CMU Digest

CMU Digest 20.05.19: NME, Woodstock, Canadian copyright, Beatport, Borderline

By | Published on Monday 20 May 2019

The key stories from the last week in the music business…

TI Media sold its music titles – NME and Uncut – to Singapore-based BandLab Technologies. The buyer previously owned half of Rolling Stone, but was bought out of that media brand when the other half was acquired by the US-based Penske Media Corporation. TI Media said that BandLab was buying its music titles “as part of its mission to grow out a major global music media business”. [READ MORE]

The Woodstock company won an injunction against its former financial backer Dentsu which confirmed that the latter couldn’t cancel the Woodstock 50 event and ordered it to stop talking about any such cancellation. However, the court declined to force Dentsu to return $18 million to the August festival’s bank account. Woodstock organisers then announced they had allied with the bankers at Oppenheimer & Co in a bid to find the financing still necessary for the festival to go ahead. [READ MORE]

The Canadian parliament’s Heritage Committee made a number of recommendations about reforming the country’s Copyright Act. These included bringing the copyright term on songs in line with Europe, removing a royalty break currently enjoyed by radio stations, and reviewing other copyright exceptions and the copyright safe harbour. Said recommendations were welcomed by the music industry, including both label and artist representatives. [READ MORE]

Beatport put a new streaming service for DJs into beta. It’s the dance music platform’s second go at launching a streaming service, though a B2B set-up for DJs – integrated with existing DJ performance software such as that made by Pioneer – makes much more sense that a consumer-facing product. As it evolves the new Beatport service will offer an all-important offline streaming facility, crucial if DJs are to use the platform in clubs. [READ MORE]

London venue Borderline announced it would close later this year due to rising rent and business rates, and the other challenges of running a grass roots venue in the capital. The news came as Arts Council England and the Music Venue Trust launched new schemes to support grass roots venues. The latter noted that business rates played a role in Borderline’s closure and again called on government to extend an existing rates relief scheme for small businesses on the high street to music venues. [READ MORE]

The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Live Nation Denmark acquired agency and management firm PDH [INFO]
• Hipgnosis Songs Fund acquired Dave Stewart’s songs catalogue [INFO]
• Downtown Music bought the Strictly Confidential catalogue [INFO]
• Demi Lovato signed a management deal with Scooter Braun [INFO]
• The Other Songs allied with Kobalt [INFO]
• Warner/Chappell signed Melendi [INFO]



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