K-pop model to global talent (and to help K-pop acts command commercial results on the world stage), Geffen and Hybe have formed a girl group called Katseye. And Titan Content, led by former SM CEO Nikki Semin Han, appears to be gradually announcing the members of its debut group after holding auditions in several countries.

An overview of the GEMA licensing model for generative AI platforms. Photo Credit: GEMA

One month ago, GEMA announced a licensing framework for generative AI, complete with rightsholder payments for derivative audio creations. Now, the German society is providing additional details about the aggressive proposal.

GEMA reached out with new information pertaining to the model, after we asked about its specifics in late September. In more words, a representative explained the month-long response window by emphasizing the many moving parts associated with developing an approach to music licensing for generative AI.

“Involved” only begins to describe the undertaking, which GEMA touted in September as the first “licensing approach aiming to balance technological progress and the protection of creative work.”

That same month, the 91-year-old entity indicated that its model, not solely addressing once-off payments from AI developers that trained on protected music sans permission, would look to compel ongoing rightsholder payments for derivative audio creations.

As suggested by the available resources, derivative audio referred to all the music creations pumped out by generative AI platforms trained on copyrighted works without licensing pacts in place.

GEMA is now elaborating that its proposal centers on “one licensing model” featuring “two key components.”

The first of those components would apply to all generative AI players active in Germany, regardless of how, where, and when their training processes occurred, that utilized protected musical works at some point.

Far from subtle, the same component would then transfer to the relevant rightsholders “a 30% share of all net income generated by the generative AI model or system of the provider,” per GEMA, with a “minimum royalty” obligation in place to boot.

Of course, outlining the sizable payment is one thing, and actually getting AI companies to cough up is another challenge altogether. (OpenAI has already threatened to leave the EU over regulations, for instance.)

But it’s worth bearing in mind the EU’s enactment of the sweeping AI Act, which is still going into effect, and the unique regulatory environment in Germany itself. Running with these points, the second licensing component floated by GEMA will seemingly prove harder yet to make reality.

Payments should also be made for “all economic benefits that can arise from the subsequent use of AI-generated music,” including in public establishments and on streaming services, because this music resulted from an initial library of protected media, according to GEMA.

“In the future,” GEMA proceeded, “rights holders will so receive an appropriate share of the additional income generated by AI-produced songs. This share must be at least equivalent to what would have been provided for purely human-generated works.”

Though it looks as though many details still need to be ironed out – plus, the language barrier certainly isn’t helping given the highly complex subject at hand – it’ll be interesting to monitor GEMA’s push as well as the wider area of possible regulation on the AI-training side.

Meanwhile, high-stakes litigation is still plodding along in the space, with ongoing copyright cases against Anthropic, Suno, Perplexity, and Udio, to name a few.

Brenda Lee, who’s given the green light to an AI-created Spanish-language version of her 1958 holiday classic ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.’ Photo Credit: UMG

Nearly seven decades after it was recorded by Brenda Lee, perennial holiday hit “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” has received a Spanish-language re-release courtesy of artificial intelligence.

Universal Music Group (UMG) today announced the AI track, which is already live on streaming services. Now 79 years old, Lee first recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” in 1958, and the Christmas-playlist staple has, of course, remained commercially prominent since then.

With the apparent support of the appropriate artist, continued AI advancements, and strong streaming growth across several Spanish-speaking markets in Latin America, why not try to build on that prominence with a new version? Enter “Noche Buena y Navidad,” which UMG says resulted from “responsibly-trained AI technology.”

Featuring the existing instrumentals and background vocals, the updated song was produced by Auero Baqueiro, who also handled the preliminary step of adapting the relevant lyrics into Spanish, per Universal Music.

From there, Chile-born Leyla Hoyle recorded these lyrics in Spanish, working to mimic “Lee’s unique vocal patterns – matching pitch, tone breaths and phrasings of the original recording,” per the major label.

Next, the MicDrop creator SoundLabs (with which UMG partnered over the summer), drawing from “hours of isolated vocal stems from Lee’s UMG archives,” made “a unique bespoke AI vocal model,” UMG relayed of the involved process.

Said model was then applied to Hoyle’s recording to make it seem as though a young Lee had recorded the track in Spanish back when, for instance, color TV was still relatively new. Predictably, the final step was replacing the initial vocals with their AI-powered Spanish-language counterparts.

In a statement, the four-time Grammy nominee Lee communicated: “I am so blown away by this new Spanish version of ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,’ which was created with the help of AI.

“Throughout my career, I performed and recorded many songs in different languages, but I never recorded ‘Rockin’’ in Spanish, which I would have loved to do. To have this out now is pretty incredible and I’m happy to introduce the song to fans in a new way,” concluded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

Looking ahead to the new year, while it might go without saying, all manner of additional (authorized) AI soundalike projects are presumably on the way. (Warner Music and Randy Travis in May used artificial intelligence to release the artist’s “first new music in more than a decade,” and closer to the present, Timbaland utilized Suno to help make a fresh single.)

Beyond those and other potential positives, the unprecedented technology, in many ways a runaway train more than anything else, appears poised to keep on fueling a variety of issues owing to its training specifics, the prevalence of unauthorized soundalike tracks, the sheer volume of audio it’s pumping out, and a whole lot else.

Bearing the obstacles in mind, Universal Music took the opportunity to conclude the “Noche Buena y Navidad” announcement message by reiterating its support for the NO FAKES Act.

Photo Credit: IMPALA

The deadline for indie labels to sign direct deals with TikTok (or see their catalogs pulled) is here, and IMPALA is upping the pressure by publicly calling for “a strong, cooperative partnership without strong-arm tactics.”

Criticized by IMPALA as a “unilaterally imposed deadline,” that direct deal cutoff has been in place since the underlying Merlin-TikTok split came to light – though the contract itself won’t expire until October 31st.

We’ve covered the showdown every step of the way, but in a nutshell, TikTok has pointed to purported fraud-detection shortcomings as one of the reasons behind its non-renewal decision.

Unsurprisingly, the indie music community has a vastly different view of the episode. TikTok, a growing number of organizations have alleged in more words, is simply avoiding good-faith negotiations in an effort to pay less for music.

Meanwhile, reports have indicated that TikTok is participating in actual talks with larger indies and simultaneously sending smaller players standardized take-it-or-leave-it contracts. As laid out by several sources, the latter contracts include less lucrative terms than under the Merlin agreement.

In keeping with that description of the multifaceted situation, Merlin member UnitedMasters yesterday went ahead and finalized a direct pact with TikTok.

And it’s against this less-than-ideal backdrop, complete with the TikTok-UnitedMasters tie-up and the more urgent deadline for Merlin members to make licensing decisions, that Brussels’ IMPALA is speaking out in a new open letter.

Penned by executive chair Helen Smith, the concise message retreads a good amount of ground already covered in prior IMPALA takes on the TikTok-Merlin split. The “situation poses significant risks, not only to the independent music sector but also to TikTok’s long-term interests,” reads one relevant line.

However, much of the document looks beyond these risks in favor of striking a conciliatory tone when addressing the possibility of an extended TikTok-Merlin union. IMPALA is “confident that fair and equitable solutions can be found” and still believes that “TikTok is a well-loved platform, embraced by countless artists and loved by their fans across the globe.”

“Independent labels and distributors have worked enthusiastically with TikTok and driven creative engagement on the platform,” IMPALA’s letter proceeds. “We are eager to work with TikTok to expand opportunities for independently released artists throughout Europe and maximise their unique role for TikTok’s users.”

As to where IMPALA wants things to go from here, TikTok should effectively leave the existing Merlin deal in place for two extra months – or abstain from ripping down works not covered by a new agreement, that is – while entering “into good faith negotiations with Merlin with best efforts to agree licensing terms.”

Said negotiations would include discussions about the previously mentioned fraud, per the text. Additionally, as the organization sees it, TikTok should hold off “from applying any content or algorithmic measures that would impact the visibility or remuneration of any Merlin member.”

In light of the appropriate contract’s October 31st expiration, the coming week will reveal whether the entreaty sets the stage for a fresh pact (or at least fruitful discussions). Judging by the lack of related complaints on social media – more than a few TikTok diehards and Swifties promptly lamented the temporary absence of different music earlier in 2024 – the platform doesn’t appear to have started pulling the involved catalogs.

As it pursues continued video expansions, Spotify is reportedly building its own ad exchange. Photo Credit: Thibault Penin

Spotify is reportedly building its own automated ad exchange, with an initial focus on video as opposed to audio.

That’s according to Axios, though Digital Music News has shed light on all manner of adjacent developments throughout 2024. Just in passing, that includes WPP-partnered Spotify’s apparent embrace of video (referring to podcasts, film/TV, and other content yet) as well as more than a few related hires.

Since October’s beginning alone, the company has posted job listings for advertising legal counsel, a senior manager for advertising FP&A, an advertising performance lead specializing in marketing research and intelligence, an advertising senior product designer, and an advertising backend engineer, to name some.

And it’s against this backdrop, on top of Spotify’s continued push for operational efficiency and profitability, that the mentioned outlet says the self-serve “Spotify Ad Exchange” is rolling out.

Per the same source, the Exchange can be integrated directly with certain demand-side offerings to afford clients access to available advert space. First up under the initiative is a pact with The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD), the self-described “media buying platform built for what matters” that ranked Spotify fifth on its “Best of the Open Internet” list in May.

A Spotify-advertising plugin pilot reportedly kicked off on Trade Desk last week, with an early aim of connecting North American advertisers to openings on the service’s videos. Though it perhaps goes without saying given Spotify’s foundation in audio, higher-ups reportedly intend to expand the undertaking to cover music, non-video podcasts, and audiobooks sometime down the line.

Also reportedly in the cards are automated pacts with different ad-tech operations, but concrete details about the plans are few and far between at present. Zeroing in on what we do know, however, besides reportedly moving to attract content creators, Spotify in mid-October expanded its music videos beta to 85 more countries.

The move (as well as the reported emphasis on video advertising) arrived amid a well-documented subscription-growth slowdown in established markets – and following May calls from Sony Music head Rob Stringer to begin charging for ad-supported listening in the same markets.

Logic, evidence, and competitors’ business models suggest Spotify, having now leveraged its longstanding freemium funnel to surpass 626 million monthly users (including 246 million paid subscribers), isn’t wild about this potential change.

But that’s not to say we won’t see further efforts to squeeze additional revenue from ad-supported listening. (Incidentally, Trade Desk itself is optimistic about the possibility of capitalizing on advertising to unlock new revenue in emerging markets like India.)

While time will reveal the results delivered by these efforts, the market still seems decidedly bullish on Spotify (NYSE: SPOT), shares in which cracked yet another 52-week high, $389.48 apiece, on Tuesday.

Machine Gun Kelly wrapping the North American leg of his Mainstream Sellout Tour. Photo Credit: Amber Patrick

The NFL has officially tapped Machine Gun Kelly for a halftime performance at its final international game of the 2024 season.

The league confirmed MGK’s headlining halftime slot just moments ago, ahead of the Carolina Panthers’ November 10th clash with the New York Giants in Munich. According to the NFL – and as backed up by multiple YouTube videos – Germany-based football fans, notwithstanding the over 4,000 miles separating them from West Virginia, are big into “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

As described by the NFL, Machine Gun Kelly will “pay homage” to the John Denver classic with his recently released “Lonely Road,” which interpolates the 1971 hit. (Jelly Roll, who also recorded the newer song, will be in Indiana to deliver a concert on the same day as the Munich game.)

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Machine Gun Kelly to the stage as the halftime performer for the 2024 NFL Game in Munich — capping off an incredible season of international games with a performance from one of the most dynamic talents in music today,” NFL director of event and game presentation Tim Tubito elaborated in part.

Stateside, the early morning game (scheduled for a 6:30 AM PT kickoff) as well as the halftime show will air exclusively on the NFL Network, with MGK’s set poised to arrive on social media sometime later in the day.

Shifting the focus to the bigger picture, music is playing an increasingly significant role in the football world – and not solely when it comes to the Super Bowl’s Apple Music-sponsored Halftime Show.

Amazon Music Live, having followed Prime-exclusive Thursday Night Football broadcasts with livestream music for years now, initiated 2024’s seven-concert series last week with the aforementioned Jelly Roll.

Meanwhile, in terms of forthcoming performance opportunities at NFL games in Europe and elsewhere, the league has already confirmed it’ll take a regular-season game to Madrid in 2025. Overall, next year will bring as many as “eight league-operated international games,” up from four and not including additional “club-operated games, such as the Jaguars hosting a game at Wembley Stadium in the U.K.,” per the Jay-Z partnered league.

Despite these points, recent headlines haven’t been entirely positive at the intersection of football and music. The legendary Lil Wayne, a longtime Packers fan and a New Orleans native, has spoken publicly about being snubbed from the Kendrick Lamar-headlined Halftime Show at Super Bowl LIX, which will take place in his hometown on February 9th.

Total CISAC member collections from live and public performance usages, 2017-2023. Photo Credit: CISAC

CISAC member societies achieved 7.6% year-over-year collections growth to hit a record $14.14 billion/€13.09 billion in 2023 – including $12.69 billion/€11.75 billion specifically for music usages (also up 7.6% YoY).

The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) revealed these stats in its 2024 annual report, which is based on data from 227 member CMOs. Diving directly into the relevant numbers, the €13.09 billion in total collections marks a nearly 30% improvement from pre-pandemic 2019, the resource shows.

Behind the 2023 sum for music, $3.65 billion/€3.38 billion derived from television and radio (down 28% from 2019; the same category slipped about 4% YoY for all collections), $4.89 billion/€4.53 billion came from digital (up 2,463% from 2019), and $3.31 billion/€3.06 billion was attributed to live and public performance usages (up 345% from 2019 and, once again for total collections, 22% YoY).

Like total collections, overall live/background has now rebounded well past 2019 levels ($3.14 billion/€2.91 billion) due in part to recoveries throughout Latin America and Asia-Pacific, according to the analysis.

Furthermore, an increasingly AI-focused CISAC noted that live music had continued to outpace the public performance category’s other areas for growth across 2019 and 2023 – with, for instance, a 24% expansion (from 2019) for live to $1.11 billion/€1.031 billion compared to a 6.1% improvement for background music (€1.032 billion).

At the risk of diving too far into the breakdown – CISAC’s 2024 report runs over 60 pages and covers a substantial amount of ground – the data suggests that live/background recoveries are still picking up in regions like the aforementioned Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Eastern Europe.

A telling recap of CISAC members’ 2023 live and background collections by region. Photo Credit: CISAC

Meanwhile, digital’s 9.6% YoY royalties jump (overall and for music in particular) did, of course, derive in large part from streaming.

However, against the backdrop of relative subscribership plateaus in established markets, it was the category’s first single-digit boost since at least 2019 and marked a fall from 35.1% YoY growth in 2022, the resource indicates.

Closing by rounding out 2023’s music-specific collection figures, CD and video kicked in $410.36 million/€380 million (down 40% from 2019), private copying contributed $300.18 million/€278 million (up 59% from 2019), and other sources generated the remaining $136.08 million/€126 million (up 22% from 2019).

Digital accounted for 87.2% of 2023’s music collections, and in terms of percentage royalties growth by region, Latin America (up 26.2% YoY to $749.45 million/€694 million) and Europe (up 8.3% YoY to $6.49 billion/€6.01 billion) led the pack, according to the report.

Lastly, the top-10 countries by music collections (save Japan and Spain, both down 3% YoY) turned in largely modest growth, with stronger results in Italy (up 22.3% to $539.95 million/€500 million) and South Korea (up 9.6% YoY to $323.94 million/€300 million).

Music collaboration startup Highnote has announced a $2.5 million round. Photo Credit: Highnote

Music collaboration startup Highnote has announced a $2.5 million raise with support from Dropbox Ventures.

New York City-based Highnote disclosed the multimillion-dollar capital influx today, after arriving on the scene back in 2022. With co-founders including Songtrust vet Paulina Vo, Chris Muccioli (previously with Spotify and Splice), and Jordan Bradley (who doubles as CEO), the collaboration platform bills itself specifically as “the best way to discuss and organize notes on any audio file.”

On the features front, Highnote offers lossless streaming, timestamped commenting (including voice comments), group chat, file-version management, secure storage, and more, according to its website. Monthly plans vary in price from free (15 tracks/50GB cloud storage) to $30 for Studio, which supports unlimited tracks and 5TB of cloud storage, the appropriate page shows.

Returning to the funding round, Highnote, as mentioned, has raised $2.5 million from Dropbox Ventures (which is zeroing in on “the next generation of apps and tools”) as well as existing backers Afore Capital, Character Capital, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, and Precursor Ventures.

Also participating in this latest round are new angel-investor execs associated with Figma, Atlassian, Abstract, and Dropbox, besides returning angel investors at SoundCloud, Auth0, and Splice.

(On top of that long list of Highnote investors, other music collaboration startups, among them Baton, Submix, and most recently Ampollo, have scored multimillion-dollar raises, complete with a number of backers, of their own.)

Looking to the bigger strategic picture, Highnote intends to capitalize on the funds by exploring “AI-powered features aimed at enhancing the creative process,” with “comment summarization, tone analysis, and creative recommendations” all in the cards, per higher-ups.

And closer to the present, October 15th delivered a fresh Dropbox integration through which users can automatically open any stored audio files directly via Highnote. Meanwhile, November will see the collaboration startup roll out “a full 2-way integration, creating a seamless audio layer on top of any Dropbox account,” the business indicated.

Addressing his company’s $2.5 million raise, co-founder and CEO Jordan Bradley touched on the funding’s ability to accelerate expansion plans at the intersection of AI and collaboration.

“As AI accelerates content creation, content collaboration is at an all-time high,” communicated the former Mighty lead product designer. “We built the industry’s best audio workflow layer so that collaborators can stay organized, efficient, and in control—no matter how fast things are moving.

“This partnership with Dropbox Ventures allows us to deepen our commitment to creators and accelerate our plans to provide a foundational layer for AI powered audio workflows,” concluded Bradley.

In one of late October’s music industry hires, promotions, and departures, Chris McMurtry (pictured) joined OpenPlay as senior solutions architect. Photo Credit: Ernest Chapman

Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of October 23rd, 2024.

If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com. And, keep track of all the latest music industry hires here.

Triller

Kicking off a “transformation journey,” the publicly listed Triller Group has named Vevo vet Kevin McGurn CEO and added 1-800-Flowers founder James McCann as well as Triller co-founder Bobby Sarnevesht to its board.

The Orchard

Sony Music’s The Orchard has made two executive appointments in South Korea: former Warner Bros. Discovery higher-up Jeeyoung Lee is now head of South Korea and country manager, while former Big Hit exec Sungho “Jake” Bae, also based in Seoul, has become director of artist and label services for Asia Pacific.

Additionally, the role of New York City-based SVP of strategy and corporate development John Park “has been expanded to focus on business opportunities in Korea.”

OpenPlay

Dart Music founder Chris McMurtry, previously with PEX, has joined OpenPlay as senior solutions architect.

Believe

Believe has “redesigned” its international strategy under longtime team member Romain Vivien, who, on top of his existing role as the company’s Europe president, is officially doubling as global head of music.

Plus, in the UK, Believe has elevated three-year employee Johnny Pinchard, formerly part of RCA, to A&R head.

EastCoast Entertainment

Longtime Carolina Panthers marketing exec Erin Collums has signed on as EastCoast’s director of marketing.

CD Baby

Downtown’s CD Baby has tapped former Sofar Sounds VP of growth marketing Jean Mischler to serve as SVP of marketing.

Ineffable Records

Ineffable has hired former Spirit Music Group film and TV creative services manager Sage Ressler as head of sync.

MNRK Music Group

MNRK has promoted Chris Moncada, who joined the company nearly a decade ago, to COO.

Killphonic Rights

Frenchkiss Records founder Syd Butler and former Spotify higher-up Michelle Fantus are now co-heads of A&R at Killphonic.

BMG

Melanie McAllister, who spent close to a decade at the HR helm of BMG “sister company” Arvato, is scheduled to begin as BMG’s chief human resources officer on November 1st.

UMPG UK

11-year UMPG exec David Gray has been upped to UK managing director as well as global head of A&R and is expected to relocate from New York to London in the new year.

He’ll replace MD Mike McCormack, who first joined UMPG UK a quarter of a century ago and “has established a consultancy and formed a joint venture with the company.”

iHeartMedia

In February of 2025, after 27 years, Paul Schadt will retire from Charlotte’s 96.9 The Kat. However, the Country Radio Hall of Fame inductee will still “serve as a station ambassador and make on-air and on-site appearances,” per iHeartMedia.

Apple Corps

Apple Corps CEO Jeff Jones is stepping down after almost 18 years.

Warner Music Japan

Universal Music Japan vet Takeshi Okada is poised to start as president and CEO of Warner Music Japan effective December 2nd.

MLC

Songwriter Oak Felder has been confirmed for a second three-year term on the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s board, which, on the publisher side, has seen Reservoir’s Rell Lafargue elected to a second term while adding Wixen’s Jason Rys.

Position Music

Position has welcomed former Anthem Entertainment creative director Chandler Thurston to the A&R team at its Nashville office, which is expected to open in Q3 2025.

Capitol Music Group

Capitol has brought on Justin Grant (who spent over nine years with Atlantic’s marketing team) as SVP and head of digital marketing for urban, besides boosting almost five-year team member Dante Smith to head of digital for Motown.

SiriusXM has voluntarily dismissed its counterclaims against SoundExchange, though the underlying unpaid royalties battle is still in full swing. Photo Credit: SoundExchange

Less than three months later, SiriusXM has dropped its counterclaims against SoundExchange in their high-stakes legal battle over allegedly unpaid royalties.

