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Sony Music warned tech companies not to mine its recordings, compositions, lyrics and more “for any purposes, including in relation to training, developing, or commercializing any [artificial intelligence] system,” in a declaration published on the company’s website on Thursday (May 16).
In addition, according to a letter obtained by Billboard, Sony Music is in the process of reaching out to hundreds of companies developing generative AI tech, as well as streaming services, to drive home this message directly.
The pointed letter notes that “unauthorized use of SMG Content in the training, development or commercialization of AI systems deprives SMG Companies and SMG Talent of control over and appropriate compensation for the uses of SMG Content, conflicts with the normal exploitation of those works, unreasonably prejudices our legitimate interests, and infringes our intellectual property and other rights.”
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GenAI models require “training” — “a computational process of deconstructing existing works for the purpose of modeling mathematically how [they] work,” as Google explained last year in comments to the U.S. Copyright Office in October. “By taking existing works apart, the algorithm develops a capacity to infer how new ones should be put together.” Through inference, these models eventually can generate credible-sounding hip-hop beats, for example.
Whether a company needs permission before undertaking the training process on copyrighted works is already the subject of a fierce debate, leading to lawsuits in several industries. In October, Universal Music Group (UMG) was among the music companies that sued AI startup Anthropic, alleging that “in the process of building and operating AI models, [the company] unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works.”
Although these cases will likely set precedent for AI training practices in the U.S., the courts typically move at a glacial pace. In the meantime, some technology companies seem set on training their genAI tools on large troves of recordings without permission.
“Based on recent Copyright Office filings it is clear that the technology industry and speculative financial investors would like governments to believe in a very distorted view of copyright,” Dennis Kooker, Sony Music’s president of global digital business, said during the Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum in Washington, D.C. in November. “One in which music is considered fair use for training purposes and in which certain companies are permitted to appropriate the entire value produced by the creative sector without permission, and to build huge businesses based on it without paying anything to the creators concerned.”
While Kooker was adamant during his testimony that training for genAI music tools “cannot be without consent, credit and compensation to the artists and rightsholders,” he also pointed out that Sony has “roughly 200 active conversations taking place with start-ups and established players about building new products and developing new tools.”
“These discussions range from tools for creative or marketing assistance, to tools that potentially give us the ability to better protect artist content or find it when used in an unauthorized fashion, to brand new products that have never been launched before,” he continued.
Sony’s letter to genAI companies this week ended on a similar note: “We invite you to engage with us and the music industry stakeholders we represent to explore how your AI Act copyright policy may be developed in a manner that ensures our and SMG Talent’s rights are respected.”
In what could be the largest valuation ever of a musician’s music assets, Sony Music Group has closed an agreement to buy half of Michael Jackson‘s publishing and recorded masters catalog in a deal that sources say valued those music assets somewhere above $1.2 billion. Other sources have suggested it might be as much as $1.5 billion. At those valuations, Sony will pay at least $600 million for its stake of the legendary rights.
That means that the Jackson deal, which closed late last year, is at a bigger valuation than the $1.2 billion that Queen is currently seeking. And whereas the Queen valuation includes, sources say, royalties from income streams beyond the masters and publishing, including from the Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, and theatrical productions using Queen’s music, Sony’s deal with the Michael Jackson estate does not include royalties from the Broadway play and other theatrical productions featuring Jackson’s music.
It may not, however, just be Jackson’s music that’s involved in the deal. Sources say the current deal includes non-Jackson-authored songs in his Mijac publishing catalog, which also includes the approximately 250-song Sly & the Family Stone publishing catalog as well as iconic songs written and/or performed by Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Curtis Mayfield, Ray Charles, Percy Sledge and Dion.
Last February, following a story first reported by Variety that the Jackson deal was being negotiated, Billboard estimated that the iconic artist’s estate earns about $75 million annually. Those assets include ownership of master recordings, publishing for Jackson’s share of his songs, his Mijac publishing catalog and revenue from merchandise and royalties from theatrical shows featuring Jackson’s music. At the time, Billboard estimated that within the $75 million estimate, Jackson’s recording and publishing assets alone brought in $47.2 million to the estate; and that Mijac might be bringing in another $5 million to $8 million annually.
