Business
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Downtown Music continues to reconfigure its business with the appointment of Emily Stephenson as its new president of publishing and Jedd Katrancha as chief commercial officer. Along with the new leaders, global president of Downtown Music Services, Mike Smith, has stepped down “to pursue several personal projects and to focus on his ongoing charitable work,” according to a press release. News of the leadership shuffle arrives just over a week after the company’s CEO, Andrew Bergman, wrote a letter to Downtown staff announcing a second round of layoffs, citing the “reorganization” of the company. Stephenson, who most recently served as the division’s vp of business operations, will now oversee all publishing efforts at Downtown Music, including client acquisition and business development, A&R, rights management and client services for the group’s publishing companies: Downtown Music Publishing, Songtrust and Sheer. She will be joined in these efforts by Jedd Katrancha, who was promoted to chief commercial officer of publishing. Katrancha will oversee business development, A&R and synch for Downtown’s publishing companies. – Kristin Robinson
ASCAP announced the 12 writer and 12 publisher members elected to serve on its board of directors for a two-year term beginning Saturday (April 1). In addition to ASCAP president/chairman of the board Paul Williams, writer members re-elected in the at-large field include composer/songwriter Jon Batiste; composer Richard Bellis; composer Bruce Broughton; songwriter/producer Desmond Child; composer Sharon Farber; writer vice chair composer Dan Foliart; songwriter/composer Michelle Lewis; composer/producer Marcus Miller; songwriter Jimmy Webb; and composer Doug Wood. Composer Alex Shapiro was re-elected in the symphonic and concert field. Meanwhile, the newly elected publisher director is Jon Singer (Spirit Music), while the publisher directors re-elected in the at-large field are Peter Brodsky (Sony Music Publishing); Bob Bruderman (Kobalt); Marti Cuevas (Mayimba Music); Keith Hauprich (BMG US); Dean Kay (Lichelle Music Company); Evan Lamberg (Universal Music Publishing Group); Leeds Levy (Leeds Music); Carianne Marshall (Warner Chappell Music); Mary Megan Peer (peermusic); and publisher vice chair Irwin Z. Robinson (Cromwell Music). James M. Kendrick of European American Music was re-elected in the symphonic and concert field.
Katie Soo was named chief business officer at live event ticketing platform DICE; she joins from educational subscription platform KiwiCo, where she served as chief marketing officer and remains as an advisor. In her role, Soo will oversee DICE’s consumer marketing, business-to-business marketing, fan experience, brand and creative, new growth initiatives and social and communications teams.
[PIAS] appointed Tom Keil as global head of dance and electronic/executive vp of A&R. Based in London, Keil joins the company from Ultra Music in Europe, where he served as general manager/vp of A&R. He can be reached at tom.keil@pias.com.
Business-to-business music and streaming solutions provider Tuned Global announced the hire and promotion of six team members to “supercharge” its business in Europe, according to a press release. Jonas Norberg, founder of DJ artificial intelligence company Pacemaker, was named the company’s head of AI and brings two members of his Pacemaker team with him: co-founder/chief technology officer Daniel Wallner and product development director Victor Garcia. Also hired were Daniel Kirby (as presales technical consultant) and Mateus Moura (as customer success manager), who will both work with Tuned Global’s senior vp/head of EMEA Rick Gleave to provide customers with technical support and insights. Lastly, Virginie Chelles was promoted to vp/head of marketing & communications; now located in France, she will work to boost the company’s growth in the territory.
Sounds and samples marketplace Splice hired Kevin Stewart as senior vp of engineering and David Ericksen as senior vp of product. Both will report to Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava. Stewart joins from Harvest and Ericksen joins from Adobe.
