Publishing Catch-Up: Billions More Coming for Music Copyright Investments, Tina Turner Sells Catalog to BMG & More

We catch up on the latest music publishing news, from key deals and signings to new hires, legislation and more.

Deals & Acquisitions

BMG buys bundle of Tina Turner rights in music’s latest big-money deal (MBW)
The deal sees BMG acquire the artist’s share of her recordings, plus her music publishing writer’s share and neighboring rights, plus her name, image, and likeness.

CTM Outlander Acquires One77 Music’s 2,000-Song Publishing Catalog (Billboard)
The company also made a deal to represent the works of “Lush Life” songwriter Markus “Mack” Sepehrmanesh.

Wise Music acquire Lee Pockriss catalogue with deal for Emily Music Corporation (Music Week)
Emily Music’s catalogue features songs by Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance, including Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, and Pockriss’ collaboration with Lyn Duddy, Johnny Angel.

Twitch Reaches Long-Awaited Pact With Music Publishers, But It’s Not a Licensing Deal (Billboard)
According to the press release, Twitch is currently offering NMPA members an opt-in deal “allowing for future collaborations to bring new facets to both the gaming experience and songwriter exposure.”

NMPA and Roblox reach a deal to dismiss $200m lawsuit (Music Ally)
As with the Twitch news, this is not a platform-wide licensing deal covering the NMPA’s members, but rather a bridging agreement that will give Roblox the time and space to reach its own deals with those publishers.

Royalties & CMOs

Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus launches campaign to fix £500m music royalty problem (BBC)
Called Credits Due, the scheme aims to ensure all songwriters and musicians are correctly identified when a song is recorded.

PRS for Music signs new five-year licence agreement with BBC (Radio Today)
The new licence covers the BBC’s full suite of services including, radio, television, iPlayer, and Sounds in the UK, as well as BBC World Service and BBC Studios internationally.

Hipgnosis is launching a new songwriters guild in the US (Music Ally)
“There’s no secret the songwriter is the worst-paid person in the equation. No negotiation should ever take place that affects how a songwriter is paid that doesn’t have the songwriter represented in the negotiation,” said Mercuriadis.

Finance & Investment

Blackstone in Talks to Back Merck Mercuriadis’s New Music Fund (Bloomberg)
The alternative asset manager is in discussions to partner with Mercuriadis, who runs U.K.-based Hipgnosis, on a new fund dedicated to buying copyrights, according to people familiar with the matter.

A $1 Billion Competitor for Music Rights Says ‘Content Is Queen’ (New York Times)
Sherrese Clarke Soares, the founder of HarbourView Equity Partners, is a Black woman approaching the high-stakes world of catalog sales from a different perspective.

Here. Come. The. Giants. (MBW)
The giants of the financial world are now really waking up to the modern music business’s true value – and they’re throwing billions at it.

Round Hill’s UK Fund has spent $342m on acquisitions – and is buying catalogs at a multiple of 16.2x (MBW)
Round Hill’s publicly-traded UK fund has published its first set of interim financial results, for the period ended June 30,  2021.

UMG’s buoyant stock debut is a new chapter for the music business (MIDiA Research)
Universal Music Group (UMG) had an extremely positive first day of trading as a standalone entity, with shares at one stage trading 35% up from their reference point and making the market cap leap to $55 billion.