Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be certain 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 revenue and cut back their touring prices.
Dwell Nation‘s acquisition of LA-based expertise administration agency Timeline has highlighted the truth that the live performance and ticketing big can also be a serious participant in expertise administration. And Timeline’s involvement with on-line influencers probably opens a brand new avenue for Dwell Nation to advertise its reveals and artist administration purchasers…
On the opposite facet of the Pacific, HYBE-owned label ADOR filed a lawsuit in opposition to Okay-pop group NewJeans. The lawsuit adopted the group’s announcement per week earlier that it plans to depart ADOR. The label argues that NewJeans don’t have the flexibility to cancel their contract unilaterally.
Elsewhere, Craig Peters, the CEO of Getty Photographs, penned an op-ed for Fortune this week criticizing AI builders’ copyright thievery.
Additionally this week, TikTok revealed its lists of the largest musical tracks and artists on the platform this 12 months. The corporate mentioned that 13 of the 16 tracks that hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Sizzling 100 have been linked to tendencies on TikTok.
Lastly, MBW appeared again at this 12 months’s largest music offers. The 12 months was dominated by personal fairness investments and enormous issuances of securities backed by music belongings. On the catalog acquisition facet, Sony Music dominated with quite a few blockbuster offers.
Dwell Nation is a stay music promotion and ticketing big, however it additionally runs a powerhouse expertise administration enterprise.
Certainly, the Michael Rapino-led firm claimed in its 2023 annual report back to be “one of many world’s main artist administration firms based mostly on the variety of artists represented.”
On Tuesday (December 3), Dwell Nation revealed the most recent addition to its expertise administration operation: It’s acquired a majority stake in Timeline – described by LN as one in all Los Angeles’ “premier expertise administration companies.”
Timeline focuses on “younger Hollywood and influencer expertise.” The acquisition of a majority stake in Timeline is a major improvement for Dwell Nation, given the rise and energy of influencer advertising on social media platforms…
ADOR, a subsidiary of Okay-pop powerhouse HYBE, has filed a lawsuit to stop woman group NewJeans from terminating their unique contract, escalating a high-stakes dispute within the South Korean music trade.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday (December 3) with the Seoul Central District Courtroom, challenges the group’s latest try to depart the label, with ADOR asserting that the prevailing contract stays legally binding and can’t be unilaterally terminated.
“Though we didn’t want to search authorized intervention with the artist, we determined that it was essential to make clear to each the artist and all related stakeholders that our unique contract can’t be unilaterally terminated based mostly solely on the claims of 1 facet,” ADOR mentioned in an announcement despatched to MBW.
The lawsuit follows a press convention held by NewJeans on November 28, the place the group publicly introduced their intention to exit ADOR. Group member Hanni claimed the label “has neither the flexibility nor the desire to guard” the members, citing psychological misery and a “breach of belief…”
TikTok has lengthy promoted itself as a serious driver of music discovery, and its Yr-Finish Music Report for 2024 reiterates this theme.
In response to TikTok, 13 of the 16 tracks that reached No.1 on the US Billboard Sizzling 100 have been in a roundabout way linked to a pattern on the platform.
Moreover, 10 of the 11 tracks to hit No.1 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart have been boosted by TikTok recognition, the report urged.
“In 2024 TikTok really turned the music trade’s major launchpad for music, artists and creativity,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s International Head of Music Improvement, mentioned in an announcement…
In a scathing op-ed revealed by Fortune this week, the CEO of images company Getty Photographs, Craig Peters, criticized the argument that utilizing copyrighted content material out there on the web to coach AI with out permission is ‘truthful use’ beneath copyright regulation.
He advocates as an alternative for a nuanced method to assessing truthful use, supporting AI’s potential for societal good with out undermining the inventive industries – together with music.
Peters’ piece concludes with the argument that there “is a good path that rewards creativity and delivers the guarantees of AI”.
He provides: “Let’s cease the rhetoric that each one un-permissioned AI coaching is authorized and that any requirement to respect the rights of creators is on the expense of AI as a expertise…”
As the worth of music firms and copyrights continues to develop, so do the offers being made within the trade – and the involvement in personal fairness in these transactions.
In financial phrases, the largest deal of 2024 (to this point, anyway) got here courtesy of PE agency Hellman & Friedman, which struck a ten-figure settlement to amass a stake in Irving Azoff’s US-based PRO International Rights Administration (GRM).
One other facet of the music trade that’s grown quickly in 2024 is the securitization of music belongings. This 12 months noticed quite a few main asset-backed securitizations from music copyright holders, together with Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Harmony, and Kobalt.
On the catalog offers facet, Sony Music dominated 2024, shopping for all or components of the catalogs of Queen, Pink Floyd, and Michael Jackson…