Good Company Entertainment — the firm that manages Jake Owen and Daves Highway and also boasts the independent label GCE Records — added Anna Schaeffer, Amy Jackson, Parker Fowler and Liz Sledge to the team. Schaeffer joins as manager of art direction and social media strategies, Jackson (formerly at UMG) joins as manager of marketing & consumer strategies, Fowler (formerly at Triple Tigers) joins as associate manager and Sledge joins as executive director of the Jake Owen Foundation. Schaeffer can be reached at anna@goodcompanyent.com, Jackson can be reached at amy@goodcompanyent.com, Fowler can be reached at parker@goodcompanyent.com and Sledge can be reached at liz@jakeowenfoundation.org.
Charlotte Bwana was promoted to vp of marketing and brand strategy at Audiomack, where she will lead the execution of brand strategies and oversee promotional initiatives across Africa. She can be reached at charlotte@audiomack.com.
The Alliance for Women Film Composers elected new leadership and a new board, with Heather McIntosh and Allyson Newman elected co-presidents of the organization. They succeed Catherine Joy, who has served as president since 2021. Elsewhere, Esin Aydingoz was elected secretary and Thomas Mikusz was elected treasurer. The remainder of the board is comprised of Joy, Alexandra Petkovski, Chanda Dancy, Connor Cook, Daisy Coole, Ghiya Rushidat, Jenna Fentimen, Laura Karpman, Lili Haydn, Lolita Ritmanis, Mandy Hoffman, Nami Melumad, Starr Parodi and Stephanie Economou. The executive director is Raashi Kulkarni. The alliance also created the position of vp of outreach and inclusion and appointed Sharon Farber to fill the role.
Entertainment business management firm FBMM promoted Regina A. Bassett, Fred Ford, Jeff Jones and Emily Walker to associate business managers.
Shore Fire Media promoted four across the public relations agency’s New York-based teams. Ailie Orzak and Victorie Selce have each been elevated to account executive positions, while Mary Claire “MC” Miskell and Rachel Jacobs were upped to junior account executives.
When the Rolling Stones released “Living In A Ghost Town” in 2020, a lot had changed in the eight years since the legendary rock band had last put out a new song. Streaming music had become dominant, the UK had exited the European Union and a global pandemic had taken grip.
It had also seemingly become more common for the creators of hit songs to face lawsuits. In the wake of a multimillion-dollar verdict in 2015 against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over “Blurred Lines,” a slew of major stars had faced similar copyright infringement cases over some of their biggest hits – including Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa.
So it should have perhaps come as no surprise to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards when, last month, they were hit with a lawsuit claiming they’d illegally borrowed key parts of “Ghost Town.” Sergio Garcia Fernandez, who performs under the name Angelslang, alleged that they had “misappropriated many of the recognizable and key protected elements” from his 2006 song “So Sorry,” as well as his 2007 tune “Seed of God.” (Read the full complaint here.)
But such lawsuits, while plentiful, often face long odds. In just the past month, similar song-theft cases against Donald Glover (over his Childish Gambino chart-topper “This Is America”) and Nickelback (over the band’s 2005 hit “Rock Star”) have both been dismissed at the earliest stage of litigation. In Glover’s case, a federal judge ruled last week that the lyrics of the two songs were “entirely different.” In Nickelback’s dispute, another federal judge ruled the week prior that the case at times “borders on the absurd.”
And, according to legal and music experts, the new lawsuit against the Stones likely faces a similar fate.
“Living in a Ghost Town,” a blues-rock tune with some reggae vibes, does sound similar to “So Sorry” and “Seed of God.” Fernandez claims that’s because the new song borrowed key features from his songs, including the “vocal melodies, the chord progressions, the drum beat patterns, the harmonica parts [and] the electric bass line parts.”
But according to Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist and a professor at Berklee College of Music, “Ghost Town” flatly does not include those elements from Fernandez’s songs. Full stop.
“It simply doesn’t,” Bennett says. “These elements are not the same when compared — all the notes and chords are very obviously different. It’s significant that the complaint doesn’t contain any music notation, because a simple side by side transcription would demonstrate the dissimilarity.”
