We knew that the modern music industry often involves more co-writers on songs, but here’s one we didn’t see coming: the Earth itself. The post Musicians name Earth as a co-writer to raise funds for climate activism appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

For all the predictions that the recent boom in music catalogue acquisitions must come to an end, there is still funding pouring in. The post Lyric Capital raises $800m for music catalogue acquisitions appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The licensing models for music in the metaverse – specifically virtual worlds and online games – are famously… nascent. The post Lickd seals metaverse music deals with Empire and Kobalt appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Song Sleuth has built a tool to hunt down “undiscovered” royalties from user-generated content and derivative works. The post Warner Chappell taps startup Song Sleuth to boost UGC revenues appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The boss of the US-based National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) has been giving his views on creative AI. The post NMPA boss talks AI music: ‘This is not necessarily bad…’ appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Ultra Music Publishing is the latest western music company to step up its activities in West Africa, with a new ‘creative hub’ in Lagos. The post Ultra Music Publishing doubles down on Afrobeats in Nigeria appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

BELEM is the European Union-funded consortium announced last December with €2m of funding to explore lyric translation. The post BELEM seeks publishers and songwriters for lyric translations appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Hipgnosis has acquired 100% of Justin Bieber’s interest in his publishing copyrights, recordings and neighbouring rights. The post Hipgnosis returns to acquisitions with $200m Justin Bieber deal appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

We hear a lot about the new revenue streams that labels are hunting down in social, gaming, fitness and other areas The post Music publishers talk innovation: ‘When there’s a will, there’s always a way’ appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

In the US, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) was set up to collect mechanical royalties from streaming services, then pay them out to publishers and songwriters. The post Musicians press for US rule over post-termination mechanicals appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The licensing and data firm is ending 2022 with a deal to provide a copyright hub for independent publishing licensing agency IMPEL. The post Blokur to build a copyright hub for licensing agency IMPEL appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Startup Lickd has been growing the catalogue of music it has available to license to creators on platforms including Twitch and TikTok. The post Lickd adds another major licensing partner in Warner Chappell appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Hipgnosis Songs Fund enjoyed a good run as a media darling, with warm coverage of its ambition to make songs a lucrative asset class for investment. The post Hipgnosis reveals 7.5% revenue rise in its half-year results appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Artist Justin Blau (aka 3lau) has been one of the early movers in music NFTs, selling his own and founding startup Royal. The post Songwriter sues 3lau over revenues from his NFT sales appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Music rights firm Reservoir Media has published its latest financial results, revealing that its revenues grew by 10% year-on-year. The post Reservoir financials reveal 10% growth in Q3 revenues appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The lines between labels, music publishers and management companies get ever blurrier, as shown by Moon Projects’ new publishing arm. The post Moon Projects adds publishing division via Warner Chappell partnership appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Every year, author and former Spotify chief economist Will Page publishes his analysis of the ‘global value of music copyright’. The post Report: global music copyright value grew 18% to $39.6bn in 2021 appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

It must be the week for music industry veterans who recently left Warner Music to the wrappers off their new startups. The post Former Warner Chappell exec Eric Mackay reveals new venture Imbr appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Startup Blokur has released its second ‘Songwriters’ Review’ report, based on its analysis of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube. The post Olivia Rodrigo was 2021’s top songwriter – but only 15% of the top 100 were women appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Collecting societies body CISAC has published its annual Global Collections Report this morning, revealing the latest figures and trends from its member bodies. The post CISAC and SCAPR publish their annual collections figures appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Accurate metadata is going to be the lifeblood for songwriters in the future (or, to put it less positively, inaccurate or missing metadata has been a big problem for them in the streaming era thus far). The post Songwriter tools: Session x SONA, and Bridger gets collaborative appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

In 2018, a company called Wolfgang’s was ruled liable for copyright infringement after a lawsuit brought by music publishers. The post Publishers receive setbacks in latest Wolfgang’s ruling appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

After months of speculation about whether Kobalt was up for sale, who might buy it and for how much, finally some concrete news. The post Investment firm Francisco Partners buys controlling stake in Kobalt appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

If the catalogue-buying boom has taught us anything, it’s that a growing number of investors see songs as a valuable AND predictable ‘asset class’. The post Clouty launches Musiq, a financial-style index for songs appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