The Jackson estimate, however, did not take into account that his popularity appears to be growing as the streaming marketplace expands.
Sales and streams of Jackson’s music grew steadily from 1.07 million album equivalent units in 2020 to 1.47 million in 2023 — up 37% over those three years — according to Luminate. That outpaced the overall U.S. music market for album consumption units, which grew 22.9% during that time period. Outside the United States, Jackson is arguably even more popular. In 2023, consumption of his music grew 38.3% to 6.5 billion on-demand streams, up from 4.7 billion streams in 2021.
Next year, a Jackson biopic called Michael will be released, likely fueling even more growth to his fanbase, boosting consumption and triggering more revenue to flow to his estate and any other rights holder.
With all of the economic returns the estate is delivering, the masterminds behind it — lawyer John Branca and A&R executive John McClain — are expected to continue to stay involved as co-executors.
Sources indicate that the Sony deal also leaves in place Primary Wave’s stake, which is believed to be about 10% of Jackson’s publishing assets.
Throughout the years, Sony has paid the Jackson estate more than $2 billion in some major deals that go beyond distributing royalties for his records and songs. In 1991, the company paid $100 million to buy the first half of what became Sony/ATV; ATV Music was the catalog that Jackson bought in 1985 that contained the Beatles catalog and other popular songs. That was merged into Sony’s music publishing operation to become Sony/ATV, with Sony and Jackson each owning 50% of that company. In 2016, the company paid $750 million for the remaining 50% of Sony/ATV. It also paid $287.5 million for the Jackson estate’s share of the consortium that owned EMI Music Publishing in 2018, as well as dividends during its ownership of those assets that came out to a total of about $1.6 billion. And now, the latest deal adds another $600 million or more, driving the total amount past the $2 billion mark.
Sony has been active with acquisitions over the past year. Last year, it also acquired what has been described as a significant minority stake in the Latin label and management company Rimas Entertainment, which launched Bad Bunny‘s career. While it’s unclear what percentage Sony bought, the overall deal for the label and management was expected to have about a $300 million valuation, sources said at the time.
In May 2023, Sony also acquired the RECORDS catalog from Barry Weiss, Ron Perry and Matt Pincus, buying out the latter duo in a deal that was seeking a $100 million valuation; and then did a going forward 50/50 deal with Weiss, who retained control of the label’s recent catalog.
Reps for Sony, the Jackson estate and Primary Wave declined to comment.
Artist development isn’t dead, but it sure has changed. Two decades ago, a 20-something jazz musician named Norah Jones became a breakout star for Blue Note Records, a traditional route to stardom when people still bought CDs and social media didn’t exist. Last year’s breakout jazz artist, Laufey, cultivated a fan base on TikTok and posts sheet music for her songs online so fans can download it before the recordings come out.
To AWAL CEO Lonny Olinick, Laufey’s success is a sign of the times. The Icelandic singer built an online following by herself, but she needed a team to develop her career and handle marketing and promotion logistics. Her second AWAL album, Bewitched, topped Billboard’s Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums charts in September. “We’re seeing this real inflection point where artists are starting to, with their own teams and then between the team and AWAL, realize that there are no barriers in what can be achieved,” says Olinick, who earned an MBA from Stanford Business School and worked at consulting firm Bain & Company before joining Kobalt in 2016.
Artists such as JVKE, whose “Golden Hour” reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022, and Mercury Prize winner Little Simz have used AWAL to find success outside of the major-label system. AWAL’s services-focused approach is becoming the norm as major labels increasingly provide distribution, marketing, promotion, accounting and even financing without needing to own the rights to artists’ recordings as part of standard deals. Sony Music acquired AWAL in 2022 to complement its labels and its distribution business, The Orchard. Universal Music Group is also building its own artist services business, through a revamped Virgin Label Group.
A pingpong table that Olinick says “we have artists sign when they’re in the L.A. office.”
Maggie Shannon
Paradoxically, services-based music companies still have to do many of the same things as traditional labels — just with different deals. Only recently, Olinick says, has the 16-year-old company truly met that challenge. “Last year and the year before were probably the first years where we fully realized that vision, where I’m confident that we can do all of the things that exist in the traditional world.”
