Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we ensure 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 two notable acquisitions involving Common Music Group.
The world’s largest music rightsholder introduced on February 20 that it’s taking a 25.8% stake in Chord Music Companions, which owns stakes in some 60,000 songs, together with pop hits from the likes of Ryan Tedder and John Legend, in addition to smash songs from The Weeknd, Lorde, and Diplo.
And in one other deal, the corporate is buying a stake in youth-oriented media platform Advanced, which can give UMG a chance to “create a brand new vacation spot for ‘superfan’ tradition that can outline the way forward for commerce, digital media, and music”.
In different (however nonetheless Common-related) information, Consider CEO Denis Ladegaillerie chimed in on the dispute between Common and TikTok over licensing charges. In distinction to many others within the music enterprise, Ladegaillerie had form phrases for TikTok, calling it a supply of “useful monetization for our artists and labels“.
In the meantime, an appellate court docket in Virginia has overturned a landmark, $1-billion copyright infringement ruling towards Cox Communications over its subscribers’ piracy of on-line music. The court docket ordered a brand new trial, in what quantities to a setback for the main labels behind the go well with.
Lastly, live performance large Dwell Nation revealed its monetary outcomes on Thursday (February 22) for FY 2023 – the corporate’s “largest 12 months ever”.
On February 20, Common Music Group introduced the $240 million acquisition of a 25.8% stake in Chord Music – a portfolio of round 60,000 songs (or, extra precisely, cuts in songs), most of which have been as soon as owned by a sister fund of Kobalt‘s.
Chord owns stakes in a flurry of pop hits from the likes of Ryan Tedder and John Legend, in addition to smash songs from The Weeknd, Lorde, and Diplo that have been initially developed by Matt Pincus, Ron Perry, and Carianne Marshall at SONGS Music Publishing (earlier than that catalog was bought to Kobalt in 2017).
On account of the brand new deal, Chord Music’s property (when their present distribution/administration offers expire) will turn out to be distributed by way of UMG’s Virgin Music Group and administered by way of Common Music Publishing Group (UMPG).
Nonetheless, this is simply half one in every of this story. Half two is arguably a lot greater.
UMG solely has one associate in Chord Music – and it’s a associate who isn’t afraid of recognizing the worth of hit music by spending massive sums on it.
Dundee Companions, aka the funding workplace of the Hendel household, now owns the opposite 75%-ish of Chord Music… having teamed with UMG to purchase out Dundee’s earlier majority-partner within the fund, KKR…
Common Music Group is buying a stake within the youth-orientated media platform Advanced.
UMG will turn out to be a strategic associate in Advanced alongside different buyers comparable to Goldman Sachs, Major Avenue Advisors, and Jimmy Iovine, by way of an agreed takeover that sees live-video purchasing platform NTWRK turn out to be the official proprietor of Advanced and its networks.
Advanced was bought to BuzzFeed in a deal price USD $294 million in November 2021. BuzzFeed confirmed on February 21 that NTWRK (and its backers) have now agreed to purchase Advanced in a $108.6 million money acquisition.
A press launch issued by UMG acknowledged that the NTWRK consortium’s acquisition of Advanced will “create a brand new vacation spot for ‘superfan’ tradition that can outline the way forward for commerce, digital media, and music”.
What might be UMG’s ‘strategic associate’ play right here? A good assumption: It would embody promoting music-associated ‘superfan’ merchandise (sneakers, streetwear, collectibles, vinyl, experiences and so on.) direct to Advanced’s culture-savvy viewers by way of NTWRK’s expertise…
Generally within the music biz, it’s not precisely what somebody says that issues – it’s when they are saying it.
Over the previous few weeks, MBW has intently lined the information of Common Music Group‘s quarrel with TikTok – primarily over the licensing sums paid by the digital service for music – in addition to the response from numerous corners of the trade.
Since UMG refused to re-license its catalog with TikTok in January, the likes of Downtown, Major Wave, the NMPA, Hipgnosis, and numerous pro-artist teams have come out in assist of Common’s place.
Earlier this month, A2IM – a commerce physique representing a coalition of premium impartial labels, which has previously rallied towards motion by main music firms – additionally stepped ahead to again UMG.
Nonetheless, Consider CEO Denis Ladegaillerie is taking a considerably completely different method…
Dwell Nation Leisure President and CEO Michael Rapino informed the corporate’s buyers on Thursday (February 22) that “the dwell music trade reached new heights in 2023″.
Rapino’s feedback arrived alongside the live performance large’s This fall and FY 2023 earnings, which, revealed on Thursday, noticed the corporate report outcomes for its “largest 12 months ever”.
The promoter posted full-year revenues of $22.7 billion, up 36% YoY. These revenues have been generated throughout all divisions, together with live shows, ticketing and promoting & sponsorship…
The key labels’ USD $1 billion copyright infringement victory towards Cox Communications has been overturned.
A federal appeals court docket in Virginia has rejected components of the 2019 verdict towards Cox Communications, through which a jury discovered the cable and web firm – the third-largest supplier of broadband companies within the US, as of 2022 – chargeable for copyright infringement of 10,017 musical works by its subscribers.
The 4th US Circuit Courtroom of Appeals has ordered a brand new trial to be held, after concluding that the $1 billion penalty towards Cox was not justified.
The court docket mentioned in its ruling on Tuesday: “We affirm the jury’s discovering of willful contributory infringement. However we reverse the vicarious legal responsibility verdict and remand for a brand new trial on damages as a result of Cox didn’t revenue from its subscribers’ acts of infringement, a authorized prerequisite for vicarious legal responsibility.”
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court docket in Virginia in 2018, included quite a few plaintiffs from the music trade, together with Sony Music Leisure (the lead plaintiff), Common Music Group and Warner Music Group…