In recent years, the process of setting mechanical royalty rates for streaming in the US has led to rancorous fallouts The post Labels and publishers reach agreement on US physical / download mechanicals appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

About us: IPMG is an association focussed on supporting and promoting the production music community in Europe and globally. We are a member of the music publishing industry body ICMP, which helps us serve as a bridge between the production music (PM) community and the music publishing industry by raising awareness and recognition of our […]

For anyone who still thinks of CD Baby as predominantly a distributor for recordings, the company has a new milestone reminder that it works in publishing too. The post CD Baby says its Pro Publishing service now serves 2m songs appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Sony Music Publishing has launched a ‘Songwriter Assistance’ program offering counselling services and wellbeing resources. The post Sony Music Publishing launches ‘Songwriter Assistance’ program appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

They’re your average ordinary everyday kids… but in Primary Wave Music’s eyes, rock band Def Leppard are also stars worth investing in. The post Primary Wave buys stakes in Def Leppard masters and publishing appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

The publishing strand at last week’s NY:LON Connect conference included keynotes from Primary Wave’s Natalia Nastaskin and PopArabia / Reservoir’s Spek. The post Publishing innovation: ‘You can’t take a Ferrari engine and put it into a Model T!’ appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

We’ve seen various attempts in recent years to improve the quality of metadata identifying the writers of songs and their splits. Session, for example, has created tools to encourage songwriters to start creating this metadata from the earliest stage of their working process. Another startup has emerged today with its own ideas. Family in Music […]

The Trends Report is designed to set your synapses buzzing with ideas, and put you on the front foot in 2022. In it, we look back at what happened in 2021 – that most complex of years – and turn what we learned into a forward-thinking series of analyses, with advice, ideas and context, to help you navigate a better route through the year ahead. […]

Another company is entering the crowded market for music rights. Well, HarbourView Equity Partners has a wider focus than just music: it’s planning to invest in entertainment rights too, with a team that has experience in film, TV and sports alongside music. In an interview with the New York Times, founder and CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares […]

To co-opt the old adage about buses… you wait ages for a rancorous music publishing / tech dispute to be put to rest with an agreement that isn’t a licensing deal in itself, but paves the way for such deals… then two come along at once! Yes, less than a week after the US National […]

Yesterday’s second session at the UK’s parliamentary inquiry into the economics of music streaming was another double-header, featuring representatives of musicians. Graham Davies is chief executive of songwriters body the Ivors Academy, while Horace Trubridge is general secretary of the Musicians’ Union (and a founder member of 1970s band Darts). The panel of MPs questioning […]

The latest day of hearings for the UK’s parliamentary inquiry into the economics of music streaming was the busiest yet, with three sessions – including the first to involve streaming services. As before, there was a mixture of tough questions, grandstanding and moments of farce. And plenty to think about as the digital, culture, media and […]

Spotify launched a songwriters hub on its service last December, gathering playlists and podcasts by or about the songwriting community. Now it’s launching a dedicated site, called Noteable, for those songwriters. The site, which comes with its own newsletter and social accounts, is being pitched as a place for writers and composers to “get the […]

On the rare news-day when we don’t have a Hipgnosis catalogue acquisition to report, it feels like there’s often news of the company raising more money for its next swathe of deals instead. On Friday, Hipgnosis announced that it had raised £75m (around $103m) through its latest sale of shares, with MBW reporting that Morgan Stanley Investment Management led […]

Last September, we wrote about startup CreateSafe’s launch of a ‘record deal simulator’, which let anyone plug in figures for advances, recording and marketing costs, as well as artist/label splits, to gauge how many streams an artist would need in order to recoup. It was widely shared within the industry, and was also cited in the […]

Josh Gruss, CEO of Round Hill Music, was the keynote interviewee for NY:LON Connect’s publishing strand yesterday. He offered some views on the disparity in digital royalties between recordings and songs. “I think it should be around 50/50. You don’t have a recording without the song. You also don’t have a concert without the song,” […]

It’s easy to buy a catalogue of songs – well, it is if you have the money, obviously – but the challenge of managing them well to grow revenues is an important challenge. “Marketing is absolutely at the core of future success for song catalogues, even if lucky random breaks will continue to happen thanks to […]

