News Deezer revenues grew 14.6% YoY in the first half of 2024, driven by partnerships and price increases Deezer has published its financial results for the first half of the year
News Spotify backtracks on lyrics restriction, expands access for free users Spotify started limiting access to lyrics for ad-supported users last fall, but appears to have backed off from that idea
News Live Nation’s revenue rises 7% to record $6B in Q2 as fan attendance hits 39M “We continue to see strong demand globally, with a growing variety of shows attracting both casual and diehard fans who are buying tickets at all price points"
News Bill Ackman massively scales back expectations for the IPO of his Pershing Square USA, from $25bn to $2bn Ackman confirms that IPO will be priced at less than a tenth of original $25 billion target
Analysis News As Spotify readies $18 per month ‘deluxe’ tier, do consumers care about high quality audio? Luminate study sheds light on what consumers really want from streaming
News Blackstone’s Hipgnosis Songs Fund is no longer a publicly traded company Ben Katovsky and Dan Pounder appointed to Hipgnosis board, as HSF's previous board stands down
News RZA strikes partnership with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists, LL Cool J’s Rock The Bells to expand Wu-Tang Clan brand The deal centers around a plan to to expand Wu-Tang’s music to film, TV, merchandise, and brand partnerships
News The MLC fires back at Spotify’s proposed motion to dismiss bundling lawsuit The MLC says Spotify's motion to dismiss 'entirely ignores the proper legal standard for a motion to dismiss'
News Wasserman doubles down on M&A, bringing in private equity exec Steve Murray to lead acquisitions strategy Exec joins from Providence Equity Partners, where he was instrumental in helping Wasserman complete M&A deals
News Ralph Kink named head of digital transformation at GEMA "Digitalization and now generative AI are turning the music industry upside down. The tasks that GEMA faces are huge."
News Justice Department responds to TikTok’s lawsuit against US divest-or-ban law, calls platform a national security risk The DoJ has responded to TikTok's lawsuit against the new US law, arguing the platform is a national security risk
News Blue Raincoat Music hires BMG’s Roman Tagoe as Chrysalis Records Director of Streaming UK Tagoe joins Blue Raincoat Music from BMG, where he served as Director of Streaming for global catalog recordings
News Gloria Gaynor sues music producer for alleged copyright infringement, breach of contract Gaynor alleges that producer named in lawsuit is falsely claiming to own the rights to a number of her works
Interviews ‘Artists like Drake and Travis Scott push me to go to my limits every time I make music for them.’ From a small village in Switzerland to the top of the charts alongside Drake and Jack Harlow, OZ tracks his journey and tells his story...
News Alison Donald, Kobalt’s Head of Global Creative, to exit company Exec announces departure after seven years at Kobalt
News TikTok launches hum- or sing-to-search feature, taking on YouTube Music and Shazam The tool is TikTok's answer to popular music identification apps like Shazam, and to YouTube's recently launched music search feature
News Apple Music expands artist analytics tools with global radio monitoring Artists using Apple Music's analytics tools will be able to track radio plays across 40,000 stations worldwide
News Apollo leads $700m investment into Sony Music Group partnership. (It’s a kind of magic!) Sources told MBW earlier this month that Apollo had co-funded Sony's takeover of Queen's catalog