That interesting move from SiriusXM emerged in a brief notice of dismissal, after the satellite radio giant fired off the counteraction in mid-August. Among other things, said counteraction sought the recoupment of certain allegedly overpaid royalties and accused the plaintiff of enlisting a biased accounting firm to audit SiriusXM financials.

Meanwhile, SoundExchange in the original complaint accused SiriusXM of failing to pay over $150 million in owed royalties due largely to alleged revenue misrepresentations in joint satellite and online radio packages. We broke down the suit in detail at the time of its filing last year; a venue change and additional factors have made for a plodding showdown thus far.

But in short, there are different royalty-calculation requirements in place for satellite and digital packages, with deductions available for satellite-digital bundles to prevent double-paying on one revenue source. In more words, SoundExchange accused the defendant of inflating the value of webcasting (or online listening) offerings so it could cough up smaller royalty payments on bundles.

Also as covered by DMN, SiriusXM refuted the allegations, urged the court to toss the suit, and even made a push for counterclaim damages.

As initially highlighted, however, SiriusXM’s months-old counterclaims are no more. SoundExchange has yet to respond, the dismissal notice reiterates before underscoring that the counterclaims “hereby are voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.”

Absent from the concise legal text is any mention of the reason(s) behind the abrupt dismissal. Though the obvious answer is that the involved parties are nearing some sort of resolution – albeit in a far different situation, SoundExchange recently came to a temporary agreement with AccuRadio – evidence suggests little progress has been made towards resolving the broader issues at hand.

For instance, it was only last week that the judge approved a jointly proposed briefing schedule for SiriusXM’s 12(c) motion to toss the complaint. Per the order, the defendant’s moving brief has an October 28th deadline, SoundExchange will have until November 26th to submit its opposition brief, and a SiriusXM reply brief will then be due back by December 18th.

Closer to the present, a status conference took place on the 17th and was added to the docket yesterday, with related letters to the court seemingly pointing to continued disagreements between SiriusXM and SoundExchange.

Separately, SiriusXM is also embroiled in a rate court dispute with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), as the two have apparently failed to reach an agreement on terms for 2022 through 2026.

Photo Credit: Timbaland

What major label copyright infringement battle? AI music startup Suno has inked a partnership deal with Timbaland – including an exclusive pre-release of the 52-year-old’s latest single.

Suno, still engaged in a high-stakes legal showdown with Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music, unveiled its far-reaching Timbaland tie-up today. Perhaps the most noteworthy component of the union (in part because it could mark the start of a broader trend) is the above-mentioned exclusive pre-release of “Love Again,” which is now streaming via a dedicated page on Suno’s website.

But the evidently involved agreement doesn’t end there. Suno has also put out a debut episode of MUSE, billed as a “branded content series that demonstrates how Suno empowers music creators by both igniting new ideas and reviving forgotten or unfinished tracks.”

In the six-minute upload, Timbaland in more words touts Suno (and specifically its “Covers” tool, which generates variations of one’s own works) as a cutting-edge asset to the contemporary creative process. Of course, a number of rightsholders have a decidedly different view of the AI business and artificial intelligence generally.

And while it remains to be seen whether Suno can change these negative perceptions – a concrete answer to the ever-important fair use training question will prove important here – it’s certainly working to do so.

The effort further encompasses a “Love Again” remix contest for fans, who will according to the appropriate website have the chance to win $100,000 in prizes by “reimagining” the track via Suno. Public access to the single’s stems is set to open up at 9 AM PST tomorrow.

Unsurprisingly, Suno is capitalizing by encouraging individuals “from Grammy-winning producers to up-and-coming artists” to give its “cutting-edge, AI-powered editing tools” a try as well. Suno, a portion of the relevant text reads, “supports you through every step of the creative process—from generating fresh ideas to preparing tracks for release.”

Addressing his Suno pact, the Verzuz co-founder Timbaland emphasized a perceived “unique opportunity to make A.I. work for the artist community and not the other way around” – besides a chance “to open up the floodgates for generations of artists to flourish on this new frontier.”

In comments of his own, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman struck an optimistic tone about the future.

“It’s an honor to work with a legend like Timbaland,” communicated Shulman. “At Suno, we’re really excited about exploring new ways for fans to engage with their favorite artists. With Timbaland’s guidance, we’re helping musicians create music at the speed of their ideas—whether they’re just starting out or already selling out stadiums. We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead!”

Only time will tell exactly “what’s ahead” for Audible Magic-partnered Suno and other music-focused AI players, which appear unlikely to resolve training-related infringement disputes by appealing directly to creators.

However, the suits seem as though they’ll take some time to play out and might not be a slam dunk for the plaintiffs – raising interesting questions about what the landscape will look like should Suno and others achieve material adoption-rate growth in the interim.

The Minnesota Timberwolves warm up before a game. Photo Credit: Bobak Ha’Eri

NBA teams including the Minnesota Timberwolves are firing back against the copyright infringement actions they’re facing from music publishers.

The Timberwolves are among the more than dozen NBA teams grappling with the substantially similar suits, which were filed separately in July but, for the time being, remain unconsolidated. Now, in keeping with the cases’ overlap, teams are submitting largely matching answers.

We’ve covered the relatively straightforward cases from the get-go. Just to recap, though, plaintiffs including Kobalt Music and Prescription Songs say the defendants infringed their works by using unlicensed music in various social media videos as well as clips uploaded to NBA.com.

As a growing list of companies are finding out – or being reminded – via litigation, social media platforms’ pre-cleared song libraries are generally licensed for personal as opposed to professional use. There’s also another layer of complexity (at least for companies and professionals situated outside the industry) given how quickly usage rules and infringement responses can change on social services.

Individuals who upload videos featuring unauthorized music and pertaining to sports teams, for instance, won’t be (or haven’t been) chased down by the appropriate rightsholders. But it’s evidently a different “ballgame” when teams themselves are uploading allegedly infringing media.

In any event, the Timberwolves’ answer doesn’t touch on this complexity or the broader subject of potential licensing pitfalls on social media.

Instead, the legal text includes a comprehensive point-by-point refutation of the original complaint’s allegations – as well as a number of affirmative defenses to boot. Perhaps most interestingly, the claims are allegedly barred because the plaintiffs “engaged in copyright misuse.”

Here, that refers to the publishers’ allegedly leveraging “their copyright registrations along with threats of attorneys’ fees in order to extort from the Team disproportionate payments for allegedly infringing uses.”

Next, the Timberwolves say they “possessed an implied license” to exploit the allegedly infringed works, maintain that doing so constituted fair use, and further believe that the First Amendment protected the alleged usages, to name a few defenses.

Lastly, echoing arguments made in different copyright suits, the defendants claim that the infringement allegations are time barred owing to the approximate date on which the plaintiffs knew about or should have known about the usages at hand.

Unsurprisingly, teams are leaning into social media content as the NBA season kicks off today – but in their latest video uploads, the Timberwolves look to have incorporated lesser-known releases unaffiliated with the plaintiff publishers.

Now a publicly traded company, Triller Group (NASDAQ: ILLR) has kicked off a ‘transformation journey’ by appointing board members and a new CEO. Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

On the heels of its public market debut, Triller Group (NASDAQ: ILLR) has kicked off a “transformation journey,” including the appointment of a CEO, as it plots a “new chapter of progress.”

Triller disclosed the “important updates” at hand via a formal release, having teed up the announcements at the time of its AGBA Group merger last week. As we covered, that merger finally brought Triller, which had previously pursued a SPAC deal and a direct listing, to the stock market.

Now, with its shares still hovering well beneath their opening value, Triller Group is looking ahead to the future – complete with former Vevo sales exec Kevin McGurn’s signing on as CEO. Expected to officially come aboard next month, the former Hulu, Shazam, and T-Mobile exec McGurn in a statement briefly touched on his vision for the business.

“The future is bright in the world of entertainment,” relayed McGurn, “and I am extremely excited to join the team at Triller Group to maximize our value to Creators, Fans, and Brands. Our renewed focus means Triller Group is well positioned to deliver best in class entertainment, when, where and how our fans watch it.

“We will continue to build from our strong roots in vertical video, music and sports, and optimise our expertise in mobile and connected television,” concluded McGurn, who spent almost seven years with Vevo.

Also joining, albeit as part of the board, is 1-800-Flowers founder and former CEO James McCann. Serving as the nominations committee’s chairman, the professional will “bring a depth of governance expertise,” to Triller, per the company.

Lastly, in terms of Triller’s latest moves, co-founder and former CEO Bobby Sarnevesht has transitioned to the board, where his “entrepreneurial track record positions him uniquely to help guide the” TrillerTV operator.

Closer to the present, Triller further emphasized that the appointments represent “the initial step in a series of forthcoming announcements” designed to set in motion the mentioned transformation journey.

These announcements are being planned for “the coming weeks,” while a November media event is expected to see Triller provide “detailed insights into its strategic business plan” as well as information regarding its “future vision and immediate growth strategies.”

Especially with TikTok staring down a possible U.S. ban (and plenty of different obstacles), it’ll be interesting to see exactly what this business plan entails. In a roughly 150-word statement, Triller board chairman Bob Diamond pointed to a “vision of a single, integrated platform that delivers for creators, brands and users while generating value for all of our stakeholders.”

Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire. Photo Credit: Songtradr

Songtradr and Vinyl Group have announced an advertising-focused partnership agreement that they say will unlock “significant value” moving forward.

The Santa Monica-headquartered music licensing platform and Melbourne-based Vinyl Group (formally Jaxsta) unveiled their bolstered tie-up today. Traded as VNL on the Australian Securities Exchange, Vinyl Group counts Songtradr as its largest shareholder and operates Vinyl.com, networking-focused Vampr, credits database Jaxsta, The Brag Media, and, in its most recent purchase, Web3 platform Serenade.

Bearing in mind those varied holdings, Vinyl Group is now poised to “represent the digital advertising inventory of Songtradr and its brands on a global scale,” according to the involved parties.

That will specifically see the Mediaweek owner “manage and sell advertising across Songtradr’s portfolio of digital properties,” with the opportunity to bundle its own services as well, the companies communicated.

Particularly when it comes to Vampr, the businesses are anticipating a U.S. advertising-scale increase of “up to 20x” under the union. Meanwhile, the Funkified Entertainment parent Vinyl Group will “retain 50% of the net proceeds for any business procured under the agreement” with Songtradr, the two also noted.

Addressing the advertising pact, Vinyl Group CEO Josh Simons said: “We are thrilled to be deepening our commercial relationship with Songtradr, accelerating our growth in digital advertising. This agreement broadens our capabilities and establishes the Vampr Ad Network’s position as a key player in the global music advertising ecosystem.”

And in comments of his own, Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire, whose company acquired Bandcamp in late 2023, communicated: “Songtradr sees a distinct opportunity for our digital properties to benefit from Vinyl Group’s existing and growing advertising network. We are confident this collaboration will drive significant value for our brands and audiences.”

Closing with a look at the figures behind Vinyl Group’s Mediaweek, Serenade, and Funkified buyouts, higher-ups eliminated all doubt in a late-September presentation by acknowledging a cumulative A$2.3 million cash component for the purchases.

However, that A$2.3 million payment doesn’t extend to music-NFT platform Serenade, for which Vinyl Group put up A$800,000 worth of stock and could pay another A$1,500,000 in shares if certain revenue and EBIT benchmarks are realized after one year, the presentation shows.

During today’s trading, Vinyl Group stock (ASX: VNL) turned in a 4.76% price improvement to finish at A$0.11 per share. Despite marking a dip from May of 2024, the day-end price is more than double that attributable to VNL as of late October of 2023.

Photo Credit: A2IM

It’s safe to say the indie music community isn’t a fan of TikTok, which is facing a fresh wave of criticism ahead of its Merlin agreement’s quick-approaching expiration.

The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), the Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), and other organizations today expressed this criticism in a joint statement.

As many know, the popular-but-controversial TikTok has decided not to renew its pact with indie collective Merlin, instead opting to explore direct deals with the appropriate labels. Earlier in October, leaks suggested that the proposed take-it-or-leave-it terms would in several instances pay substantially less than under the Merlin tie-up.

Unsurprisingly, the situation isn’t sitting right with the affected labels, which are said to have until this coming Friday, October 25th, to choose between the reportedly reduced terms or having their respective catalogs pulled from the platform.

(These labels reportedly include all but the largest indies, which, despite the standardized contracts being sent to their smaller counterparts, are said to be engaged in actual discussions with TikTok.)

It’s against this backdrop that the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) one week ago publicly called out TikTok’s alleged hardball negotiation tactics – besides warning of adjacent “risks to cultural diversity” and urging the passage of the Protect Working Musicians Act.

Now, the initially mentioned organizations as well as the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), the Music Artists Coalition (MAC), SAG-AFTRA, and Songwriters of North America (SONA) are taking aim at the ByteDance-owned app’s alleged effort to do “whatever it can to avoid compensating artists fairly.”

Admittedly, the entities’ statement, included in full below, doesn’t appear to break any new ground in reiterating Merlin’s significance, the episode’s negative impact on indie artists, and the perceived importance of making the Protect Working Musicians Act law.

However, the to-the-point comments do underscore the indie sector’s growing dissatisfaction. With TikTok (which did, of course, pick a licensing battle with Universal Music earlier in 2024) seemingly unwilling to budge on the Merlin renewal, the focus will presumably shift to the imminent music pulldowns and, at least in the near term, diehard users’ responses.

Here’s the full statement put out today by A2IM, ARA, AFM, BMAC, MAC, SAG-AFTRA, and SONA.

“TikTok’s unwillingness to negotiate a licensing deal with Merlin is just the latest example of the platform doing whatever it can to avoid compensating artists fairly.

For over 15 years, Merlin has endeavored to provide access to digital platforms for small labels and artists by presenting a way for the tech behemoths to deal with one entity that can license works from many labels.

TikTok’s unprecedented action puts independent artists and songwriters in the untenable position of having no voice whatsoever in the licensing process.

Now, more than ever, we need Congress to enact the Protect Working Musicians Act and give musicians, songwriters, independent labels, and publishers the ability to negotiate collectively in the marketplace, which current law prohibits.

Without this legislative change to level the playing field, artists and songwriters will continue to be at the mercy of dominant and coercive services like TikTok who refuse to negotiate fairly with the very people creating the content on which their entire business is built.”

London, England. Photo Credit: Jakub Klucký

British music industry exports cracked a record high in 2023 despite a relatively slow year-over-year growth rate of 7.6%, according to new data.

That just-released data comes from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which pointed to over $1 billion (£775 million) in 2023 recorded music revenue attributable to domestic acts’ international sales and streams.

Behind the figure, the trade organization indicated that international British music industry recorded revenue had grown in every region during the year, referring specifically to 17.3% YoY growth in Latin America, an 11.1% YoY improvement in Africa, 9.9% in Asia, and 9.5% in the Middle East, to name a few.

Unsurprisingly, though, North America and Europe were still the largest export markets for U.K. music last year, representing almost 80% of the mentioned sum together, per the BPI. The U.S. itself kicked in $416.67 million/£320.9 million, far more than the combined total of the nine countries beneath it on the U.K.’s 2023 list of top-10 export markets by value.

Running with that list, each top-10 nation save Italy (down 3.7% YoY) turned in a modest YoY import-revenue expansion, including 6.7% for both Germany and Canada, 8.2% for Japan, 3.4% for Australia, and 8.3% for the U.S., according to the resource.

Even with a general lack of movement in these top-10 export markets’ rankings – in terms of the top-10 overall recorded music spaces, the IFPI reported zero rankings shifts at all for 2023 – China (11.3% YoY growth to $17.66 million/£13.6 million) did supplant Sweden, thereby claiming the number-10 spot, the BPI relayed.

Meanwhile, certain “major” markets outside the top 10 posted substantial jumps in British recorded music industry imports last year – the most noteworthy being India, which, with a 26.3% YoY spike, is now ranked 19th on the U.K.’s list of export nations by value, the breakdown shows.

Shifting the focus to the bigger picture, the British music industry remains on track to hit a previously disclosed BPI goal of $1.3 billion/£1 billion in annual exports by 2030, the organization relayed.

However, 2023’s 7.6% YoY export improvement is noticeably smaller than 2022’s 20% YoY boost, the entity emphasized as well, with U.K. artists accounting for an estimated total of less than 10% of worldwide streams.

Taken as a whole, the mixed-bag results appear solid enough. On the streaming-volume front, the respective consumption shares of established markets’ releases and domestic fans will undoubtedly continue to slip moving forward amid material listenership increases in emerging music sectors. (Judging by Luminate’s 2023 data, the noted India could well overtake the U.S. for the top spot on the 2024 list of countries by on-demand streaming volume.)

Furthermore, notwithstanding its significant influence in music (and broader culture), the U.K. is, after all, home to only about 68 million individuals. And it goes without saying that unpredictability is inherent when it comes to breakout artists and especially worldwide hits.

The New York Post printing plant in the Bronx. Photo Credit: Jim Henderson

In a case that could establish precedent relevant to multiple music industry lawsuits against generative AI companies, the owners of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post are suing Perplexity for copyright infringement.

Dow Jones & Company as well as NYP Holdings submitted that copyright complaint to a New York federal court, naming as the lone defendant San Francisco-based Perplexity. Billing itself as today’s “most powerful answer engine,” the latter startup counts as stakeholders Jeff Bezos and Nvidia.

Against the backdrop of sizable funding rounds and massive valuations in the AI space, the just-filed action points to a possible $3 billion market worth for Perplexity – though reports today suggested that the business is looking to raise $500 million at a whopping $8 billion valuation.

Conveyed in different words, it’s an understatement to say that ample cash is floating around the AI world. But according to the corporate entities behind the Journal and the Post, Perplexity in particular owes its success to a “brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously freeriding on the valuable content” at hand.

As recounted in the 42-page suit, the plaintiffs reached out to the defendant in July of 2024 with a letter describing infringement concerns and “offering to discuss a potential licensing deal.” (Separately, the New York Times recently sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter concerning alleged infringement, Reuters reported.)

Predictably, in light of the fresh complaint, the filing parties, having previously finalized a licensing pact with ChatGPT developer OpenAI via their parent, say they never received a response from Perplexity.

Shifting to the actual copyright claims, the complaint contrasts previously filed actions against generative AIs (including Amazon-backed Anthropic, OpenAI, and more) by accusing Perplexity of infringement at several stages.

First, the platform, often used to summarize news, allegedly “copied hundreds of thousands” of copyrighted Journal and Post articles without permission for its retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) database. Taking aim at arguments made by other AI giants, the action rather directly claims the alleged practice isn’t transformative and doesn’t constitute fair use.

In a nutshell, the RAG database, distinct from the much-discussed training process for large-language models, is said to house a continually updated (via web scraping) collection of information for use in AI-generated answers to user questions (including requests for breakdowns of articles, for example).

(Incidentally, at the time of this writing, the AI platform was declining to use the Post article about the lawsuit to create a summary of the matter, even when asked to do so. Citations are featured prominently beside Perplexity answers but, according to the plaintiffs, render “users less inclined to visit the original content source” and generate “virtually no click-through traffic” in any event.)

Next, Perplexity’s “full or partial verbatim reproductions of” copyrighted articles allegedly constitute independent instances of copyright infringement. That includes detailed, quote-heavy summaries of paywall-protected Journal coverage as well as entire Post pieces.

Furthermore, the AI defendant allegedly makes additional unauthorized copies of “articles to preserve the outputs it generates in another database that it uses for analytical and other purposes.” The exact quantity of alleged copies is unclear, but the plaintiffs say “each individual electronic copy constitutes its own infringement subject to statutory damages under the Copyright Act.”

Lastly, Perplexity allegedly produces “made-up text (hallucinations) in its outputs” and then falsely attributes said text, sometimes alongside genuine quoted materials, to specific articles and authors from the plaintiff publications. Among other things, the alleged practice is “likely to cause confusion or mistake,” according to the suit.

“This conduct likewise harms the news-consuming public,” the complaint sums up towards its end. “Generating content for advertisement or subscription revenue is unsustainable if the content is taken en masse and reproduced by bad-faith actors for substitutive commercial purposes.”

All told, the plaintiffs are seeking substantial damages and a number of orders – one barring the unauthorized copying of protected materials and another calling for the “destruction of any index or database created by Perplexity that contains” the same materials, to name a couple.

Washington, D.C.’s Apex Building, which serves as the headquarters of the FTC. Photo Credit: Harrison Keely

It’s about to get easier to cancel subscriptions in the U.S. – at least according to three of the FTC’s five commissioners, who have voted in favor of a “click to cancel” rule that will purportedly “make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up.”

Said rule represents one component of a modification to the FTC’s broader negative option rule. The latter dates back to 1973 and, in a nutshell, concerns products and services delivered automatically under a prior agreement in the absence of a proactive cancellation from the consumer.

That was, of course, long before digital subscriptions and even the internet had arrived on the scene – meaning that the measure allegedly stops short of reaching contemporary streaming offerings and other negative option services.

Moreover, according to critics, newer regulatory efforts in this department failed to adequately protect consumers, referring in part to blind spots affecting “continuity plans, automatic renewals, and free-to-pay conversions,” per the FTC’s final negative option rule.

Though heavy in footnotes, said final rule spans an appalling 230 pages in total, including an analysis of public comments in the leadup to the corresponding vote as well as a whole lot else. Needless to say, covering each involved element would require a substantial amount of time and space.

In the interest of relative brevity, then, the retooled negative option rule, expected to (largely) go into effect 180 days following its publication in the Federal Register, will as laid out by the FTC (or at least the three commissioners who passed it) compel sellers to display pertinent purchase information and terms upfront.