Most people in the music industry understand record labels and distributors, but services-based companies are a bit harder to get. How would you describe AWAL to the uninitiated?
The most important part of music in my mind is artist development. You try to find artists who have great music, compelling stories and a work ethic and try to help them forge their own path. And throughout history, the best artists have been artists who don’t fit in a box, and the path that they take is completely bespoke. And you can’t do it again the same way. What we’ve tried to do is build a company that’s the best in the world at doing that — at finding outlier artists who have great stories to tell and helping them grow. You need a great marketing team, a great digital marketing team, radio, synch and branding — all the things that exist in the traditional world. What we’ve tried to do is build a company that can do all those things, just with a different business model to keep the economics in favor of the artist.
You don’t have an everyone’s-welcome model — you choose who you want to work with. How do you do that?
We’re very opinionated about music. It’s really important as a company to have that creative, A&R-driven aesthetic. There’s three dimensions to it in my mind. There’s the music: Does the music speak to people? Two, is there a story to be told, and does this person want to communicate something beyond just the music that’s interesting and compelling? And three, does the person have a work ethic? Being successful in music requires relentlessly hard work on all sides.
“I love art of all types and take a lot of inspiration from culture,” Olinick says. “These books cover amazing music, art and sneaker culture.”
Maggie Shannon
Tell me about the staff on the creative side, as well as the administrative one.
We do everything, but the majority of our staff is focused on A&R, marketing and creative. That’s where we think we can be different and where we can help our artists tell stories. There’s 180 people across 14 offices. It’s run as a global company. If we find a record in Sweden, the U.S. company can jump on it, or the U.K. company or the Canadian one. Everyone is working collaboratively to try to do the best they can for the artist. And in each of those offices, we have traditional marketing, digital marketing, synch, brand partnerships, publicity — we basically do everything that an artist needs largely in-house. And then to the extent that we feel like we need something beyond what our 180 people can do, we will partner.
What’s the financial commitment when you work with an artist? Are you always writing a check?
It depends. Some of the deals are unfunded. We’re fortunate to be a part of Sony, so if it makes sense and we believe in the opportunity, there’s no check we couldn’t write if it made sense. But each deal is bespoke for the artist. We try to put as much money into marketing as we possibly can because we believe that that’s the thing we can do that hopefully makes a difference.
This “thing with eyes is something my son made for me,” Olinick says. The feeling of being watched “keeps me motivated every day. The small trophy is from our office awards for ‘Person on the Phone the Most.’ I take great pride in that.”
Maggie Shannon
Sony acquired AWAL in 2022 and it already owned The Orchard. How do the two work together?
The whole Sony ecosystem makes a ton of sense, and AWAL and The Orchard are great examples of that. The Orchard is best in class at supporting record companies. And if you look at the scale at which they operate, and the quality of what they do on behalf of labels, there’s just no one who’s doing that kind of work. It’s an incredible team led by Brad [Navin] and Colleen [Theis], who are just incredible executives. I look at us in a very similar way: the best at doing artist development in this nontraditional way. Being able to work together on tools and distribution is a great advantage for our clients and for The Orchard’s clients.
Some artists have gone from majors or big indies to AWAL, including Nick Cave, Cold War Kids and Jungle. Have some artists gone from AWAL to majors?
Our job is to develop the best artists in the world. And I think if we do that — especially if we do that at any scale — there’s going to be certain artists where the deal offered by a major is really compelling. Early on, we saw a lot more artists who would migrate and go do another deal. We developed Steve Lacy, Omar Apollo and Kim Petras — artists who have gone on and had real success at majors.
“The Marshall cabinet is actually a refrigerator,” Olinick says. “My office tends to have items from our artists, but the exception is that Beatles collectible — I don’t have anything to do with The Beatles, but it reminds me to aspire to work with the greatest artists.”
Maggie Shannon
You’ve had some time to integrate into Sony. How has being part of this larger company changed your life as a CEO?
