Rights

SoundExchange Announces $11 Billion Distribution Milestone

SoundExchange, the entity tasked with collecting and distributing royalties for the use of recordings on non-interactive digital services, just recently unveiled this latest milestone via a brief release. SoundExchange towards the beginning of 2024 indicated that it had distributed over $1 billion during 2023, up from about $959 million in 2022. Bearing in mind this growth the $12 billion milestone will presumably arrive within the next year or so.

Source: SoundExchange Announces $11 Billion Distribution Milestone

Music streaming royalties are terrible—these companies may have a fix

Last year was a very good one for music streaming: Audio streams increased 22.3% year over year, according to analytics firm Luminate, accounting for more than two-thirds of global music revenue. It was also the year when the music industry finally started to address the fact that the streaming model doesn’t benefit artists.

Source: Music streaming royalties are terrible—these companies may have a fix

Publishers Secure Widespread Support in Landmark Battle With Internet Archive 

Major book publishers continue their legal crusade against Internet Archive’s scan-and-lend library, hoping to shut it down for good. IA’s appeal previously received support from authors and copyright scholars. The publishers, however, have some heavyweight backers too. New amicus briefs are signed by former U.S. politicians, former judges, and legal scholars. Industry groups such as the MPA and RIAA also rally behind the publishers.

Source: Publishers Secure Widespread Support in Landmark Copyright Battle With Internet Archive * TorrentFreak

Amicus Briefs Filed in Internet Archive Copyright Case

The briefs are the latest development in the long-running copyright infringement case, following the publishers’ opening appeal brief filed earlier this month, and comes nearly one year after judge John G. Koeltl unequivocally found the scanning and lending of print library books to be copyright infringement. The Internet Archive’s reply brief is now due on April 19.

Source: Amicus Briefs Filed in Internet Archive Copyright Case

ELVIS Act signed into law in Tennessee to protect artists’ voice and likeness from AI

The bipartisan ELVIS Act was signed into law on Thursday (March 21) by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee at a honky-tonk in Nashville. The ELVIS Act will officially go into effect on July 1 and will update the state’s existing right of publicity. The bill was introduced in January to update Tennessee’s Protection of Personal Rights law, to include protections for songwriters, performers, and music industry professionals’ voices from the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI).

Source: ELVIS Act signed into law in Tennessee to protect artists’ voice and likeness from the misuse of AI

Spotify Claims Record Earnings in 2023 for Indie Artists, Songwriters

Spotify has provided further details on the record $9 billion it paid out to the music industry in 2023, which was first announced in January. For context, the company stated that the “amount has nearly tripled over the past six years, and represents a big part of the $48 billion-plus Spotify has paid since its founding.” In Tuesday’s announcement the company says the number of artists generating at least $1,000,000, $100,000 and $10,000 all have nearly tripled since 2017 — and those earnings are from Spotify alone.

Source: Spotify Claims Record Earnings in 2023 for Indie Artists, Songwriters and Non-English-Language Songs

Kobalt Funding Tops $1B Following Refinancing, Royalty Securities

Less than five months after unveiling an over $700 million catalog partnership with Morgan Stanley, Kobalt says it’s increased its total “funding capacity” to north of $1 billion. New York-based Kobalt touted the deployable capital today, via a formal release. The more than $1 billion at hand refers specifically to the mentioned Morgan Stanley-powered tranche as well as a refinancing and a newly obtained $266.5 million from an asset-backed securitization.

Source: Kobalt Funding Tops $1B Following Refinancing, Royalty Securities

Music licensing platform WavMaker launches with $5m seed funding

WavMaker, a new music licensing platform dedicated to video creators, has launched with $5 million in seed funding led by Vicky Patel, a principal at Nashville record label Wavy Records and co-founder of Monarch Media. The startup says it seeks to help video creators streamline the process of finding high-quality music for video projects by offering a curated library of songs cleared for commercial use.

Source: Music licensing platform WavMaker launches with $5m seed funding

France Fines Google Amid A.I. Dispute With News Media

French regulators on Wednesday said Google failed to notify news publishers that it was using their articles to train its artificial intelligence algorithms, part of a wider ruling against the company for its negotiating practices with media outlets. The disclosure by the French competition authority was part of a fine of €250 million, or about $270 million, for failing to negotiate fair licensing deals with media companies to publish article links in search results.

Source: France Fines Google Amid A.I. Dispute With News Media

Jammable Faces BPI Legal Threat Over Soundalike Artist Voices

London’s BPI today confirmed the development on social media, pointing readers to a (paywall-blocked) breakdown of the situation from The Times. Jammable (formerly Voicify AI) bills itself as “the #1 platform for AI music.” And according to its website, the service enables users to replicate uploaded voices, automatically remove reverb from recordings, generate text-to-speech vocals, and make existing projects’ vocals sound as if they’d been recorded in different voices, among other things.

Source: Jammable Faces BPI Legal Threat Over Soundalike Artist Voices

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