Jun 30, 2023

.. it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-Up June 30, 2023 Welcome to  Music Business Worldwide ’s weekly round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit 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 reduce their touring costs. There was a lot of activity in the music rights M&A space this week. On Thursday (June 29), we learned that Grammy-nominated rapper and producer Logic has sold his music publishing catalog spanning 185 titles in an eight-figure deal. The company acquiring the catalog is Influence Media Partners, a US-based music and rights company founded in 2019 and led by Lylette Pizarro, Lynn Hazan, Rene McLean, and Jon Jashni. In early 2022, Influence Media Partners announced a  $750 million fund  to invest in what it calls “high-value compositions from diverse artists” with backing from BlackRock Alternative Investors and  Warner Music Group . Also this week, Primary Wave revealed that it has struck what it calls a “multi-million-dollar” deal with George Brown, the legendary songwriter, drummer, producer and Founding Member of Kool & The Gang. Meanwhile, Multimedia Music agreed a deal for a 50% stake in a catalog of music master and publishing rights from Amblin Partners, the company founded by Steven Spielberg and best known for its movie and TV production houses, Amblin Entertainment and Amblin Television. Plus SoundCloud is tackling what it calls the ‘Zero Plays problem’ with its new AI-Powered ‘First Fans’ feature, while Snafu Records launched the AI-powered ‘Snafu Song Fund’ financing for indie artists backed by a $7 million round led by Pophouse Entertainment. Here’s what happened this week… It’s been a busy week for music rights deals, and yesterday (June 29), Influence Media Partners announced its own latest acquisition. The company says it has acquired Grammy-nominated rapper and producer Logic’s publishing catalog spanning 185 titles in an eight-figure deal. According to Influence, the deal features tracks including multi-platinum single 1-800-273-8255 ft. Alessia Cara and Khalid, EVERYDAY with Marshmello, HOMICIDE ft. Eminem, and 6 SUCKER FOR PAIN with Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Imagine Dragons, Logic & Ty Dolla $ign ft. X Ambassadors…. There’s a lot of buzz around classic movie scores right now – as rumors swirl that Warner Bros Discovery is close to agreeing a $500m-ish deal to sell around 50% of its treasured music catalog. Sony is reported to be the front-runner to buy. But that’s not the only major music deal being thrashed out in Tinseltown. Multimedia Music, the UK-headquartered company founded by industry veterans Phil Hope and James Gibb just announced its latest major acquisition. The company has agreed a deal for a 50% stake in a catalog of music master and publishing rights from Amblin Partners, the company founded by Steven Spielberg and best known for its movie and TV production houses, Amblin Entertainment and Amblin Television.… Credit: QuiteSimplyStock/Shutterstock Primary Wave Music has acquired again. Just last week, the company announced a deal with Joey Tempest, the lead vocalist of the rock band Europe, acquiring what it says is a portion of his music publishing catalog, encompassing five albums. On Wednesday (June 28), Primary Wave revealed that it has struck what it calls a ‘multi-million-dollar’ deal with George Brown, the legendary songwriter, drummer, producer and Founding Member of Kool & The Gang. Primary Wave says it has acquired a stake in his music publishing catalog, writer’s share, and writer’s share of public performance… Sweden-based Snafu Records has attracted a fair bit of industry attention since launching in February 2020 with $2.9 million in seed funding. In 2021, Snafu, a record label and A&R tool that uses artificial intelligence to discover new music, completed a $6 million funding round led by Pophouse Entertainment, with participation from TheVentureCollective, ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog and Savan Kotecha . The round came shortly after the company added Per Sundin, former CEO of UMG Nordics who signed Avicii and Tove Lo, and songwriter/producer Savan Kotecha as shareholders. Now, Snafu is announcing what it says is a new $7 million round of funding “in equity and credit”. For new musical artists, breaking into the streaming business is becoming more difficult every day. The problem, simply, is volume. As of last count, there were an estimated 120,000 new tracks being uploaded to the major streaming services every day. With that much audio content out there, bringing attention to a single new song can be just about impossible for an independent artist. The problem has become so acute that, according to data from Luminate, around 42% of all the tracks uploaded to streaming services (about 67 million songs) have had fewer than 10 plays. And nearly a quarter – 24%, or about 38 million tracks – have had no plays at all. And with the arrival of mass-market AI music tools that boast of their ability to create millions of original songs, the problem could get much worse in the coming months and years. Music streaming service SoundCloud has decided to tackle this problem on its own platform, with a trial of a new feature it calls “First Fans….”