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Business News Deals Digital
Utopia Music buys Quincy Jones backed AI firm Musimap
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 30 September 2021
Utopia Music – the technology company that is developing a platform to help the music industry better manage its rights and royalties – has acquired metadata and AI business Musimap. The deal, the two companies say, will “strengthen Utopia in building the next-generation infrastructure that will advance creator rights and enable new opportunities for the recordings business”.
The Quincy Jones-backed Musimap uses “proprietary intelligence to generate unique emotional metadata for clients” which can be used “to search for similar songs; automatically create playlists based on certain genres, moods, etc; and match playlists with personality profiles”. And it’s been doing that sort of stuff to date with clients like Universal Music, Warner Music, BMG and Vevo.
Confirming the acquisition, Utopia Chair Mattias Hjelmstedt says: “The acquisition of Musimap represents yet another milestone on our journey of becoming the world’s preferred technology supporting the entire music industry by creating new revenue streams, consolidating data and reducing administration while offering a broad spectrum of diverse, yet deeply innovative services across the globe. This is a key enabler in making the world a better place for creators through ‘fair pay for every play'”.
Meanwhile, Musimap’s Executive Chairman Andreas Spechtler adds: “Musimap’s AI technology and the team’s experience in music and emotional data is truly unique and recognised by customers like Warner Music and supported by music icons like Quincy Jones … with the acquisition by Utopia Music, Musimap’s technology will become a global standard for emotional AI in music that will supercharge the global music industry. The Musimap team is proud to become a key component of the growth and success story of the Utopia Music family”.
Meanwhile, for those of you who are only here for a Quincy Jones quote, here it is: “Musimap’s technology is the future and it makes my soul smile to see it become the AI backbone of another tech giant. Teaming up with Utopia will undoubtedly unlock new doors for Musimap, and allow it to continue changing the way we consume music, and empower creators, through enhanced discoverability. From the looks of my personality profile, as provided by [Musimap’s] MusiMe [tool], I can tell this machine has sharpened its left brain! Big-time props to the team and I look forward to continuing in the exploration of music through emotions together”.