(In her dissenting statement, Commissioner Melissa Holyoak claimed the “overbroad” and “likely unlawful” rule exceeded the FTC’s authority and, in terms of its timing, was politically motivated. On the opposite side of the aisle, Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who voted to pass, lamented the absence in the final rule of a provision that would have “required annual reminders of subscriptions that do not involve the delivery of physical goods.” The other dissenting commissioner’s statement is said to be forthcoming.)

But the main attraction here appears to be the initially highlighted FTC click to cancel rule. Diving directly into the relevant regulatory text, the rule says a “simple cancellation mechanism must be easy to find when the consumer seeks to cancel” a negative option service via an “interactive electronic medium.”

That includes barring customer-service-rep conversations as a mandatory precursor to canceling (unless reps had been contacted as part of the initial signup process, that is).

It’s a violation of the rule and “an unfair or deceptive act or practice” under the FTC Act for negative option sellers “to fail to provide a simple mechanism for a consumer to cancel,” the regulation spells out. Also prohibited is preventing consumers from avoiding charges (including for an increased amount) or taking steps to “immediately stop any recurring” charges.

Exemptions are available for certain businesses, and penalties are in place for infractions, per the rule. Concluding by bringing the focus back to the music space, cancellations don’t seem to be too big an issue for consumers when it comes to axing on-demand streaming services. But in the satellite radio world, SiriusXM is still facing a lawsuit over its “US music royalty fee” surcharge.

Furthermore, as many know, there are plenty of consumer complaints in and around the live entertainment sphere – meaning big regulation-fueled changes could potentially be forthcoming.

IMPALA is demanding an investigation into Universal Music Group’s recent purchase of the remaining stake in [PIAS], allegedly the latest byproduct of ‘unchecked concentration in the music market.’ Photo Credit: IMPALA

Now a wholly owned subsidiary of Universal Music Group (UMG), [PIAS] has officially exited the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), which is calling for regulators to investigate the underlying deal.

IMPALA today confirmed the departure of [PIAS] and formally reacted to UMG’s purchase of the decades-old indie label group. Said purchase, we reported earlier this week, saw Universal Music scoop up the remaining 51% of the business after buying a 49% stake in 2022.

Besides thanking [PIAS] co-founders Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot “for their support and insight over the past twenty four years,” IMPALA took aim at the “serious problem” of “unchecked concentration in the music market” and pushed for related regulatory action. (A Wayback Machine copy of the appropriate webpage indicates that only Lambot, not Gates, had been on IMPALA’s board prior to the post-sale exit.)

“The move by UMG squeezes the independents further in an already very concentrated market,” the Brussels-based organization wrote. “It also goes against the principle established by the European Commission over ten years ago during UMG’s takeover of EMI that UMG is already too big.”

Emphasizing the EU’s evidently expired “ten year ban” on acquisitions for UMG, 24-year-old IMPALA then drove home the belief that the [PIAS] play “will increase the power of UMG across Europe and beyond.”

Moreover, regarding the consolidation efforts of all three majors, there’s “a serious risk” that Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music will bring about a “real disruption for the independent sector” by continuing to spearhead indie-sector purchases, per IMPALA.

Multiple IMPALA higher-ups, including AIM interim CEO Gee Davy, weighed in on the [PIAS] sale and its implications for the indie space – with executive chair Helen Smith driving home the perceived need for competition-focused scrutiny.

“IMPALA expects regulators to investigate the acquisition and answer the question the industry is asking about how it is possible for UMG to gain more market share after it was already considered too big,” Smith spelled out of the [PIAS] purchase concerns.

“We would expect both physical and digital markets to be assessed including for distribution services, as well as the impact on competitors, digital services, artists and fans. A share deal is one thing, this is something else,” concluded Smith.

Time will tell whether the sought probe of the newest deal between UMG and [PIAS] comes to fruition – and whether the possible inquiry produces the desired result for the WIN member IMPALA. Previously, Sony Music’s AWAL purchase encountered some regulatory scrutiny in the U.K. but was ultimately approved.

Worth highlighting in conclusion is that [PIAS] co-founder Kenny Gates, as noted at the time of the sale’s announcement, is poised to continue running the business as a division of UMG; the professional status of fellow co-founder Michel Lambot wasn’t quite as clear. However, Lambot is set to “remain active in the music and broader cultural sector through a new business, Emotions,” IMPALA confirmed.

A live performance from Daddy Yankee, who’s sold his catalog to Concord. Photo Credit: Chrishonduras

Earlier this week, DMN first reported on Concord’s over $217 million buyout of “a highly successful” Latin artist’s catalog. Now, the company has officially confirmed a deal with Daddy Yankee.

Concord reached out to Digital Music News today with a formal release about its Daddy Yankee IP agreement. Our earlier coverage stemmed from a KBRA breakdown of the business’s financials and holdings – including a recent $217.3 million play for the “catalog of assets by a highly successful Latin Music artist and songwriter.”

Notwithstanding the latter specification, KBRA didn’t come right out and identify the artist’s name. However, the rating agency did describe the appropriate act as one defendant in “a copyright infringement claim against several artists in the Latin Music genre.”

While what’s likely the claim in question is sweeping to say the least – we’ve broken down that reggaeton-theft action at length – we noted that the commercially prominent Daddy Yankee is one of the suit’s many defendants.

Shifting back to the present, Concord has eliminated all doubt by acknowledging the purchase of a stake in Daddy Yankee’s publishing catalog and masters, on top of “certain name, image, and likeness rights” to boot.

Though Concord opted not to disclose the exact ownership specifics, the Nashville-headquartered company specified that the pact “encompasses Daddy Yankee’s work from 2002 through 2019.” During the period, the Puerto Rican artist released five studio albums (beginning with 2002’s El Cangri.com) as well as a number of much-streamed non-album singles.

“Since he burst onto the scene,” added Concord CEO Bob Valentine, “Daddy Yankee has been at the forefront of not only reggaeton, but pop music generally.

“We were incredibly excited by this opportunity to work alongside Daddy Yankee to continue building on his remarkable legacy and significance. His real and lasting cultural impact is clear, and Concord is thrilled to be a part of his story,” the longtime exec concluded.

Looking ahead to the future, Concord intends to manage Daddy Yankee’s catalog out of its Miami office – with plans in place to keep on acquiring “important content in the Latin music space” moving forward.

Besides achieving ongoing growth across a number of quick-developing markets – Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina among them – Latin music is generating more recorded revenue than ever in the U.S., according to RIAA data.

Triller stock (NASDAQ: ILLR) has parted with a substantial portion of its value since debuting on NASDAQ. Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

Triller (NASDAQ: ILLR) has finally made its way onto the public market, but shares have suffered a double-digit slip out of the gate.

We broke down the long-awaited stock market debut of Triller yesterday. In the end, following pushes for a direct listing and a SPAC merger, the self-described “AI-powered open garden technology platform for creators” united with Hong Kong’s AGBA Group to list on NASDAQ.

DMN has charted those and adjacent moves from Triller – besides an array of acquisitions, legal battles, and other developments – for years. As things stand, the seemingly former Verzuz owner operates the namesake short-form video platform, the TrillerTV “digital platform for global sports and entertainment,” Amplify.ai, and several other divisions.

(Given the stock price decline, it should be reiterated that Verzuz co-founders Timbaland and Swizz Beatz previously sued Triller for a massive alleged non-payment and reportedly retained stakes in the now-public company even after bringing their program to Twitter/X.)

Keeping the focus on the increasingly diversified business’s share-price showing, however, ILLR was worth $3.35 at the time of this writing – down about 23% from opening and even more than that from its $5.60-per-share price upon debuting.

All told, that comes out to a nearly $152 million market cap for the overarching Triller Group, according to the appropriate listing on NASDAQ. Of course, the question is where ILLR will go from here, and while it perhaps needn’t be said, only time will reveal how shares perform during the remainder of 2024 and beyond.

Zeroing in on what we do know, though, the publicly traded Triller on Tuesday teed up “a statement on future leadership, strategy and objectives” for October 22nd. The exact scope of that statement is unclear, but higher-ups will presumably shed light on their vision for the newly combined businesses.

Back in April, AGBA pointed to the development of a “global AI-driven social video platform,” the generation of artist and sports content “for a global audience,” and “cutting-edge fintech investments,” among other things, as the core components of Triller.

Running with those points – and notwithstanding the actual Triller video-sharing app’s relatively small revenue contribution to the wider business – the fate of TikTok in the U.S. is a decidedly big deal for Triller.

In three months, barring a possible six-month extension or a court intervention, TikTok will have to sell (which execs have emphasized isn’t in the cards) or cease operating in America. The likes of Reels and Shorts are certainly poised to pick up a lot of these users and viewer hours if the ban goes through; both have been making gains in any event, and many short-form enthusiasts already utilize multiple platforms.

But Triller would undoubtedly position itself to attract former TikTok diehards (who, at this point, are apparently unbothered by the ample criticism and lawsuits involving the ByteDance-owned platform), potentially realizing a material userbase expansion as a result.

Apple Music has launched a playlist-powered concert-promotion feature called ‘Set List.’ Photo Credit: Brett Jordan

Apple Music has rolled out a “Set List” feature with which artists can make dedicated playlists to promote their shows.

The Spotify rival just recently unveiled Set List, noting at the outset that acts must have an artist image (which will double as the playlists’ cover art) uploaded to Apple Music in order to utilize the tool.

Connecting one’s artist page to Bandsintown is also recommended due to the concert-discovery advantages at hand, the platform explained in more words. (Advisable as well is creating an optimal Apple Music artist page; we took an in-depth look at that process earlier in 2024.)

As for the steps associated with generating Set List playlists, professionals can simply click the relevant button in the Artist Playlists section, select an event type (concert, entire tour, or residency), connect a forthcoming concert or concerts (manually or automatically via the Bandsintown integration), and add the desired tracks to seal the deal.

Per Apple Music, the playlists can be scheduled to go live on certain dates (so long as said dates are “no earlier than one day in the future”), and artists can make “as many Set List playlists as shows you have played or will play.”

Notably, on the aforementioned discovery front, these Set List playlists will also populate one’s Shazam profile, the streaming service relayed. Over the summer, the Apple-owned song-identification app started integrating Ticketmaster tickets.

Shifting from these technical details to the possible advantages associated with mapping out shows’ performed tracks via dedicated playlists, the latter can presumably help promote carefully planned gigs ahead of time.

Perhaps just as beneficially, the feature will seemingly make it easier for attendees to identify songs after the fact; the Super Bowl Halftime Show sponsor pointed as well to a potential upside in reaching “fans who couldn’t make the live experience.”

Bigger picture, Set List playlists mark the newest in a line of Apple Music (and Apple Music for Artists) feature additions on the year – including, on the Artists side, the ability to track worldwide radio spins.

Meanwhile, Apple Music flipped the script in late August by enabling subscribers to export playlists to YouTube Music (but not Spotify). Speaking of Spotify, the longtime Apple nemesis hasn’t lacked technical improvements on the year, referring in part to auto-generated offline playlists (kicking in when listeners lose internet connectivity) and various AI offerings.

Not to be left out, Amazon Music is continuing to leverage exclusive content (remixes, performances, and more) and lean into partnerships with the likes of Discord, which now supports the “Amazon Music Listening Party” activity.

Randy Newman, who’s inked a song rights deal with Litmus Music. Photo Credit: Pamela Springsteen

Another day, another high-profile song rights deal – this time involving Randy Newman, who’s sold an interest in his catalog to Carlyle Global Credit-backed Litmus Music.

Litmus formally revealed its latest investment today, about six weeks after reportedly scooping up Opus Music Group. Running with the newer deal, the purchasing party says it’s specifically secured 80-year-old “Randy Newman’s share of his recorded music and publishing.”

Like with most recent catalog purchases, the buyer, at least in its official announcement, opted against identifying the precise financials at hand. (Other massive catalog deals are apparently closing without so much as a public disclosure.)

But Litmus did indicate that the agreement extends to the Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee’s well-known work on animated films including Toy Story as well as its sequels (Newman is the sole producer and songwriter on “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”), Cars, Monsters, Inc., and more.

Also as described by Litmus, the play includes a variety of Newman hits from decades past, among them 1983’s “I Love L.A.,” the 90s’ “Feels Like Home,” 1967’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” and Monk theme “It’s a Jungle Out There,” to name just a few.

All told, besides a variety of soundtrack albums (including for 1998’s Pleasantville and the more recent Marriage Story), Newman has released about a dozen full-length solo studio projects, including an eponymous 1968 debut and 2017’s Dark Matter.

Though Newman didn’t provide a statement about the sale for Litmus’ release, co-founder and CCO Dan McCarroll emphasized that he and his team “couldn’t be more proud and excited to acquire Randy’s catalog of beautiful, witty, and sharply observational songs.”

And in remarks of his own, Litmus co-founder and CEO Hank Forsyth touted the professional accomplishments and career of the 23-time Grammy nominee and seven-time winner.

“Randy’s music has touched so many generations,” communicated Forsyth. “His songs continue to transcend time and illuminate films. Dan and I and the entire Litmus team are so grateful Randy has trusted us as his partner to care for these songs and recordings. It is an honor and responsibility we don’t take lightly.”

For Litmus, the Newman partnership follows several seemingly sizable deals – including, besides the initially mentioned Opus play, IP pacts with Katy Perry, Benny Blanco, and, in its first investment after arriving on the scene in 2022, Keith Urban. (Details about these and hundreds of others are compiled in DMN Pro’s Music IP Acquisition Tracker.)

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the end of the company that kicked off the catalog-purchase craze, the likes of Reservoir Media, Sony Music (it turns out Pink Floyd was serious about selling after all), Jonas Group Publishing, Primary Wave, and HarbourView Equity Partners are still racking up song-rights investments as well.

The Spotify v. MLC lawsuit is only intensifying, referring now to an apparent discovery dispute. Photo Credit: Alexander Shatov

Just when you thought the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) v. Spotify lawsuit couldn’t get any uglier, the two are now embroiled in a bitter discovery dispute.

Both the MLC and the streaming platform illustrated the scope of this dispute today, in letters to the presiding judge about their respective qualms. For those who’ve been following the underlying courtroom confrontation even casually, these discovery hang-ups won’t come as a surprise.

We’ve provided more than a few updates – including on the plaintiff’s arguments, Spotify’s dismissal push, a retort to the latter, and much else – since the MLC submitted the suit five months ago.

Long story short, Spotify is paying materially less in U.S. mechanicals after abruptly deeming its main subscription packages bundles (and, for royalty-calculation purposes, reclassifying the involved accounts) owing to the addition of audiobook listening. In a nutshell, the Phonorecords IV determination for on-demand streaming treats bundled revenue far differently than it does revenue from standalone music-only packages.

The streaming giant says the move is above board, the MLC is adamant that the packages don’t constitute bundles, and millions in (allegedly unpaid) royalties are hanging in the balance as a result.

It’s against this backdrop that the MLC and Spotify are apparently locking horns over the precise scope of discovery.

Beginning with the few details about which the parties are in agreement, counsel for the MLC and Spotify participated in a roughly two-hour Zoom meeting on September 18th, corresponded via writing multiple times thereafter, have evidently been unable to reach a compromise, and are consequently asking the court to weigh in.

“Yet Spotify has refused to produce any documents in response to many of the MLC’s requests,” the MLC’s legal team maintained in the relevant letter, “and has sought to unreasonably narrow other requests, all in an effort to avoid producing the very documents the MLC requires to support its claim.”

(Technically, both letters were penned and submitted jointly, but that centering on Spotify’s discovery requests bears the letterhead for the streaming platform’s attorneys, whereas the same is true, albeit for the MLC’s counsel, of the other document.)

The categories in which Spotify has allegedly “refused to produce any documents” include but aren’t limited to the decision-making process behind the audiobook and music-only plans’ launches as well as the actual revenue, subscribers, and profit associated with the audiobook tier.

Of course, one needn’t stretch the imagination to see why the MLC, in arguing that audiobooks are of “token value,” wishes to obtain the performance details (on top of the “technical architecture” to boot) tied to the appropriate plan. Said plan costs $2 less per month than Individual in the States but, as it includes 15 hours of audiobooks access and no ad-free music support, is presumably finding few takers.

Meanwhile, Spotify has allegedly moved to limit the scope of discovery in different areas. Sticking with the streaming platform’s response as provided in the MLC’s letter, the defendant claimed in more words that it’d agreed to 53 of the over 60 requests at hand, besides lambasting these requests as an “extremely broad, invasive examination of a wide range of topics for a period of over three-and-a-half years.”

“Spotify has already agreed to take on a remarkable burden,” the defendant’s attorneys penned, “collecting and reviewing tens of thousands of documents (if not more). The MLC’s refusal to compromise on any of its requests is entirely unreasonable. … Spotify is hard-pressed to understand how documents related to wireframes or codebase have any bearing on whether audiobook streaming is a product or service distinct from music streaming that has more than token value.”

Shifting to Spotify’s letter to the court, the streaming service is of the belief that it’s entitled to internal communications between the MLC, music publishers, and the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) itself.

But the MLC has allegedly “refused to produce responsive documents, agreeing only to produce communications concerning Spotify’s reporting of Premium as a Bundle,” which is “insufficient.”

Certain other disputed requests (of 21 overall) from Spotify pertain to the internal MLC documents “that will speak directly to what MLC believes constitutes a Bundle and how it has treated other” streaming platforms with bundles in place.

As for the MLC’s position here, the entity’s counsel in more words said sufficient details had already been provided in the initial complaint and prior filings.

“Spotify claims it needs this extraordinarily broad and unduly burdensome discovery of its competitor’s reports and payment practices to understand the MLC’s position as to why Spotify’s Premium service does not qualify as a Bundle,” reads one such section. “But the MLC already has made its position on that subject abundantly clear, including in the Complaint and in its opposition to Spotify’s motion to dismiss.”

While it perhaps goes without saying, a near-term settlement doesn’t appear to be in the cards – though Spotify, as we previously noted, is still aggressively seeking dismissal.

An aerial shot of Sydney, Australia. Photo Credit: Jamie Davies

Amid continued concert-price pushback from fans, the Australian government has revealed plans to ban dynamic pricing outright and implement a number of other measures targeting the ticketing sector.

Regional outlets just recently highlighted the promised regulatory initiatives, billed by the current administration as components of a broader policy package that will roll out ahead of the island nation’s 2025 elections.

Keeping the focus on the package itself as opposed to the early regional coverage, the Australian government today underscored plans to tackle dynamic pricing, referring specifically to any online listing where “a product’s price changes during the transaction process.”

As many already know, that description definitely extends to live-event tickets, the prices of which frequently enter the stratosphere due to consumer demand as well as dynamic pricing. Last month, for example, Australian fans saw Green Day concert passes begin fetching massive sums.

Importantly, however, acts themselves can choose to forgo dynamic pricing – Iron Maiden recently did so, as did Oasis for its North American tour leg – and it’s unclear whether eliminating the option will bring about the desired effects.

Without diving too far into the multifaceted topic, dynamic pricing can only elevate ticket costs in the first place because customers are willing to shell out considerable amounts of cash to attend limited-availability happenings.

Halting these automatic pricing adjustments, which have admittedly gone off the rails in some instances, probably won’t curb the underlying demand or the pricing-related byproducts thereof. But from a policy perspective, the move might make sense; even those who score hard-to-get tickets are presumably far from thrilled about paying an arm and a leg.

Besides the possible demise of dynamic pricing Down Under, fans could see an attempt to do away with “‘drip pricing’ practices where fees are hidden or added throughout the stages of a purchase.”

Of course, “hidden” and “junk” fees are also the target of stateside scrutiny, but like with axing dynamic pricing, the ultimate effects of outlawing the charges by mandating “all-in” models remain the subject of continued discussion.

Lastly, in terms of the regulatory measures that could affect concert tickets in Australia, the current administration says it’s further plotting a crackdown on “online practices that aim to confuse or overwhelm consumers, omit or hide material information, or create a false sense of urgency or scarcity.”

This includes “warnings that a customer only has limited time to purchase a product,” per the relevant text. As to where things go from here, the Treasury Department intends to “consult on the design before the Government legislates a general prohibition on unfair trading practices,” according to the government-penned outline.

Bigger picture, we aren’t without ticketing laws (and laws in the making), investigations, and litigation outside Australia, where, incidentally, Four Corners recently took aim at Live Nation with an exposé. Internationally, perhaps most conspicuous on this front is the DOJ antitrust suit aiming to separate Live Nation and Ticketmaster, though the latter is facing a new dynamic-pricing probe in the U.K. as well.

(l to r) Reservoir Media founder and head Golnar Khosrowshahi, k.d. lang, and president and COO Rell Lafargue. Photo Credit: Reservoir

Reservoir Media (NASDAQ: RSVR) has inked a publishing deal with k.d. lang, including a stake in the singer-songwriter’s existing body of work and futures.

Reservoir and Edmonton-born k.d. lang (real name Kathryn Dawn Lang) unveiled their agreement today, about one week removed from the former’s acquisition of producer Jack Douglas’s own catalog.

In keeping with the longstanding sub-sector-wide practice of not disclosing IP purchases’ specifics, Reservoir opted against shedding light on the precise terms at hand. However, the New York City-based business did note that the k.d. lang deal extends to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee’s “future works and partial catalog.”

Just at the top level, that overarching catalog encompasses 12 solo studio albums – 1988’s Shadowland through 2008’s Watershed – as well as several collaborative projects, multiple works as part of The Reclines, and a variety of singles. Among the latter are k.d. lang-penned efforts including 1992’s “Constant Craving,” which currently has 50.23 million Spotify streams and a substantial number of plays across other platforms.

