Finance

Legendary rock singer Rod Stewart has sold his song catalog to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists for nearly $100 million in a deal that comprises interests in his publishing catalog and recorded music, as well as some name and likeness rights. The deal comes as Iconic announced that it has raised more than $1 billion in new capital for future catalog investments, primarily from the investment firm HPS Investment Partners.

Source: Rod Stewart Sells Song Catalog to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group for Nearly $100 Million

In the roughly 18 months since it was founded by Lior Tibon, former COO of Tidal and now Duetti’s CEO, and Christopher Nolte, a former Business Development executive at Apple Music, the company has partnered with more than 250 indie artists, including Olivia O’Brien, Sevyn Streeter and Łaszewo. Now Duetti announced it has raised USD $90 million in new funding, including $15 million in new equity and a $75 million credit facility.

Source: Duetti raises $90 million in new funding to acquire indie artists’ catalogs

Publishers and CEOs across the industry agree AI is an existential threat to the future of journalism, and their businesses have spent the past year wrestling with a conundrum: Ink a deal with the AI players or fight it out in court. Do the CEOs and publishers of these trusted news brands prefer paying journalists’ salaries or attorney fees?

Source: Take the Cash or Fight? Media Moguls Split on AI Deals

Inspired by Universal Music Group‘s ‘artist-centric’ streaming strategy, Spotify’s new rules see ‘premium’ artists and ‘premium’ content financially prioritized over so-called low-quality tracks and creator accounts with low engagement. Amongst those rules are that tracks on Spotify must have reached at least 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months in order to generate royalties on the platform.

Source: Only 19% of artists on Spotify had over 1,000 monthly listeners in 2023

Copyright infringement hits home – a cautionary tale. Some of you may have seen the article by David Segal in the Sunday NY Times several weeks ago about a rather sordid copyright fracas in which I have been embroiled over the past few months. It’s a pretty wild story. If you don’t feel like reading the whole NYT article, here’s a brief summary of how it unfolded:

Source: On Copyright, Creativity, and Compensation

The significant capital raise arrives as heat appears to be reentering the blockbuster music rights acquisition space. Over the past seven days, Billboard has reported that Sony Music Group recently agreed to buy a 50% stake in Michael Jackson‘s publishing and recorded music catalog for $600 million-plus, while the long-running potential sale of Queen’s music rights is also reportedly picking up pace.

Source: Cinq Music raises $250m from parent company GoDigital to fund acquisitions – with an eight-figure ‘marquee’ catalog acquisition already in the pipeline

The company says it delivered USD $9 billion last year to recipients across record companies and music publishers, plus independent distributors, performance rights organizations, and collecting societies. According to Spotify, the $9 billion figure means that its annual payouts to music rightsholders have “nearly tripled in the past six years”.

Source: Spotify paid out $9 billion to music rightsholders in 2023 – equivalent to 63% of its annual revenues