So then why do the songs sound similar? Bennett says it’s because they share an overall vibe – based on mid-tempo rock grooves in the key of A minor – that’s been ubiquitous in rock and blues since the beginning. Without much digging, he pointed to at least four other songs that sound pretty similar, including B.B. King’s rendition of the “The Thrill Is Gone.” But those commonplace musical tropes cannot be monopolized by one band under copyright law.
“The similarities we hear aren’t protectable elements, and certainly not the intellectual property of Mr. Fernandez,” Bennett said. “The Stones didn’t copy from Fernandez, because they didn’t need to; they’ve been playing grooves like this for a very long time, as have many others.”
Beyond such musical problems, the case against the Stones also potentially suffers from a simpler legal flaw.
In any copyright lawsuit, an accuser needs to show that the alleged infringer had “access” to their work in order to copy it. In cases involving big songs – like in the looming trial against Sheeran over Marvin Gaye’s iconic “Let’s Get It On” – a plaintiff can easily argue that the song was so widely-available that the defendant obviously heard it. But the case against the Stones involve songs of far less renown; when the lawsuit was first filed, the allegedly-copied “So Sorry” listed less than 1000 streams on Spotify.
Faced with that situation, Fernandez instead aimed to directly show how the Stones might have heard the song. In his complaint, his lawyers wrote that he gave a demo CD to “an immediate family member” of Jagger, who then allegedly confirmed in writing that the songs had “a sound The Rolling Stones would be interested in using.”
But according to James Sammataro, a veteran copyright litigator and the co-chair of the music group at at the law firm Pryor Cashman, those arguments fall well short of what’s required under law.
He noted that the complaint “conspicuously” failed to name that family member, and also did not directly claim that they had actually handed the song off to Jagger or had been involved in creating “Ghost Town.”
“A charitable read of the complaint is that plaintiff purportedly gave his demo to a family member of Jagger who might have passed along the demo to Jagger, but that plaintiff have no idea whether it actually happened,” Sammataro wrote. “Such speculative allegations are far too attenuated to infer a reasonable possibility of access. If there was a strong claim of access, the plaintiff would have presumably pled it.”
This article was written in partnership with Allison Parker.
Ryan Kavanaugh’s Proxima entertainment company has acquired a “significant strategic stake” in movie-streaming platform ROW8 and formed a joint venture, Proxima 8. Combining the individual strengths of the two separate brands, Proxima 8 aims to revolutionize the way audiences experience cinema and disrupt the current theatrical window models – like PVOD, SVOD, and PPV – and change how movies are distributed and made available to consumers.
The partnership aims to cater to the preferences of today’s younger audiences, tapping into the vast potential that lies within influencer communities as well as digital platforms. Through the acquisition, Proxima Media will be able to leverage the technology that ROW8 offers, further expanding its distribution capabilities, which includes its ability to geolocate by proximity to specific theaters. Additionally, this partnership will allow Proxima to reduce marketing costs while maximizing revenues on highly commercial genre-specific films. By focusing on distributing Proxima’s youth-focused genres –including horror, thriller, action, love stories, and American comedies – and utilizing its social media and influencer connections, Proxima 8 aims to create a platform that caters to today’s generation.
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With involvement in Proxima as well as the 450 million user-rich social media app Triller, Ryan Kavanaugh has had an impressive career in the entertainment industry, marked by a series of achievements and a track-record of staying ahead of the curve. From bringing comic book universes to the big screen to penning market-defining deals for subscription video on demand platforms, Kavanaugh has proven again and again to embrace new innovations and trends in technology as well as change with market shifts. In a 2014 keynote address at a leading industry conference, Kavanaugh stated, “if the studios don’t change soon, the customers will change it for them as they now have the ability to get (content) where they want it, when they want it, and how they want to pay for it.”
Currently, ROW8 is one of the larger independent digital Premium Video On Demand (PVOD) movie platforms, offering its customers access to a vast library of high-quality movies available to stream instantly on their favorite devices. With agreements in place with many of the biggest studio production houses as well as a recent merger with Rad – a blockchain-based streaming platform – ROW8 has quickly become a key player in the industry. The acquisition of ROW8 by Proxima, according to Kavanaugh, “allows [Proxima] to give the influencer stars of our films a way [and] a destination to send their fans and followers to where they can really participate in [their] journey, not just watch the movie. It will be the first time there will be a two-way connection from fan to movie and movie to fan; it’s not just a platform, but a destination.”