Addressing the Reservoir partnership, the eight-time Juno winner k.d. lang pointed to a strong relationship with the company’s founder and CEO, Golnar Khosrowshahi.

“It is an absolute thrill to partner with Reservoir!” the 62-year-old Ingénue creator relayed. “Golnar is a force of nature and understands me as an artist. I am deeply inspired and have utmost confidence in this creative partnership.”

And in remarks of her own, Khosrowshahi noted that she’s “particularly proud to be working with k.d.” as a fellow Canadian and emphasized a goal of helping the professional’s body of work find new fans.

“It never gets old when a legendary artist like k.d. lang decides to call Reservoir her home,” Khosrowshahi relayed in part. “Her incomparable voice and music are a gift to the world. We look forward to helping her share those gifts with new audiences and supporting her as she steps into the next chapter of her career.”

In September, Reservoir scored publishing pacts with Snoop Dogg and his Death Row Records label – though the same month also saw the business face a call to launch “a full strategic review” over its allegedly “substantially undervalued” shares. That demand came from Irenic Capital Management, and Reservoir in a follow-up said it “values shareholder input” and remains “focused on executing our strategy to drive value.”

At the time of writing, Reservoir stock was hovering around $9 per share – up slightly from yesterday’s close, nearly 10% across the past five trading days, and over 50% from mid-October of 2023.

Reykjavik, Iceland, where music education startup Moombix is headquartered. Photo Credit: Einar H. Reynis

Music lessons marketplace Moombix has announced the close of its £1.9 million (currently $2.48 million) seed round and unveiled plans to expand into the United Kingdom.

Reykjavik-headquartered Moombix, which bills itself specifically as “an all-in-one solution for online music education,” disclosed the funding and the imminent expansion today.

Established by former longtime Microsoft exec Aleksandar Arsovski and musician Margret Juliana Sigurdardottir (who founded children-focused music education app Mussila as well), Moombix enables verified musicians to set their own prices for 30-minute one-on-one livestream lessons, per the appropriate website.

Also according to Moombix’s site, teachers describe their qualifications (and define their primary “field of interest”) via seemingly in-depth profiles, which prospective students can filter when searching for a professional.

Prices range from £30 to £300 ($39 to $392) per half-hour session, discounts are available for multiple lessons purchased at once, Moombix takes a 20% commission, and the business has options in place for schools to promote themselves, the site indicates.

Shifting from insightful supplementary details and back to the seed raise, Iceland’s Frumtak Ventures led the round, which also drew participation from several angel investors, Moombix relayed.

And as mentioned, the capital is expected to set the stage for the startup’s strategic launch in the U.K., where higher-ups say approximately 200 teachers have already signed up to offer lessons. Against the backdrop of continued buildouts in the music education space – referring mainly to virtual resources – it’ll be worth monitoring the company’s expansion results moving forward.

Regarding these buildouts, however, Moombix is hardly without competition. Closer to the top of 2024, Spotify began testing the video learning waters in the U.K. Though the involved Spotify Courses still aren’t live in the U.S. and extend to areas well beyond the music world, they’re free to access through November 30th, the U.K. landing page shows.

Subsequently, Billie Eilish in June brought 30 tracks to Helsinki-headquartered music education platform Yousician, which, unlike Moombix, offers access to interactive learning software for a monthly subscription fee.

Then, August saw Sony Music Entertainment license Duolingo in connection with the language app’s comparatively new music courses. We’ll have to wait a bit longer for possible up-to-date data about the commercial results behind this music offering; Duolingo has teed up its Q3 earnings for November 6th.

[PIAS] co-founders Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot, who’ve sold their remaining shares in the company to Universal Music Group. Photo Credit: UMG

Independent no more: Just shy of two years after selling a minority stake to Universal Music Group (UMG), [PIAS] has parted with its remaining shares in a new deal with the leading label.

UMG reached out with a formal announcement message but has thus far opted against providing additional details (including price-tag specifics) about the transaction. In any event, November of 2022 had seen the major scoop up a 49% interest in the self-described “family of independent record labels” [PIAS].

And now, the co-founders of this London-headquartered label family, Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot, have opted “to sell the remaining shares they hold in the company,” UMG spelled out.

As to the post-purchase organization, [PIAS] is set to roll its [Integral] distribution unit into UMG’s Virgin Music Group. At least for the time being, the labels behind [PIAS], including but not limited to the namesake Play It Again Sam (PIAS) and Spinefarm, will in Universal Music’s own words “remain completely autonomous.”

Next, the aforementioned [PIAS] head Kenny Gates has inked “a long-term contract to remain as CEO” and will also sit on Virgin Music Group’s board, the purchasing party communicated.

“I am selling my shares not my soul,” relayed Gates, who established [PIAS] more than four decades ago. “Since agreeing [to] a strategic alliance with UMG in 2021 we have found them to be supportive and engaged partners who have added real value to our offering.

“The decision by myself and Michel to relinquish our remaining shareholdings in the company is a pragmatic one that will allow us to offer a truly global distribution and services platform to the independent music community,” the exec proceeded in part.

While the text doesn’t come right out and acknowledge co-founder Michel Lambot’s role moving forward, the longtime exec, who’s also CEO of a company called Emotions, appeared to indicate that he’ll remain part of [PIAS].

“This new phase, which will see us working even closer together promises to be an exciting new era for [PIAS], our staff, our partners and the artists we represent,” the Strictly Confidential chairman and former co-president relayed.

Taking a step back, UMG’s deal for the remaining piece of [PIAS] marks the latest in a long line of indie-focused consolidations from the majors. In the end, Artists Without a Label (AWAL) did, in fact, see its acts find a label – and the second-largest label in the world at that.

The Orchard owner Sony Music announced the $430 million AWAL purchase in 2021, and the transaction cleared regulatory hurdles the following year. Bringing the focus closer to the present, it was only earlier in 2024 that Warner Music Group made a serious play for Believe.

However, the acquisition-minded WMG ultimately abandoned the takeover attempt, thereby removing a massive obstacle for Believe on the road back to private ownership.

Spotify has added music videos in beta to 85 more countries. Photo Credit: Spotify

Another day, another video buildout for Spotify, which has officially made music videos available in beta to paid users across 85 more markets.

A rep for the music- and video-streaming platform reached out this morning with word of the feature’s enhanced availability, and Spotify elaborated on the news in a brief announcement message. Previously, the service in March brought its full-length music videos beta to about a dozen nations, among them the U.K., Sweden, the Philippines, and Kenya.

Now, users in another 85 countries can also activate a “Switch to video” option to watch certain tracks’ music videos, Spotify spelled out in the release as well as an introductory clip.

Additionally, the service has made a couple music video improvements for all the appropriate markets’ paid users, who will see “video indicators on tracks” and have bolstered search options for songs supporting the feature.

As things stand, paid listeners in the just-added nations can access “a limited catalog of music videos,” though said catalog “will continue rolling out over the next few weeks,” per Spotify. Longer term, the audio giant hopes “to expand the catalog of music videos, share new places for you to watch them, and take the feature to more users and markets.”

Closer to the present, however, Spotify’s embrace of music videos is one component of a broader pivot into the overarching video world.

That pivot currently encompasses artist-uploaded promotional clips (with a more UGC-focused short-form buildout possibly forthcoming), north of 2.5 million video-podcast episodes, Canvas, video learning, and, under a little-discussed Cineverse pact finalized over the summer, full TV episodes and comedy specials.

Meanwhile, June saw Spotify integrate video content from creators on podcast and educational-media platform Nebula; the likes of CinemaWins and Charles Cornell have uploaded under the partnership.

Most recently, reports last month indicated that Spotify was offering big-name video creators seven-figure deals to begin uploading their content. At least as described by the involved sources, these deals would be non-exclusive, only requiring individuals to put out their works via Spotify alongside different platforms.

In other words, Spotify’s video frenzy isn’t limited to the music side and will be worth closely monitoring into the new year. Without diving too far into the related stateside controversy (and litigation), the service is also doubling down on audiobooks, which recently released in multiple European countries.

Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) CEO Noemí Planas, who’s calling out TikTok’s alleged decision to forgo renewing with Merlin in favor of engaging in hardball direct negotiations with indies. Photo Credit: Jacobo Medrano/WIN

Last week, ahead of the TikTok-Merlin deal’s expiration, leaks shed light on the app’s alleged hardball offers to individual indie labels. Now, the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) and several member organizations are speaking out against the possible attempt “to pay less for music.”

WIN as well as the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) and others weighed in on the matter today, following the mentioned contract-detail leaks. As we covered at length, multiple indie-label sources have described receiving standardized contracts (not being engaged directly) proposing far lower payout terms than under the Merlin union.

And with just 17 days until that Merlin-TikTok pact’s expiration – and even less time than that before indies’ works will be ripped down in the absence of direct deals – the clock is ticking for labels to choose between accepting allegedly reduced terms and exiting the ultra-popular app.

Bearing in mind this far-from-ideal backdrop (especially for indies, of course), WIN CEO Noemí Planas is voicing the belief that “TikTok’s decision poses risks to cultural diversity, market access, and fair payment for independents.”

Policymakers, the WIN head of nearly two years proceeded, should “regulate the tech sector to ensure a truly competitive market where creators’ rights are protected from abusive and monopolistic behavior.”

Meanwhile, Richard Burgess, CEO of the aforementioned A2IM, is also speaking out against TikTok’s unwillingness to renew its Merlin tie-up and doubling down on calls for legislative action.

“TikTok’s unwillingness to negotiate a licensing deal with Merlin is just the latest example of the platform doing whatever it can to avoid compensating artists fairly,” communicated Burgess. “Now, more than ever, we need Congress to enact the Protect Working Musicians Act and give musicians, songwriters, independent labels, and publishers the ability to negotiate collectively in the marketplace.”

(The Protect Working Musicians Act was introduced in Congress in October of 2021 and reintroduced with some expansions in September of 2023, but remains in committee.)

Additionally, the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), the Record Label Industry Association of Korea (LIAK), the Associação Brasileira da Música Independente (ABMI), and Independent Music New Zealand (IMNZ) likewise provided statements criticizing TikTok’s strategy and calling in more words for a renewed Merlin agreement.

Needless to say, time will tell how the episode concludes; in explaining the decision not to re-up with Merlin, TikTok pointed to purported fraud-detection shortcomings from the indie collective.

However, the available evidence suggests that the split could also deliver material licensing savings to a layoff-minded TikTok, which, notwithstanding the standardized contracts it’s reportedly sending smaller indies, is said to be negotiating directly with larger players.

At the risk of stating the obvious, things would perhaps unfold differently if one or more of these larger players took a dealmaking stand on behalf of the wider indie sector.

Children’s audio platform Yoto has announced $15 million in additional funding and disclosed plans to spearhead an aggressive global buildout. Photo Credit: Yoto

Just months after revealing a $22 million injection, children’s audio platform Yoto has scored “a $15 million funding package” from HSBC UK and set its sights on an aggressive international expansion.

London-headquartered Yoto, now approaching its 10th year as a company, reached out with word of the $15 million raise. Put up specifically by HSBC UK’s Growth Lending Fund, the capital will help the Universal Music– and Warner Music-partnered recipient expand into additional markets, higher-ups signaled.

As things stand, Yoto operates in five countries, having launched in Australia this past July. Now, however, the self-described “screen-free audio player for children” has made clear that it’s “looking to increase its reach organically beyond these existing international markets.”

In terms of anticipated accomplishments, Yoto says the $15 million at hand will lay the groundwork for an almost 100 percent increase in its export volume as well as an adjacent revenue spike. “The business is expecting to double revenues as a result of the funding,” reads the relevant line from Yoto’s official release.

At the intersection of the export and revenue goals, manufacturing of the namesake Yoto Player and the content cards (each featuring an audiobook, a collection of songs, or different audio entertainment) it supports will ramp up as well, the business indicated.

North of 1,200 of these cards are already available for purchase, including greatest-hits volumes from Queen and the Beatles. On the appropriate website, the Queen and Beatles cards are available to purchase for a cool $14.99 apiece, with a 52-minute duration for the former and 29 minutes for the latter.

Elaborating on his company’s objectives for the newly secured funding, Yoto CFO Ben Averis emphasized the above-outlined “ambitions to become truly global.”

“This funding provides a great leverage point to build on our rapid growth. We have ambitions to become truly global – supporting more communities around the world and providing high-quality, child-centric audio content that fosters creativity and independence in young listeners,” communicated Averis.

“We were presented with various funding opportunities and are glad to have chosen to partner with HSBC UK. The bank’s strong trade links will help us scale our manufacturing and deliver even greater value to our customers,” concluded the Pricewaterhouse Coopers vet.

Concord spent over $217 million on the catalog of a popular Latin artist whose name hasn’t been publicly revealed, per a new report. Photo Credit: Giorgio Trovato

Who says all catalog buyers tout blockbuster deals via detail-oriented announcements? Concord has acquired an undisclosed Latin music star’s body of work for north of $217 million, per a new report.

That report comes from Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) in connection with Concord’s issuance of another $850 million in notes, which have an anticipated repayment date in October of 2029. All told, the overarching portfolio is worth $5.1 billion, according to the report, up from $4.2 billion in 2023.

The sums don’t include any revenue from name, image, and likeness rights, but the newer total does reflect a cumulative $606.3 million worth of IP acquired by Concord in its Mojo Music & Media and Round Hill buyouts.

While the value of those plays is interesting, more intriguing yet is the $217.3 million “acquisition of a catalog of assets by a highly successful Latin Music artist and songwriter.”

Unsurprisingly, the text doesn’t come right out and reveal the name of said artist, and neither the individual nor Concord appears to have formally announced the relevant transaction. (Although rare, under-the-radar IP sales wrapped without public disclosures aren’t new, we’ve highlighted on multiple occasions.)

However, the report’s risks section points to another interesting detail about the seller: The artist and songwriter at hand is a party to “one outstanding lawsuit relating to the” assets. “The lawsuit involves a copyright infringement claim against several artists in the Latin Music genre, and the artist has been covering all legal costs in connection with this litigation.”

Though it perhaps goes without saying, the abundance of industry and industry-adjacent courtroom confrontations means pinpointing an exact case (and then a possible catalog seller) based on any brief description is inherently difficult.

But the action that immediately comes to mind is the sweeping reggaeton-theft suit filed by one Cleveland Constantine Browne and others against a multitude of artists and companies. We previously broke down the convoluted, far-reaching, and years-old copyright complaint, which, in short, is alleging the unauthorized widespread copying and sampling of “groundbreaking” reggaeton instrumental elements.

Admittedly, some of the many artist defendants (Drake, Justin Bieber, Stefflon Don, and others among them) are situated outside the Latin space. But all manner of different defendants, including but certainly not limited to Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, De la Ghetto, Karol G, Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, and Anuel AA, are prominent in the Latin world.

Without diving too much further into the multifaceted subject, it’s worth bearing in mind the gargantuan value attached to the deal – several legacy acts’ well-established and comparatively expansive rights have fetched sums in the same ballpark – and Latin’s continued sales growth in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The largest city (Shanghai) in China, where recorded music revenue jumped 25.9% YoY in 2023, per the IFPI. In its latest weekly report, DMN Pro analyzed how these and other strong showings from developing markets factor into tall industry growth forecasts, including from Goldman Sach’s “Music in the Air,” for the remainder of the 2020s. Photo Credit: Hanny Naibaho

Goldman Sachs’ “Music in the Air” report has forecasted over $163 billion worth of industry gross revenue for 2030, in part because of anticipated streaming growth throughout emerging markets. But is the prediction, covering recorded, publishing, and live alike, a bit too bullish?

In its newest weekly report, DMN Pro dove into the interesting (and involved) subject across 10 detail-oriented pages, covering all manner of pertinent data and seldom-discussed angles in the process. And while there are several especially valuable takeaways as a result, the streaming-specific findings are particularly noteworthy.

That’s partially due to Music in the Air’s aggressive vision for how exactly emerging markets will factor into the music landscape. As many already know – and as a growing pile of data is driving home – subscriber growth is slowing in developed industries from the States to South Korea, where Spotify is embracing ad-supported listening.

Among other things, the plateau means there’s a greater focus on the monetization potential of quick-rising and largely streaming-driven emerging markets. “Emerging markets will make up 70% of new streaming music subscribers by 2030,” maintained Goldman, attributing a slightly reduced compound annual streaming growth rate, 10% through 2030, to elements including “the shift to subscription revenue from emerging markets.”

By the numbers, that refers to $49.7 billion in paid streaming gross revenue for 2030, nearly double 2023’s $26.4 billion, and a cool 647 million paid subscribers in emerging markets (up from 300 million in 2023), per Music in the Air.

(Concert fans, who already aren’t hesitating to voice ticket-price complaints, will be coughing up even more should Music in the Air’s 2030 live entertainment net revenue forecast, $51.7 billion against $33.1 billion in 2023, prove accurate.)

But is a material medium-term monetization boom really in the cards for these emerging/developing markets? As laid out by DMN Pro, there are too many moving parts (and in an industry where each recent year has delivered sweeping changes on multiple fronts) to reach a definitive conclusion at present.

However, that doesn’t leave us without evidence of streaming’s historical monetization difficulties in emerging markets – adoption isn’t the exclusive problem, as India is still proving hard to monetize despite ranking second to the U.S. in total on-demand streams – and more recent trends.

Attached to individual regions and countries as opposed to the overly broad “developing markets” categorization itself, the trends are exceedingly important when it comes to gauging the industry’s trajectory.

Just at the top level, MENA was for a time the fastest-growing recorded music market of any region, but posted a comparatively modest 14.4% expansion in 2023, according to the IFPI. As streaming accounts for nearly all the revenue at hand, the percentage is indicative of on-demand listening changes, which, in turn, can paint a fuller picture when considered alongside the performance breakdowns of MENA streaming platform Anghami.

The same is true of China’s rapidly expanding music market at the intersection of overall industry results and subscriber trends at Tencent Music. The weekly report covers a variety of other pertinent areas as well, with an emphasis on providing a more comprehensive look at streaming’s path forward in the coming six years.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where TikTok layoffs are reportedly affecting hundreds of content-moderation employees. Photo Credit: Esmonde Yong

TikTok is reportedly laying off hundreds of employees, among them a large number of content moderators, with additional personnel cutbacks forthcoming.

The ByteDance-owned app’s latest staff reduction entered the media spotlight in reports this morning, though TikTok may have set the layoffs in motion months ago. Running with Reuters’ indication that most of the “hundreds” of axed team members are based in Malaysia and handled content moderation, multiple relevant individuals have changed their LinkedIn employment status.

Some of the changes are decidedly recent, and others date back to at least May of 2024. That said, all these changes fall squarely under the content-moderation banner, and affected professionals’ titles include content analyst, content safety labeler, and creator community operation specialist, to name just a few.

Building on the idea that TikTok’s Malaysia layoffs were perhaps underway prior to today’s coverage, AI is reportedly poised to assume the content-related duties in question. And June had seen ByteDance announce plans to drop a whopping $2.1 billion on an “AI Hub” in Malaysia, population 34 million.

As to the layoffs’ precise extent and possible industry impact, TikTok has confirmed less than 500 eliminated positions specifically in Malaysia, whereas anonymous sources have pointed to approximately 700 layoffs in the nation.

In any event, the news doesn’t appear to have directly affected the music operations of TikTok. However, the platform is in the process of axing its standalone streaming service, TikTok Music, and further layoffs are reportedly being teed up for next month.

While time will reveal the precise extent of the cuts – reports in May of 2024 touched on sizable marketing and operations layoffs at TikTok, it’s worth reiterating – the controversial-but-popular app is also grappling with a growing list of stateside hurdles.

Most conspicuously, those operational obstacles include the quick-approaching January deadline to sell or shut down TikTok in the States. But earlier this week, a number of states and D.C. sued the video-sharing giant over its allegedly harmful effects on children.

Then there’s the imminent expiration of the service’s Merlin deal, which will conclude on October 31st. The indie collective’s member labels are free to hammer out direct deals with TikTok, but reports are relaying that the offered terms have in several instances proven far from ideal. In a nutshell, that means a lot of music could be exiting the app by October’s end.

Warner Music Benelux president of recorded music and publishing Niels Walboomers (left) and Cloud 9 president Raymond van Vliet. Photo Credit: WMG

Warner Music Group (WMG) wasn’t kidding about its aggressive acquisition plans, as the Robert Kyncl-led major label has officially acquired the Netherlands’ Cloud 9 Recordings.

The restructuring-minded WMG reached out with word of that purchase today, after closing a number of different investments (and exploring, albeit without wrapping, others yet) earlier in 2024. Additionally, it was only six or so months back that Armada Music’s BEAT dance-investment fund announced a deal for Cloud 9’s publishing operation.

But the newer agreement, evidently distinct from BEAT’s play, covers the label side. Cloud 9 Recordings serves as the professional home of Claude, Jake Reese, Kris Kross Amsterdam, and Snelle, to name a few, with stakes in the catalog of Antoon and more to boot.

Though the purchasing party opted against publicly disclosing the financial specifics at hand, it did note that Cloud 9 co-founder Raymond van Vliet is expected to remain aboard as president.

Still operating independently (albeit under the Warner Music Benelux banner), Cloud 9 is poised to relocate its current team to WMG’s Amsterdam Music Harbour as well.

A creative hub boasting “a multi-level warehouse with industry chic vibes,” four recording studios, and more, Amsterdam Music Harbour was unveiled just shy of one year ago. Now, this hub will house Cloud 9, Warner Music Benelux, Warner Chappell Benelux, and Spinnin’ Records.

