Among artists and investors, an aging group of classic-rock superstars and the inevitable wave of retirements on the not-too-distant horizon has set off something of a gold rush. Entrepreneurs have begun entering Jampol’s line of work and trying to concoct new ways to profit from the legacy of rock stars from days past.
Finance
YouTube Isn’t the Music Villain Anymore
Subscriptions will always be a hobby for YouTube, but the numbers show that even a side gig for the company can be huge. And it has bought peace by raining some of those riches on those behind the music. Record labels and other industry powers “still don’t looooove YouTube,” Lucas Shaw, a Bloomberg News reporter, wrote this week. “But they don’t hate it anymore.”
Hipgnosis Songs Fund now owns a music catalog worth over $2.2 billion
Hipgnosis is the owner of a catalog that has been independently valued at USD $2.21 billion, the UK-listed company revealed June 7 in a financial update. That catalog, valued as of the end of March 2021, contained 64,555 songs across 138 catalogs, according to a preliminary annual financial filing.
Source: Hipgnosis Songs Fund now owns a music catalog worth over $2.2 billion
Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Pet Shop Boys and more join call for PM to ‘fix streaming’
This renewed call comes on the back of a report last week by The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which said this is a “systemic problem [that] cries out for a systemic solution” and concluded that streaming should start to pay more like radio.
Source: Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Emeli Sandé, Pet Shop Boys and more join call for PM to ‘fix streaming’
Reservoir buys Tommy Boy Music in $100m deal
New York-based music rights company Reservoir has acquired legendary US record label and music publishing company Tommy Boy Music LLC in a deal valued at approximately $100m. Founded in New York in 1981 by Tom Silverman, Tommy Boy helped launch the careers of Queen Latifah, Afrika Bambaataa, Digital Underground, Coolio, De La Soul, House of Pain and Naughty By Nature, among others.
Lil Dicky Song Is First-Ever Music Publishing NFT
A new income-producing NFT offers a cut of all future mechanical, public performance and sync royalties for Lil Dicky’s “Save Dat Money.” Spearheaded by Royalty Exchange, the world’s largest platform for buying and selling royalties, the first-ever music publishing NFT allows investors to buy music catalogs and songs using the Ethereum cryptocurrency, bringing “real” value to the NFT marketplace.
Muserk CEO: Most Content Creators Are Still Underpaid — It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way
Even after the 2018 passage of the Music Modernization Act, the industry is beholden to laws written long before the advent of digital entertainment. On the tech side, the tools PROs use to track royalties are no match for those used by the streaming giants. And the industry tends to balk at the idea of change, in large part because the players at the top don’t want to tamper with the mechanisms that got them there.
Source: Most Content Creators Are Still Underpaid — It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way (Guest Column)
YouTube says it paid the music industry over $4bn in the last 12 months
In a fresh newsletter sent to the music industry, YouTube’s Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen confirmed that YouTube paid artists, songwriters, and rights-holders over $4 billion in the last 12 months – money derived from both YouTube ads and YouTube Music / YouTube Premium subscriptions. Additionally, Cohen says that YouTube added more paid ‘members’ in Q1 21 than in any other quarter since launch.
Source: YouTube says it paid the music industry over $4bn in the last 12 months
Trying To Make Sense Of Amazon’s Big MGM Content Buy
Amazon apparently did this deal to beef up its content offerings so that its content menu would be more in line, size-wise, with its subscriber base. So, why is achieving “content tonnage” important in the big leagues of subscription streaming? Because even though a streaming service such as Amazon Prime, Netflix or Disney+ might seem as if they have more than enough content, the truth is, there is never really enough. The solution is to always be adding more.
Source: TVBlog: Trying To Make Sense Of Amazon’s Big MGM Content Buy
Sony’s spent $1.4bn on music acquisitions in the last six months
Speaking at Sony Corporation‘s Investor Relations (IR) day May 27, Sony Music chairman Rob Stringer confirmed the $1.4 billion figure while also discussing Sony’s investment activities and the wider music market. Grilled by an investor about what Sony Music Group plans on spending its cash on going forward – and where geographically it plans on investing – Stringer responded “everything and anywhere”.