Finance

The windfall stems from the Copyright Royalty Board’s Phonorecord III determination in August 2023, which established higher royalty rates for music streamed between 2021 and 2022. This means streaming giants like Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Pandora underpaid songwriters and publishers by $419.2 million, according to information from the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), highlighting underpayments during the 2021-2022 period.

Source: Songwriters and publishers to receive nearly $400m payout after streaming royalty ruling in the US

As the American Federation of Musicians and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers resumed contract negotiations Wednesday, the AFM has released statistics that shed light on the changing nature of employment for industry musicians who play on many of the films and TV shows now being made.

Source: American Federation of Musicians, AMPTP Resume Contract Talks Amid Fight Over Streaming Residual Fees: ‘Their Value Cannot Be Denied’

Catch Point Rights Partners, the private-equity backed music rights acquisition firm that has purchased the publishing of such artists/songwriters and/or producers as Brantley Gilbert, Yelawolf and All Time Low, is now offering a program through which it will buy performance rights income streams from songwriters while allowing them to retain ownership and control of all of their other publishing royalties.

Source: Catch Point Launches Program to Buy Performing Rights Royalties From Working Songwriters

The media giants teaming up on a new platform that will pool together sports streaming rights are facing an antitrust lawsuit from rival sports streamer Fubo, which alleges that it’s being forced to carry dozens of pricey, nonsports channels as a condition of licensing sports rights from the companies in a scheme to stifle competition.

Source: FuboTV Files $1B Lawsuit Seeking to Block Disney, Warners and Fox Sports Streaming Platform

One of the common assumptions around the boom in music-catalogue sales is that it’s all about big investment funds piling in. That’s certainly happened, but it’s not the whole story. In fact, what may be more interesting in the future are the partnerships formed between Big Investors and Big Music. Universal Music Group’s announcement yesterday that it is acquiring a minority stake in Chord Music Partners being a case in point.

Source: UMG tunes its catalogue-buying strategy with $240m Chord stake – Music Ally

The UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) published a report on ‘the potential impact of equitable remuneration on performers and the music market in the UK’. In short, the report will make labels much happier than activists. “The one key conclusion that can be drawn is that ER does not offer a simple solution to the streaming conundrum,” was its verdict. The report also gives the same warnings that labels have about ER potentially weakening their negotiating position with DSPs.

Source: UK government rules out broadcast-style equitable remuneration for music – Music Ally

Reddit has signed a contract allowing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) company to train its models on the social media platform’s content, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Reddit, which is eyeing an initial public offering (IPO) launch, has told prospective investors that it signed the deal, worth $60 million on an annualized basis, earlier this year, the report said.

Source: Reddit signs content licensing deal with AI company ahead of IPO