Through his connections with Triller, which Kavanaugh held a controlling stake in from 2019 to 2022, the film financier has unique connections to some of the platform’s top influencers. With Proxima 8, Kavanaugh and ROW8 have shown that they are willing to take risks and embrace change, positioning themselves at the forefront of a dynamic market shift. As video distribution markets further develop and mature, the burgeoning platform will definitely be an industry player to watch in the coming years. Keep checking Billboard for the latest on all things Proxima 8.
LONDON — French music company Believe is making inroads into the publishing business by acquiring U.K.-based publisher Sentric, which represents more than four million songs and over 400,000 songwriters in more than 200 territories.
Under terms of the deal announced on Thursday (March 30), Believe is acquiring full ownership of Sentric Music Group from Utopia Music, with the transaction valuing Sentric at €47 million ($51 million), Believe says in a press release.
(Utopia Music declined to comment).
Believe founder and CEO Denis Ladegaillerie says in a statement that the takeover of Sentric is the company’s “first step” in the “roll-out of a global and comprehensive publishing offer.”
It is the second time in just over a year that ownership of Liverpool-based Sentric Music Group — which also has offices in London, Hamburg, New York and Los Angeles — has changed hands.
In February of 2022, Utopia, a Zug, Switzerland-headquartered fintech company, acquired Sentric amid a frenetic buying spree that saw Utopia acquire 15 companies over a two-year period.
Sentric’s existing leadership team, led by CEO Chris Meehan, will continue to lead the business, says Believe. Paris-based Believe, which has 1,650 employees in more than 50 countries, says the combination of its digital music expertise and global network with Sentric’s industry-leading technology will develop “a comprehensive solution for songwriters and publishers at all levels.”
Believe’s move into publishing follows recent investments the company has made in Europe, India and Asia to further expand its global footprint. They include partnerships with French pop label Structure, Indian label Panorama Music and Germany-based Madizin Music.
Last year also saw Believe make strong gains in some key European countries and eat into the major record labels’ share of the recorded music market. In France, Believe says it was the second-largest music company in digital local repertoire in 2022. In Germany, it claims to have been the third-largest recorded music company for local repertoire in the streaming market, and the market’s second-largest company in hip-hop.
In total, Believe, which acquired the TuneCore distribution platform in 2015, worked with 1.3 million artists last year, either directly or through record labels, with annual revenues rising 31.8% year-on-year to 760.8 million euros ($723.5 million), according to the company’s year-end financial results, published earlier this month.
The company says its acquisition of Sentric will help drive future growth by enabling it to capture a slice of the growing music publishing market. In 2021, global publishing royalties to songwriters and composers grew by 7.2% to €8.5 billion ($9.2 billion), according to the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies’ (CISAC).
The Sentric deal also strengthens Believe’s TuneCore business offering, which provides worldwide digital distribution to independent and self-releasing artists. Believe says 23% of TuneCore’s subscribers already use Sentric’s publishing service. Moving forward, says Believe, Sentric will offer publishing services to all clients within the Believe Group.
“The growth and digital transformation of the songwriters’ market is opening-up many opportunities,” says Ladegaillerie.
For Utopia Music, the future appears cloudier with its sale of Sentric following a period of intense change at the fintech company.
In November, Utopia cut its workforce by about 20%, or about 230 jobs, followed two months later by CEO Markku Mäkeläinen exiting the company and founder and executive chairman Mattias Hjelmstedt taking over as interim chief executive. In February, Utopia said it had sold U.S.-based music database platform ROSTR — which has a directory of artists, managers, booking agents and record labels — back to ROSTR’s founders for an undisclosed sum.
