News Sony Music buys AWAL and Kobalt Neighbouring Rights from Kobalt Music Group Rob Stringer-led Sony swoops for Kobalt's independent artist and label services division, which generated $111m in FY2019
News Sherrese Clarke Soares, CEO of $1bn-backed acquisition fund Tempo Music Investments, exits company "Despite the birthing of Tempo as a result of several years of hard work at Morgan Stanley, I made the decision to resign as CEO to start my own venture."
News Universal Music Group IPO coming ‘early 2022 at the latest’; Tencent completes acquisition of further 10% in UMG Vivendi suggests Universal's IPO could take place this year
Interviews ‘Artists need to pay attention to their legacy and be very specific about it.’ "Lawyer-manager" John Branca on fighting for artists' rights, and the Michael Jackson story
News Warner fires A&R exec Scott Maclachlan after sexual harassment incidents in Australia and New Zealand Maclachlan discovered and managed Grammy-winning artist Lorde when she was a teenager
News Hipgnosis is selling a lot more shares to raise a lot more money to buy a lot more music Prospectus issued to the markets today shows that Hipgnosis could potentially raise over $2bn in the next 12 months
News BMG, Beggars Group and Hipgnosis each have strong opinions on streaming. Here are those opinions. Submissions to the UK's Parlimentary inquiry into streaming are released for public consumption
Analysis The harsh reality about the music business, and a pantomime led by clueless self-regarders. UK politicians just grilled the heads of the three major labels in the market. It did not go well.
Analysis News Ex-Geffen head Neil Jacobson plots $200m US IPO to buy music rights, tech startups New S-1 filing reveals large-scale ambitions of The Music Acquisition Corporation
News Shake-up at RCA: Mark Pitts in as President, John Fleckenstein promoted to COO Joe Riccitelli leaves Sony label as part of new leadership changes under Peter Edge
News TIDAL and SoundCloud now neck-and-neck in revenue terms, as Jay-Z streaming platform’s growth slowed in 2019 TIDAL turned over $167m in 2019; SoundCloud's revenues that year shot up to $166m
News BMG buys Mick Fleetwood’s royalties for an array of Fleetwood Mac hits – including TikTok sensation Dreams Yet another member of Fleetwood Mac sells a chunk of his music to an acquisitive party in 2021
News Hipgnosis buys 100% of Shakira’s publishing catalog, spanning 145 songs "I know Hipgnosis will be a great home for my catalog," says Colombia-born global star
Analysis News Spotify, worth $67bn, has seen its share price TRIPLE in 10 months. Should Daniel Ek pay artists a ‘bonus’ to say thank you? Spotify is still loss-making, but its market cap is so massive... should it pay a 'phantom dividend' to popular artists in need?
News KKR buys majority stake in Ryan Tedder catalog, marking investment giant’s return to music rights ownership KKR says the Tedder catalog spans nearly 500 songs, covering both "music publishing and recorded music rights"