Publishing Catch-Up: BMI Sells to New Mountain Capital, NMPA Labels Generative AI “Greatest Risk to the Human Creative Class” and More
- Meg Adams
- Dec 7, 2023
- 5 min read
We catch up on the latest publishing news, from acquisitions to facts and figures, new hires and more.
Deals & Acquisitions
Downtown takes Next Era global (Hits Daily Double)
Downtown Music Publishing will represent the Next Era catalog worldwide for administration and collection, excluding South Korea and China.
Los Angeles-based PULSE Music Group has formed a music publishing creative joint venture with Grammy-winning songwriter/producer/recording artist, Dan Wilson.
Muse Group, a company that specializes in music creation tools and software, has acquired Hal Leonard, a publisher of sheet music and educational content.
CTM has signed singer-songwriter Sam Hunt in a go-forward publishing deal for his future works, in addition to acquiring his publishing catalog.
BMG and Riot Games have extended their global publishing administration deal while launching what BMG described as a “new strategic partnership”.
Investment firm HarbourView Equity Partners buys select publishing assets from Kane Brown marking the expansion of its already profound footprint in the country music space.
PROs, CMOs and Royalties
The MLC has distributed $1.5 billion in total royalties to date to songwriters and publishers, up by about $500 million from March.
CDB Boost includes royalty collections facilitated by the MLC and SoundExchange, and participation in CD Baby’s sync licensing program (powered by Synchtank).
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is working with the Music Right Awareness Foundation to launch a platform called ‘Creators Learn Intellectual Property.’
BMI sells to New Mountain Capital (Billboard)
The buyer announced that as part of the deal BMI’s current shareholders will allocate $100 million of the sale’s proceeds to songwriters and publishers affiliates.
Credits Due is the initiative launched in 2021 by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus to encourage musicians to make accurate metadata for their work at the point of creation.
ICE and peermusic have been working together since 2018, resulting in an average year-on-year growth in royalties of more than 60% over that time.
Signings
The Sonora-born singer-songwriter has established himself as one of Mexican music’s most versatile and eclectic artists today recording in norteño, banda, R&B and pop.
Victor Rådström from the multi-platinum selling Swedish producer and artist duo, has been signed to Concord Music Publishing.
Warner Chappell Music has announced a new deal with iconic singer-songwriter Dido, covering both her upcoming music and her catalog.
Angel Sandoval signs With Kobalt for publishing (Billboard)
Up-and-coming Mexican singer/songwriter Angel Sandoval has signed a multi-year global publishing agreement with Kobalt.
Pitbull extends global publishing partnership with BMG (Digital Music News)
Pitbull has renewed his global publishing partnership with BMG, extending his longtime relationship with the company.
Funding, Facts & Figures
Labels made up most of the 2022 stack, with an adjusted $26bn, and publishers directly licensed $4.1bn; but the real story this year is the CMOs, whose collections topped $11.4bn.
Under the amended facility, HarbourView’s credit facility capacity has been increased by $100 million to $300 million (from $200m).
The company’s revenues grew by 15% year-on-year to $38.4m, although organically (i.e. not including acquisitions) they were up 10%.
The company will now offer advances of up to $3m to songwriters. That’s advances against their publishing rights, covering both existing catalogs and as-yet-unreleased songs.
Chapman finished Q3 as the top songwriter on all three charts, propelling Purple Rabbit Music to No. 5 on Top Radio Airplay and No. 6 on both Hot 100 Songs and Country Airplay.
Legal
Publishers including Concord and UMG subsidiaries have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction focused on lyrics and the input (and output) of Anthropic’s Claude chatbot.
Hipgnosis seeks new auditor as it faces legal action (Financial Times)
Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the troubled music rights owner, is searching for a new auditor after PwC refused to reapply for the job.
Cisac president, Björn Ulvaeus, lays out his thoughts on the EU AI Act, stating that “The EU AI Act must lay down transparency obligations on AI operators.”
The suit alleges that music compositions controlled by SUISA Digital are found on the platform, and that the company has made no effort to license them or remove them.
People
Daniel Pounder has been appointed chief financial officer, and Jonathan Baker has been appointed to the newly created role of general counsel.
Felix Canetty-Clarke has been upped to VP, UK A&R Strategy & International Research; Sarah Gabrielli to Senior Director A&R, UK & Europe; & Saul Fitton to Senior Director A&R, UK.
Interesting Reads
The NMPA’s submission to the US Copyright Office regarding AI and copyright, dated Oct 30, 2023, pulls no punches in calling out the significant threat posed by AI.
Even if Spotify’s new royalty model won’t pay artists’ whose tracks don’t hit 1,000 streams in a year, songwriters will still earn money from those plays — for now, at least.
MBW on BMI's fraternizing with CapitalG (aka Alphabet's fund), plus a windfall for radio broadcasters, and $100 million of money going to songwriters and publishers.
The importance of AI-powered search and discovery solutions and how anyone working with music – on the buy or sell side – can harness them to streamline their day-to-day lives.
Higher interest rates pulled valuations down while streaming and publishing growth pushed valuations higher, according to a report from Shot Tower Capital.
Music generates INR12,000 crore of revenues per year, which is approximately 6% of the Indian Media & Entertainment industry.
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