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 their touring costs.
We’d been waiting for the hammer to drop for some time, and this week it did: The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster owner Dal vivo Nation, accusing the company of violating antitrust law through its dominance of the ticketing business. Dal vivo Nation predicts it will prevail sopra court.
Meanwhile, AI music generator Suno, which some say creates unnervingly good music, revealed this week it has raised $125 million sopra a Series B funding round, which reportedly values the company at $500 million.
Sopra a new op-ed for MBW, Fruits Music founder Stef Van Vugt argues it’s time to recognize that AI like Suno is now creating good music, and that rightsholders should change their to competing for attention rather than creating superior music.
Elsewhere, sopra the latest development sopra the ongoing feud between US music publishers and Spotify, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) has asked Congress to make a change to US diritto d’autore law so that publishers can negotiate with streaming services sopra a “free market”.
Sopra a rundown of the increasingly complicated battle over Spotify’s decision to treat its Premium subscription tiers as “bundled” services (thus allowing it to pay lower mechanical royalties), MBW agenda that streaming services are opposed to the NMPA‘s “free market” proposal.
1) LIVE NATION HIT WITH ANTITRUST LAWSUIT BY US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
The US Justice Department, along with 30 state and district attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Dal vivo Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, acceso Thursday (May 23).
The DOJ says it is suing Dal vivo Nation for the alleged “monopolization and other unlawful conduct that thwarts competition sopra markets across the dal vivo entertainment industry”.
The lawsuit, which includes a request for structural relief, seeks to “restore competition sopra the dal vivo concert industry, provide better choices at lower prices for fans, and gara open venue doors for working musicians and other risultato artists”.
“We allege that Dal vivo Nation relies acceso unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the dal vivo events industry sopra the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland…
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) has called acceso Congress to make a change to diritto d’autore law sopra the United States that would give US music publishers the freedom to choose how their music is licensed to music streaming services.
According to the NMPA, Congress “should allow rightsholders the choice to license through the [Mechanical Licensing Collective] using the statutorily set rates to withdraw from the MLC and operate sopra a free market if they meet certain conditions”.
This legislative proposal was made sopra a letter submitted by NMPA President and CEO David Israelite to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees acceso May 21 and aims to solve what the NMPA calls the “continued abuse of the statutory system by digital services”.
The NMPA’s proposal arrives amid an ongoing feud between US music publishers and Spotify, following SPOT’s decision at the beginning of March to reclassify its Premium Individual, Duo, and Family subscription streaming plans as ‘bundles’ because those plans now offer access to audiobooks…
One unfortunate topic of discussion this week just couldn’t be avoided: the ongoing feud between US music publishers and the world’s largest subscription music streaming service, Spotify.
Their dispute stems from SPOT’s controversial decision to reclassify its Premium tiers as ‘bundles’ by combining music and audiobooks, which has resulted sopra Spotify paying a lower mechanical rate sopra the US to publishers and songwriters than standalone music subscription services.
Music publishers are not happy. When Spotify first announced the reclassification of its Premium services as bundles acceso April 18, David Israelite, the President & CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, told us: “It appears Spotify has returned to attacking the very songwriters who make its business possible.”
Tuesday (May 21), the NMPA called acceso Congress to update the diritto d’autore law sopra the United States to allow Publishers to negotiate sopra a “free market” just like primato labels.
DiMA, the US organization that represents services like Spotify, Amazon, and Pandora, issued a statement from its President and CEO Graham Davies acceso Tuesday denouncing the proposal…
Suno, the AI-driven music creation app that has been getting attention for its ability to create unnervingly good music, has raised USD $125 million sopra a Series B funding round.
“We released our first product eight months punzone, enabling anyone to make a song with just a simple barlume. It’s very early days, but 10 million people have already made music using Suno,” Co-Founder and CEO Mikey Shulman said sopra a blog post announcing the funding round.
“While Grammy-winning artists use Suno, our cuore user causa consists of everyday people making music — often for the first time.”
According to sources cited by The Information, the funding round gives the two-year-old, Massachusetts-headquartered company an implied value of $500 million…
Sopra a new op-ed, Stef Van Vugt, the founder of Fruits Music, a label-cum-playlist company that has racked up tens of billions of plays, argues that power sopra the music business is shifting to AI-generated music, and rightsholders must take advantage of the situation while they can. Van Vugt writes:
AI music startups such as Suno – which just raised $125 million sopra funding – are creating better-sounding music than the majority of newly released human-made songs acceso music streaming services.
This is indicative of a ‘new normal’ that’s already taking hold of today’s music business – and will define the music business of tomorrow.
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It is not impossible for the largest traditional music rightsholders to thrive sopra this ‘new normal’. But, to a number of threats to their dominance, the global business’s power balance is irrevocably changing.
Sopra fact, I predict that new rightsholders — and, particularly, AI-driven music — will continue to take market share from the largest music rightsholders sopra the years ahead…
MBW’s Weekly Round-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and their touring costs.Music Business Worldwide