At the time, Hjelmstedt told Billboard that the sale of ROSTR was part of a company-wide refocus on its core financial services business and that the company had recently completed a fresh investment round. (He declined to discuss the size of investment or investors).
However, on Wednesday, Scandinavian news outlet Breakit reported that some Utopia employees have recently gone unpaid and the company’s Swedish arm, Utopia R&D Tech, owes 8 million SEK ($770,000) to the Swedish tax authorities. (Music Business Worldwide was the first to report Breakit‘s story).
In response, a spokesperson for Utopia told Billboard that the company’s “strategic transition” was in response to “current changes in the market landscape,” adding that it is focusing on profitability and growth.
“It has not been an easy journey, but we are very positive about Utopia’s future and look forward to continuing what we are here to do — support the music industry with digital solutions for managing, monitoring, and processing royalties, and distributing the music we all love to listen to,” the Utopia rep said.
A Las Vegas judge on Wednesday (March 29) reportedly refused to dismiss a countersuit filed by Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter against a woman who has accused him of rape, rejecting her arguments that he’s merely using the case to “harass and intimidate” her.
Shannon “Shay” Ruth, who sued Carter in December over allegations that he raped her after a 2001 concert, had asked the judge to dismiss his defamation countersuit under Nevada’s so-called anti-SLAPP law — a statute designed to prevent lawsuits that are filed as retaliation against free speech.
But at a court hearing Wednesday, Judge Nancy Alff denied that anti-SLAPP motion and allowed Carter’s countersuit to move forward, according to a report by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Carter reportedly appeared in court with his lawyers on Wednesday, though Ruth was not physically present.
Ruth sued Carter in December, claiming he raped her when she was 17 years old following a 2001 concert in Washington state. Now 39, Ruth says she waited more than 20 years to come forward because she was afraid of retaliation.
“He told plaintiff she would go to jail if she told anyone what happened between them,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote at the time. “He said that he was Nick Carter, and that he had the power to do that. Due to his various threats, plaintiff did not report Carter’s crimes for many years.”
Carter fired back with a countersuit in February, claiming he’d been the victim of a “five-year conspiracy” that aimed to “to harass, defame and extort” him by exploiting the #MeToo movement. He said Ruth was “a vulnerable and highly impressionable individual” who was manipulated into making false accusations by Melissa Schuman Henschel — a former member of the teen-pop group Dream who previously accused Carter of assaulting her in 2003.
Weeks later, Ruth’s attorneys labeled Carter’s lawsuit a SLAPP suit, saying the defamation allegations had been brought with “no other purpose than to harass, intimate, and potentially silence plaintiff.”
“He seeks to use his wealth and celebrity status to outlast plaintiff,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote. “All while hiding behind being the ‘victim’ of the ‘#MeToo’ movement and the preposterous notion that plaintiff is only seeking attention and publicity.”
Wednesday’s ruling, which denied Ruth’s motion, came after Carter’s attorneys submitted detailed arguments backing up their contention that Ruth’s allegations were false and that his allegations of a conspiracy were plausible. His filings included testimony from 12 witnesses who supported his side of the story, including one who called Ruth’s story “factually impossible.”
The board of directors at Universal Music Group (UMG) has extended the contract of chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge until May 1, 2028, the company announced Thursday (March 30).
The updated agreement transitions Grainge from an all-cash compensation package to one that combines cash and equity; the latter of these includes performance-based objectives that align with the interest of shareholders and correlate with the company’s long-term growth strategy. The majority of the compensation package’s value will be paid in UMG equity and performance-based stock options. As a result, Grainge’s annual salary will be reduced by more than two-thirds from his current salary, down to $5 million. He will be eligible for an annual bonus with a target of $10 million. The EBITA bonus from his previous contract has been eliminated, and he will only be entitled to the contingent bonus under his prior agreement on a pro rata basis until Friday (March 31).