Anytime you go into these things you have aspirations for what it will be. At the same time, [merger and acquisition] deals tend not to be what you expected them to be. People think that I’m sometimes saying the company line, and it couldn’t be further from the truth: The experience has been phenomenal. That comes down to two dimensions. Rob [Stringer, Sony Music CEO] is just an incredible music executive who comes from an A&R perspective. Being a part of a company where he sets the tone that music is at the center of everything you do has made us a better company. And because of that, it has basically been, “Here’s all these resources that Sony has that you can take advantage of, but continue to run the company the way you have because we’ve had tons of success doing it.” It has all been additive.We have more resources to invest. We have better technology. We can partner with Sony in certain markets where it makes sense. We’re out there building local businesses in Spain, Brazil, Nigeria and India. The Sony team has been incredibly supportive. Everyone sees that this is a meaningful part of the business and because AWAL is so music-centered and so is Sony, there’s just a lot of mutual respect and collaboration. It has been nothing short of reenergizing in an already energized business.
The music business is undergoing some contraction with layoffs and consolidation. Do you foresee laying people off, or are you hiring?
We’re actively hiring. We hired a head of hip-hop and R&B last year in Norva Denton. We hired a senior vp of A&R in Chris [Foitel]. We hired Cami [Operé], who’s our publicist. We just hired a new CFO [Sumit Chatterjee]. We’ve hired in Spain, Brazil and Nigeria. We bought a company in India [digital distribution firm OKListen]. So, we’re actively in the market because the business continues to grow. We had our best year last year; we’ll have our best year this year.
Lyor Cohen’s first encounter with Google’s generative artificial intelligence left him gobsmacked. “Demis [Hassabis, CEO of Google Deepmind] and his team presented a research project around genAI and music and my head came off of my shoulders,” Cohen, global head of music for Google and YouTube, told Billboard in November. “I walked around London for two days excited about the possibilities, thinking about all the issues and recognizing that genAI in music is here — it’s not around the corner.”
While some of the major labels are touting YouTube as an important partner in the evolving world of music and AI, not everyone in the music industry has been as enthusiastic about these new efforts. That’s because Google trained its model on a large set of music — including copyrighted major-label recordings — and then went to show it to rights holders, rather than asking permission first, according to four sources with knowledge of the search giant’s push into generative AI and music. That could mean artists “opting out” of such AI training — a key condition for many rights holders — is not an option.
YouTube did make sure to sign one-off licenses with some parties before rolling out a beta version of its new genAI “experiment” in November. Dream Track, the only AI product it has released publicly so far, allows select YouTube creators to soundtrack clips on Shorts with pieces of music, based on text prompts, that can include replicas of famous artists’ voices. (A handful of major-label acts participated, including Demi Lovato and Charli XCX.) “Our superpower was our deep collaboration with the music industry,” Cohen said at the time. But negotiations that many in the business see as precedent-setting for broader, labelwide licensing deals have dragged on for months.
Negotiating with a company as massive as YouTube was made harder because it had already taken what it wanted, according to multiple sources familiar with the company’s label talks. Meanwhile, other AI companies continue to move ahead with their own music products, adding pressure on YouTube to keep progressing its technology.
In a statement, a YouTube representative said, “We remain committed to working collaboratively with our partners across the music industry to develop AI responsibly and in a way that rewards participants with long-term opportunities for monetization, controls and attribution for potential genAI tools and content down the road,” declining to get specific about licenses.
GenAI models require training before they can start generating properly. “AI training is a computational process of deconstructing existing works for the purpose of modeling mathematically how [they] work,” Google explained in comments to the U.S. Copyright Office in October. “By taking existing works apart, the algorithm develops a capacity to infer how new ones should be put together.”
Whether a company needs permission before undertaking this process on copyrighted works is already the subject of several lawsuits, including Getty Images v. Stability AI and the Authors Guild v. OpenAI. In October, Universal Music Group (UMG) was among the companies that sued AI startup Anthropic, alleging that “in the process of building and operating AI models, [the company] unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works.”
As these cases proceed, they are expected to set precedent for AI training — but that could take years. In the meantime, many technology companies seem set on adhering to the Silicon Valley rallying call of “move fast and break things.”
