Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we ensure that you caught the 5 largest tales to hit our headlines over the previous seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their earnings and scale back their touring prices.
The business’s largest information this week was Common Music Group‘s acquisition of European indie powerhouse [PIAS]. The now-former indie’s label companies arm will combine with Virgin Music Group, whereas its labels operation will stay an “autonomous, standalone” entity run by co-founder Kenny Gates.
In the meantime, we have to discuss Despacito.
It’s one of many largest international hits of all time and, by some measures, THE largest Latin Music hit of all time.
In it, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee inform the article of their need they want to “signal the partitions of your labyrinth” (“firmar las paredes de tu laberinto”). Ahem.
In latest weeks Yankee, actual identify Ramón Rodríguez, has been utilizing his autograph for much less lascivious functions: inking a deal to promote Harmony components of his again catalog in a transaction value a whopping USD $217 million.
(It was revealed immediately – October 18 – that Yankee is the thriller Latin artist with whom Harmony struck a $217.3 million deal, as revealed in a latest Kroll report.)
In the meantime, Ok-pop big HYBE had a dramatic week, with file labels reportedly upset over HYBE’s Weverse fan platform planning to take as much as 60% of the proceeds from its new paid subscription memberships.
HYBE additionally scrambled this week to refinance almost $300 million in debt, after collectors requested early compensation of a sequence of convertible bonds.
Elsewhere, the TikTok vs. Merlin fallout rumbled on… as MBW printed some widely-read observations on the fracas and the components behind it.
Lastly, Litmus Music introduced its newest main deal, buying the recorded music and publishing rights of Randy Newman.
Right here’s what occurred this week…
1) KENNY GATES ON [PIAS] SALE: WE HAVE AN AMAZING FUTURE AHEAD… AND F**Ok THE HATERS.
[PIAS], a 42-year-old powerhouse of impartial music in Europe, has been totally acquired by Common Music Group.
By sealing the deal, UMG now owns 100% of [PIAS] Group, having initially acquired 49% of the agency from its co-founders, Kenny Gates and Michael Lambot, in 2022.
Subsequent to the sale, [PIAS]’s label companies arm, [Integral], will merge with Common’s Virgin Music Group, considerably bolstering VMG’s attain, provide chain, and consumer base within the EU, the UK, and past.
Gates will be a part of VMG’s board.
In the meantime, [PIAS]’s owned and related labels operation, the [PIAS] Label Group (PLG), may even turn out to be owned by UMG – however, importantly, it will likely be run as a “utterly autonomous, standalone firm”, led by Gates as its CEO…
It’s not a thriller. The artist in query is Daddy Yankee, the Puerto Rican famous person whose La Última Vuelta World Tourgenerated an estimated USD $198 million in 2022.
Harmony has acquired components of the music publishing and recorded music catalog of the reggaetón star, together with rights to his personal hits together with Rompe, Gasolina, and Con Calma, plus his featured artist function on Despacito.
As well as, the acquisition covers some identify, picture, and likeness (NIL) rights.
Behind the scenes over the previous two years, TikTok has warned Merlin on a number of events that lots of of energetic tracks within the org’s repertoire – i.e. tracks uploaded by its members – have been flagged as copyright-infringing.
To grasp how that is attainable in affiliation with Merlin — a proud participant within the combat towards streaming fraud — one first wants to understand some key background notes.
Merlin’s membership has greater than doubled in measurement over the previous 16 years. There’s a query mark, nevertheless, over the associated fee this growth has imposed on Merlin’s cohesion as a membership group.
Ok-pop big HYBE’s superfan platform Weverse is launching a set of recent higher-priced membership tiers for customers on December 1.
There’s, although, a catch for HYBE’s fellow music rightsholders.
Based on a supply chatting with the Korea Herald, HYBE has instructed companion labels who use Weverse that it will likely be conserving between 30% and 60% of revenues from the brand new membership plan, relying on the tier.
The information comes the identical week as HYBE scrambled to refinance almost $300 million in debt, after present bondholders requested early compensation on a sequence of convertible bonds, a transfer triggered by the corporate’s sliding inventory worth…
Since late 2022, the corporate – backed by Carlyle’s World Credit score Platform – has acquired catalogs from the likes of Benny Blanco, Keith City, and Katy Perry.
Earlier this yr, it emerged that Litmus had splashed a nine-figure sum to accumulate the music asset portfolio of Opus, together with rights to music catalogs from Juice WRLD, Ozuna, Maluma and Rauw Alejandro.
On Thursday (October 17), Litmus introduced its newest main deal: buying Randy Newman’s share of his recorded music and publishing…
MBW’s Weekly Spherical-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their earnings and scale back their touring prices.Music Enterprise Worldwide