Two more musicians are selling their rights – or at least part of them – to investment companies. Shakira is the latest to throw in her lot with Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which has acquired 100% of her music publishing rights for her entire catalogue of 145 songs. “One of the most serious and successful songwriters […]

Like a child scrambling to spend their birthday money on V-Bucks or Robux within seconds of being given it, Hipgnosis Songs Fund isn’t wasting any time spending its latest injection of cash from investors. This morning saw the company’s biggest deal yet, paying $322.9m for a catalogue of more than 33k songs (or shares in […]

Our main feature focuses on TikTok’s eventful 2020 so far, from the deepening of its relationship with artists and the music industry to its tangles with the Trump administration, along with the rise of the short video apps category more generally. Our Second Look section analyses recent stories and data around Hipgnosis Songs Fund; Tencent […]

Independent publishers body IMPF has published a new ‘Global Market View 2020′ report offering figures for its members’ share of the global publishing sector. The key stats: an estimate that the global publishing market was worth €5bn (around $5.9bn) in 2019 – up from €4.63bn in 2018 – and that independent publishers accounted for 27% of […]

Shock news! The latest big-money deal for a publishing catalogue doesn’t involve Hipgnosis Songs Fund. Dance star Calvin Harris has sold his catalogue of more than 150 songs to financial firm Vine Alternative Investments, although Sony/ATV will continue administering it. The price wasn’t officially announced, although Variety claimed it was “around $100m” while Billboard offered a wider “between $90m […]

The rumours were right: music publisher Round Hill Music is planning to take its songs fund public. The Round Hill Music Royalty Fund has announced plans to raise $375m through an IPO on the London Stock Exchange. You can read its announcement here. The company says it has already identified more than 40 catalogues containing more than 120k […]

When we reported on the launch of Soundtrack by Twitch earlier this week, we had a sneaking suspicion that we’d be hearing from the publishing sector – and US representative body the NMPA’s boss David Israelite – sooner rather than later with some opinions. And lo, he’s one of the interviewees in a Rolling Stone follow-up about the wider […]

We’re in a peculiar time right now, where despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on individual musicians’ incomes, we’re also seeing announcements by industry bodies, major music companies and collecting societies of positive (and even still record-breaking) figures for their businesses. The latest is US society BMI for its last financial year, which ended […]

We reported yesterday on the ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on the appeal by Amazon, Google, Pandora and Spotify against new songwriter royalty rates set by the US Copyright Royalty Board. The decision was seen as backing the streaming services in ruling against the procedure used to set the new rates. Now […]

It’s clearly the time of year for lawsuits and legal threats. Publisher Round Hill Music is suing distributor TuneCore and its parent company Believe. The lawsuit claims that the two companies “reproduced and distributed musical compositions owned or controlled by Round Hill… despite knowing that the Round Hill Compositions were never properly licensed. Moreover, beyond failing […]

Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc has signed music licensing deals with Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell, Universal Music Publishing, Merlin and a number of members of US publishing body the NMPA. Bloomberg reported on the deals this morning, adding that Snap is testing a new feature in Australia and New Zealand that lets people add […]

Another day, another licensing deal for TikTok, and this one’s a biggie. It’s signed a global, multi-year agreement with the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) in the US. That’s big because the NMPA has been rattling its sabre at TikTok for some time over licensing, with publishers angry at the lack of royalties coming their […]

Another day, another catalogue acquisition for deep-pocketed investment firm Hipgnosis Songs Fund. This time it belongs to Grammy-winning songwriter and producer RedOne, whose credits include collaborations with Lady Gaga (‘Poker Face’, ‘Bad Romance’ and ‘Just Dance’ included); Nicki Minaj, Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez. Hipgnosis has acquired 100% of RedOne’s songs and recorded music interests: […]

British collecting society PRS for Music has offered another warning that the Covid-19 pandemic will be delivering its biggest hit to songwriter royalties later this year. PRS has just paid out its July 2020 distribution, £132.4m, which was up by 3% year-on-year. However, CEO Andrea Martin warned the society’s members that there are tough times […]

The US’s new Mechanical Licensing Collective body (MLC) has provided an update on its plans to launch a portal for independent songwriters to register their works. At the NY:LON Connect conference in January, MLC chair Alisa Coleman said the aim was to have the portal live early in the second quarter of 2020. Then the […]