While rights holders decry what they call copyright infringement, tech companies argue their activities fall under “fair use” — the U.S. legal doctrine that allows for the unlicensed use of copyrighted works in certain situations. News reporting and criticism are the most common examples, but recording a TV show to watch later, parody and other uses are also covered.
“A diverse array of cases supports the proposition that copying of a copyrighted work as an intermediate step to create a noninfringing output can constitute fair use,” Anthropic wrote in its own comments to the U.S. Copyright Office. “Innovation in AI fundamentally depends on the ability of [large language models] to learn in the computational sense from the widest possible variety of publicly available material,” Google said in its comments.
“When you think of generative AI, you mostly think of the companies taking that very modern approach — Google, OpenAI — with state-of-the-art models that need a lot of data,” says Ed Newton-Rex, who resigned as Stability AI’s vp of audio in November because the company was training on copyrighted works. “In that community, where you need a huge amount of data, you don’t see many people talking about the concerns of rights holders.”
When Dennis Kooker, president of global digital business and U.S. sales for Sony Music Entertainment, spoke at a Senate forum on AI in November, he rejected the fair use argument. “If a generative AI model is trained on music for the purpose of creating new musical works that compete in the music market, then the training is not a fair use,” Kooker said. “Training in that case, cannot be without consent, credit and compensation to the artists and rights holders.”
UMG and other music companies took a similar stance in their lawsuit against Anthropic, warning that AI firms should not be “excused from complying with copyright law” simply because they claim they’ll “facilitate immense value to society.”
“Undisputedly, Anthropic will be a more valuable company if it can avoid paying for the content on which it admittedly relies,” UMG wrote at the time. “But that should hardly compel the court to provide it a get-out-of-jail-free card for its wholesale theft of copyrighted content.”
In this climate, bringing the major labels on board as Google and YouTube did last year with Dream Track — after training the model, but before releasing it — may well be a step forward from the music industry’s perspective. At least it’s better than nothing: Google infamously started scanning massive numbers of books in 2004 without asking permission from copyright holders to create what is now known as Google Books. The Authors Guild sued, accusing Google of violating copyright, but the suit was eventually dismissed — almost a decade later in 2013.
While AI-related bills supported by the music business have already been proposed in Congress, for now the two sides are shouting past each other. Newton-Rex summarized the different mindsets succinctly: “What we in the AI world think of as ‘training data’ is what the rest of the world has thought of for a long time as creative output.”
Additional reporting by Bill Donahue.
Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference starting tomorrow (Nov. 3) in Dubai, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group have announced the creation of the Music Industry Climate Collective (MICC). This alliance will work to address the challenges and changes in the global climate and how they relate to the music industry.
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The MICC’s first initiative will be offering comprehensive sectoral guidance for measuring scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, defined as “emissions that are not produced by the company itself and are not the result of activities from assets owned or controlled by them, but by those that it’s indirectly responsible for up and down its value chain.”
For the music sector, the vast majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are in scope 3.
MICC’s members have already worked with scientific experts on their first draft of the sectoral guidance, which will be made available to industry participants. MICC’s members have also initiated calls for wider industry input through an advisory council composed of independent record labels, value chain partners, and climate experts. The guidance will be further developed through an inclusive, multi-stakeholder process.
The American Association of Independent Music, a non-profit trade organization representing more than 600 independently owned U.S. record labels, will serve as an advisor to the MICC. A2IM will assist in myriad ways, initially with recommendations on how best to include small-to-medium-sized businesses in this initiative.
“This initiative demonstrates what can be achieved when music leaders come together with a shared vision and commitment to sustainability,” the MICC’s founding members say in a group statement. “We are proud to collaborate to amplify environmental stewardship and offer practical recommendations and strategies tailored to the unique needs of music companies, regardless of their size or scale of operations.
“Together, we must continue to make progress on this vital priority,” the statement continues. “We welcome all to join us in reducing our industry’s carbon footprint by working together to ensure an environmentally responsible future for music and our planet.”
2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record, with many concerts and festivals affected by climate change since the start of the year.
Sony Music Entertainment’s revenue rose 16% to 358.2 billion yen ($2.5 billion) last quarter, as hit records by SZA, Miley Cyrus and Harry Styles helped boost growth in both recorded music and music publishing.