The equity components of the compensation program include annual grants of $20 million, comprised of as much as 50% performance share units (PSUs), with annual PSU goals set by the board of directors; the remainder will be comprised of restricted share units (RSUs). Grainge will also receive a one-time transition equity award of $100 million, comprised of 50% RSUs and 50% performance stock options (PSOs). The PSOs will be paid out only if the company surpasses stock price hurdles — 1/3rd at 26.50 euros ($28.90), another 1/3rd at 30.00 euros ($32.71) and 1/3rd at 38.00 euros ($41.44) — within the term of the agreement.
UMG went public in September 2021 with a listing on the Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
“UMG is the world´s most successful music company and there are incredible opportunities ahead for a company with the right leadership and vision,” said UMG chairman of the board Sherry Lansing in a statement. “The UMG Board is resolutely committed to converting those opportunities and maximizing shareholder value for the long term. Only the right kind of chief executive can help achieve that goal and Lucian is just the one to do it. Through his clear vision and strong execution in building UMG into the industry leader, Lucian has also essentially created a new category of music company. This agreement is designed to drive both the sustainable success of UMG and long-term shareholder value.”
To align Grainge’s term as executive director and chairman/CEO with the term of the extended contract, the board will put forth a proposal to reappoint him as executive director for a term ending on May 1, 2028, at UMG’s 2023 general meeting on May 11; it will also seek approval for a supplement to UMG’s existing executive directors remuneration policy with respect to his new compensation.
Grainge got his start in the music publishing business in 1979 at age 18. He joined Universal Music in 1986 when he launched PolyGram Music Publishing in the U.K. and steadily climbed the ladder from there, rising to chairman/CEO of UMG’s international division in 2005 and chairman/CEO of UMG in 2011, succeeding Doug Morris. He placed atop this year’s Billboard‘s Power 100, marking his seventh appearance at No. 1 on the list; in 2020, he was named Billboard‘s executive of the decade.
In 2022, UMG’s overall revenues increased 21.6% to 10.34 billion euros ($10.96 billion), boosted by solid returns from recorded music subscriptions and streaming. It remains far and away the largest recorded music company by market share.
A founding member of the 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees was enmeshed in political conspiracies involving millions of dollars in foreign money under two different U.S. presidents, federal prosecutors said as his trial got underway with opening statements Thursday (March 30).
Prakazrel “Pras” Michel is accused of funneling money from a fugitive Malaysian financer through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Five years later, prosecutors say he tried to squelch an investigation into the financier and persuade then-President Donald Trump’s administration to return to China a “vocal critic of the government.”
“This is a case about foreign money, foreign influence and concealment,” said prosecutor Nicole Rae Lockhart. Michel pocketed over $100 million in the saga involving “political intrigue, backroom dealing … burner phones and lies,” she said.
Michel’s lawyers have previously said he is innocent and “extremely disappointed” in the charges, but the defense decided to wait to give its opening statement in the trial that’s expected to last weeks.
The Department of Justice says Michel conspired with Low Taek Jho, usually known as Jho Low. The fugitive financier is accused of masterminding a money-laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered billions from the Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB.
Looted money paid for jewelry and luxury art and helped finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street.
Low was once known for his business and social ties to American celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio, a possible witness in the case. During the 2012 presidential campaign, prosecutors allege Low directed more than $20 million to Michel, who concealed its origin by giving the money to straw donors to give to the Obama campaign. He later tried to lean on the donors to keep them from talking to investigators, Lockhart said.
In 2017, prosecutors say, the Grammy-winning rapper worked with a Republican “fixer” to try and shut down a U.S. investigation into Low and embezzlement from the Malaysian fund. He’s also accused of pushing the Trump administration to send a Chinese person who had fled to the U.S. back to China.
“It almost worked,” Lockhart said. “The defendant wanted money and was willing to break any laws necessary to get paid.”
The Justice Department last year announced charges against Low and two former Goldman Sachs bankers in the money laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered money from the fund, which was created to spur economic development projects in Malaysia. Low is a fugitive but has maintained his innocence.
One of the bankers, Roger Ng, was sentenced to 10 years in prison this month for his role in the scheme.
