Kobalt has today (November 1) announced a new partnership with investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value to invest more than USD $700 million to acquire music copyrights over the next few years. As part of the venture, Kobalt will manage the creative, synch, licensing, administration, and investment services for the copyrights.
Source: Morgan Stanley is investing more than $700m to buy music copyrights in partnership with Kobalt
Google has agreed to invest up to $2 billion in the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, a spokesperson for the startup said on Friday. Google is already an investor in Anthropic, and the fresh investment would underscore a ramp-up in its efforts to better compete with Microsoft a major backer of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, as Big Tech companies race to infuse AI into their applications.
Source: Google agrees to invest up to $2 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic
Hipgnosis Songs Fund is facing an uncertain future as some 83.2% of its investors voted Thursday that a new board make major structural changes to the overextended company. Investors also rejected a proposal by its leadership to shore up its finances by selling off around $440 million of its 65,000-song catalog to a sister fund backed by Blackstone.
Source: Hipgnosis Songs Investors Vote Overwhelmingly for Reorganization, Reject $440 Million Catalog Sale
In a note to shareholders today (October 24) , HSF’s board said that “following substantive engagement with a number of parties”, it did not receive a “Superior Offer” as part of the ‘go shop’ process. HSF’s board said in a shareholder update that it had “received feedback through the process [from] a number of the parties assessed that they could not justify paying a higher price” than the $440 million offer from HSC.
Source: Blackstone-backed $440m acquisition offer for Hipgnosis Songs Fund assets sees off rival interest
The headline stat from the company’s filing today (October 24): Spotify’s global Premium Subscriber base grew to 226 million paying users in Q3. That was up 16% YoY, and up by 3% YoY, or 6 million net subscribers, on the220 million that SPOT counted at the end of the prior quarter (Q2 2023). The music streaming company’s 6 million net subscriber additions in Q3 were 2 million ahead of guidance.
Source: Spotify added 6m Premium subscribers in Q3 – and posted a quarterly profit
Ahead of two key investor votes, Hipgnosis Songs Fund has launched a ‘strategic review’ that will look to enhance shareholder value. While investors appeared poised to vote in favor of HSF’s continuation – the Fund has also teed up multiple executive pivots – Hipgnosis stock earlier this week plummeted to a record low following the abrupt cancellation of a previously announced dividend.
Source: Hipgnosis Launches ‘Strategic Review’ Ahead of Investor Meeting
No less than 99% of those who voted (around 69% of the fund’s total eligible shareholders) did so in favor of the deal. Last month, Alchemy Copyrights, LLC, trading as Concord, agreed terms on a deal whereby it would acquire the entirety of Round Hill Music Royalty Fund (RHM) – the UK-listed fund operated by Round Hill Music – if it could secure RHM’s shareholder approval. That approval is now in the bag.
Friends and musicians Seth Forsgren and Hayk Martiros released AI music generator Riffusion last December, as an experiment with the use of “latent diffusion” AI technology to generate music. Riffusion’s technology uses sonograms – visual representations of music – to train itself on musical genres, and create music using verbal prompts.
Source: AI music generator Riffusion raises $4m in seed funding round
A growing number of fans want to interact with music, remixing it or mashing it up for use on social media. But the licensing deals are sometimes having to catch up with this behaviour. A new startup called Hook is launching with $3m of funding to try to build a legal model around the trend. The company has built a service to enable fans to “remix their favorite songs quickly, easily and legally and share them with the world.”
Source: Hook raises $3m for licensed fan-made remixes on social media – Music Ally
This morning (October 16), UK-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund informed its shareholders that Citrin Cooperman had now “materially reduced its expectations of industry-wide retroactive payments in relation to the US Copyright Royalty Board’s decision in relation to royalties payable to songwriters for the period covering 2018-2022 (‘CRB III’) for its valuation of [HSF’s] portfolio.”