News Sony Music sues Napster over $9.2M in alleged unpaid royalties, up to $37.5M in copyright claims Sony Music claims Napster has been delinquent on payments for over a year while collecting subscription fees from “millions of paying users.”
News Indie merch firms Down Right Merchandise and Overcast Merch merge to launch Armada The new entity will operate as a single company with over 170 employees, over 250 stores, and operations spanning from Boston to Long Beach.
News beatBread raises $124M from backers including Citi to help fund artist advances The company received equity investment from Citi, Deciens Capital, Mucker Capital, and Advantage Capital, with additional credit facilities provided by GMO
Interviews Rafael Ricardo Jiménez-Dan on building Rimas, staying independent, and why he’s all in on music publishing The founder of one of the world's most important independent labels speaks out on its foundations, and the future of the business
News NetEase Cloud Music sues SM Entertainment over market dominance claims (report) In January, NetEase Cloud Music secured a temporary deal to keep SM's catalog available beyond the January 31 contract deadline.
News Jake Holmes and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page reach settlement in ‘Dazed and Confused’ copyright dispute The agreement "resolves the entire case" between the parties, though terms remain undisclosed
News Musixmatch says LyricFind trying to ‘distract from its business failures’ with antitrust lawsuit LyricFind is suing Musixmatch, arguing that an exclusivity deal with Warner Chappell Music violates US antitrust law
News SESAC Music Group raises $889M via whole business securitization, three-times oversubscribed The WBS transaction, the company's fourth, brings SESAC's total outstanding debt to about $1.1 billion
Interviews Why Primary Wave – and the Marley estate – could be sitting on a goldmine with new Bob Marley show, Hope Road Larry Mestel gives MBW a peek behind the curtain of his company's new Vegas show – and the future of 'name, image, and likeness' in music
News King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard join Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu in pulling music from Spotify after Daniel Ek’s military AI investment Ek recently led a €600 million (USD $703m) series D for Helsing, a defense company focused on AI-powered military drones.
News From Concord’s $1.76 billion ABS transaction to Universal Music Group’s EU scrutiny… it’s MBW’s weekly round-up The biggest music biz headlines from the past few days, all in once place.
Interviews ONErpm’s Emmanuel Zunz: ‘There are no more distribution companies, there are no more record labels. There are just companies providing solutions to creators.’ ONErpm founder Emmanuel Zunz on hitting $300m revenue, the Universal/Downtown deal, and why traditional music industry categories are dead to him
Interviews Naoshi Fujikura on breaking global superstars, Japan’s culture of superfans, and UMG’s positioning in the world’s second-largest music market… MBW's World Leaders series meets Naoshi Fujikura, President & CEO of Universal Music Japan
News ‘Super listeners’ make up just 2% of an artist’s monthly streaming audience, yet buy 50% of concert tickets, Spotify says Spotify may have just identified the 'super-superfans' who truly drive an artist's career
Analysis The UK government just unveiled a new ‘label-led’ initiative to improve pay for legacy artists, songwriters and session musicians. Here’s what that means… UK songwriters will be the first in the world to receive a per-diem from labels for attending songwriting sessions