Warner Chappell Music has renewed its publishing agreement with Grammy-winning producer MAG, a frequent collaborator of Bad Bunny. In 2022, MAG earned the No. 5 spot on Billboard’s all-genre Year-End Hot 100 Producers chart.
Australian musician Tash Sultana has renewed their publishing agreement with Kobalt. Sultana’s working relationship with Kobalt began in 2017, and the new deal will see Kobalt acting as Sultana’s publishing administrator, including global sync and creative services for future songs.
Wise Music Group has signed a co-publishing deal with influential Indian composer Ravi Shankar. The music company has also acquired Shankar’s archives, including many unreleased recordings and control of his record label East Meets West Music.
Position Music has launched a joint venture with Big Noise Music. Their partnership begins with first signee John “Feldy” Feldmann, a Grammy-nominated producer and songwriter best known for his work with Avicii, Blink-182, 5 Seconds of Summer, Panic at the Disco! and more. Position Music will also now represent Big Noise Music’s publishing catalog for synchronization, including Mod Sun, The Used, The Wrecks, The Veronicas, girlfriends, Goldfinger, Escape the Fate, Arrested Youth among others.
Music rights investment company MusicBird has announced the new acquisition of Midge Ure‘s catalog. MusicBird now owns the writer’s share of publishing plus master recording and neighboring rights income on over 300 songs across his solo career as well as his work with Ultravox, Visage and more.
Jimmy Robbins has signed a worldwide publishing deal with Boom Music Group in partnership with Cinq Music Group. Robbins already 10 No. 1 songs under his belt as a songwriter, including hits with Kelsea Ballerini, Kenny Chesney, Maren Morris, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert and more.
SILO: Music hosted its first Pop & Industry event MIND THE GAP on March 23rd in Los Angeles. The event featured performances from SILO: Music artists like Dan Caplen, Drew Love, Bernhoft, Kelsy Karter (who filled in for Paloma Faith) and Thutmose, who both performed songs curated by the music company for sync use.
IMPF has added Vistex, a company which offers a system to capture all contracts, metadata and royalty activity in a single place, to its “Friends and Supporters” category. Launched in 2021, this category was aimed at commercial companies that work to create transparency with the independent music publishing community worldwide.
Salt, a company which built a high-tech SaaS platform for processing and distributing rights holder royalties, has inked a 10-year deal with Dutch music society BumaStemra. Along with the announcement of the decade-long agreement, Salt has also announced its acquisition of Session, an app which “supports music creators from idea to release,” and has added ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus, who co-founded Session, to Salt’s board of directors.
Concord Music Publishing has signed Colony House vocalist Caleb Chapman to handle publishing for his future works worldwide.
Songtradr has completed its acquisition of U.K. digital music company 7digital, the company announced on Thursday (March 30).
When the deal was first announced on Feb. 8 prior to being finalized, 7digital said it planned to accept a bid worth 19.4 million pounds ($23.4 million), with its shareholders set to receive 0.695 pence ($0.84) per share in cash, a 114% premium over the prior day’s closing price.
Songtradr is a music licensing marketplace and distribution platform that matches rights holders with brands via a searchable database. 7digital offers a range of digital music services for businesses, including licensing, tracking, reporting and paying rights holders. It has integrated with over 300,000 labels and publishers and boasts a catalog of over 80 million tracks.
In a release, Songtradr states that the acquisition “solidifies” it “as a key leader in the business-to-business music industry, establishing the company as the only one-stop music solution for digital platforms and brands worldwide.” Among other benefits, Songtradr says the acquisition will expand its ability “to power user experiences” on digital platforms including social media, lifestyle apps and video games while “extending its reach into new markets” — all thanks to 7digital’s “highly scalable” music delivery platform and “comprehensive” music catalog. 7digital’s list of clients includes global brands like Pinterest, Barry’s and Triller.
In a statement, Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire said the 7digital acquisition will help it achieve its goal “to remove the friction and help deliver scalable solutions for the music industry while simplifying music use for enterprise brands and digital platforms.”
