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From Spotify’s battle with music publishers to the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation… here’s MBW’s weekly roundup

Posted on by darion

Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly digest – where we’ll make sure you catch the five biggest stories that made headlines over the last seven days. The MBW collection is supported by: Centripthat helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their income and reduce touring costs.

We’ve been waiting for the hammer to fall for a while, and this week it did: The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against it Ticket sales manager owner Living Nationaccusing the company violating antitrust law through its dominance in the ticketing industry. Live Nation expects to win in court.

Meanwhile, AI music generator Sunowho some say makes disturbingly good music, this week revealed that he has increased $125 million in a Series B financing round that reportedly values ​​the company at 500 million dollars.

In a new article for MBW entitled Fruit Music founder Stef Van Vugt argues that it’s time to recognize that AI like Suno is currently making good music and that rights holders should focus on competing for attention instead creating great music.

Elsewhere, in the latest edition of the ongoing dispute between US music publishers and Spotify, National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) asked Congress to make changes in US copyright law so that publishers can negotiate with streaming services in the “free market”.

In the conclusion of an increasingly complicated battle over Spotify’s decision to treat its Premium subscription tiers as “bundled” services (thus allowing you to pay lower mechanical royalties), MBW notices this streaming services are the opposite to the NMPA “free market” proposal.

Here’s what happened this week…

Source: Marcus E. Jones/Shutterstock

1) LIVE NATION FOUND AN ANTI-MONOLOR LAWSUIT BY THE US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

The U.S. Department of Justice, along with 30 state and district attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against the company Live entertainment for the nation and its subsidiary, Ticket sales manageron Thursday (May 23).

The Justice Department says it is suing Live Nation for allegedly “monopolization and other illegal conduct which frustrates competition in markets throughout the live entertainment industry.”

The lawsuit, which includes a request for structural relief, aims to “restore competition in the live concert industry, provide fans with better choices at lower prices, and open the doors to venues for working musicians and other performing artists.”

“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopoly control over the U.S. live events industry at the expense of fans, artists, smaller promoters and venue operators,” the attorney general said Merrick B. Garland…

2) AMONG SPOTIFY’S U.S. SPOTIFY REGARD TO BUNCHING SPOTS, NMPA CALLS ON CONGRESS TO ALLOW MUSIC PUBLISHERS TO WAIVE MANDATORY LICENSES AND NEGOTIATE WITH STREAMERS “IN THE FREE MARKET”

The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) called on Congress to make changes to copyright law in the United States, which would give American music publishers the freedom to choose how they license their music on music streaming services.

According to the NMPA, Congress “should allow rights holders to choose to license through the (Mechanical Licensing Collective) using statutorily established royalty rates or to withdraw from the MLC and operate in the open market if they meet certain conditions.”

This legislative proposal was presented in a letter submitted by the President and CEO of NMPA David the Israelite to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on May 21 and aims to address what the NMPA calls “the continued abuse of the statutory system by digital services.”

The NMPA proposal comes in the context of an ongoing dispute between American music publishers and Spotifyfollowing SPOT’s decision in early March to reclassify its Premium Individual, Duo and Family streaming plans as “bundles” as these plans now offer access to audiobooks…

3) SPOTIFY’S BATTLE WITH SONGS AND MUSIC PUBLISHERS IS GETTING COMPLICATED. HERE IS THE SUMMARY.

Source: ISOVECTOR/Shutterstock

There was one unfortunate topic of discussion this week that couldn’t be avoided: the ongoing dispute between US music publishers and the world’s largest subscription music streaming service, Spotify.

Their dispute results from the controversial decision of SPOT reclassify your Premium tiers as “packages” combining music and audiobooks, which resulted in Spotify paying approx lower mechanical royalty rate in the US for publishers and songwriters than standalone music subscription services.

Music publishers are not happy. When Spotify first announced it was reclassifying its Premium services into bundles on April 18, David the IsraelitePresident and CEO of the company National Music Publishers Associationtold us: “It looks like Spotify is back to attacking the songwriters who make its business possible.”

On Tuesday (May 21), the NMPA called on Congress to update U.S. copyright law to allow publishers to negotiate in the “free market” like record labels.

DiMAAmerican organization representing services such as Spotify, AmazonAND Pandoraissued a statement from its president and CEO Graham Davies on Tuesday condemning this proposal…

4) AI MUSIC GENERATOR SUNO RAISES $125 MILLION, VALUING THE COMPANY AT USD 500 MILLION (REPORT)

Sunoan AI-powered music creation app that’s gaining attention for its ability to create disturbingly good music has taken off $125 million in the series B financing round.

“Eight months ago, we released our first product that allows anyone to create a song with just a simple idea. It’s very early, but 10 million people I’ve made music with Suno before,” co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman he stated in a blog post announcing the funding round.

“While Grammy-winning artists use Suno, our core user base consists of everyday people making music – often for the first time.”

According to sources cited by informationround of financing gives the two-year-old Massachusetts-based company implied value 500 million dollars…

5) BRUTAL REALITY: POWER IS TRANSFERRING TO MUSIC generated by artificial intelligence and algorithmic discoveries. MUSIC RIGHTS MUST WAKE UP TO THE OPPORTUNITY.

In a new article entitled Stef Van Vugtfounder Fruit Music, a playlisting label that has amassed tens of billions of streams, argues that power in the music industry is shifting toward AI-generated music, and rights holders need to take advantage of the situation while they can. Van Vugt writes:

AI music startups like Suno – which he just picked up $125 million in financing – they are creating better sounding music than most newly released human-made songs on music streaming services.

This points to a “new normal” that is already sweeping the music business today and will define the music business of tomorrow.

It is not impossible for major traditional music rights holders to thrive in this “new normal.” However, in the face of a number of threats to their dominance, the balance of power in global business is irreversibly changing.

In fact, I predict that new rights holders will do this – especially AI-powered music continue to gain market share from the biggest music rights holders in the coming years…

MBW’s weekly digest is powered by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their income and reduce touring costs.Music business around the world