Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be certain that you caught the 5 largest tales to hit our headlines over the previous seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their earnings and scale back their touring prices.
This week noticed a seismic shake-up within the US music rights enterprise, with the announcement that efficiency rights group BMI has been bought to non-public fairness agency New Mountain Capital.
The value tag hasn’t been disclosed, however BMI did say it might kick $100 million of the sale’s proceeds to its songwriter and writer “associates”.
One other key a part of the announcement is that CapitalG – aka Google/Alphabet’s “impartial progress fund” – will purchase a passive minority stake in BMI.
Additionally this week, Spotify confirmed particulars of adjustments coming to its payout mannequin in 2024. Among the many adjustments (as MBW first reported final month) is a brand new minimal stream threshold earlier than any observe begins producing royalties on the platform.
In the meantime, in our MBW Explains collection, we ask why Sony Music Leisure is the one one of many three main recording firms that hasn’t signed as much as YouTube‘s Dream Observe experiment, which makes use of AI to allow creators to clone the vocals of famous person artists. Elsewhere, MBW reported on Common Music Group‘s submission to the US Copyright Workplace‘s discover of inquiry about copyright and AI.
Lastly, a brand new report from US market monitor Luminate, commissioned by TikTok, discovered that 62% of TikTok customers in the US pay for a music streaming subscription, in comparison with 43% of all customers.
For a while we’ve recognized that personal fairness agency New Mountain Capital (NMC) – majority-owner of music biz valuer Citrin Cooperman – has been in talks to amass BMI. Now it appears to be like like a executed deal.
NMC, which has over USD$45 billion in belongings underneath administration, confirmed on Tuesday (November 21) that it’s going to “lead a shareholder group” to amass a majority stake in BMI.
Essentially the most stunning a part of BMI’s official announcement as we speak? NMC’s ‘shareholder group’ consists of an arm of Google mother or father Alphabet. CapitalG – aka Google/Alphabet’s “impartial progress fund” – will purchase a passive minority stake within the PRO.
Moreover, BMI’s present shareholders will allocate $100 million of the proceeds of the proposed sale to songwriter, composer and writer associates “in recognition of [their] creativity” shortly after the transaction closes…
MBW broke the information final month that main adjustments have been coming to Spotify‘s royalty mannequin in Q1 2024. Now Spotify has confirmed exactly what these adjustments are.
The music streaming firm has revealed a brand new weblog submit on Spotify for Artists introducing what it calls “new insurance policies to raised help these most depending on streaming revenues as a part of their livelihood”.
Spotify’s new insurance policies intention to sort out three core points: (1) To “additional deter syntheticstreaming“; (2) To “higher distribute smallfunds that aren’t reaching artists”; and (3) “rein in these making an attempt to sport the system with noise”.
The streaming firm claims that by addressing these points, will probably be capable of drive “a further $1 billion in income towards rising {and professional} artists over the following 5 years”…
On November 16, YouTube unveiled a revolutionary new experiment – ‘Dream Observe’ – enabling creators to clone the vocals, by way of AI tech and with the official consent of well-known stars.
But one thing conspicuous is lacking: any endorsement in any respect from the world’s second-biggest recording firm, Sony Music Leisure, or its artists.
Sources near Sony Music’s HQ in New York have steered to MBW that the corporate is taking an “artist-led” strategy to its experiments with any AI platform that may manipulate the work (or voice) of its roster.
Within the case of YouTube’s ‘Dream Observe‘, MBW understands, SME first supplied the chance to take part to quite a lot of its artists, however this group didn’t present enthusiasm about collaborating…
Common Music Group has been probably the most outspoken advocates for the safety of copyright amid the proliferation of AI-powered voice-mimicking, and melody, chord and lyric-generating expertise this 12 months.
Not too long ago, UMG submitted a written response to the US Copyright Workplace’s Discover of Inquiry regarding synthetic intelligence and copyright.
Within the submission, UMG said that coaching AI utilizing unlicensed songs and recordings is “something however truthful use“; that’s is “adamantly against an opt-out system” for coaching AI fashions on copyrighted content material; and that it’s “prepared and keen to discover licensing content material to generative AI firms”…
A brand new market evaluation sheds some mild on why ByteDance-owned quick video platform TikTok has centered so intensely on increasing its providers within the music world, with the agency reporting to be a significant driver of music consumption and spending.
In accordance with the evaluation, commissioned by TikTok and carried out by US market monitor Luminate, 62% of US TikTok customers pay for a music streaming service, in comparison with 43% of all customers.
Together with each paid and ad-supported streaming providers, roughly 9 out of 10 TikTok customers in every market studied used a minimum of one music streaming service.
Within the US, 89% of TikTok customers subscribed to a minimum of one music streaming service, in comparison with 74% of total customers, whereas within the UK, 85% of TikTok customers had a streaming service account, in comparison with 62% of customers total.
The evaluation discovered that TikTok customers are additionally bigger spenders on music off-platform as effectively. By huge margins, they’re extra more likely to purchase merch and attend dwell exhibits than the common client…
