Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we ensure 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 maximise their revenue and scale back their touring prices.
Warner Music Group kicked February into gear with some probably life-changing information for a lot of legacy artists and songwriters.
On Tuesday (February 1), the key introduced that, beginning July 1, it can scrap unrecouped balances for heritage artists as a part of its new “legacy unrecouped advances program”.
The initiative will successfully see eligible artists and songwriters, signed to WMG earlier than 2000, begin receiving streaming royalty cash that’s at present being saved by WMG each month as a result of they continue to be unrecouped on historic advances.
When MBW broke the information about WMG’s resolution to affix rival Sony in axing unrecouped balances for legacy acts, we requested if Common Music Group can be the subsequent main music firm to implement this variation in coverage for its catalog artists.
We bought our reply that very same day: Senior trade sources confirmed to MBW that Common is predicted to announce a coverage within the coming weeks, that may see unrecouped balances for a lot of heritage artists and songwriters disregarded.
This week additionally noticed Spotify publish its eagerly awaited This autumn outcomes and Q1 2022 steerage amidst the continued Joe Rogan controversy, which has seen artists – led by Neil Younger – pull their music from the platform in protest towards the subject material of content material broadcast on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Spotify revealed on Wednesday (February 2) that its subscriptions grew to 180 million in This autumn 2021, up by 25 million year-on-year, and that it ended 2021 with 406 million Month-to-month Lively Customers (MAUs), up 61m YoY.
As for its quarterly steerage for Q1 2022, SPOT forecasts that, by the tip of March, it can have whole MAUs of 418 million and whole Premium Subscribers of 183m.
On the agency’s earnings name, CEO Daniel Ek responded to questions on artists pulling their music from the platform over what they deem to be the unfold of Covid-19 vaccine misinformation on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Ek is taking the official stance that “we don’t change our insurance policies based mostly on one creator, nor do we alter it based mostly on any media cycle or calls from anybody else”. Or in different phrases: Rogan stays. He additionally famous that SPOT’s Q1 2022 steerage doesn’t “replicate any churn from the latest Joe Rogan factor”.
Elsewhere this week, we reported that Sony Music generated $7.5 billion throughout recorded music and publishing final 12 months, up 24% YoY, whereas Switzerland-headquartered fintech agency Utopia Music has acquired Liverpool-based Sentric Music Group.
Final summer time, Sony Music Group shocked the worldwide music trade by doing one thing historic: asserting it was disregarding unrecouped balances for hundreds of heritage artists and songwriters who had signed to the corporate in earlier a long time.
On Tuesday (February 1), in one other milestone second for the music enterprise, certainly one of Sony’s largest rivals has stepped as much as do the identical: Warner Music Group.
WMG, the world’s third largest music rights firm, has simply confirmed that it’s introducing a “legacy unrecouped advances program”, which is able to go into impact on July 1…
On Tuesday (February 1), MBW raised a giant query: With each Sony and now Warner confirming they’re disregarding unrecouped balances for hundreds of heritage artists and songwriters, is an analogous announcement coming from the world’s largest music rights firm – Common Music Group?
When you’ve learn MBW for a while, you’ll hopefully know that we have now excellent, very senior sources within the international music enterprise.
And right here’s what our excellent, very senior sources are telling us: sure, categorically, Common is introducing a coverage that may see unrecouped balances disregarded for eligible catalog songwriters and artists on its books…
On Wednesday, (February 2) Sony Corp revealed its calendar This autumn (fiscal Q3) outcomes for 2021 – enabling MBW to calculate how the Japanese large’s music rights operation carried out throughout the course of final 12 months.
Quick conclusion? It carried out very properly.
When it comes to recorded music revenues throughout the calendar 12 months of 2021, MBW calculates that Sony Music generated USD $5.77 billion – up 25.2%, or $1.16 billion, on the equal determine from 2020…
Spotify revealed on Wednesday (February 2) that its subscriptions grew to 180 million in This autumn 2021, up by 25 million year-on-year, and up by 8 million versus the earlier quarter.
As anticipated, one of many principal matters on the minds of analysts tuning into Spotify’s This autumn earnings name was the agency’s ongoing Joe Rogan debacle.
Previously week, led by Neil Younger, a lot of artists have requested to tug their music from the service as a consequence of content material broadcast by Joe Rogan.
Ek was requested concerning the state of affairs proper out of the gate on the earnings name, and particularly whether or not Spotify’s response thus far is a “slippery slope in censoring content material on the platform”….
Switzerland-headquartered fintech firm Utopia Music has acquired Liverpool-based music writer and publishing administration firm Sentric Music Group.
In doing so, Utopia is launching a brand new Royalty Administration Providers enterprise unit, which will likely be led by Sentric’s present CEO, Chris Meehan.
Meehan joins Utopia Music as Vice President of Royalty Administration Providers and Utopia says that he’ll proceed to service Sentric’s current buyer base as a part of Utopia….
