Finance

During the company’s quarterly earnings call last week, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino spent much of the time allocated to questions discussing his outlook on blockchain tech and the promise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). “We’ve all learned from Top Shots at the NBA,” said Rapino. “We envision Live Nation…looking at some of its concert moments as magic moments that we could mint and attach to our ongoing ticket festivals and special moments.”

Source: Live Nation Wants To Turn Concert ‘Magic Moments’ Into NFTs – Decrypt

Artists who were once paid 25 cents per song on vinyl or CD are now paid less than 10 cents per thousand plays on such streaming sites as YouTube Music and Spotify — sites many consumers currently enjoy. As a result, many artists are struggling to rise above the poverty line, much less sustain a career or a family.

Source: Opinion | Streaming services aren’t equitably sharing profits with music artists. Bill C-10 could help change this

As part of the contemplated IPO, Believe – a label and artist services company and the owner of TuneCore – intends to raise approximately €500 million ($608 million) to finance its growth strategy. In a media release issued today, Believe confirmed it is a “fast-growing and profitable company” that generated €728 million in digital revenues in 2020, and €441 million of consolidated revenues in the same year.

Source: TuneCore owner Believe aims to raise €500m as it begins IPO process in France

Launched in 2018, Bitski lets brands, game developers, and consumers create, sell, and purchase NFTs on its platform. The company says that this phase of investment will support its ambitions to “make the NFT economy more accessible for creators, brands and enterprises”.

Source: Jay-Z, Troy Carter and Andreessen Horowitz join $19m funding round for NFT marketplace Bitski

Amongst DREAMSTAGE’s founders are CEO Thomas Hesse, a former President of Global Digital Business and US Sales/ Distribution at Sony Music. The startup has delivered over 50 live shows since its launch in August 2020 and handles ticket sales and the delivery of the live audio/video signal to screens and devices.

Source: Deezer makes strategic investment in livestreaming company DREAMSTAGE

Music rightsholders have long raised prickly questions about PRO expenditure and efficiency. At the same time, PROs have staunchly defended the chunk of cash they burn – pointing to, amongst other things, the trillions of lines of data they process annually in the modern era. Yet a storm might now be brewing at the heart of this conversation, propelled by two very topical factors.

Source: Is a reckoning coming to the way collection societies spend songwriters’ money?

In what Primary Wave describes as a “multi million dollar deal”, the acquisition will also see the publisher obtain a share in the duo’s master royalty income stream across Rihanna’s first seven albums. The deal encompasses master income for some of Rihanna’s biggest hits including We Found Love, Umbrella, Don’t Stop the Music, Disturbia, Stay, Rude Boy, and What’s My Name.

Source: Primary Wave buys Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers catalog, including master royalty income stream across Rihanna’s first seven albums

Merck Mercuriadis calls Andrew Watt “arguably the most important writer and producer in the world today”. Now, Hipgnosis Songs Fund has acquired 105 songs from Watt – including both the writer and publisher’s share of the compositions. A filing this morning (May 5) reveals that the Watt catalog acquired by Hipgnosis generated $1.27m in 2017, $3.41m in 2018, and $4.34m in 2019.

Source: Hipgnosis acquires 105 songs from Grammy-winner Andrew Watt in eight-figure deal

Twitter’s acquisition spree continues today with Scroll, a $5-a-month subscription service that removes ads from participating news sites. Twitter is working on building out a new kind of subscription plan that will include Scroll, the recently acquired Revue newsletter service, and other homegrown Twitter services.

Source: Twitter is buying Scroll, the subscription service that removes ads from news sites

The 48-year-old voiced his critical opinion of advances during UnitedMasters’ third SelectCon, which the four-year-old company broadcasted via Twitch. As an aside, Amazon-owned Twitch and UnitedMasters partnered to deliver the two-day livestream event to fans – a particularly interesting point, given Twitch’s ongoing licensing dispute with the major labels.

Source: Pharrell Compares Label Advances to ‘Illegal Loans’ — ‘No One Should Own You’