For the fiscal quarter ended June 30, SME reported quarterly operating income of 73 billion yen ($510 million), a 20% rise on the same period a year ago. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were up 11% year-on-year, totaling 83 billion yen ($580 million).
The company said growth in streaming subscription revenues and the impact of foreign exchange rates were among the key drivers of its positive quarterly financial results. SME said it also benefitted from a 6 billion yen ($41 million) operating income boost from the completed acquisition of an unnamed company.
SZA’s SOS, Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation and Harry Styles’ Harry’s House were among the company’s top performing titles of the quarter. SME also named Luke Combs’ Gettin’ Old, the 10th anniversary reissue of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, Foo Fighters’ But Here We Are and Beyonce’s Renaissance among its 10 best-selling releases in the first three months of the current financial year.
On the back of those sales, Sony Music’s recorded music division’s revenues rose 19% to 237.7 billion yen ($1.6 billion), with streaming revenue growing by almost 19% to 164.8 billion yen ($1.1 billion), accounting for 69% of total recorded music revenue.
Physical sales fell 2.4% year-on-year to 24.9 billion yen ($174 million) and accounted for just over 10% of the quarter’s recorded music revenue. Download sales rose slightly to 7.7 billion yen ($53 million), up around 2% compared to the same quarter a year prior.
License revenue, including public performance, broadcast and sync sales, coupled with merchandising and live performance income, brought in an additional 40.1 billion yen ($280 million) to Sony’s recorded music division.
On the publishing side, revenues increased 19% year-on-year to 75.1 billion yen ($524 million). Within publishing, streaming sales rose 24% to 41.6 billion yen ($290 million), while other publishing income totaled 33.5 billion yen ($234 million).
Revenues from the company’s residual media and platform business, which represents less than 10% of SME’s operating income and includes animation titles and game applications, was more-or-less flat as the same period last year at 42.8 billion yen ($299 million). That total was, however, down 16% when compared to the previous quarter’s 53.4 billion yen ($372 million).
Looking ahead, Sony Music Entertainment raised its forecast for full-year revenue by 6% to 1.49 trillion yen (approximately $10 billion) with a projected operating income of 280 billion yen (approximately $1.9 billion).
A move by Barry Weiss to reconfigure ownership over his RECORDS label has resulted in deal that buys out his former partners with a new going-forward joint venture directly between him and Sony Music, sources say.
Weiss — the former Jive/Zomba impresario — launched RECORDS in 2015 with his then-partners at the SONGS publishing firm, Matt Pincus and Ron Perry, and in 2017 they soon entered into a joint venture with Sony Music for the label. That deal was renewed for another three years in 2020, but with that arrangement coming to term Weiss and his original partners recently hired Artisan’s Brian Richards to selectivity shop for a new equity partner. The original 2017 deal, sources say, had a buy/sell mechanism in place that when it expired, either partner — Sony or the original RECORDS founders — could chose to buy out the other partner. While that mechanism never officially kicked in, sources say that if Sony decided to trigger the buy/sell option, Weiss and his partners apparently wanted to be prepared.
By the end of 2022, sources say, RECORDS was generating about $20 million in annual revenue and the original partners were seeking a valuation above $100 million. The label’s roster and catalog includes music from 24K Goldn and Noah Cyrus, who each have racked up over 1 million album consumption units in the U.S.; rapper Nelly’s 2021 country-crossover album Heartland, which is approaching 600,000 album consumption units in the U.S.; and the Labrinth-Sia-Diplo collaboration LSD and Stella Lennon, who are each approaching 500,000 album consumption units in the U.S.
As part of the deal, Sony now owns outright that part of the RECORDS catalog and all of its other masters from the original joint venture, although Weiss and his team will continue to work those records. Meanwhile, the recent singings that sources say are likely part of the new joint venture owned collectively by Sony and Weiss, include Matt Stell, who has scored two No. 1 records at country radio — the double platinum “Prayed For You” and the platinum “Everywhere But On”; former Band Perry member Kimberly Perry, whose “If I Die Young Pt. 2,” is just hitting country radio; and iCandy, whose “Keep-Dat-N—a” has become a TikTok hit.