Added 7digital CEO Paul Langworthy, “Together, we will have an unparalleled combination of catalog, technology, and capabilities, allowing us to better serve our current clients and offer new enterprise clients an exceptional range of data, services, and opportunities.”
Since the company’s launch in 2014, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Songtradr has raised over $100 million to build a company focused on solving many of the inefficiencies in music licensing. It acquired AI metadata and music search company Musicube in 2022, music licensing agency Massive Music in 2021 and licensing agency Big Synch Music in 2019. In 2021, Songtradr established a global creative division headed up by industry veteran Amanda Schupf. The company currently has teams in 16 countries.
As announced last month, Langworthy and the rest of 7digital’s senior leadership team will join Songtradr, though interim chairman Mark Foster, CFO Michael Juskiewicz and all nonexecutive directors will step down. Songtradr will also repay 7digital’s £2 million ($2.14 million) revolving credit facility as well as two £500,000 ($536,000) loans. The company will continue operating 7digital’s London office for now.
The acquisition by Songtradr closes out an unstable period for 7digital, which in July 2019 faced the possibility of entering administration — or the U.K. equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy — unless it managed to raise £4.5 million ($5.5 million) in additional funds by the end of that month.
New Warner Music Group (WMG) CEO Robert Kyncl didn’t take much time to make an imprint on the company. On Wednesday (March 29), fewer than three months into Kyncl’s tenure, WMG announced it would lay off 270 employees, or 4% of its workforce.
The layoffs will save the company $22 million in fiscal year 2023 ending Sept. 30, 2023, and “$50 million on an annualized run-rate basis in fiscal year 2024,” according to an SEC filing released Wednesday. That’s equal to 4.2% of WMG’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2022.
Like many other companies, WMG is becoming more mindful of its resources as the music industry tries to extend an eight-year growth spurt. Prior to announcing the layoffs, WMG said a “financial transformation program,” to roll out in fiscal 2024, is expected to produce annual savings of “$35 million to $40 million once fully implemented,” CFO Eric Levin said on the company’s Feb. 9 earnings call. Universal Music Group’s Motown Records announced layoffs in February as the label was reintegrated under Capitol Music Group. Downtown Music Holdings, Spotify and SoundCloud have also reduced their headcounts in recent months.
WMG had “to make some hard choices in order to evolve” and position the company for “long-term success,” Kyncl wrote in a memo to employees. The cuts were thoughtful and purposeful, he added, not a “blanket cost-cutting exercise.” The layoffs “should be substantially completed by the end of the next fiscal quarter” ending June 30 and will result in cash expenditures of about $46 million by the end of fiscal 2024, according to the filing.
News of WMG’s layoffs didn’t sway investors, however. WMG’s share price rose just 0.6% to $32.63 on Wednesday despite the restructuring’s ability to improve its bottom line. Year-to-date, WMG’s share price has fallen 6.8% while overall stocks have broadly rebounded from a dismal 2022. The S&P 500 is up 4.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite is up 13.9%. The New York Stock Exchange composite is down 0.4%.
While WMG will reduce headcount in some areas, the company is also building for the future — with an eye on tech. Kyncl, who quickly hired ex-YouTube executive Ariel Bardin for the newly created role of president of technology, said in his memo that WMG would be “reallocating resources towards new skills for artist and songwriter development and new tech initiatives.”
WMG expects to expand its gross margin by 50 to 100 basis points — equal to one-half to one percentage point — in fiscal year 2023. Aside from cost cuts, the nature of the changing music business helps the bottom line. WMG’s margins improve as it sells less of “margin-declining” physical product and “high-margin growing” digital business accounts for a larger share of its total revenue, Levin said at the Deutsche Bank 31st Annual Media, Internet & Telecom Conference on Feb. 28.
“We still see solid margin growth in 2023” despite declining ad-supported streaming revenues, Levin added. “When we see ad-supported start to stabilize and hopefully rebound and grow, it may create an environment for very favorable margins.”