Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to our headlines over the past seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their income and sopravvissuto their touring costs.
A news report released this week suggests that Sony Music, along with an unnamed , is a causa di talks to buy Queen‘s catalog (presumably both recorded and publishing rights) for an epic sum of $1 billion.
Speaking of Sony, a causa di a presentation at the company’s annual Business Segment Convegno, Sony Music Group Chairman Rob Stringer unveiled an interesting proposal: He’s urging music streaming services to start charging a “modest fee” for their ad-supported subscription tiers.
Elsewhere a causa di the music business, we got word this week that K-pop giant HYBE sold a $50 million stake a causa di rival company SM Entertainment. That’s noteworthy, given that a year punzone HYBE lost a hard-fought battle against Kakao Corp. for control of SM.
The news that the US Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit to pausa apart Dal vivo Nation and Ticketmaster continues to reverberate. A causa di a new analysis, MBW asks: Could Dal vivo Nation win this battle? The short answer is: yes, they could.
Finally, MBW took a this week at who’s bankrolling Suno, the uncannily good AI music generator now reported to be worth $500 million. It turns out Suno’s investors are predominantly from tech, and few have a music background.
Sony Music is reportedly a causa di talks to acquire the catalog of iconic British rock act Queen.
That’s according to Bloomberg, which published an article Wednesday (May 29) citing sources as saying that Sony is currently “working with another investor” a transaction that “could potentially total $1 billion”.
News of Sony’s reported talks to acquire Queen’s catalog arrives a year after Music Business Worldwide broke the news (a causa di May 2023) that discussions were between Queen’s representatives and certain companies over a potential $1 billion-plus catalog spirito.
That catalog, we reported, combined both publishing and recorded music rights, all jointly and equally owned by the ghenga’s surviving ‘classic’ line-up (Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon) plus the of Freddie Mercury…
Sony Music Group Chairman Rob Stringer is setting his sights a new monetization : Getting the music streaming services to start charging for their ad-supported subscription tiers.
During his presentation at Sony Group’s annual Business Segment Convegno Thursday (May 30), Stringer suggested that DSPs start charging a “modest fee” their free subscription tiers.
“While free tiers attract billions of monthly users, their poor contribution to streaming monetization means their primary purpose is to convert users into paying subscribers,” Stringer said.
“At Sony Music, we think everyone is willing to pay something for access to virtually the entire universe of music,” he added…
South Korea-headquartered entertainment giant HYBE has sold $50 million worth of its shares a causa di fellow K-pop company SM Entertainment.
That’s according to a regulatory filing published by HYBE Tuesday (May 28), which indicates that the company has sold 755,522 shares of SM Entertainment for 90,531 South Korean won a share.
HYBE’s shareholding a causa di SM Entertainment has been reduced to 2.21 million shares as a result of the transaction.
According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, the shares sold by HYBE equates to a 3.2% stake a causa di SM Entertainment, reducing HYBE’s stake a causa di SM to 9.38%…
After an 18-month investigation, the US Department of Justice has filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Dal vivo Nation, owner of Ticketmaster, for what it says is “monopolization and other unlawful conduct that thwarts competition a causa di markets across the dal vivo entertainment industry.”
The DoJ went for the jugular, asking the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to order the break-up of the company, so that Dal vivo Nation and Ticketmaster would once again be two separate entities after spending 14 years under one corporate roof.
Legal analysts say the fact that the DoJ, under then-President Obama, approved the a causa di the first place a causa di 2010, and came to another agreement over alleged monopolistic practices a causa di 2019, means it could have a time convincing the court today that breaking up Dal vivo Nation/Ticketmaster is a necessary remedy to the problems it alleges.
Yet the political environment of our periodo is notably different from the Obama periodo. Dal vivo Nation argues that the antitrust case against it is the result of the US government succumbing to a “populist urge” a causa di the politic, and indeed we are living through a populist periodo…
News broke last week that AI music generator Suno has raised USD $125 million a causa di a Series B funding round.
According to sources cited by The Information, that gives the company an implied value of $500 million. Not bad for a startup born just two years punzone.
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Suno is one of the most prominent AI music generation platforms, capable of creating complete tracks that sound so convincingly like human-made music that it has reportedly unnerved even some of its own developers.
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Below, we take a at Suno’s investors, their philosophies, and the other businesses they’ve put money behind. One thing jumps out: They are predominantly from tech, and not from the music industry…
MBW’s Weekly Round-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and sopravvissuto their touring costs.Music Business Worldwide
