Tracy Maddux, former Chief Commercial Officer at Downtown Music Holdings, has led a “multi-million dollar” strategic investment in rights management platform OpenPlay, giving him a board seat. As board member, Maddux brings experience in music technology to OpenPlay, which serves more than 3,500 labels, distributors and publishers across 24 countries.
Finance
Paramount Plans Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery
David Ellison, the media mogul who took over Paramount just last month, has already set his sights on another blockbuster deal: He wants to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Mr. Ellison is planning a bid for the company, which owns HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros. movie studio, according to three people with knowledge of the plans.
Miles Davis’ Publshing Catalog Acquired by Reservoir Media
Reservoir Media has acquired a majority interest in the Miles Davis publishing catalog, as well as as well as other rights associated with the late jazz icon’s estate, including a partnership in name and likeness opportunities and certain rights to his recorded music, the company announced early Tuesday. The deal includes 90 percent of Davis’s music publishing rights and of the estate’s income from his recordings.
Source: Miles Davis’ Publshing Catalog Acquired by Reservoir Media
Anthropic to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Book Piracy Class Action Lawsuit
Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit after it downloaded a massive trove of pirated books to train its large language models. The settlement amounts to about $3,000 per book, and is believed to be the largest ever recovery in a U.S. copyright case, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Source: Anthropic to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Book Piracy Class Action Lawsuit
Anthropic’s value balloons to $183bn after securing $13bn in latest funding round
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has raised another $13 billion in funding, valuing it at $183 billion, nearly tripling its valuation in March. The funding announcement comes as Anthropic faces legal challenges over its training data practices. The company recently settled a class-action lawsuit with authors who accused it of using copyrighted books without permission to train Claude.
Source: Anthropic’s value balloons to $183bn after securing $13bn in latest funding round
Living Wage for Musicians Act is Back, Reintroduced to Congress
On September 29, U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib plans to reintroduce her Living Wage for Musicians Act in Congress—and the United Musicians and Allied Workers union (UMAW) is busy drumming up support ahead of time. The union is encouraging artists and fans alike to write to their Congress members and ask them to support the bill when it hits the floor later this month.
Source: Living Wage for Musicians Act is Back, Reintroduced to Congress
Perplexity Is Launching a New Revenue-Share Model for Publishers
The artificial-intelligence startup expects to pay publishers from a $42.5 million revenue pool initially, and to increase that amount over time, Perplexity said Monday. Its payments to publishers will come out of the subscription revenue generated by a new news service, called Comet Plus, that Perplexity plans to roll out widely this fall.
Source: Perplexity Is Launching a New Revenue-Share Model for Publishers
The Weeknd seeks $1B in music-backed financing (Report)
The Weeknd is looking to raise roughly USD $1 billion in financing backed by his music catalog. That’s according to Bloomberg, which reported on Saturday (August 23), citing people familiar with the matter as saying that the Canadian singer would pledge his stake in publishing rights and master recordings. No agreement has been reached as discussions are still ongoing, the report said.
Source: The Weeknd seeks $1B in music-backed financing (Report)
Brits Are Scoring Big: How U.K. Acts Took Over Hollywood’s Biggest Soundtracks
Hollywood productions are enraptured by the sound of the U.K. scene. Experimentalist Jerskin Fendrix landed an Academy Award nomination for Poor Things (2023), as did Mica Levi for The Zone of Interest that same year. A24’s upcoming The Smashing Machine (Oct. 3), starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Emily Blunt, will feature music from London-based alt-jazz star Nala Sinephro.
Source: Brits Are Scoring Big: How U.K. Acts Took Over Hollywood’s Biggest Soundtracks
AI crawler Firecrawl raises $14.5M, is still looking to hire agents as employees
The Firecrawl founders are working on tools to help website owners, publishers, and other content creators “get paid when AI uses their content. We think this is the way it should be,” CEO Caleb Peffer said. While there have been lots of efforts around this idea from big names like Adobe and Getty, Peffer feels that Firecrawl has an edge because it’s already working with those who are scraping data.
Source: AI crawler Firecrawl raises $14.5M, is still looking to hire agents as employees | TechCrunch