Returning to the publishing front, Warner Music Benelux has also inked an exclusive worldwide admin deal with Blue Skies Publishing. That Laren-based entity likewise involves Raymond van Vliet, reps several Cloud 9 acts, and was according to its LinkedIn profile founded in 2024.

In a statement, WMG Benelux president of recorded music and publishing Niels Walboomers, whose company brought on Goldman vet Michael Ryan-Southern over the summer to “supercharge” its buyouts strategy, touted Cloud 9’s “significant impact on the Dutch music industry.”

And in comments of his own, Raymond van Vliet struck an optimistic tone when describing Cloud 9’s future.

“On November 1st, Cloud 9 Music will celebrate its 20th anniversary,” the Cloud 9 president said in part. “It is a proud moment to sell this incredible company on the eve of this milestone. In the coming years, I will continue to lead Cloud 9, ensuring that my team, enhanced by Warner Music’s expertise, will keep representing our artist roster. We will take the next steps in the careers of our artists and continue to expand Cloud 9 Music.”

Amid the end of a deal with Merlin, TikTok is reportedly proposing dramatically reduced compensation terms to individual indies. Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

A little over a week after word of the TikTok-Merlin split surfaced, new details are emerging about the direct-deal terms being offered to individual indies.

We’re now three weeks out from the expiration of the TikTok-Merlin agreement, which, in the absence of a last-minute change of heart and renewal, will conclude on the 31st. Without retreading too much ground – we’ve already broken down the abrupt split, the indie-space reaction, and, closer to the top of 2024, the since-resolved licensing dispute between the platform and Universal Music – this doesn’t necessarily mean indies are exiting TikTok.

Rather, like with the National Music Publishers’ Association’s lack of an across-the-board TikTok tie-up on the compositional side, the appropriate labels are still free to hammer out deals with the ByteDance subsidiary.

Unsurprisingly, the initially mentioned details are pointing to TikTok’s floating far-from-lucrative terms in these direct talks.

Amid apparent belt-tightening efforts at the short-form giant, which is shutting down its namesake standalone streaming platform, higher-ups have forwarded “at least three different TikTok contracts” to various indies, per Variety.

The outlet opted against diving into the NDA-protected specifics at hand, but citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter, it did indicate that one such deal would pay “‘less than half’” the current rate under Merlin.

Stated bluntly, evidence strongly suggests that this present rate is itself not ideal; scratching the surface here, TikTok music usages reportedly pay a flat sum per video regardless of view count.

Moreover, the newly proposed terms, which the involved labels must approve by October 25th to avoid takedowns, are reportedly being sent out as “standardized contracts” for smaller players, with the app engaging in actual talks with larger indies.

Said contracts are reportedly light on “protections” (presumably referring at least in part to AI, which UMG cited as a hang-up in its own TikTok dispute).

In other words, the current month could well see a substantial amount of music exit TikTok, which has, of course, refuted criticism of its direct-licensing approach and emphasized alleged fraud-detection shortcomings on Merlin’s part.

Taking a step back, it’s worth reiterating that the controversial platform has in recent years quietly made a number of moves seemingly designed to bypass labels altogether.

Those moves – among them the rollout of the SoundOn distribution service, robust creator-subscription options, and even a talent-discovery competition for unsigned acts, to name just some – are particularly significant against the backdrop of the indie negotiations.

Though it’d be difficult for TikTok to put a positive spin on once again losing a portion of its song library, more pressing for it (and, to a lesser extent, pretty much all industry stakeholders) is the growing chance of the app’s shutdown in the U.S. As things stand, TikTok has until January 19th to sell, which it’s adamant would be impossible, or cease operating in the States.

Karol G performing live during her now-wrapped Mañana Será Bonito Tour. Photo Credit: Henry Hwu

Thanks in large part to continued (albeit slower) streaming growth, Latin music generated a record $685.5 million during H1 2024, per a new report.

This and other noteworthy stats come from the RIAA’s newly released Latin music performance breakdown, covering Q1 and Q2 of the current year. At the top level, the space’s recorded revenue represents a 7.3% YoY improvement.

And in keeping with longstanding consumption trends, the lion’s share of the $685.5 million at hand, $670.3 million, derived from streaming, the analysis shows. Consequently, the latter category’s 6.8% YoY growth drove a big portion of the period’s overall gains.

However, bearing in mind the H1 2024 streaming-expansion slowdown of the broader U.S. recorded music market, Latin music’s paid-streaming growth fell dramatically in the year’s initial half, from 23% YoY in H1 2023 to 6.4% ($468.1 million total).

Notwithstanding that pernicious plateau on the subscriber side, Latin music ad-supported on-demand streaming revenue jumped 10.2% YoY to $166.3 million after dipping 0.2% YoY in H1 2023, according to both reports.

SoundExchange distributions are said to have come out to $21.6 million (up 1.2% YoY) in H1 2024, with revenue from other ad-supported streaming sources slipping 5.6% YoY to $14.4 million.

Latin music revenue hit a record high in the U.S. during H1 2024 despite a material decline in paid-streaming growth. Photo Credit: RIAA

Unsurprisingly, domestic revenue attributable to Latin music permanent downloads fell by double digits in each sub-category during the year’s opening half, for a 21.2% YoY decline to $3.9 million as a whole. The carefully defined sync category kicked in $2.3 million (up 11% YoY), and physical revenue doubled from H1 2023 to $9 million at estimated retail value, per the analysis.

Though vinyl led the pack ($7.3 million, up 108.1% YoY) in the category, Latin music revenue from CDs ($1.7 million) also spiked 73.3% YoY, the resource indicates.

Bigger picture, the RIAA took the opportunity to emphasize Latin music’s growing share of the total domestic market, 7.9% for H1 2024.

“Latin music in the US continues to break through and reach new heights,” added RIAA research VP Matt Bass, “now providing nearly 8% of total recorded music revenues in the country. Strong growth across all major formats – including a doubling of physical revenues – has enabled Latin music’s diverse mix of new and established artists’ innovative styles to fuel sustained momentum for over a decade.”

Looking ahead to the forthcoming full-year 2024 Latin music report, it’ll be particularly interesting to see whether paid-streaming growth picks back up – referring in part to whether superfan-related moves can at least begin to drive a revenue boost.

Of course, the same data is worth monitoring for the wider domestic industry, where total YoY growth came in at 3.9% and streaming subscribers expanded by just 2.7% YoY in H1 2024, the trade organization previously disclosed.

Two of the Marc Jacobs products that allegedly infringed on the famed Nirvana ‘smiley face’ logo. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

The better part of a decade later, Nirvana and Marc Jacobs have officially settled their dispute over the band’s famed “smiley face” design.

This image-focused case kicked off way back in 2018, when Nirvana’s namesake company sued Marc Jacobs and others for allegedly infringing on the relevant design. Though it perhaps goes without saying in light of the legal battle’s length, the courtroom confrontation delivered multiple dismissal motions, depositions, and counterclaims, besides one consolidation to boot.

On the latter front, art director Robert Fisher also claimed to be the maker and owner of the smiley face; it was suggested as well that Kurt Cobain had created the image, with major ownership implications for each possibility.

Long story short, Nirvana maintained that Marc Jacobs had infringed on the logo, the defendant designer challenged the validity and enforceability of the copyright at hand, and word of a settlement finally surfaced in July of 2024.

We promptly reported on that proposed settlement, the result of a mediator’s recommendations, and noted that the resolution was subject to an official submission as well as approval from the presiding judge.

Subsequently, late September saw Nirvana and Marc Jacobs jointly request dismissal with prejudice – while simultaneously asking the court to “enter an order retaining jurisdiction over this matter to enforce the parties’ settlement agreement.”

An October 10th deadline was then set for any objections – an important point given that Fisher, who only jumped into the action as an intervenor plaintiff to assert his alleged ownership of the logo, had previously appealed a December of 2023 summary judgement.

In relevant part, said summary judgement found “that, assuming Fisher drew the Smiley, it was a work for hire for Geffen and, assuming Cobain drew the Smiley, Nirvana owns the rights to the Smiley.” For obvious reasons, the determination didn’t sit right with Fisher, hence the appeal.

Shifting back to the present, Fisher doesn’t seem to have set forth a formal objection, and Judge John A. Kronstadt formally signed off on the aforementioned dismissal stipulation from Nirvana and Marc Jacobs.

Consequently, “all claims and counterclaims…are dismissed with prejudice,” per that order, and all involved “parties are responsible for their own attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in this action.”

Notwithstanding the case’s resolution, another legal battle pertaining to Nirvana IP – and specifically the cover of Nevermind – is still in full swing. Plaintiff Spencer Elden, the individual who appeared clothes-free on the well-known album’s cover as a baby and now alleges to be the victim of child pornography, saw the case revived on appeal late last year.

Discovery has apparently been in full swing as of late, and the district court just recently confirmed an October 23rd deadline for a joint summary judgment brief.

A Chili’s location in Georgia. Photo Credit: Michael Rivera

Moments following the conclusion of Sony Music’s social-media-focused copyright lawsuit against Marriott, a similar infringement complaint, levied this time by Universal Music Group (UMG) and naming Chili’s parent Brinker International as a defendant, has kicked off.

UMG submitted the to-the-point action – one of several ongoing disputes over brands’ alleged infringement in social-media promo videos – to a Texas federal court. As noted, a Sony Music v. Marriott legal battle just recently drew to a close, and Brinker isn’t a stranger to industry coverage.

That’s because the Dallas-based Chili’s and Maggiano’s owner is also fending off infringement allegations, once again centering on social media, from the Beastie Boys. We broke down the complaint, specifically accusing the defendant of incorporating “Sabotage” into an advert campaign sans authorization, when it was filed this past July.

With the courtroom confrontation still unfolding, however, Brinker is now facing a comparatively sweeping suit from UMG.

As far as infringement claims go, the action is straightforward enough: Brinker purportedly used UMG’s protected music in promo clips via the main Chili’s social handles “without permission or payment.”

Those “scores of” allegedly infringed Universal Music works include recordings and compositions alike, releases from Justin Bieber, ABBA, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, and Frank Sinatra among them, to name a few.

Moreover, as the major-label plaintiff sees it, discovery will likely “reveal that Defendants have unlawfully exploited other sound recordings and musical compositions.”

A big chunk of the alleged infringement looks to have occurred on TikTok, with the remaining alleged unauthorized usages attributed to Instagram clips. (In general, platforms’ song libraries are cleared for personal but not commercial use, different cases have underscored.)

UMG included links to boot; some of the posts had been deleted (or, alternatively, the provided links, a portion tied to Reels, had ceased working) at the time of writing.

In any event, the defendants allegedly have “no effective procedures for ensuring that the social media content posted for their Chili’s commercial restaurant businesses does not violate others’ copyrights,” according to the lawsuit.

Notwithstanding the allegation, UMG also highlighted purported licensing talks with the defendants. Brinker “did obtain a license from a relevant Plaintiff to use musical works in a few videos at issue, but they have exploited the works beyond the bounds of the applicable licenses,” the appropriate line reads.

As the case plays out – assuming it isn’t promptly dropped like the initially mentioned Sony Music-Marriott complaint – additional details about that seemingly important license should come to light.

Among other things, the filing parties are seeking damages for vicarious and contributory infringement, besides a permanent injunction prohibiting further alleged infringement.

During today’s trading, Brinker stock (NYSE: EAT) slipped by almost 2% to $82.96 per share. Despite the dip, EAT is up over 97% from 2024’s start and a whopping 178% from October of 2023.

The Warsaw Marriott Hotel. Photo Credit: Michal Mrozek

Just shy of five months after it kicked off, the copyright infringement battle between Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Marriott International has officially drawn to a close.

That abrupt conclusion arrived in the form of a notice of dismissal with prejudice from the major label, which had accused Marriott of infringing on a variety of recordings in social-media videos. In general – and as a number of companies are finding out the hard way – platforms’ licensed song libraries are cleared only for personal, not commercial, use.

But several promotion-minded brands have allegedly failed to obtain the required licenses, with Sony Music having specifically accused the “behemoth of the hospitality industry” Marriott of “at least 931 infringements” in the U.S.

While the lion’s share of the alleged infringement referred to videos uploaded directly to the defendant’s social handles, Marriott also used protected music without authorization in paid influencer campaigns, SME maintained.

Predictably, given the scope of the multi-year alleged infringement, Sony Music claimed that warnings and allegedly unfulfilled “tolling agreements” had failed to produce a satisfactory resolution.

Now, said resolution has evidently arrived – though the involved parties have opted against publicly disclosing the precise terms at hand. However, it appears that Marriott is being careful about the music featured in social content. The company’s latest Instagram videos encompass “original audio” that looks to have released on DSPs not long before the posts themselves went live, for instance.

Bigger picture, the dismissed Sony Music-Marriott suit certainly doesn’t mark the end of legal actions over brands’ alleged infringement on social media.

Over the summer, the Beastie Boys sued Chili’s parent company Brinker International over the alleged unauthorized incorporation of “Sabotage” into a social-media campaign. This case is slowly but surely chugging along, the docket shows, with Brinker having waived the service of the summons at the top of October.

Bringing the focus back to Sony Music, we’re weeks out from the one-year anniversary of the separate social-media-infringement suit it filed against OFRA Cosmetics.

Contrasting the shelved Marriott dispute, this older courtroom confrontation is in full swing, complete with an ongoing discovery process (the court has entered a confidentiality order as well) and a seemingly sweeping subpoena for pertinent materials from OFRA co-founder Ofra Gaito.

These materials pertain to OFRA’s funding history, ownership status, communications and documents concerning the brand’s social videos, and a whole lot else, according to a cursory look at the lengthy subpoena itself.

A live performance from Limp Bizkit, which has filed a massive royalties-related lawsuit against Universal Music Group. Photo Credit: ECarterSterling

Universal Music Group (UMG) could owe Limp Bizkit north of $200 million – at least according to the 30-year-old band, which is suing for unpaid royalties, copyright infringement, breach of contract, and more.

Limp Bizkit, frontman Fred Durst, and his Flawless Records label fired off the sweeping 60-page complaint today, alleging massive royalties underpayments, the misrepresentation of various accounts as unrecouped, “fraudulent accounting practices,” and a whole lot else.

As recapped in the legal text, these and other allegations can be traced to an initial 1996 agreement between Limp Bizkit and Flip Records, which, besides having a JV deal in place with Interscope, would later sell half its stake in the band’s royalties to UMG. Thus, the leading label is said to be responsible for paying the relevant royalties to Flip and the plaintiffs alike.

Amended multiple times before being replaced by a fresh Interscope agreement in late 2000, the Flip contracts (the royalty terms of which have allegedly been left in place) cover Limp Bizkit’s first three albums. Meanwhile, among several additional things, the UMG/Interscope pact rather unsurprisingly compels the major label to provide the band with bi-annual royalty statements, the suit describes.

Lastly, in terms of pertinent background details, the late 90s also delivered a JV deal between Durst’s aforementioned Flawless Records and Interscope; Durst, seemingly part of Interscope for a time, signed acts (like Puddle of Mudd) in exchange for a stake in the profits and the masters at hand, the document shows.

Fast forward to April of 2024, when Durst voiced royalties-related concerns upon hiring new reps. (The action doesn’t appear to dive into the artist’s possibly questionable prior team.) “Durst retained new representation and explained that he had not received any money for any Limp Bizkit exploitations—ever,” the text reads.

These new reps were “shocked” upon learning as much, including because of the band’s apparent commercial comeback (referring in part to an expected 793 million streams for Limp Bizkit by 2024’s end).

The focus quickly shifted to the relevant royalty statements – at which point Durst informed his team that he hadn’t received any such breakdowns “because UMG told him over the years that it was not required to provide them since his account was still so far from recoupment.”

That set in motion a “further investigation,” first in the form of obtaining access to the UMG portal. Upon gaining said access in April of 2024, the plaintiffs’ business managers identified cumulative due Limp Bizkit royalty balances of almost $1.04 million, per the document.

From there, the plaintiffs pushed to receive the payment immediately and were allegedly told that they’d have to provide basic forms and bank verification. More pressingly, the statements allegedly showed that the accounts had been recouped since 2019 but had also been “fraudulently reclassified as ‘unrecouped’ to prevent payment.”

“UMG did not explain why it failed to alert Limp Bizkit that it had over $1 million sitting with UMG that was payable to Limp Bizkit, why UMG had never even obtained the documents and forms it allegedly needed in order to actually make these payments, or why UMG could not use the documents already in their possession that it had used to pay Plaintiffs advances in the past,” the suit continues.

Of course, the specifics laid the groundwork for more intense scrutiny yet, which allegedly led to the plaintiffs’ discovering a number of missing royalty statements (some dating back to 1997) and claims of “recoupment costs for an extraordinarily long time.”

The appropriate accounts (for Limp Bizkit as well as Flawless) were allegedly overdrafted with “unsubstantiated costs” designed to make them appear unrecouped, the action claims in many more words.

Conversations with UMG execs over the summer are said to have failed to provide an adequate explanation, though higher-ups attributed the situation to a once-off software issue as well as $43 million or so in advances allegedly paid to Limp Bizkit.

The plaintiffs say the latter sum is “grossly inflated,” and when reviewing the appropriate (incomplete) royalty statements, they pinpointed closer to $13 million in advances, per the suit. Especially given the group’s sales resurgence, early albums should have recouped and started paying royalties long ago, according to the filing parties.

In any event, late August saw Limp Bizkit receive the aforementioned $1.04 million (before this, “Limp Bizkit had never received any royalties from UMG”), with $2.35 million paid to Flawless (which “had never received any profit sharing revenue from UMG”) around the same time.

The alleged lack of royalty statements, the alleged underpayments, and more then prompted the plaintiffs to seek the contracts’ termination – hence the complaint, which is looking to nix the deals and compel sizable damages payments. Limp Bizkit and Durst estimate that UMG owes them “in excess of $200 million due to the rescission of these agreements,” the action spells out.

Even some of the heavily redacted pages in the District of Columbia’s lawsuit against TikTok contain interesting details. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

Another day, another TikTok lawsuit – or more specifically lawsuits, which have been filed by over a dozen states as well as the District of Columbia due to the video-sharing app’s alleged harmful impact on children.

States including Massachusetts, Kentucky, New Jersey, and South Carolina submitted the suits, which stem from related investigations that kicked off in early 2022. As we covered then, the inquiries aimed to zero in on the controversial platform’s effects on children and teens.

And while the probes evidently laid the groundwork for legal action, today’s complaints are in many ways the tip of the child-safety iceberg for TikTok. Recent years have brought similar regulatory scrutiny (centering on children’s data and privacy as well, not solely harmful byproducts of use) from different states yet, besides related multimillion-dollar fines in the U.S., the U.K., the European Union, and more.

Bringing the focus back to the newest TikTok lawsuits, the lengthy complaints, the public copies of which are replete with redactions, share core arguments and key characteristics. Running with the District of Columbia suit, TikTok has allegedly “designed and cultivated a highly addictive social media application…that it knows harms children.”

In short, the “highly addictive” side of the complaint refers to “algorithms that leverage user data to feed users personalized content recommendations,” attention-grabbing push notifications, “filters and effects that create idealizations of unattainable appearances for users,” infinite scroll, and the TikTok Coins “unlicensed virtual currency system,” per the legal text.

Overall, the “features confuse and control young users, driving them to make choices on the App that boost TikTok’s profits at the expense of their emotional, behavioral, and physical health,” the D.C. complaint proceeds.

Unfortunately, the mentioned redactions mean we lack access to a variety of interesting data points – including total under-18 TikTok users residing in D.C., city-specific usage percentages by particular generations, hours of peak TikTok usage, and even the amount spent on in-app purchases by local users.

However, in keeping with the considerable ground already covered in past TikTok actions, the D.C. suit goes to great lengths to describe the app’s alleged negative impact (in terms of mental health, sleep-schedule disruption, and a whole lot else) on minors.

One of the more interesting and seldom-seen arguments here pertains to TikTok Coins and livestreams. The ByteDance subsidiary allegedly “ignored District law by failing to obtain the required money transmitter license” for its in-app currency, which is said to obscure the actual amount of real cash one is spending.

“Although LIVE, including both live streaming and Gifts, has a current minimum age requirement of 18 and older,” the suit indicates, “TikTok knows its lax age verification measures incentivize U.S. minors to lie about their age to gain access.”

Furthermore, TikTok allegedly designs the virtual “gifts” that users purchase with Coins “in ways that are intentionally attractive to children,” modeling the digital items after “cute, colorful animated emojis reminiscent of cartoons and Disney characters.”

All told, the District of Columbia lawsuit against TikTok is alleging several violations of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act and the money-transmission statute. While far from ideal, the newly filed complaints are hardly the biggest immediate threat to the operations of TikTok, which is staring down a quick-approaching forced-sale deadline in the U.S.

Downtown Washington, D.C. Photo Credit: Carol M. Highsmith

A federal judge has rejected a venue-transfer push from Live Nation in the antitrust lawsuit filed against it by the DOJ and a number of states.

District Judge Arun Subramanian recently ruled against the Ticketmaster parent’s transfer motion, which was specifically looking to shift the high-stakes case from New York to Washington, D.C. We previously covered the sought venue change – and the Justice Department’s opposition – in detail.

Just to recap, though, Live Nation argued in many more words that the legal battle should play out in D.C. owing to a jurisdiction-retention provision in the 2010 consent decree that gave it the green light to merge with Ticketmaster. That’s largely due to the litigation’s attempt to unwind the Live Nation-Ticketmaster union, which is at the core of the decree, according to the defendants.

But Judge Subramanian doesn’t feel the same way, spelling out in the relevant opinion and order that the “case doesn’t fall within the scope of that [consent-decree] provision, and defendants can’t otherwise carry their burden to show that transfer would foster convenience or the interests of justice.”

