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CMU Digest
CMU Digest 13.08.18: Warner, Spotify, Guvera, YouTube, stream-ripping
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 13 August 2018
The key stories from the last week in the music business…
Warner Music confirmed it has now sold off all of its Spotify shares. The mini-major previously said it had sold off 75% of the equity it secured in the streaming firm as part of its original licensing deals. Artists and managers will now be keen to see what their share of the profits of that equity sale looks like. Warner said that $126 million had been “credited to artist accounts” in the next round of royalty statements. [READ MORE]
Spotify announced a formal alliance with Samsung. Under the partnership Samsung will push Spotify as its default music service. The consumer electronics firm has, in the past, had various attempts at setting up its own music platform. The new tie up with Spotify came as Samsung entered the smart speaker market with the Galaxy Home. [READ MORE]
Australian finance firm Amma was ordered to pay back the $6.6 million one 80 year old man invested in failed streaming service Guvera. Amma had already been criticised for the tactics it employed when raising finance for Guvera, which was co-founded by one of the equity group’s bosses. In this particular case Amma was accused of manipulated a man with Alzheimer’s into investing in the streaming business. Despite the private equity outfit denying any wrong-doing, a court recently sided with the 80 year old’s family and ordered that his investment be refunded. [READ MORE]
Mars revealed it had pulled all of its ads off YouTube after a Starburst commercial was placed next to a video by UK drill outfit Moscow17. This followed the news that a second member of the rap group had been murdered, Moscow17 and rival outfit Zone 2 having been linked to gang violence in South London. It’s not the first time big brands have complained about their ads being placed next to controversial content on YouTube, which has in turn pledged to introduce new systems to stop such things from happening. [READ MORE]
The US record industry filed new lawsuits against two stream-ripping sites based in Russia. Stream-ripping remains a top piracy gripe of the music industry, despite legal action taking the biggest platform of them all – YouTube-mp3.org – offline last year. Some other stream-ripping sites have shutdown when threatened with legal action, but not FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, which are now facing litigation from the American labels. [READ MORE]
The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Concord Music bought Independiente Records [INFO]
• Superstruct bought into Øyafestivalen [INFO]
• Investcorp and the PSP Investments bought into UTA [INFO]
• Eventim took complete ownership of Venuepoint [INFO]
• Universal Music allied with Liongate on TV projects [INFO]
• The Scala allied with Dice on ticketing [INFO]
• UCG platform Triller announced a deal with 7digital [INFO]
• Mac DeMarco allied his new label with Caroline [INFO]
• Top Dawg Entertainment signed Reason [INFO]
• Downtown signed Chase & Status [INFO]
• Reservoir signed Jeff Gutt [INFO]
