CMU Digest

CMU Digest 23.01.17: TGE, Paul McCartney, Michael Lynton, German record sales, Pandora, DF Concerts

By | Published on Monday 23 January 2017

TGE 2017

The key stories from the last seven days in the music business…

We announced the themes to be explored at this year’s CMU Insights @ The Great Escape conference that sits at the heart of the TGE Convention. Four conferences in one, once again we will present a full day of insight presentations, case studies, one-on-one interviews and panel debates for each of four key topics: export, royalties, media and drugs. [READ MORE]

Paul McCartney sued Sony/ATV in relation to his reversion right under US copyright law. The litigation is related to the debate over whether or not the right to terminate publishing contracts after 35 years – part of American copyright law – applies to non-US songwriters and deals. Sony/ATV hasn’t said it opposes McCartney’s bid to reclaim his rights in the Lennon/McCartney catalogue, but it hasn’t confirmed that it won’t. McCartney’s lawyers suspect the publisher wants to see what happens in its legal battle with Duran Duran on this issue, in which it won round one. [READ MORE]

Sony Entertainment’s CEO Michael Lynton confirmed he was exiting the company to work full time for Snapchat, in which he was an early investor. Although Lynton was more hands on with Sony’s global movie and TV business, the firm’s music companies reported into him too. It’s thought his departure could result in a restructure of Sony’s US-headquartered entertainment units, including Sony Music Entertainment and Sony/ATV Music Publishing. [READ MORE]

New stats this week confirmed that streaming boomed in Germany last year, but CDs still accounted for more than 53% of the local record industry’s revenues. Though with CD sales continuing to decline and subscription streaming up 73.1% last year, 2017 could be the year when CDs fall below the 50% point. Germany like Japan is a key recorded music market that has made the shift from physical product to digital much slower than elsewhere, such as in the US and UK. [READ MORE]

A blog post from Pandora’s insights guy confirmed that artists will continue to get their royalties from the firm’s free personalised radio service via SoundExchange, even though the digital company is no longer using a licence from the collecting society. This is important, because it means artists generally see a bigger cut of the money (50%) and payments are not subject to recoupment. Though artist royalties on Pandora’s less used paid-for personalised radio service will now go through the labels, and therefore be subject to record contract. [READ MORE]

Live Nation subsidiary DF Concerts was told to repay £50,000 to the Scottish government after it cancelled the 2017 edition of T In The Park. The Scottish government gave DF a controversial £150,000 grant to help fund the move of the T festival from Balado in Kinross to Strathallan Castle. There have been a number of issues with the new site. The grant was conditional on there being three festivals at Strathallan over three years, hence DF needing to now return a third of the funding. [READ MORE]

The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Providence Equity Partners took a stake in the Sziget festival [INFO]
• Entertainment marketing agencies Frukt and Rogers & Cowan allied [INFO]
• PPL and PRS announced a joint licence for community radio [INFO]
• Kobalt announced a deal with Keith Urban’s new publishing company Boom [INFO]
• UTA signed Kelis [INFO]
• Syco signed Five After Midnight [INFO]



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