Spotify’s head of songwriter and publishing relations Jules Parker says that the streaming service’s addition of songwriter credits had a knock-on effect for labels and distributors. “Since we began publicly displaying song credits on Spotify in 2018, we’ve seen a 60% increase in how often labels and distributors credit songwriters on their new releases, allowing […]

Hipgnosis Songs Fund has been snapping up a series of publishing catalogues in big-money acquisitions, and it has no plans to stop – but it needs another injection of funding to fuel its ambition. “With over £1 billion of acquisitions in the pipeline covering some of the most important songs and artists of all time, much […]

Outdustry has long been one of the most respected companies helping western music firms and artists do business in China (and more recently, India too). Its services have mainly focused on marketing and rights management / licensing, but now Outdustry is launching a music publishing arm focused on China called Outdustry Songs. It has non-exclusive direct […]

The major western music companies are, it’s fair to say, very keen to expand their foothold in the Chinese music industry. From beefing up their offices in China to taking investment from its digital industry’s giant Tencent, Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music are all making the country a growth priority. Some new numbers […]

US publishing body the NMPA held its annual meeting yesterday – the first time it’s been online. It included some new stats from president and CEO David Israelite. He revealed that US publishing industry revenues grew by 11.6% in 2019 to $3.72bn, making last year the fifth consecutive year of growth for the sector. However, the […]

Recently, Goldman Sachs published a report with new predictions for music industry revenues in 2020, Covid-19 impact included. It forecast a 75% drop for live music revenues, but growth of 3% for recorded music and 3.5% for music publishing in 2020. Kobalt founder and chairman Willard Ahdritz isn’t so sure. “Overall I do believe that […]

Hipgnosis Songs Fund is at it again. The thirsty-for-catalogue publishing company has acquired 70% of Mark Ronson’s publishing/catalogue. “Mark has been amongst the most exciting creators in the world over the last 20 years co-writing and producing records for the most important artists of their time including Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and Dua […]

Music Ally first wrote about production marketplace BeatStars back in June 2012, when we noted that it had already been dubbed ‘the iTunes of beats’. Eight years on, it’s now famous as the website where Lil Nas X bought a trap beat for $30 and used it to make a track called ‘Old Town Road’. In June last year, BeatStars […]

Richie Sambora is best known as the guitarist in Bon Jovi and co-writer of some of their biggest hits (such as ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’, ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ and ‘It’s My Life’) which, three decades on from their release, still do decent business on streaming services. Those three songs along have combined […]

David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers Association in the US, has never been a man to pull his verbal punches when taking digital services to task. “Songwriters: This week, Spotify and Amazon are quite literally taking you to court,” is how his latest guest column for Billboard begins, and it doesn’t get any less […]

The Independent Music Publishers International Forum (IMPF) has confirmed the identify of its next boss. Annette Barrett, MD of Reservoir UK, is now its president-elect and chair of the body’s board of directors, and will formally take on the role of president later this month, replacing current president Pierre Mossiat. In her statement, Barrett promised […]

Spotify is launching a new feature aimed at songwriters, giving them their own profile pages on the streaming service, complete with playlists of recordings of their songs. ‘Songwriter Pages’ launches in beta today, accompanied by a tweak to Spotify’s existing track credits feature to make the names of songwriters taking part in the beta clickable, […]

“You can choose to grow one copyright at a time. That’s going to take a really, really long time. We went to look for solutions that would help us scale more quickly. And what drove that was really find likeminded people, find people with whom you have shared values… with whom you have a vision […]

Two of the most active music firms involved in buying up publishing catalogues have started 2020 with a bang. UK-based Hipgnosis has acquired a catalogue of 157 songs from Blink-182 co-founder Tom DeLonge, hopeful of a resurgence for his main band’s music. “The influence of Blink-182 on today’s artists is massive. If you’re under 27 years old […]

Music-publishing body ICMP has just held its latest board meeting, in Mumbai, as part of a week-long delegation to India to hold talks with the government, music-industry entities and media in the country. “We came to India because it’s a promising market – currently the 15th largest in the world. However, we also need to […]

Hospital Records are hiring a full-time Copyright Assistant to assist in the day to day running of both the publishing, legal and finance departments. To apply please send your CV and cover letter to  Jobs@HospitalRecords.com with the subject ‘Copyright Assistant Application’ by 11th September 2019 The post Copyright Assistant – Hospital Records – London appeared first on […]