The alleged violations in the antitrust action, the judge proceeded, concern “the Sherman Act and various state laws, not the consent decree.” Moreover, the plaintiffs “aren’t trying to vindicate the decree’s requirements; they say that defendants have violated separate legal duties,” per the text.

“True, the practical effect of the decree was to remove an immediate barrier to defendants’ merger,” continued Judge Subramanian. “But nothing in the decree insulated the merged entity from future antitrust challenges, including this case. … This case doesn’t run up against the decree because the decree doesn’t reach beyond the specific pre-merger challenge that it helped resolve.”

And with that clear-cut answer to the transfer question, the suit (which Live Nation is confident it’ll beat) is chugging right along. A different order from the judge has given the parties until Friday, October 11th to jointly propose “dates for another conference in late October.”

While it perhaps goes without saying, the multifaceted case is proving involved on several levels. The City of Orlando was apparently subpoenaed in September to provide venue- and agreement-related documents from across a decade, for instance.

Earlier this month, ahead of a deadline to send along the materials later in October, the city moved to receive reimbursement for fees because the associated tasks “will undoubtedly require significant labor by both attorneys and staff.”

Naxos has filed a lawsuit against Kuke Music over allegedly missing payments. Photo Credit: Manuel Nägeli

Who says the classical music space is free of legal drama? Naxos is suing China-based Kuke for allegedly failing to pay $1.86 million under a 2018 digital distribution agreement.

Naxos Digital Service US, a division of the self-described “world’s leading classical music group” of the same name, submitted the action against Beijing Kuke Music to a Tennessee federal court. Kuke (NYSE: KUKE), for its part, bills itself as “the leading provider of classical music licensing, subscription and smart education services in China.”

Running with the points, under the mentioned 2018 tie-up, Kuke was expected to sell various Naxos services (music library, spoken-word library, and video library among them) to individuals and educational institutions in mainland China, the actual agreement shows.

Initially poised to run into 2026 with possible year-to-year renewals thereafter, the straightforward contract outlines revenue splits on the appropriate services and, in an ill-advised clause for Kuke, calls for an increasing “minimum license fee” for each year.  Said minimum fee hit $1.34 million between July of 2023 and June of 2024’s end, per the document.

Meanwhile, the pandemic undoubtedly disrupted the operations of Kuke, which organizes the Beijing Music Festival and has seen its shares part with over 66% of their value during the past six months. This pricing falloff has evidently resulted in NYSE delisting concerns, per related press releases.

Of course, the deal further allows Naxos to terminate the union should Kuke fail to cough up compensation due under the contract. Multiple allegedly missed payments (a portion involving Naxos’ third-party distributed labels) and some back-and-forth discussions later, that’s exactly what the plaintiff moved to do.

Now, the court should also order Kuke to forward the owed payments (which a catch-up plan of sorts allegedly failed to deliver), totaling the noted $1.86 million, the complaint maintains.

While the case’s core components are clear enough, questions remain given the timing of a seemingly separate acquisition announcement put out by Kuke back in May.

In short, the play was (and possibly is) to see Kuke buy from Naxos One Holding two companies: Angelina Assets and HNH International.

“The transaction is contingent on Kuke finalizing definitive agreements and completing satisfactory due diligence of the Naxos Group,” the release reads in part. “The company emphasized that there is no guarantee the acquisition will proceed as anticipated.”

“The director of Kuke is also the controlling shareholder of Naxos One, indicating an existing relationship between the entities,” the document proceeds.

Without diving too far into the convoluted specifics at hand, Kuke annual reports reference a “decades-old relationship with Naxos,” apparently including a distinct Naxos China unit. Moreover, Kuke CEO and board chair He Yu “holds 75% of the equity interests in Naxos…our largest content provider,” another, older regulatory filing states.

R. Kelly as seen in a 2003 mugshot.Photo Credit: R. Kelly Mugshot (2003) Miami Police Department

Back in July, R. Kelly petitioned the Supreme Court to toss a portion of his sex crime convictions. Now, a little over two months later, the nation’s highest court has rejected the appeal.

The Supreme Court just recently denied the disgraced singer’s certiorari petition alongside a number of others. As we noted over the summer, R. Kelly is serving multiple sentences: 30 years in connection with a federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York as well as a simultaneous 20-year sentence stemming from federal child sex abuse charges brought in Chicago in 2022.

This Supreme Court appeal pertained specifically to the latter, which resulted from a conviction under 2003’s PROTECT Act. In part, that federal law extended the statute of limitations for child abuse. But because the 57-year-old’s alleged crimes occurred in the 1990s, well before PROTECT became law, his attorneys argued that the “charges were brought outside the applicable statute of limitations.”

Despite the contention, the Supreme Court has made clear its disinclination to review the statute of limitations question here. While the corresponding rejection doesn’t elaborate on the reasons behind the decision, the development seemingly marks the end of the review-petition push for the R. Kelly crimes tried in Chicago.

However, it certainly doesn’t mark the end of the broader saga. In August, a New York judge ordered Universal Music Publishing Group to pay about $500,000 in R. Kelly royalties directly to victims of the three-time Grammy winner. Following the point to its logical conclusion, the artist’s works remain live on Spotify (where he has nearly five million monthly listeners) and other platforms despite the decidedly serious convictions at hand.

Closer to the present, Andrea Kelly, R. Kelly’s ex-wife, announced over the weekend that she’d written a tell-all entitled Under the Red Carpet. Scheduled to release in late December, the “book is going to set so many free,” according to the author, whose trailer for the project rather prominently features multiple clips and photos of Diddy as well.

“For years people have spoken on my life without knowing ANYTHING about me,” wrote 50-year-old Andrea, who was married to R. Kelly between 1996 and 2009 but still uses his last name. “How crazy is it to speak on someone you NEVER MET or had a conversation with as FACT. Well, the time has come to speak without fear! No more forcing a smile to get thru the pain of being me. No more ‘be nice’ to please an unpleasant world.”

Musi is suing Apple for allegedly removing it from the App Store without cause. Photo Credit: James Yarema

Apple is facing a breach of contract lawsuit levied by YouTube wrapper app Musi, which says it was unjustly booted from the App Store.

Manitoba, Canada-based Musi submitted that straightforward complaint to a California federal court, after it was allegedly kicked off the App Store on September 24th. As the development followed an apparent years-running dispute with the Play Store owner Google, Musi never released on Android.

By Musi’s own description, though, it afforded users “enhanced functionality to interact with publicly available content on YouTube’s website through an augmentative interface.” Stated differently, Northeastern Global News in an April profile elaborated that “Musi pulls [tracks] from YouTube’s entire library,” allowing users to access “an even broader range of music, particularly live recordings, than on Spotify.”

As laid out in the same account, Musi incorporated “silent, full screen ads” that were “less intrusive than the ads that play between every few songs on Spotify’s free, ad-supported tier.” Of course, one needn’t stretch the imagination to see why the model didn’t sit right with Google/YouTube, the major labels (which had the platform in their crosshairs pre-removal), and others.

Furthermore, judging by some of the qualms voiced in the many Reddit posts penned by now-former Musi users, the app was also selling lifetime access to an ad-free tier. (On the usership front, we previously provided a look at Musi’s surprising reach.)

Returning to the lawsuit, Musi’s “sporadic dialogue with YouTube” is said to date back to 2015, during which time the plaintiff “repeatedly expressed its commitment to offer the Musi app in a way that fully complies with YouTube’s Terms of Service,” per the legal text.

Keeping the timetable in mind, in 2021, YouTube counsel allegedly accused Musi of violating the video-sharing giant’s terms by allegedly accessing YouTube’s non-public interfaces, using YouTube for a commercial purpose without authorization, and selling ads on pages where YouTube videos were the main draw.

Predictably, Musi says it refuted each of the claims, though “YouTube never responded.” A similar collection of allegations and another alleged non-response from YouTube purportedly arrived in March of 2023.

Fast forward to this past August, when the App Store team emailed Musi about a formal complaint, alleging intellectual property rights infringement, from YouTube’s legal team. Musi once again returned fire, failed to receive an immediate response from Apple, and then engaged in an evidently fruitless email exchange (complete with an alleged lack of concrete responses from Apple and Google/YouTube) until the aforementioned App Store removal in late September, the suit shows.

Among other things, the move was allegedly “unreasonable, lacked good cause, and violated Apple’s Development Agreement’s terms,” per the suit. “Apple’s decision has caused immediate and ongoing financial and reputational harm to Musi,” the app spelled out for good measure.

Besides damages, the plaintiff is seeking “a preliminary and permanent injunction to have the Musi app restored on the App Store platform.”

Photo Credit: StubHub

Earlier this week, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) took aim at secondary ticketing platforms – and urged congressional action – following an alleged wave of “fake” Oasis tickets. Now, one of the accused platforms is firing back and stirring an ugly war-of-words with Ticketmaster.

We covered NIVA’s letter and adjacent Fans First Act push in detail yesterday. To summarize, the organization called out StubHub and Vivid Seats in particular over thousands of allegedly fake/speculative tickets to the North American leg of Oasis’ forthcoming tour.

These resale passes, the organization indicated, had presumably inflated price tags and were allegedly listed before there was “evidence of a single ticket going on sale to the public” for the high-demand concert series. Lawmakers, NIVA emphasized as well, should promptly address the “widespread deceptive practices perpetuated by predatory ticket brokers and resale platforms.”

Of course, there are two sides to every dispute, and unsurprisingly, the accused ticketing platforms have much to say about the allegations. Running with StubHub’s response for now, a representative told us that the Oasis tickets in question weren’t fake/speculative at all.

Rather, the company maintained, the passes derived from more targeted pre-sales that initiated before the main pre-sale. As we noted yesterday, Oasis’ North American pre-sale – at least as billed in a tweet from the band itself – is said to have kicked off on October 3rd.

In the interest of clarity, September 30th saw Oasis address the matter on X. “A ticket pre-sale will be held this Thursday, 3rd October,” the group wrote. “Entry is by private ballot only. Ballot registration is open now and closes 8am ET tomorrow, Tuesday 1st October.”

Meanwhile, Ticketmaster on September 30th formally announced the tour leg via a media release. “Registration for the presale is currently open at www.oasisinet.com until Tuesday, October 1st at 8am EST,” the Live Nation subsidiary wrote in part. “General ticket onsale will begin Friday, October 4th at 12pm local time and will be available from www.ticketmaster.com.”

Absent from both messages is any mention of different pre-sales. But according to StubHub, which added a relevant email screenshot for good measure, individuals including but not limited to Chicago Bears season ticketholders were invited to buy Oasis tickets on the 30th. (The NFL team’s home stadium is set to host an Oasis show in late August of 2025.)

“CLICK ON THE BUTTON BELOW TO ACCESS YOUR EXCLUSIVE PRESALE STARTING MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, AT 12PM (CT),” that all-caps notification, sent by what appears to be the Bears’ official email account, reads in part.

Not stopping there, the platform provided an in-depth statement from global head of government relations Laura Dooley, who called on Ticketmaster to “do their part to better protect fans.” We included those comments in full at the time of publishing; shortly after that, Ticketmaster reached out with a response of its own, bluntly declaring that “StubHub is lying.”

In other words, the decidedly public verbal sparring suggests that the broader dispute probably won’t be ending anytime soon. On the policy side, especially given NIVA’s initially highlighted push for legislation – and the House’s quick passage of the TICKET Act, which NIVA also supports, earlier in 2024 – it’ll be interesting to see how (or whether) StubHub’s disclosure affects the Fans First Act’s path forward.

Here’s the full statement from StubHub global head of government relations Laura Dooley:

“It is clear that Live Nation Entertainment-Ticketmaster and National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) have partnered to spread false information about ticket availability in an attempt to further their own policy agenda and create distrust in the secondary market. There is a lack of transparency around how tickets are allocated, sold, and distributed in the primary ticket market, preventing consumers from understanding how the ticket industry works and allowing dominant players to manipulate the marketplace. Tickets may appear on resale marketplaces before public on-sale because many industry stakeholders, such as season ticket holders, sponsors, and professional resellers, receive early access – this was the case with Oasis. 

At StubHub, our top priority is getting fans into events. We prohibit the sale of speculative tickets and call on Ticketmaster to open lines of communication, offer ticket verification services, and do their part to better protect fans.” 

And the retort provided by a Ticketmaster spokesperson: 

“StubHub is lying. Oasis tickets were offered for sale on StubHub immediately after the North American dates and venues were announced, before any onsale, and before anyone had rights to particular seats – as the listings explicitly claimed. The season ticket holder excuse is baseless. For the shows in Pasadena, Toronto, Mexico City and New Jersey, no one had season ticket holder rights to receive tickets. Even in Chicago, no one had advance rights to the particular seats listed for sale on StubHub.   

Ticketmaster prohibits anyone from listing resale tickets before an official onsale. StubHub and other resellers choose to look the other way. This continuing pattern of deception requires Congress to pass and enforce a comprehensive ban on speculative ticketing.”

In one of early October’s music industry hires, promotions, and exits, Renato Vanzella (pictured) became FUGA’s LATAM GM. Photo Credit: Downtown Music

Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of October 4th, 2024.

If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com. And, keep track of all the latest music industry hires here.

Downtown Music Holdings

Downtown has promoted Gareth Mellor to SVP of global marketing and communications, and the company’s FUGA subsidiary has elevated nearly six-year team member Renato Vanzella to LATAM general manager.

Believe

Believe has named Henri Jamet, previously with its AllPoints, naïve, and Animal63 labels, MD of France.

Newport Folk Festival

Newport has tapped Nathaniel Rateliff as the first appointee for its newly announced stewardship program.

iHeartMedia

Page Six’s Astra and “War of the Roses” co-host Marie have signed on to jointly host 103.5 KTU’s morning show in New York. Next, longtime iHeart team member Joe Albrecht has become SVP of programming for Alaska.

Lastly, in Texas, Christine Martinez-Escobar has rejoined iHeart in Austin as market president after approximately 16 years with Univision, while Rosie Perez (who’s been with the business for about 25 years) is now San Antonio’s market president and George Flora is SVP of sales for Dallas-Fort Worth.

Sony Music Publishing

SMP has boosted Antoine Dathanat, replacing the retiring Nicolas Galibert, to MD of France.

Sony Music Nashville

Multi-decade exec Randy Goodman is set to retire as chairman and CEO of Sony Music Nashville at 2024’s end.

MPG

The Music Producers Guild has made three additions to its executive board: Anu Pillai, AIR Studios mastering engineer Natalie Bibby, and Rak Studios manager Emma Townsend.

Recording Academy

Harvey Mason Jr. has inked a four-year deal to remain Recording Academy CEO.

Verve Label Group

UMG’s Verve has upped longtime team member Jamie Krents to president and CEO, besides bumping Dawn Olejar from GM to COO.

UMG Finland

UMG Finland has promoted nearly 15-year higher-up Petri Mannonen to CEO.

UMG Spain

UMG Spain has appointed as co-managing directors Alicia Arauzo (who’s been with the company for some three decades) and A&R exec Luis Fernández Sanz.

UMG UK

David Joseph is parting ways with Universal Music UK after over 25 years, and Dickon Stainer has been named as the CEO’s replacement.

CMT

CMT SVP of music and talent Leslie Fram is exiting after 13 years.

Spotify

Spotify global head of music Jeremy Erlich is stepping away after just shy of five and a half years. Also on the way out is VP and head of podcast business Sahar Elhabashi, who will leave at 2024’s end after roughly six years.

ADA

Warner Music’s ADA has brought on now-former TikTok/ByteDance music higher-up Corey Sheridan as global head of commerce and revenue.

Hallwood Media

Hallwood SVP of promotion and licensing Chris Moradi, who came aboard in 2022 after more than 22 years with Interscope, has departed the company.

Brussels, where the Societies’ Council for the Collective Management of Performers’ Rights (SCAPR) is based, as seen from Mount of the Arts. Photo Credit: Ank Kumar

SCAPR has announced 8.5% performer royalties growth for 2023, when its members brought in a cumulative $1.05 billion (€955 million) thanks in part to a double-digit expansion on the public performance side.

The Societies’ Council for the Collective Management of Performers’ Rights (SCAPR), now counting as members 61 collective management organizations from 45 countries, just recently published its 2023 report.

All told, the mentioned member CMOs – referring to 47 “ordinary members” and 14 “associated members,” the likes of the U.K.’s PPL among the former – are said to represent over one million performers.

PPL earlier this week shed light on a seemingly solid Q3 2024 international-royalties distribution, and in general, the relevant organizations have been reporting revenue growth stemming from the public use of recordings. Outside the U.S., that includes usages on the radio and in businesses like restaurants, to name only a couple categories.

Now, we have a bit more color on the recorded side with SCAPR’s report. According to the resource, cumulative collections on behalf of performers hit the initially highlighted €955 million last year, up 8.5% from 2022 and 19.4% from 2021.

Behind the newest of the sums, SCAPR attributed $322.43 million/€294 million to the use of works in public establishments (up 24% YoY), $206.18 million/€188 million to private copying (down 11% YoY, though relatively few members collect the royalties), $160.12 million/€146 million from TV broadcasts (up 17% YoY), and $157.89 million/€144 million from radio (essentially flat YoY), to list a portion of the categories.

Notwithstanding these and other jumps, however, actual performer payments slipped 1.7% YoY to $694.06 million (€633 million) in 2023; SCAPR ascribed the dip to “an unusually high level of previous years’ catchup payments” in the 2021 and 2022 sums.

Overall, SCAPR members are said to have 804 representation agreements in place (including 66 new deals finalized in 2023), with $209.42 million (€191 million) transferred between them last year, up 6% YoY, per the breakdown.

Looking ahead to the future, SCAPR also noted the planned Q4 2024 launch of “an additional tool” enabling non-SCAPR CMOs to create international performer numbers (IPNs). Said tool is poised to “make the IPN even more global, ensuring that all performers are properly identified at all stages of the creation process,” according to the 38-year-old entity.

Photo Credit: Mdundo

Now with about 36 million monthly active users to its credit, African streaming service Mdundo says it’s on track to pay out north of $1 million in royalties during 2025.

Nairobi-headquartered Mdundo disclosed that artist-compensation forecast in a brief release. We last checked in on the platform in February, when higher-ups were touting a monthly-user milestone of over 30 million.

Against the backdrop of an industry-wide focus on increasingly lucrative emerging markets, the figure has evidently achieved double-digit growth in the interim. The user (and subscriber) expansion is also driving revenue at Mdundo, which, factoring at the present DKK-USD exchange rate, reported generating $295,827 in 2021, $1.04 million in 2022, and $1.92 million in 2023.

Running with the point, Mdundo, which has paid out royalties to 156,000 professionals and counting, intends to make between $1.1 million and $1.3 million in artist payments next year. Of course, this sum is modest in the context of the broader industry, where a growing portion of paydays are being measured in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.

But it goes without saying that the compensation is important to the involved acts – not to mention the even greater long-term significance of having more ways to reach fans and earn a living. All told, Mdundo operates in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, and Rwanda.

Despite the relatively long list, though, the company is zeroing in on “hyperlocal markets to enhance the reach and impact of both its artists and advertisers.” This includes Hausa media in Nigeria as well as Kalenjin and Kamba music in Kenya and parts of Uganda, the service noted.

The emphasis on hyperlocal sub-markets fuels Mdundo’s appeal to nearby audiences, boosts the visibility of artists specializing in the genres, and attracts advertisers in the process, per the company.

“Our commitment is to deliver consistent and meaningful earnings, helping individual artists grow while fostering the broader development of Africa’s music industry,” added Mdundo CEO Martin Nielsen, whose business’s stock (CPH: MDUNDO) experienced a 5.8% valuation spike during today’s trading.

We’ll have additional insight into Mdundo’s positioning soon; the company has teed up the release of its next annual report for October 7th. Furthermore, other regional players – besides leading global streaming platforms and companies – are likewise making moves in Africa. In July, for instance, Boomplay inked a YG Entertainment distribution pact.

Pointing to thousands of resale-platform listings for allegedly fake Oasis tickets, NIVA is once again urging Congress to pass the Fans First Act. Photo Credit: National Independent Venue Association

Citing an influx of allegedly “fake tickets” to Oasis’ North American stops, NIVA is urging congressional approval of the Fans First Act, which it says will address “deceptive practices perpetuated by predatory ticket brokers and resale platforms.”

The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) just recently entreated senators from both sides of the aisle to enact related reforms, pointing specifically to the Fans First Act as a possible solution. That bipartisan bill surfaced towards 2023’s end and received a renewed public push from multiple artists this past April.

In other words, though the relevant legislation isn’t exactly new, the alleged influx of higher-priced Oasis tickets on secondary platforms represents another opportunity to advocate on behalf of the Fans First Act.

As used here, “fake” refers mainly to speculative tickets. NIVA’s letter is dated October 2nd, and Oasis’ North American pre-sale didn’t kick off until today, ahead of a general on-sale tomorrow.

But even before the pre-sale, NIVA found “at least 9,000 fake tickets on sale” through the likes of StubHub and Vivid Seats, per the letter to lawmakers. These findings, the organization spelled out, preceded “evidence of a single ticket going on sale to the public.”

(As a pertinent aside, amid ticket-price complaints and regulatory scrutiny across the pond, Oasis isn’t utilizing Dynamic Pricing for the North American dates.)

The “egregious” alleged examples of fake tickets include 4,354 such passes on StubHub and approximately 3,450 passes on Vivid Seats, all identified between 8 PM and 11 PM ET on October 1st. Hundreds (and potentially thousands) more fake tickets were allegedly listed soon after Oasis yesterday announced four additional shows.

