CMU Digest

CMU Digest 30.07.18: MMA, ticket touts, Eventbrite, Cliff Richard, Spotify

By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 30 July 2018

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

Songwriter groups in the US said that last minute lobbying by private equity group Blackstone could scupper the entire Music Modernization Act. Blackstone owns collecting society SESAC and mechanical rights administrator the Harry Fox Agency. It’s bid to amend the copyright law reforming MMA as it works its way through Senate is designed to protect the interests of HFA, with the MMA set to create a new mechanical rights collecting society in America. Blackstone and SESAC insist their last minute lobbying won’t kill the new act, but various songwriter groups criticised them for intervening so late in the day. [READ MORE]

The Irish government confirmed it would back new laws in the country that will outlaw ticket touting at many venues. Ministers there reviewed the secondary ticketing marketing after two Irish MPs – Noel Rock and Stephen Donnelly – proposed new rules to limit the resale of tickets for profit. Following that review the government is backing proposals to “ban the above-face value resale of tickets for sporting and entertainment events in designated venues with a capacity of 1000 or over”. [READ MORE]

Ticketing platform Eventbrite filed confidential paperwork in the US as a first step to an Initial Public Offering. It is one of the few ticketing start-ups to have gained traction in a notoriously hard market to crack. It did this by initially targeting more grass roots promoters and event organisers and then gaining global scale by acquiring a number of rival start-ups with a similar approach. It is expected to become a publicly listed company later this year. [READ MORE]

The BBC agreed to pay £850,000 towards the legal fees run up by Cliff Richard during his court battle with the broadcaster. It follows the recent high court ruling that the Beeb infringed Richard’s privacy rights by broadcasting a police raid on his house in relation to historical sex abuse allegations that never resulted in any charges. The judge who heard the case refused to back an appeal of his judgement last week, though the BBC can still take the matter direct to the Court Of Appeal and may well do so. [READ MORE]

Spotify confirmed it now had 83 million paying subscribers, up from 75 million earlier in the year. The new stats brag came in the streaming music firm’s second quarterly report as a publicly listed company. With Apple now outperforming Spotify in terms of growth in the US, it also stressed growth rates in a number of key emerging markets, in particular in Latin America. [READ MORE]

The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• AWAL signed a new deal with Deadmau5 [INFO]
• Merge signed Fucked Up [INFO]