As one source puts it, “while RECORDS may have been slow-going at the start, Weiss did a really nice job of building up the label and creating a valuable business.”
The search for a new equity partner received a number of interested offers from suitors that were said to be in the ballpark of the asking price. But it turned out that Sony — which sources say also had matching rights — came up with the most attractive offer and a deal was struck, one that had the added advantage of likely being the easiest deal to make since Sony was already familiar with the label.
In the original joint-venture deal with Sony from 2017, the major became RECORDS’ majority owner with a stake slightly over 50%. Of the remaining stake, sources say Weiss had the largest remaining equity piece, around 25% to 30%. Perry had the second largest stake, while Pincus — who originally had the largest stake at the label’s founding — had been left with the smallest slice of equity.
The new deal, according to sources, sees a 50/50 partnership between Sony and Weiss, with Pincus and Perry bought out completely from RECORDS as they received their second payday from selling a stake in the label to Sony. Moreover, even Weiss received a payday by cashing out his stake in the original joint venture, besides the new joint-venture deal, those same sources say.
While Pincus and Perry are no longer owners in RECORDS, Perry is chairman and CEO of Columbia Records, the distributing label for many of the releases from RECORDS, so he will still be involved in the label he helped found.
In the last six months, this marks the third deal involving music assets in the Sony Music Group orbit that were or are up for sale, either wholly or in partially, where the company has moved aggressively to keep — or try to keep — the music assets under its umbrella.
Two other deals that are likely still up in the air but close to fruition involve Rimas Entertainment and the Michael Jackson Estate. In the former situation, Sony is helping Noah Assad to buy out his partner in another deal that will rejigger the ownership structure of that company; while in the latter deal, Sony is negotiating to purchase outright the Jackson estate but the executors want to keep their hand in running that operation, according to sources. No formal announcements have been made for either deal.
Weiss and Pincus didn’t respond to requests for comment, while Sony Music declined to comment.
Sony Music Entertainment and its Certified unit have partnered with Mass Appeal to unveil 50 product releases to commemorate HipHop50 through Legacy Recordings, Record Store Day, Vinyl Me, Please, Get On Down, Mobile Fidelity and Urban Outfitters.
By way of Legacy Recordings, fans will be able to enjoy “new physical configurations, first-time digital releases, and limited-edition vinyl from the genre’s most influential and indelible icons, including Big Pun, Cypress Hill, Nas, OutKast, Q-Tip, RUN D.M.C., Three 6 Mafia, Wu-Tang Clan and more.”
To kick off the celebratory rollout, Nas’ Made You Look: God’s Son Live 2002 will drop on April 22. The exclusive Record Store Day vinyl will highlight Nas’ historic performance at Webster Hall in New York. It’ll also be available to stream the day before. Following that release, on May 12, Run D.M.C.’s 1988 classic Tougher Than Leather will be released on black vinyl on Legacy Recordings to celebrate its 35th anniversary. Then, Nas will have another reason to celebrate as his lauded 2003 effort, The Lost Tapes, will receive a vinyl update on May 26. According to a press release, “Get On Down is releasing Nas’ The Lost Tapes on limited edition double colored-vinyl in a gatefold jacket with numbered OBI limited to 2000 units.”
Last January, SME and Mass Appeal announced their initial partnership. “Sony Music and Mass Appeal will work together to showcase the creative excellence of SME’s dynamic talent and their contributions to music history through original content, experiences, merch and product collaborations in connection with Mass Appeal’s campaign leading up to this key milestone in Hip Hop culture,” said the release.
Allegra Willis Knerr was promoted to executive vp of global synch licensing at BMG, where she will manage the company’s synch licensing teams across the globe. The Los Angeles-based executive was previously senior vp of global synch licensing, a role she was elevated to last year. She’ll continue reporting to BMG chief content officer Dominique Casimir.
Willis Knerr can be reached at Allegra.Willis.knerr@bmg.com.
Dan Wall joined Live Nation Entertainment as executive vp of corporate and regulatory affairs. Wall has been a key advisor to the company for more than 12 years, previously offering guidance as lead outside counsel as a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins.