Leaving no stone unturned, the letter features as exhibits a number of screenshots that appear to show the appropriate Oasis tickets, complete with seemingly hefty resale price tags.

Meanwhile, NIVA also took aim at “messaging on Vivid Seats sharing misinformation with fans” – referring to an alleged indication that “‘1% of tickets [were] left’” even before the pre-sale – and took a shot at Live Nation to boot.

The letter, NIVA wrote on the Live Nation front, “is not a defense of the publicly-traded, multinational conglomerate that’s promoting the tour, as they are under legal scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice and 40 state attorneys general.”

As to where things go from here, the entity is calling for a Senate Commerce Committee hearing centering “on predatory ticket practices, including the sale of speculative tickets,” as well as the previously mentioned passage of the Fans First Act in “a comprehensive year-end legislative package to reform ticketing practices.”

If NIVA gets its wish, the latter package would undoubtedly include the fast-moving TICKET Act, which is now awaiting a Senate vote after passing the House in May.

Vancouver’s English Bay. Photo Credit: Mike Benna

Another day, another round of Spotify price increases, which are hitting packages across the board in Canada.

Impacted subscribers and regional outlets just recently identified the pricing adjustments in Canada, and the streaming service itself subsequently confirmed the move. The Spotify price increases have reached each available plan, including Student, in the nation of about 39 million.

Student – Up 6.68% to CA$6.39 (currently $4.72)

Individual – Up 15.47% to CA$12.69 per month ($9.37)

Duo – Up 19.35% to CA$17.89 ($13.22)

Family – Up 23.54% to CA$20.99 ($15.51)

Explaining the decision to materially raise prices, a Spotify spokesperson pointed to “local macroeconomic factors” as well as an effort to “meet market demands while offering an unparalleled service.”

Though those non-committal remarks don’t provide an abundance of context, “local macroeconomic factors” presumably refer, at least in part, to Canada’s controversial 5% tax on streaming services. Spotify and others are still pushing back against the relevant law, we reported last month.

Moreover, Spotify’s pricing maneuver is hardly without historical precedent. It was only in May that the platform elevated its prices in France following the rollout of a similar (decidedly contentious) additional tax on revenue.

Of course, as illustrated by the above percentages, today’s jumps in Canada are larger than 5%. But as we highlighted in July, Spotify subscribers in the nation were paying noticeably less (to the tune of about $8 monthly for Individual pre-hike) than U.S. subscribers given the CAD-USD exchange rate.

This was more apparent yet after Spotify in June finalized another round of stateside increases, including to $11.99 for Individual and to $19.99 for Family.

Bearing in mind Universal Music’s slowing paid-subscription growth in Q2 and the broader H1 2024 subscription-addition slowdown in the U.S., the time is apparently right for the market leader to continue embracing higher-cost plans in well-established music spaces.

Furthermore, despite the second-quarter streaming plateau, Universal Music is banking on solid subscription-revenue expansions for years to come. And with taller-than-ever expectations for emerging markets, which are comparatively difficult to monetize, attempts to squeeze extra value from mature music industries might not be limited to price increases on subscriptions.

Moving forward, it’ll be interesting on multiple levels to track all the involved steps – as well as the exact developments and financial results they bring about. Adjacent to these main developments and financial results, however, the Spotify-driven shift could also usher in streaming market-share changes.

We previously noted that Apple Music holds a slight lead over Spotify in terms of total Individual subscriptions in the U.S., and the Apple-owned platform is still charging less than its rival in the States. Plus, with Spotify’s price bumps in Canada, fans are now paying nearly CA$2 more per month for Individual on the service than on Apple Music.

The LA HQ of CAA, which is suing Range Media Partners for allegedly stealing confidential information to build its own business. Photo Credit: Minnaert

Range Media Partners “is an unlicensed talent agency built on deceit” – at least according to a firmly worded lawsuit filed by Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

CAA just recently fired off the complaint against nearly five-year-old Range Media Partners, which, as some know, is having a big 2024. In summary, the self-described “talent management and brand strategy” specialist scored a minority investment in April, finalized a UMPG admin deal via its publishing unit last month, and kicked off October by signing Rita Ora in all areas.

But as laid out by CAA, Range owes these feats to a foundation rooted in “stealing from and damaging” the plaintiff while simultaneously endeavoring to “improperly evade” the regulatory framework in place for talent agencies in California.

Beginning with the latter, the suit explores at length Range’s alleged effort to circumvent talent-agency requirements by operating as a management provider and then offering professional services well beyond the confines of that space.

“Put simply,” the legal text spells out, “Range’s business model is the pursuit of unlawful profit through deception: Range skirts rules that California legislators and artists’ guilds put in place to protect those working in the entertainment industry. The core ‘trick’ of Range is that it acts as a talent agency but labels itself a management company. Range thereby engages in lucrative transactions foreclosed to law-abiding talent agencies.”

That alleged move, the complaint explains (including by drawing from relevant emails sent by Range team members) in many more words, enabled Range to “avoid the rules designed to protect clients.”

Moreover, the same alleged failure to register as an agency allowed the five CAA vets who got Range off the ground to “claim to not be competing with CAA and try to continue to receive a share of CAA profits” despite “working to injure” the older firm.

Enter the second component of the action, which accuses Range co-founder and CEO Peter Micelli as well as fellow co-founder Jack Whigham and higher-ups David Bugliari, Michael Cooper, and Mick Sullivan, all CAA vets, of stealing confidential information.

In a nutshell, the individuals allegedly posed “as loyal CAA members, sitting shoulder to shoulder in confidential CAA meetings about clients and business, all while covertly working to benefit Range and themselves.”

And so it was that by the time Range officially announced its launch in August of 2020, the noted execs had for months been allegedly stealing CAA information, in violation of their confidentiality agreements to boot, for use at the new company, per the complaint.

This information refers in part to a variety of personal details about clients, “key entertainment industry relationships,” business plans, and data-analytics tools.

Additionally, the alleged information theft is said to have seen the mentioned persons send materials “from CAA’s systems to their personal email accounts and devices” and encourage multiple CAA employees to obtain sensitive details on their behalf. Some of the latter employees were later hired and “quickly” promoted at Range, per the text.

All told, CAA is accusing Range of violating California’s business and professions code, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duties, and more. Among other things, the plaintiff is seeking damages and an injunction compelling Range to cease using and return the allegedly stolen confidential information.

DMN reached out to Range for comment but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

A Glastonbury performance from The Last Dinner Party, one of the acts for which PPL collects international royalties. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

The U.K.’s Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) has announced a nearly $22 million Q3 2024 international royalties distribution, which it says is the largest third-quarter payout since 2020.

PPL just recently disclosed the details of its latest payment, which went out on September 30th and, as noted, encompassed compensation from the public use of recordings in non-domestic markets. Previously, though, June saw the entity make a payment of over $132.64 million/£100 million (for U.K. and global usages alike) for the first time.

Shifting back to the newer payout, the £16.5 million (currently $21.88 million) at hand marks an approximately 30% year-over-year increase and includes $3.05 million (£2.3 million) from the music-video-focused VPL. 55 global CMOs contributed to the sum, and the Indian Singers’ and Musicians’ Rights Association-partnered PPL pointed to particular growth throughout Asia.

Elaborating on the third-quarter results, PPL director of international Laurence Oxenbury touted the global agreements his organization has in place.

“We are proud to make this record payment to our members who invest so much of their talent, creativity, and time into recording music to be enjoyed by people around the world,” relayed the longtime PPL higher-up.

“Through our collaboration with over 110 collective management organisations globally, we are helping ensure performers and recording rightsholders get paid for their music when it is played in markets where public performance rights exist,” Oxenbury concluded.

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2024, PPL is set to make its final distribution of the year, encompassing international and domestic revenue alike, on December 17th. On the compositional side, PRS for Music is expected to send out its second-to-last member payment of the year on October 15th, per the appropriate website.

Beyond that forthcoming distribution, 2024 headlines haven’t been entirely positive for PRS, which was over the summer named in a lawsuit filed by Pace Rights Management, King Crimson founder Robert Fripp, and The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Jim and William Reid over alleged transparency shortcomings, admin rates, and more.

The legal dispute quickly devolved into a public war of words, with PRS firing back against the claims in a detail-oriented open letter and then receiving a separate open letter in response. While litigation from across the pond is comparatively difficult to track, it’ll be worth keeping an eye out for updates (and a possible resolution) across the final quarter of 2024.

LiveOne has announced an “amended” Tesla partnership that includes the end of subsidized subscriptions to the music platform for certain vehicle owners. Photo Credit: Bram Van Oost

Tesla has retooled its partnership with music platform LiveOne (NASDAQ: LVO), shares in which suffered a double-digit slip following the new deal’s announcement.

LiveOne just recently described the pact’s key elements in a standalone release. The Los Angeles-headquartered audio-entertainment service has long been a big part of Tesla’s screen-dashboard music offering – with the vehicle company even subsidizing LiveOne subscriptions for those who pay for Tesla’s own Premium Connectivity subscription.

Under the adjusted tie-up, though, the subsidies are no more. Slacker-powered LiveOne spelled out that “Tesla will no longer subsidize LiveOne products to some of its customers.” Expected to go into effect on December 1st, the change is rather predictably eliciting less-than-positive feedback from impacted customers.

“Starting December 1, 2024, your LiveOne powered by Slacker Radio account will no longer be included with your Premium Connectivity subscription,” reads the message Tesla sent to these customers, per one of the many Reddit posts on the subject.

Closer to the present, Tesla has already replaced its “streaming button with LiveOne’s in perpetuity,” and “Tesla will continue to pay LiveOne monthly for grandfathered users in perpetuity,” per the music and podcast business. Said grandfathered users seemingly refer to individuals who received lifetime Premium Connectivity access after purchasing Tesla vehicles by certain dates years back.

Importantly, the “amended partnership” is poised to run through May of 2026, and Tesla owners will, of course, have the option of springing for LiveOne premium ($10.99 monthly in the States) on their own dime. The Kartoon Studios partner also intends to “offer all Tesla customers discounted LiveOne music packages.”

Emphasizing the potential conversions at hand, LiveOne pointed to the possibility of multiplying ARPU by three. But it goes without saying that the digital music landscape is highly competitive, with Spotify and other on-demand platforms standing out as viable replacements for LiveOne.

Moreover, while they might be knee-jerk reactions to the loss of a perk, a number of purported LiveOne users are signaling resistance, discount or no discount, to subscribing out of pocket.

Shifting to the precise fiscal fallout, LiveOne had previously driven home the significance of the Tesla union with regard to its own balance sheet. “Our business is dependent, and we believe that it will continue to depend, on our customer relationship with Tesla, which accounted for 53% of our consolidated revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2024,” LiveOne spelled out in its most recent earnings report.

Bearing that information in mind, LiveOne has substantially lowered its fiscal 2025 consolidated-revenue guidance to between $120 million and $135 million. At the time of this writing, LVO had rebounded slightly to 74 cents per share, which nevertheless marks a close to 40% falloff across the past five trading days.

AccuRadio is facing a SoundExchange lawsuit for allegedly failing to make licensing payments. Photo Credit: SoundExchange

A little over two months following the start of their lawsuit, SoundExchange and AccuRadio have hammered out a temporary payments agreement and ceased battling over an injunction.

That agreement’s specifics were just recently finalized in an order from Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, after SoundExchange submitted the underlying complaint in late July. As we covered in greater detail at the time, the plaintiff accused the internet-radio defendant of failing to cough up allegedly owed royalty payments.

Besides pursuing the royalties themselves, SoundExchange moved to obtain a preliminary injunction barring the statutory license’s use on the part of AccuRadio, which described the suit to DMN as “a complete surprise.” But now, following ample back-and-forth over the amount allegedly owed and more, the litigants have reached a deal to dial things down while the action plays out.

First up under that deal, which has as noted been confirmed by the court, SoundExchange has withdrawn its preliminary injunction motion. However, the AI-minded entity can resume that push down the line if it so desires.

This leads us to the second component of the agreement and order, “adequate protection in the form of advance monthly payments” from AccuRadio to SoundExchange.

As laid out in the legal text, the defendant is specifically set to forward to SoundExchange a minimum of $210,000 on the first of every month “until a final judgment is entered in the” overarching case, with the initial payment due today.

Regarding potential changes to the amount, the payments plan can be altered sans court approval if AccuRadio and SoundExchange consent to the retooled terms in writing. Any adjustments would be based on “AccuRadio’s average number of performances” per month (which will still be tracked through monthly reports in any event) as well as “the current regulatory rate for non-subscription transmissions.”

AccuRadio, the order emphasizes for good measure, will “receive full credit for payments received by SoundExchange under this Order against liability owed to SoundExchange as determined by the Court.”

And should the defendant fail to make a payment, SoundExchange reserves the right to refile its preliminary injunction motion, hunt for an expedited briefing schedule, or “seek any other appropriate relief.”

The AccuRadio dispute isn’t the only unpaid-royalties litigation SoundExchange is currently spearheading; an increasingly convoluted showdown involving SiriusXM, complete with counterclaims from the satellite radio company, is also in full swing.

Nick Mason and David Gilmour performing live. Photo Credit: anyonlinyr

Several years, twists, and turns later, Pink Floyd has reportedly sold its recordings and more to Sony Music Entertainment in an approximately $400 million deal.

That long-awaited sale entered the media spotlight in a Financial Times report, and DMN received separate confirmations of a finalized transaction from parties with knowledge of the matter. However, neither Sony Music nor the almost six-decade-old band had acknowledged the deal via a formal statement or release at the time of writing.

But we’ve been tracking the high-profile (and high-value) IP selloff since the summer of 2022. For a time, evidence suggested that Pink Floyd was close to cashing in on the body of work – with BMG, Warner Music, and more mentioned as possible purchasers.

Subsequently, different evidence, including the contentious relationship and reported infighting between David Gilmour and Roger Waters, pointed to a fizzled-out attempt at a sale.

Following a decidedly quiet 2023, that changed earlier in 2024, when Gilmour last month rather conspicuously expressed renewed interest in selling. Of course, nearly half-billion-dollar transactions don’t come to fruition overnight; assuming today’s indications of a sealed sale are accurate, related talks had presumably been ongoing for a while before the public declaration.

In any event, the Times pointed to recording, name, and likeness rights’ (excluding compositional interests) being included in the deal, to which a more expensive $500 million price tag had previously been attached. (The reportedly encompassed song rights align with those connected to the sale back in November of 2022.) Beyond this top-level description, concrete specifics about the precise IP are few and far between at present.

Even so, the reported purchase marks the latest in a line of blockbuster buyouts from Sony Music, which, to put it bluntly, hasn’t been shy about pursuing valuable catalogs created by or tied to controversial figures.

Running with the point, multiple reports have cited certain of Waters’ remarks as another contributing factor to the slow Pink Floyd catalog sale. And while that may be true, there are presumably fewer PR headaches associated with contentious comments than serious allegations of wrongdoing.

Earlier in 2024, Sony Music scooped up a stake in the song rights of Michael Jackson, whose work remains commercially prominent despite the inherent baggage of sexual assault claims against the deceased singer. Moreover, the major label has battled opposition to the investment from the artist’s family as well.

Bigger picture, Sony Music in June reportedly scored a $1.3 billion deal for Queen’s IP. It’s unclear whether the play is officially final, but the involved rights, like those of Pink Floyd, had also reportedly been on the market for some time beforehand.

Photo Credit: ABBA Voyage

After strong ticket sales and economic indicators pointed to financial success for ABBA Voyage in 2023, the lucrative hologram show’s full-year financials have officially released.

Aniara Limited, the UK-based company behind London’s ABBA Voyage, just recently filed its complete 2023 financials. As mentioned, evidence was already suggesting solid commercial results for ABBA Voyage in 2023 (and the current year) – with other massive hologram shows possibly in the works to boot.

Now, however, we know the precise details of these commercial results. As laid out in Aniara’s full-year report, ABBA Voyage’s 2023 performances numbered 374 and attracted 1,097,597 attendees for an occupancy rate of 97.8%.

Adjacent to those figures, Aniara’s total revenue hit $137.58 million (£103.67 million) in 2023, with profit coming in at $10.68 million (£8.06 million), according to the document.

Both revenue and profit climbed year over year; ABBA Voyage only debuted in May of 2022. But thanks mainly to sizable non-ticketing sales in 2022, the prior year came close to matching 2023 revenue (at $128.70 million/£97.12 million for 2022) with a comparatively small 228 showings, the report states.

Sticking with 2023 revenue, the lion’s share of the figure, $134.61 million (£101.58 million), derived from ticket sales, per the text. The remaining sum came from the “sale of stage rights” (at $1.19 million/£899,416) and from film-rights sales ($1.57 million/£1.19 million)

Also in the annual report, Aniara confirmed indications of continued ABBA Voyage demand for 2024. As things stand in the year’s final quarter, the hunch looks to be proving correct. At the time of writing, fans had already purchased a substantial portion of the show’s tickets for October, with dates currently scheduled into May of 2025.

Shifting the focus to the bigger picture, the success of ABBA Voyage (for which an arena was custom-built at a reported cost of around $185.57 million/£140 million) almost certainly means other high-profile hologram concert series will come to fruition.

Running with the idea and the initially mentioned shows that could be forthcoming, June reports revealed discussions between Björn Ulvaeus-founded Pophouse, Sony Music, and Authentic Brands Group on an Elvis hologram.

Time will tell if the talks ultimately produce a new residency. Importantly, this rumored project shouldn’t be confused with the Elvis Evolution “immersive experience,” which a company called Layered Reality intends to bring to London in March of 2025, the appropriate website relays.

Meanwhile, Pophouse in April purchased a variety of KISS IP, about four months after the famed rock group confirmed an avatar concert of its own. KISS’ hologram show is reportedly set to kick off sometime in 2027.

Photo Credit: Reservoir Media

Reservoir Media stock (NASDAQ: RSVR) is “substantially undervalued” – at least according to Irenic Capital Management, which owns about 8.1% of shares and is now demanding “a full strategic review.”

New York City-headquartered Irenic Capital just recently expressed that clear-cut position in a regulatory filing. According to the document, the signatory entity possesses just shy of 5.3 million Reservoir shares, 83,513 of which were purchased in either August or September.

For additional background, Irenic per its website “invests in public companies and works collaboratively with firm leadership.” The overarching aim of said collaborations “is to produce improvements in operating and financial performance that create long-term value for the company and its owners,” the same source indicates.

And as described by Reuters, Irenic isn’t a stranger to rattling the cage or to demanding strategic reviews in particular. To be sure, one such push reportedly came earlier in September, when the hedge fund formally called on Kinaxis, an Ottawa-based developer of supply-chain-management software, to kick off a review of its own.

Bringing the focus back to Reservoir Media, Irenic is of the belief that the Golnar Khosrowshahi-led business’s shares “are substantially undervalued,” the filing spells out.

Moreover, Irenic has encouraged Reservoir “to undertake a full strategic review of all alternatives to maximize shareholder value and to form a special committee of the Board to oversee such review process.”

DMN reached out to Reservoir for comment and received a brief response: “The Reservoir Media Board of Directors values shareholder input and we remain focused on executing our strategy to drive value, in line with our fiduciary duty to all shareholders.”

While that statement doesn’t provide concrete answers about how the situation will unfold, it’ll be worth monitoring the episode – and especially the stock-purchase moves of Irenic – in the coming weeks and months. (Among other things, Reservoir reappointed several board members at its annual stockholder meeting last month.)

Closer to the present, we don’t lack insight into the strategy and financials of Snoop Dogg-partnered Reservoir, which in April unveiled an up to $100 million offering to pay down debt and scoop up more music IP. Without rehashing the details at length here, we previously covered the company’s Q2 2024 revenue growth, which was fueled by publishing gains and arrived despite a dip on the recorded side.

Wrapping with a recap of RSVR’s recent performance, the stock’s value grew 3.6% during today’s trading to finish at $8.11 per share. That’s up 14.4% from 2024’s beginning and nearly 36% from late September of 2023, but less than half a percent from the top of April of 2024.

Music industry funding suffered a double-digit year-over-year decrease in Q3 2024 despite some signs of a possible acceleration during the quarter’s second half. Photo Credit: Alexander Schimmeck

Music industry companies raised $425.28 million during Q3 2024, which brought a funding acceleration on a quarterly basis but fell far short of the sum attached to Q3 2023.

These stats come from an analysis of DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker, a searchable and filterable database of raises from in and around the industry. While DMN Pro is set to release an in-depth breakdown of the third-quarter numbers later this week, even a top-level look at the figures provides telling insight.

In part, that’s because of the material funding slide attributable to 2024’s initial nine months. We’ve charted the apparent decrease in raise volume and size throughout the year, and DMN Pro’s forthcoming weekly report will also compare the first, second, and third quarters of 2024 with their 2023 counterparts.

Keeping the focus on Q3 2024 for the time being, the $425.28 million in cumulative funding was spread across 16 rounds for an average of $26.58 million apiece. TickPick laid claim to the largest of the rounds by securing a $250 million growth investment in late August.

Overall, Q3 2024’s funding was significantly beneath that delivered by Q3 2023, north of $2.56 billion across 30 rounds. The older period’s average round size was $85.43 million, in excess of three times more than the average for 2024’s third quarter.

However, there’s more to the story than the 83.4% YoY funding slip from Q1 to Q3 2023 and the same window in 2024. The one-stop Music Industry Funding tracker compiles raises from directly within the industry and from adjacent spheres. Falling squarely into the latter category for Q3 2023 were Amazon’s $1.25 billion Anthropic investment and the $760 million Partners IV fund.

Anthropic is, of course, an AI giant, and The Raine Group’s Partners IV may invest not solely in music companies, but in “sports, media, entertainment and gaming” businesses as well.

