Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be sure that you caught the 5 greatest 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.
The trade’s greatest information this week was Common Music Group‘s acquisition of European indie powerhouse [PIAS]. The now-former indie’s label companies arm will combine with Virgin Music Group, whereas its labels operation will stay an “autonomous, standalone” entity run by co-founder Kenny Gates.
In the meantime, we have to discuss Despacito.
It’s one of many greatest world hits of all time and, by some measures, THE greatest Latin Music hit of all time.
In it, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee inform the thing of their need they want to “signal the partitions of your labyrinth” (“firmar las paredes de tu laberinto”). Ahem.
In latest weeks Yankee, actual identify Ramón Rodríguez, has been utilizing his autograph for much less lascivious functions: inking a deal to promote Harmony elements of his again catalog in a transaction value a whopping USD $217 million.
(It was revealed at the moment – October 18 – that Yankee is the thriller Latin artist with whom Harmony struck a $217.3 million deal, as revealed in a latest Kroll report.)
In the meantime, Okay-pop large HYBE had a dramatic week, with report labels reportedly upset over HYBE’s Weverse fan platform planning to take as much as 60% of the proceeds from its new paid subscription memberships.
HYBE additionally scrambled this week to refinance practically $300 million in debt, after collectors requested early reimbursement of a sequence of convertible bonds.
Elsewhere, the TikTok vs. Merlin fallout rumbled on… as MBW printed some widely-read observations on the fracas and the elements behind it.
Lastly, Litmus Music introduced its newest main deal, buying the recorded music and publishing rights of Randy Newman.
Right here’s what occurred this week…
1) KENNY GATES ON [PIAS] SALE: WE HAVE AN AMAZING FUTURE AHEAD… AND F**Okay THE HATERS.
[PIAS], a 42-year-old powerhouse of unbiased music in Europe, has been totally acquired by Common Music Group.
By sealing the deal, UMG now owns 100% of [PIAS] Group, having initially acquired 49% of the agency from its co-founders, Kenny Gates and Michael Lambot, in 2022.
Subsequent to the sale, [PIAS]’s label companies arm, [Integral], will merge with Common’s Virgin Music Group, considerably bolstering VMG’s attain, provide chain, and consumer base within the EU, the UK, and past.
Gates will be a part of VMG’s board.
In the meantime, [PIAS]’s owned and related labels operation, the [PIAS] Label Group (PLG), will even grow to be owned by UMG – however, importantly, will probably be run as a “fully autonomous, standalone firm”, led by Gates as its CEO…
It’s now not a thriller. The artist in query is Daddy Yankee, the Puerto Rican celebrity whose La Última Vuelta World Tourgenerated an estimated USD $198 million in 2022.
Harmony has acquired elements of the music publishing and recorded music catalog of the reggaetón star, together with rights to his personal hits together with Rompe, Gasolina, and Con Calma, plus his featured artist function on Despacito.
As well as, the acquisition covers some identify, picture, and likeness (NIL) rights.
Behind the scenes over the previous two years, TikTok has warned Merlin on a number of events that lots of of energetic tracks within the org’s repertoire – i.e. tracks uploaded by its members – have been flagged as copyright-infringing.
To grasp how that is potential in affiliation with Merlin — a proud participant within the struggle towards streaming fraud — one first wants to understand some key background notes.
Merlin’s membership has greater than doubled in dimension over the previous 16 years. There’s a query mark, nonetheless, over the associated fee this growth has imposed on Merlin’s cohesion as a membership group.
Okay-pop large HYBE’s superfan platform Weverse is launching a set of recent higher-priced membership tiers for customers on December 1.
There may be, although, a catch for HYBE’s fellow music rightsholders.
In keeping with a supply chatting with the Korea Herald, HYBE has instructed companion labels who use Weverse that will probably be maintaining between 30% and 60% of revenues from the brand new membership plan, relying on the tier.
The information comes the identical week as HYBE scrambled to refinance practically $300 million in debt, after present bondholders requested early reimbursement on a sequence of convertible bonds, a transfer triggered by the corporate’s sliding inventory value…
Since late 2022, the corporate – backed by Carlyle’s International Credit score Platform – has acquired catalogs from the likes of Benny Blanco, Keith City, and Katy Perry.
Earlier this yr, it emerged that Litmus had splashed a nine-figure sum to amass the music asset portfolio of Opus, together with rights to music catalogs from Juice WRLD, Ozuna, Maluma and Rauw Alejandro.
On Thursday (October 17), Litmus introduced its newest main deal: buying Randy Newman’s share of his recorded music and publishing…
MBW’s Weekly Spherical-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their earnings and scale back their touring prices.Music Enterprise Worldwide
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