We catch up on the latest publishing news, from acquisitions to facts and figures, new hires and more.
Deals & Acquisitions
Dua Lipa acquires rights to her songs from Tap Publishing (Music Week)
Tap Music Publishing confirmed that it has sold the rights to Dua Lipa’s publishing, in a move that sees the singer acquiring the rights to her share of the songs.
Peermusic acquires Arctic Rights Management (Music Week)
Peermusic has acquired Arctic Rights Management (ARM), the largest indie music publisher in Norway. The deal will give Peermusic the publishing rights to Arctic Rights Management’s 5,000-plus recordings and compositions.
Transgressive Publishing and Warner Chappell UK extend joint venture (MBW)
Transgressive Publishing and Warner Chappell Music UK have renewed their joint venture, having worked together for 17 years. The renewal of the two companies’ partnership makes the JV the longest-standing JV in Warner Chappell UK’s history to date.
Warner Chappell acquired catalog of over 10,000 tracks from music publisher Deck in Brazil (MBW)
Warner Chappell Brazil has acquired a catalog from music publishing company Deck, which covers over 10,000 musical compositions, including music by artists like Pitty, Chico César, Falamansa and Sorriso Maroto, among others.
Morgan Stanley is investing more than $700m to buy music copyrights in partnership with Kobalt (MBW)
Kobalt has today (November 1) announced a new partnership with investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value to invest more than USD $700 million to acquire music copyrights over the next few years.
Jordan Davis sells majority of publishing catalog to Anthem Entertainment (Billboard)
Rising country star Jordan Davis has sold the majority share of his publishing catalog to Anthem Entertainment, extending his relationship with the Toronto-based company. With plans to use the funds to invest in his future.
Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo sell ‘select’ recorded music and publishing assets to HarbourView (MWB)
Together Benatar and Giraldo have created two multi-platinum, five platinum and three fold albums as well as 19 top 40 hits. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
CTM Outlander acquires catalog of songwriter and producer Ross Copperman (MBW)
The deal includes the acquisition of Copperman’s catalog (via Copperman’s Iris in the Sky with Diamonds) alongside a publishing deal for his future works.
PROs, CMOs and Royalties
Global Music Collections revenue up 28% of record $11.4bn in 2022 (Billboard)
Global music rights revenue collections reached €10.83 billion ($11.4 billion) in 2022, according to CISAC, the trade organization of collective management societies.
The MLC has paid out over $1.5bn to songwriters to date (MBW)
The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) reports that it has now distributed over $1.5 billion in royalties to songwriters in the past two and half years since launching full operations.
PRS for Music’s latest quarterly distribution was $288.7m (MBW)
UK-based royalty collection and distribution organization PRS for Music has marked a new milestone in October, achieving a record-breaking quarterly royalty distribution (for Q3) of $288.7 million (£239m).
Deezer and SACEM to explore ‘artist-centric’ payouts to songwriters and publishers
Can the model be applied to songwriters and publishers? Deezer is trying to find out. (Music Ally)
BMG to speed up mechanical royalty payments for songs released by the company’s US recording artists (Music Week)
BMG has unveiled an initiative to speed up the payment of mechanical royalties to its US publishing clients when their songs are used on recordings released by BMG’s US artists.
BMI will pay songwriters and publishers a smaller potion of its revenues as a for-profit company (MBW)
All while upping its own margin from 10% to 15% of its collections – will its members tolerate this change?
Signings
Sentric signs Amon Tobin to global publishing deal (Music Week)
Sentric Music Group (recently acquired by Believe) has signed electronic musician, composer and producer Amon Tobin to an exclusive, worldwide publishing administration deal.
Reservoir inks Global Publishing deal with Joe Walsh (Digital Music News)
The deal includes hits from Walsh’s catalog as a solo artist and as a member of groups like the Eagles and the James Gang, as well as future works.
Concord and Immensum Music sign Amaarea (Music Week)
The global publishing deal includes the Ghanaian-American artist’s full catalog and all future works, including her 2023 album Fountain Baby.