Nevertheless, after booting the two rounds’ combined $2.01 billion from Q3 2023’s total, we’re left with a little over $552.86 million – for a YoY falloff of 23.1% in any event.

Despite the decrease, Q3 2024 didn’t lack encouraging funding takeaways, including the mentioned strong showing between mid-August and mid-September, TickPick’s noted quarter-billion-dollar raise, and others that will be explored in the weekly report. Moreover, this momentum may translate into a higher-volume and larger-value funding landscape in Q4.

And while even an overwhelmingly positive fourth quarter will almost certainly prove unable to boost 2024’s industry funding above 2023 levels, continued trends in the right direction could lay the groundwork for a big 2025.

Though Goldman Sachs’ Music in the Air report has forecasted solid 2024 global industry revenue of over $100 billion, it’s also illustrated a dramatic paid-streaming slowdown in major markets. Photo Credit: Goldman Sachs

Despite an ongoing streaming-growth slowdown in established markets, global music industry revenue is on track to top $100 billion during 2024, according to Goldman Sachs’ “Music in the Air” report.

Goldman just recently pointed to insights from its latest analysis of the music space, including revenue from recordings, publishing, live events, and more. We last checked in on Music in the Air data this past May, when a slimmer “redacted” version shed light on a decidedly bullish forecast of almost $164 billion in global industry revenue for 2030.

Now, the investment bank has elaborated on the prediction in a fresh streaming-focused update. Like with past coverage of the annual report, it’s worth reiterating Goldman’s clear-cut financial interest in strong industry growth. At the top level, the business advised BMI on its sale and has stakes in companies including but not limited to Fever, Splice, and Complex.

That should be kept front of mind with regard to the long-optimistic nature of Music in the Air. Similarly important is the well-documented streaming-growth slowdown in leading markets (see the RIAA’s 2024 half-year summary) and the comparatively explosive buildout in emerging industries.

The latter’s been driven home by multiple IFPI reports, Spotify’s quarterly user-geography breakdowns, and, more generally, the major labels’ massive investments in China and Hong Kong, Brazil, and several MENA nations.

At the intersection of the points – reduced revenue improvements in leading markets and double-digit annual growth in quick-rising industries – Goldman’s banking on continued contributions from emerging spaces.

Per the latest Music in the Air analysis, this refers specifically to developing markets’ making “up 70% of new streaming music subscribers by 2030.” Behind the percentage, the resource foresees 48% paid-streaming penetration in established markets by 2030 – UMG has emphasized that it’s also looking for bolstered streaming results in the countries – and 13% in emerging markets.

As things stand, monetization is less lucrative and relatively difficult in these emerging markets, referring both to smaller subscription costs and cheaper advertising rates. (To the growing dismay of the majors, ad-supported listening isn’t particularly lucrative even in the States.)

Following Goldman’s prediction (complete with the above graphic showing single-digit YoY subscriber growth in the U.S., Canada, South Korea, the U.K., and more) to its logical conclusion, however, substantial streaming-revenue expansions are said to be forthcoming on the emerging-markets side.

“Our analysts see an opportunity for pricing in emerging markets to improve as incomes rise,” the document spells out.

Time will tell whether that opportunity materializes – especially given, among other things, stiff competition from regional players as well as the historical difficulty associated with convincing fans to pay for music access.

In any event, Goldman has also reduced its expected streaming compound annual growth rate from 11% to 10% – or identical to Universal Music’s high-end anticipated subscription-revenue CAGR through the 2028 fiscal year.

Certain “lower assumptions for revenue from ads and emerging platforms” prompted Music in the Air’s streaming CAGR reduction, with growth still in the cards from superfan plans, further price increases, AI monetization, and “new payment models for artists,” according to the text.

Spotify stock cooled slightly during trading on Friday, September 27th, after cracking a record high earlier in the week.

Spotify stock (NYSE: SPOT) has cooled after touching a record high of nearly $400 per share following TikTok Music’s shutdown announcement. Ahead of the streaming giant’s newly scheduled Q3 2024 earnings release, where will shares go from here?

That question is front of mind for many – including the long list of analysts who are banking on continued SPOT growth in the coming months. We’ve already covered the corresponding ratings and target prices, some of which anticipate Spotify stock cracking $500 per share, in detail.

But we’ve also acknowledged the smaller number of less enthusiastic SPOT positions, which, generally speaking, stem from concerns about subscriber growth and content costs. Furthermore, when trading wrapped today, Spotify stock was worth $369.20 per share – down nearly 3% from open and roughly $20 from the initially mentioned 52-week high.

It is, of course, too early to tell whether the dip is a sign of things to come. There’s always a degree of uncertainty in the market, and particularly today’s market. Previously, SPOT in 2021 found itself in a similar value position, complete with bullish analyst forecasts, before tumbling beneath its IPO price the next year.

Focusing on what we do know, however, there are a couple key differences between the 2021 version of Spotify and its comparatively lean operation today.

In short, much (but not all) wasteful spending has been trimmed, profitability is now a key objective as opposed to an essential impossibility, management has embraced price increases, and multiple expansions (audiobooks, video, and more) are underway.

On the other side of that coin, though, SPOT’s latest ascent looks to be fueled in large part by expectations of continued subscriber growth and profitability. Few took notice of Spotify’s monthly-user miss in Q2 (probably because subscribers topped guidance), but user additions may be slowing for the business.

Running with the point, a Spotify profit and/or subscriber miss in Q3 would, to put it mildly, be a very big deal. The company yesterday disclosed that it would post those third-quarter financials after market close on Tuesday, November 12th.

(While not necessarily worth reading into, the last time Spotify revealed quarterly earnings after market close as opposed to before trading’s start was Q3 2022, when it missed guidance for both margin and operating income/loss).

As we await that earnings release, with Spotify insiders prohibited by company policy from selling shares at present, tracking high-value SPOT sales could prove insightful.

(For another pertinent parenthetical, Spotify’s insider-trading blackout policy specifically prevents execs and board members from buying or selling shares beginning on “the fifteenth day of the last month of each fiscal quarter” – or, for Q3, the current month – until “the open of the market of the first trading day after the public release of the quarter’s earnings.”)

In the second quarter, Select Equity Group decreased its Spotify holdings by 17.9% to approximately 141,000 shares, a regulatory filing recently indicated.

Music festivals in the States and Down Under are still grappling with the consequences of the abrupt Lyte implosion. Photo Credit: Hanny Naibaho

The Lyte shutdown’s fallout isn’t finished yet, as two music festivals are pushing back against claims that they used the defunct platform to scalp their own tickets. Meanwhile, the episode’s ripples are still being felt all the way in Australia.

These developments stem from the well-funded ticketing company’s abrupt cessation of operations earlier in September. We’ve covered the trainwreck situation every step of the way since then, including with a deep-dive analysis, multiple looks at the impacted festival organizers’ responses, and a breakdown of lawsuits filed by Lost Lands as well as North Coast Music Festival (NCMF).

In brief, the companies behind those happenings are suing Lyte for owed ticket-sale payments that failed to go out due to the platform’s shutdown. DMN obtained the Lost Lands suit, much of which is redacted, and conveyed the brass-tacks takeaways.

Beyond that analysis of the actual complaint, we also cited allegations made in a report from Billboard, which maintained in more words that the events’ organizers had transferred certain passes to Lyte, marked up the prices, and then taken a piece of the resulting revenue.

However, that’s not actually how things went down, according to statements from NCMF and Lost Lands as well as remarks forwarded to DMN by a rep for the former. Long story short, Billboard has updated its piece “to more accurately describe NCMF’s lawsuit against Lyte,” while The Festive Owl, another early coverer, then offered a clarification on its Billboard citation.

Stated bluntly, though the festivals are ticked off about the situation and concerned with potentially negative coverage, the ticket-scalping claims don’t appear too damaging in a sub-sector where astronomically inflated prices are in many ways the norm.

Furthermore, ongoing fan demands to receive compensation for passes sold via Lyte seem comparatively pressing for Lost Lands, which announced a related reimbursement program earlier this week. Despite warning of the “very high cost” and many moving parts involved with coughing up cash for Lyte’s apparent operational failure, Lost Lands is still facing a steady stream of related fan complaints on social media.

In the interest of leaving no stone unturned on the scalping-allegation side, Lost Lands also addressed the topic, writing: “Each year of the festival, there are some payment plans that fail close to the event date.

“This year, there were a very small number of tickets released in this process due to the event being sold out. LYTE had a significant waitlist of people hoping to attend the event, so instead of relaunching tickets on [Live Nation’s] Front Gate, we fulfilled a few hundred tickets to this waitlist on LYTE at final tier pricing,” proceeded the event.

Admittedly, that statement might seem curious in light of the estimated $600,000+ Lost Lands’ organizer said it could be owed from Lyte in the appropriate complaint. Nevertheless, there are, as noted, bigger fish to fry for the festival than any scalping claims.

Shifting to the initially mentioned Lyte-related ripples hitting Australia, we’ve provided several updates on the ticketing struggles of Lost Paradise (set to kick off on December 28th) and Rabbits Eat Lettuce (teed up for an April 17th start).

With more time to spare before its next edition, Rabbits Eat Lettuce promptly pivoted its tickets to Humanitix; Lost Paradise, on the other hand, had tapped Lyte for primary ticketing and has seen its sales paused as a result.

Lost Paradise doesn’t appear to have revealed new ticket-sale plans of its own, but per Pollstar, the 5,000-capacity event has about 500 unsold passes at present.

Are the original creators of musical works used to train AI models entitled to a stake in the resulting derivative songs? Germany’s GEMA believes so, and it’s announced a new licensing model in pursuit of the objective. Photo Credit: Luca Bravo

Once-off payments are inadequate for authors whose works have been used to train generative AI models – at least according to Germany’s GEMA, which says it’s created the “first licensing model” tackling royalties racked up by derivative songs.

The Berlin-based collecting society and PRO reached out with an overview of the royalties framework, which it initially unveiled at the Reeperbahn Festival earlier in September. At the top level, it’s worth noting that this push for bolstered author protections has arrived amid the implementation of the EU’s sweeping AI Act.

Among many other things, the latter is expected to compel generative-model developers to disclose precise details about the media used to train their systems. That will presumably set the stage for the relevant recording and compositional rightsholders to seek payments for their IP’s (unauthorized) use.

But what about when AI factors prominently into works performed in public establishments? Just scratching the surface here, far-reaching questions remain with regard to measuring the percentage of each creation that’s attributable to AI.

That’s a departure from the comparatively straightforward existing process of identifying public plays (preferably with exact measurements as opposed to extrapolations) and then compensating the appropriate authors accordingly.

Perhaps more pressingly on the AI side, what about the public performance of derivative works that only exist thanks to generative models that were trained (with or without permission) on protected music?

Of course, there aren’t any direct answers at present – with even larger unknowns when it comes to developing a system to register the usages, particularly in light of the ongoing legal battles over where the AI-training copyright line will be drawn.

Nevertheless, GEMA says it’s “the first collecting society worldwide to develop a licensing approach aiming to balance technological progress and the protection of creative work.”

“Pure remuneration through a buyout, i.e. a one-off lump sum payment for training data,” the organization proceeded, “is not nearly sufficient to compensate authors in view of the revenues that can be generated. The model provides for fair remuneration at a high level while keeping in mind that the market and its technical developments can change dramatically and rapidly.”

Rather, “authors must be adequately involved in the subsequent generation of AI content based on their creative work,” the entity emphasized.

It’d be an understatement to say that fleshing out, implementing, and ensuring compliance with this system will prove a tall task. DMN requested additional details from GEMA, which offered an overview in its formal release, but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

In any event, the push raises interesting questions about yet another component of the AI explosion. Pre-cleared music for use in public establishments (and specifically those that are unconcerned with playing today’s top hits) is more widely available than ever, and many of the involved companies are harnessing AI.

But multiple AI developers say their models didn’t train on protected media at all, and in the bigger picture, AI tracks will undoubtedly make a mainstream commercial splash at some point.

Lost Lands has announced a program to compensate fans who are owed ticket-sale cash from Lyte following its abrupt shutdown. Photo Credit: Krists Luhaers

As music festivals grapple with continued fallout from ticketing platform Lyte’s abrupt shutdown, Lost Lands is now offering to compensate fans for owed payments.

Lost Lands took to social media to reveal the support plan, with less than a week having passed since its 2024 edition’s start. As we previously covered, the Apex-organized event is one of the many festivals affected by Lyte’s sudden cessation of operations.

DMN Pro’s latest weekly report provides a deep-dive analysis into the multifaceted situation, including the circumstances surrounding Lyte’s apparent implosion and the far-reaching consequences it’s bringing about.

Long story short, several festivals say they received no notice whatsoever before Lyte went dark. For Lost Lands and others that have already taken place, this means fans are out cash for sold passes (justifiably irked individuals are still penning related posts on Reddit) and organizers are seemingly awaiting their share of sizable ticket-sale payments.

(Forthcoming festivals are facing different but equally pressing problems. Australia’s similarly named but distinct Lost Paradise, set to kick off on December 28th, confirmed on Tuesday that the sale of passes remains “on hold” due to the absence of Lyte.)

At an especially difficult time for festivals, the missing revenue is, of course, a very big deal. Lost Lands’ Apex organizer is suing Lyte for its share of allegedly due ticket-sale revenue (over $600,000), besides damages and more to boot.

But against the backdrop of slipping festival attendance and recession concerns, perhaps just as important for organizers is keeping attendees and would-be attendees happy. And on this front, one needn’t look far to find frustrated social-media comments directed at festivals affected by the Lyte shutdown.

That these festivals aren’t responsible for the turn of events appears to be of little concern to the complaining customers, whose various remarks, making for a steady stream of less-than-positive feedback when considered as a whole, are hardly good for business.

Enter Lost Lands’ decision to reimburse fans who “are stuck in limbo as their money is being held by the company which has ceased operations.”

The same image message emphasizes that Lyte “has gone silent” and drives home the “very high cost” of the payments move for Lost Lands itself.

Fans who sold passes via Lyte can now submit to Lost Lands “a claim with proof of what they are owed.” From there, the festival’s team will take until November 6th “to review and verify” the submissions “due to the complexity of this issue.” Eligible parties should then receive payments by November 20th, according to Lost Lands’ post.

“We hope this will be received as a gesture of goodwill from us to our community, who we want to support through this situation,” the text indicates closer to its end. (Incidentally, it’s unclear whether the plan is, in fact, being received as a gesture of goodwill from the entirety of the Lost Lands community, certain members of which are currently taking aim at the festival’s email response times.)

As for the fate of Lyte, a liquidator is reportedly working to find a buyer for the business’s assets – though the results of this process, not to mention fan and festival reimbursements as well as creditor recoupments, remain to be seen.

Despite its recent forecast of solid subscription-revenue growth through 2028, Universal Music Group has yet to see shares rebound to their pre-Q2-earnings price. Photo Credit: Coolcaesar

Earlier in September, on the heels of a Q2 subscription-growth slowdown, Universal Music Group forecasted solid paid-streaming increases through 2028. But at least for now, investors aren’t rallying behind the major label’s stock.

At the time of writing, Universal Music shares (UMG on the Euronext Amsterdam) were hovering around $26.22/€23.44 apiece – reflecting a small gain on the day and from late August. However, the value is well beneath the $31/€28 or so UMG was fetching towards July’s end but ahead of its second-quarter earnings release.

In that Q2 performance breakdown, the professional home of Taylor Swift, Ice Spice, and Drake pointed to comparatively modest year-over-year subscription-revenue growth of 6.5% to $1.27 billion (€1.14 billion) on the recorded side. Ad-supported recorded revenue slipped 4.2% YoY to $383.44 million/€343 million, per the analysis.

Evidently, the relative subscription-expansion plateau didn’t sit right with the market. UMG plummeted by nearly 25% following the report’s release, and as noted, shares have yet to fully recover.

That’s particularly interesting in light of the revamped growth forecast put out by the business on September 17th, directly before its 2024 Capital Markets Day presentation. As described in this resource, Universal Music is targeting a minimum 7% compound annual growth rate for total revenue through its 2028 fiscal year, fueled in part by an 8% to 10% CAGR specifically for subscription-streaming revenue.

Of course, the forecast represents a boost from the subscription-revenue improvement delivered by Q2 – and, at the high end of the new estimate, the improvement associated with H1 2024. Time will tell whether the prediction comes to fruition and whether UMG shares regain their lost ground.

Closer to the present, it’s worth reiterating a couple noteworthy points on this front. First is the just 2.7% YoY subscriber expansion the RIAA attributed to the U.S. music market for H1 2024. Though paid on-demand streaming also brought a 5.1% YoY recorded-revenue jump as laid out in the same report, both figures fell short of those tied to all of 2023 (5.7% subscriber growth and 10.6% subscription-revenue growth).

Next, Warner Music Group, still making sweeping organizational and personnel changes under Robert Kyncl, posted noticeably different Q2 earnings details than UMG and took the opportunity to drive home its bullish streaming-buildout vision.

Meanwhile, the majors’ relative streaming-growth woes haven’t come at the expense of Spotify (NYSE: SPOT). Notwithstanding its core product’s reliance on the catalogs of Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony Music, and other rightsholders, the platform is riding high in terms of its own subscriber-expansion forecasts and stock price.

The latter cracked a day-end record yesterday and, despite dipping a bit during Thursday’s early trading, has almost doubled since the top of 2024.

An aerial shot of Vancouver. Photo Credit: Aditya Chinchure

Major streaming platforms and record labels are once again pushing back against Canada’s controversial Online Streaming Act as well as wider broadcasting reforms, purportedly including an effort to apply radio regulations to on-demand services.

Music Canada (which counts as members the major labels’ Canadian divisions) and DIMA (which reps streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music) expressed these concerns in a letter to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

That’s the Canadian government agency tasked with enforcing the mentioned Online Streaming Act, an amendment to and expansion of the existing Broadcasting Act. In brief, the majors and leading streaming services have for some time been challenging the law, which is complete with a 5% tax for on-demand platforms.

(We previously took a closer look at the tax’s specifics and the mentioned parties’ legal challenges, besides providing a detailed breakdown of what exactly the voluminous Online Streaming Act means for services.)

Said challenges have coincided with an apparently involved implementation process, which is mapped out on the CRTC website. Most recently, this process earlier in September brought multiple “engagement sessions,” several of which drew participation from Music Canada and DIMA members.

Now, having been encouraged to provide written feedback on the sessions, the organizations are taking the opportunity to drive home their belief that “radio and audio streaming are not the same.”

“Out of context,” they wrote, “it might seem odd for the largest streaming services and major music labels in Canada to write to a regulator asserting a truism, but we believe that the recent workshops have made this necessary.

“From the discussion guide to the moderated questions, there was a clear attempt to place the continuation of radio regulations on audio streaming services as an obvious next step. We do not agree.”

As the implementation inches forward, the organizations are calling on the CRTC to “think of the streaming services and their interactions with Canadians for what they are today and not as a proxy to the broadcasting system of the 1900s.”

Streaming, the entities indicated in more words, is tailored to personal listening preferences, encompasses a wide variety of content and features, supports more discoverability than radio, and drives global consumption as opposed to only local listening.

Moving forward, it’ll be worth monitoring the impact of these and other comments from DIMA and Music Canada. However, as alluded to, the wider broadcast-framework reform won’t happen overnight. The CRTC’s website describes several unfinished steps, with the agency seemingly “targeting launch late 2025” for the new full-scale regulatory structure.

Spotify has officially brought its AI Playlist feature to the U.S. and other markets. Photo Credit: Spotify

Almost six months after launching an AI Playlist beta in the U.K. and Australia, Spotify is bringing the feature to the U.S. and other nations.

The streaming platform just recently announced AI Playlist’s availability expansion, which has arrived roughly nine months following initial rumblings of auto-generated playlist tests. Especially in light of the strong consumer reception behind Spotify artificial intelligence offerings like AI DJ and Daylist, the AI Playlist embrace didn’t exactly come as a surprise.

Now, paid subscribers in the States, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand can also access the tool, which, as its name suggests, auto-generates playlists based on text prompts. A number of fans are already taking to social media to weigh in on the more widely available feature.

Beyond these early AI Playlist comments, the newest artificial intelligence buildout is important on multiple levels for Spotify. First, the development of AI Playlist, AI DJ, and Daylist has quietly expanded the service’s sway in the recommendation and promotion departments.

While many know streaming platforms generally favor major label acts, there’s relatively little discussion about the spots contractually guaranteed to high-profile artists on lucrative editorial playlists. In short, despite the comparatively pressing nature of the AI music deluge that’s hitting streaming platforms, the point could prove significant amid the evolution of recommendations.

Also worth keeping in mind is the way that AI Playlist and more will potentially fit into Spotify’s forthcoming “Deluxe” package. It’s not by chance that AI Playlist is available only to paid users, and reports have connected more advanced AI options yet, like mixing support, to Deluxe. (A long-elusive launch date for the tier, also referred to as “Supremium” and “Music Pro” in recent years, still hasn’t been nailed down.)

Bigger picture, Spotify is hardly alone in capitalizing on AI products, which are becoming increasingly prevalent in the ultra-competitive streaming arena.

Amazon Music jumped into AI playlist generation with Maestro in April, for instance. Not to be outdone, Deezer joined the AI party by rolling out “Playlist with AI” in July, YouTube Music began experimenting with AI radio stations that same month, and Apple Music reportedly started testing the AI artwork waters.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether Apple will invest in OpenAI as suggested by multiple reports about one month back. Of course, this and other AI giants are embroiled in several copyright infringement lawsuits centering on their training processes and adjacent outputs.