Faster payments and more-transparent reporting has been the clarion call for a number of companies hoping to disrupt the world of publishing. The implicit (and sometimes explicit) criticism contained within their promises is that traditional music publishers are slow to pay and somewhat opaque in some aspects of royalty reporting. However, the picture isn’t as […]

Fitness startup Peloton’s decision to respond to music publishers’ copyright-infringement lawsuit with a counter-claim alleging anti-competitive behaviour has – and you may wish to sit down for this bombshell – not gone down well. Peloton had suggested that the publishers had conspired with industry body the NMPA “to fix prices and to engage in a […]

Music-rights company Hipgnosis has gone on a spree of publishing-catalogue acquisitions over the last year. Now the company has provided an update on its business, through its first set of financial results. They reveal that by the end of March 2019, the company owned (or had a partial stake) in 12 music catalogues, comprising just […]

A new Spotify / music publishing story broke on Friday, but there’s a bigger picture here: the increasingly-dispiriting story of the streaming service’s approach towards the publishing community, as well as the perception of Spotify by those publishers and songwriters. At a time when recorded-music revenues are going from strength to strength, what’s happening around […]

This week saw the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) in the US hold its latest Indie Music Publishing Summit in New York. The event included a presentation with Massarsky Consulting offering some new stats on independent publishers’ businesses. Among them: the news that performance royalties were 50% of indie publishers’ revenues in 2018 (at […]

Warner Music Group has published its numbers for the fiscal second quarter (ending 31st March 2019) and the headlines are that total revenue across all parts of the business was up 13.2% and that it saw net income of $67m compared to a net loss of $1m in the same period last year. Digital was, […]

“Maybe what I’ll say is this: I’ve done 10 years of this. I’m going to let someone else take on the internecine warfare that seems to be endemic to the music industry!” Even when he’s playing a straight bat to a sensitive question – in this case, one about whether songwriters deserve a bigger slice of […]

Music publishers are currently engaged in verbal fisticuffs with a group of music-streaming services, and Spotify in particular, over the group’s plans to appeal against new songwriter royalty-rates set by the US Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). But in a valedictory interview with Variety on his last day as chairman and CEO of publisher Sony/ATV, Martin Bandier suggested […]

Spotify is rumoured (although not, as yet, confirmed) to be holding some ‘town-hall’ events to explain to songwriters why it’s appealing against new royalty rates set by the US Copyright Royalties Board (CRB). Now publishing/songwriting bodies the NMPA and NSAI are planning their own event to tackle the topic from their perspective. It’ll take place […]

The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) in the US has given Amazon and Spotify both barrels over their decision to appeal against the recent songwriter royalty rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board. Yet it seems other companies are also appealing. Spotify, Google and Pandora have confirmed that they have asked the US Court of […]

Spotify is live in India, but its dispute with Warner Music Group continues, over the way it sought a statutory licence for works owned (partially or wholly) by publisher Warner/Chappell. Now the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) has weighed in to the row, firmly on the side of Warner/Chappell. “Music publishers worldwide work in […]

Even as the row over Spotify’s publishing licensing in India rages, so attention is switching back to the US, where the Department of Justice is mulling a shakeup of the long-established ‘consent decrees’. “The Justice Department in the coming weeks is expected to call for public input on whether it should modify or terminate two […]

An Indian court has made its ruling on Warner Music Group’s application for an injunction as part of its dispute with Spotify over publishing licensing in the country. Does the ruling settle the matter one way or the other? Unsurprisingly, it’s complicated. Here’s Spotify’s statement, sent out to journalists this morning: “We’re pleased with today’s […]

Distribution firm CD Baby has inked an interesting deal with publishing-rights organisation SACM in Mexico. “CD Baby will be offering free standard submissions to all registered SACM members,” explained the distributor. “SACM is equally honoured to recognise CD Baby as their “preferred” and recommended distributor. Representing more than half of all Mexican artists, this is […]

From songwriters suing streaming services to big-bucks catalogue acquisitions, the music-publishing world has made plenty of headlines in recent years. Downtown Music Publishing CEO Justin Kalifowitz suggested that publishing is “the biggest piece of the pie” for most musicians and that it is seeing “stable and steady growth in established markets”. But, however, he felt […]