Kobalt sings Toby Scott to Global Publishing deal (Digital Music News)
Kobalt has announced signing prolific UK songwriter and producer Toby Scott to a worldwide publishing agreement, including creative services and global sync.
Sabrina Carpenter signs with Universal Music Publishing (Variety)
Breakthrough pop artist Sabrina Carpenter has inked an exclusive, worldwide publishing agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group.
Warner Chappell Music renews partnership with hit songwriter Rick Boardman (MBW)
Boardman is the founder of Manchester-based songwriting collective The Six and has received more than five billion streams on Spotify. Warner Chappell says Boardman stands as “one of the most prolific songwriters” worldwide.
Funding, Facts & Figures
Hipgnosis Songs Fund to be reconstructed, reorganised or wound up (Music Ally)
What happens now? The Hipgnosis Songs Fund board will now put forward “proposals for the reconstruction, reorganization or winding up of the Company” within the next six months.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund has been left concussed by ‘discontinuation’. but with a seemingly rock solid ‘call option’, Merck Mercuriadis still holds all the cards (MBW)
On: Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the all important ‘call option’, Blackstone, and the most likely outcome of this week’s mess.
Legal
UMPG, ABKCO, and Concord sue tech firm over AI-generated lyrics (Music Week)
Universal Music Publishing Group has joined with ABKCO and Concord in a legal action against AI tech firm Anthropic. The music publishers have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in Nashville alleging that Anthropic scrapes their songs without permission.
Sony Music sues cosmetics brand OFRA for using recordings by their artists in social media ads (MBW)
Sony Music Entertainment has filed a lawsuit against US cosmetics brand OFRA for allegedly using its music (Miriah Carey, Britney Spears and others) in Instagram and TikTok ads without permission.
ASCAP comes out strongly against AI training as fair use (Music Ally)
The US Copyright Office is currently holding an inquiry into the copyright issues raised by generative AI technologies. Understandably, music industry organisations are submitting their comments for its study.
People
Kobalt ups Sean Dishman to Senior Director of Creative (Music Week)
Starting his career as an intern with Kobalt, Sean Dishman has now been promoted to Senior Director, Creative at Kobalt based in Los Angeles.
Robin Nastri named SVP, Global Business Office at Sony Music Publishing (MBW)
Sony Music Publishing has appointed Robin Nastri to the newly created role of Senior Vice President, Global Business Office. Nastri will report directly to Sony Music Publishing’s Chief Financial Officer, Tom Kelly.
Laura Mendoza appointed Managing Director, Colombia at Sony Music Publishing (MBW)
Mendoza will be based in Bogotá, Colombia, and will report directly to Sony Music Publishing President & CEO, Latin America and U.S. Latin Jorge Mejia.
PRS for Music appoints Janeace Thompson as first Director of Talent Culture and Experience (PRS for Music)
The newly created role is pivotal to the company’s plans to support and deliver its strategic imperatives and continue its journey of change.
Interesting Reads
Sync in 2023: Opportunities, challenges, uncertainties and revisions (Synchtank)
There is a lot going on in sync licensing in 2023 – and a lot of forces simultaneously pulling the sector in multiple directions. Synchtank spoke to key players in the sync world to understand how they are shaping the business today and what this could mean for it tomorrow.
5 key takeaways from Universal’s lyrics lawsuit against AI unicorn Anthropic (MBW)
MBW delved into the details of this potentially significant lawsuit. Here are five notable takeaways we found.
Is the Music Industry Losing Money to Sped-Up Remixes? (Billboard)
A new study from the digital rights tech company Pex estimates that there are more than 1 million unauthorized remixes floating around streaming services.
AI is on a collision course with music — Reservoir’s Golnar Khosrowshahi thinks there’s a way through (The Verge)
The publisher behind the songwriting copyrights to some of the most popular music ever recorded doesn’t think AI spells doom for the industry.
