News Warner Music sues retail giant DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse over infringement of 200+ works in TikTok and Instagram posts Lawsuit comes after suing Cookie company Crumbl
Analysis The EU is investigating UMG’s $775m Downtown buyout – but why, and what happens now? MBW explains Article 22, and how the investigation process works...
Analysis Spotify Q1 2025 earnings call: Daniel Ek talks growth, pricing, superfan products, and a future where the platform could reach 1bn subscribers Six things we learned from SPOT's Q1 earnings call...
News Universal acquires recorded music rights to catalog of Turkish superstar Sezen Aksu Sezen Aksu has sold over 40m physical albums worldwide
News Ole Obermann and Rachel Newman named Co-Heads, Apple Music Obermann officially joins Apple from ByteDance
Analysis News UMG generated $3bn+ in Q1 – up 9.5% YoY, driven by Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, and more superstars Company's subscription streaming revenues grew 9.3% YoY
Analysis News Spotify posts record-high operating profit for Q1, as subscriber base grows by 5m to 268m paid users SPOT's latest financial results (for Q1 2025) were filed today (April 29)
News Carlyle nears $464m bond sale backed by music rights from Litmus portfolio (report) Reported bond sale is backed by rights from artists including Benny Blanco, Keith Urban and Katy Perry
Analysis News From Warner’s Crumbl copyright lawsuit to the EU’s Downtown deal probe… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-Up The biggest stories from the past week – all in one place…
News Confirmed: European competition regulator to assess UMG’s $775m acquisition of Downtown Music European Commission has accepted requests from Austria and the Netherlands to review the proposed acquisition
News Universal Music Group’s Downtown acquisition to be probed by EU competition regulator (report) The FT reports the probe will be announced on Friday (April 25)
News HYBE teams up with Spanish-language TV giant Telemundo on ‘first-of-its-kind’ competition and reality show to form a Regional Mexican group Members of the winning group will win $100,000 and a recording contract with HYBE Latin America
Interviews Oscar Höglund talks Epidemic Sound’s revenue growth and vast reach: ‘We get roughly 3bn daily views. That’s 20 Super Bowls per day, 365 days per year.’ MBW's World Leaders series meets Oscar Höglund, CEO of Epidemic Sound
News India’s Tips Music generated $9.1m in calendar Q1 as EBITDA grew 24% YoY Tips' operating EBITDA grew 24% YoY in calendar Q1 to reach USD $4.3m
News Universal Music Group Nashville rebrands as Music Corporation of America Mike Harris to Lead as President & CEO, and Dave Cobb as Chief Creative Officer