Kok-Siew Yeo was named managing director of Warner Music Taiwan. He will oversee Warner Music’s operation in Taiwan and work to strengthen the company’s position as an important player in the global Mandopop industry. Kok-Siew joins the company from Meta, where he served as creator partnerships lead. Based in Taipei, Kok-Siew will report to Warner Music Asia co-presidents Chris Gobalakrishna and Jonathan Serbin.
Vinit Thakkar was named managing director at Sony Music Entertainment in India. He joins the company from Universal Music India, where he served as COO of India and South Asia. (Via afaqs!)
Lou Al-Chamaa was named senior vp/head of A&R publishing at Avex USA. He arrives at the company following six years at Sony Music Publishing, where he served as vp of A&R.
Jennifer Hills and Sarah Desmond were promoted to co-managing directors of Universal Music UK’s brand partnerships and synch division Globe. Both were previously senior vps. Reporting to Hills and Desmond will be Adam Soffe, who is returning to Globe as vp/head of synch, creative, as well as Neil Mulford, who has been promoted to vp/head of synch, licensing.
Vickie Nauman, founder/CEO of music tech consulting company CrossBorderWorks, joined the advisory board of Barcelona-based Web3 music company KLOOV. The company works on digital collectibles, experiences and NFTs.
Nina Musolino joined Page 1 Management as a manager out of the company’s Nashville office. She will work closely with senior director Danielle Middleton in New York as she signs and manages talent. Musolino reports to Page 1 founder and CEO Ashley Page. She was most recently a publisher and artist manager at Forward Music in Nashville. Musolino can be reached at nina@page1management.com.
Jay Cruze was hired as director of Southeast promotion and marketing at Big Machine Records out of Nashville. Cruze succeeds Jeff Davis, who retired last year. He most recently worked at iHeartMedia, where he helped develop and implement national programming for the company’s country platforms. Cruze can be reached at Jay.Cruze@bmlg.net.
Warner Music Group will launch Rhythm City — a “music-themed social roleplay experience” — on the gaming platform Roblox on February 4th.
Not only will Rhythm City host events and shows from Warner’s artists, it will allow users to take on roles like DJ, producer, or dancer as they explore the virtual world and purchase digital items only available on Roblox. Rhythm City was developed in partnership with Gamefam, a metaverse-focused gaming and content company.
Warner is the latest music company to partner with Roblox, which has been around for more than 15 years but exploded in popularity with young users during the pandemic. Sony Music and BMG announced partnerships with Roblox in 2021. Spotify became “the first music-streaming brand to have a presence on Roblox” last year.
Earlier this month, Roblox announced that it had more than 61 million daily active users in December who spent close to 5 billion hours on the platform. It’s no surprise, then, that record companies are eager to find new ways to seed their music to Roblox users.
“Immersive online environments represent a meaningful opportunity for reaching a growing number of fans who want to use virtual communities to enjoy shared music experiences,” Dennis Kooker, Sony Music’s president of global digital business and U.S. sales, said in 2021. When BMG announced its Roblox partnership, Christopher Ludwig, BMG’s vp of global digital partnerships and strategy, noted that the platform “has transformed the gaming experience for millions and is proving a powerful way to introduce new generations to music they love.”
In a statement announcing Rhythm City, Oana Ruxandra, chief digital officer and evp, business development at Warner Music Group, struck a similar tone. “As our lives become increasingly digital, exciting opportunities are opening up for artists and fans to engage and interact,” she said. “WMG is focused on facilitating the foundations of these new experiences by building and experimenting across evolving ecosystems. This partnership with Gamefam sees WMG creating a place for artists and audiences to come together to define and contextualize their communities within living spaces.”
Joe Ferencz, founder and CEO at Gamefam, added that “we are thrilled to have a chance to combine our passion for developing authentic, highly-engaging metaverse content with our love of music.” “WMG has been a brilliant partner in pushing innovative strategies, and together with our expertise, we’ve channeled that into production excellence creating a new community for music lovers in the metaverse,” he continued.
Warner acts, including Twenty One Pilots and David Guetta, have previously hosted virtual concerts on Roblox.
