Publishing
Hipgnosis Raises $215 Million With Stock Offering, Exceeding Target
“I am once again delighted with the support from both our existing and new shareholders with an oversubscribed raise of over $215 million, £156 million,” said Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis in a statement. “We will deploy this immediately into our pipeline of songs and I am incredibly appreciative of the incredible songwriters who have entrusted us with their iconic works. We will now have a portfolio of almost $2.5 billion of extraordinarily successful and culturally important songs, which offers a massive opportunity for us to add value with our Song Management which manages these songs with bandwidth and responsibility.” As the company announced last month, Hipgnosis expects to use the proceeds from the placing to acquire catalogs already lined up by The Family (Music) Limite...
Roblox and Twitch Are Gaming the System Against Songwriters (Guest Op-Ed)
The company has made hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of creators, including by requiring users to pay every time they upload music — taking advantage of largely young people’s lack of understanding about copyright — and then they take virtually no action to prevent repeat infringement or alert users to the risks they are taking. The fact that mostly children, who would have no idea whether Roblox has covered its legal bases, are the ones who are being taken advantage of is particularly egregious When confronted with the need to license in order to protect itself and its users, Roblox thus far has been defiant. Not only have they refused to pay for the songs they know are on the platform, they are trying to hide behind a misinterpretation of the DMCA to avoid liabil...
Klymaxx Members Say Women Songwriters Hall of Fame Is Inducting the Wrong Band
Cooley did not respond to emails and voicemails asking her to comment for this story. This story will be updated if she contacts Billboard following publication. From 1985 to 1987, Klymaxx scored five Billboard Hot 100 hits, including “I Miss You,” which hit No. 5 on the chart; “Meeting in the Ladies Room”; and “Man Size Love.” By late 1988, Cooper, Malsby and bassist, vocalist and producer Joyce “Fenderella” Irby had left the band, leaving Cooley, Stewart and keyboardist Robbin Grider to record the group’s last album, The Maxx Is Back, which was released in 1990. In the early 2000s, Cooley fell out with her former bandmates when she unsuccessfully attempted to register the Klymaxx trademark for her sole usage — beef that was touched upon in a 2004 VH1 Bands Reunited episode. The Tru...
Anambra election: Political parties start primaries today
In line with the guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of next year’s Anambra state Governorship Election, primary elections by political parties to democratically nominate their candidates for the election will commence today (Thursday). Also the collection of nomination forms from INEC Headquarters has started even as the Commission had on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, implemented the first activity on the Timetable by publishing the official Notice for the election in its offices in Anambra state. This cheering news was disclosed in a terse statement by Rotimi Oyekanmi, Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu. The statement read in parts: “It will be recalled that on 19th January 2021, the Commission published the Timetabl...
Music Publishing Revenue Topped $4B in 2020, Says NMPA
The U.S. music publishing industry registered a 9.6% revenue increase to $4.077 billion in 2020, up from $3.72 billion in 2019, according to the NMPA presentation. Surprisingly, within that, performance collections grew 7.92% to $2.1 billion from $1.945 billion in 2019. Both growth percentages were slightly down from the increases posted in between 2019 and 2018 when total revenue was up 12.7% from $3.3 billion in 2018; and within that performance was up 8.1% from $1.8 billion in the year earlier period. Consequently, Israelite pointed out that the pandemic will likely continue to be a drag upon growth. “Even though the world felt the effects of COVID back in March of 2020, because of the delayed nature of much of the revenue streams for the publishing industry, there was a later imp...
Drake, Shania Twain & More Petition to Change Canadian Copyright Law
The letter dated June 2 notes that early in their careers, artists and songwriters are often pressured into signing away some of their rights, “thus denying creators, their families and their children the opportunity to reap fair rewards from their creative works later in life.” It also notes that in the U.S., copyright law has been revised to let creators terminate and re-claim rights after 35 years from the date of transfer — a provision known as the right of reversion — while the EU is presently considering rules to ensure similar fairness. “We believe Canada should follow the EU and USA examples to ensure fair protection of Canadian creators,” the letter reads. “Rights reversion is a simple and essential tool which enhances creators ability to ...
Joel Little, Lorde and Taylor Swift Hitmaker, Sells Songwriter Catalog to Hipgnosis
The overall geographic split of revenue breaks down to 61% U.S. and 39% international. Notably, 65% of that stems from Little’s top five songs: “Whatever It Takes,” “Royals,” “Young, Dumb & Broke,” “You Need to Calm Down” and “Me!” Little first rose to prominence for his early collaborations with Lorde, co-writing and producing the singer’s debut EP The Love Club and her freshman album Pure Heroine; he also co-wrote her second album Melodrama. “Royals,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for nine consecutive weeks, has sold over 10 million copies worldwide and won Lorde and Little Song of the year at the 2014 Grammys. Its accompanying album Pure Heroine — which also included the Little co-written and produced Hot 100 No. 6 hit “Team” — was certified three-times p...
Assessing the Music Industry’s Progress 1 Year After Blackout Tuesday: ‘We Need to Build a Bigger Table’
#TheShowMustBePaused and other principals working to achieve sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion assess the industry’s progress so far. A year ago Wednesday (June 2), Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas brought the music industry to a standstill. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the global protests it spurred, the pair called for a day of racial reckoning — dubbed Blackout Tuesday by supporters — and simultaneously launched #TheShowMustBePaused to hold the industry accountable for its own systemic bias. “Our mission,” stated Agyemang and Thomas at the time, “is to hold the industry at large, including major corporations + their partners who benefit from the efforts, struggles and successes of Black people, accountable … it is the obligation of these entities to protect and e...
SERAP urges President Buhari to tell Nigerians spending plan for James Ibori loot, others
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to “urgently direct Mrs Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to disclose spending details of the $700 million looted funds reportedly recovered by the Federal Government in the past four years, including the list and location of projects completed with the money, as well as details of the contractors that executed the projects.” SERAP also urged him to “direct Mrs Ahmed to disclose how the government plans to spend the returned £4.2m Ibori loot, including details of planned capital expenditure, and whether there is any plan to ensure that the money and any future returned Ibori loot would be spent to achieve justice and effective remedies for victims of corruption in...
Publishing Briefs: Sacem and Spotify Extend Contract; WCM Signs Vinylz
Bolstered by its expertise in the management of authors’ rights in the digital sphere, Sacem has consolidated its position as a leader in collective management by regularly renegotiating its agreement with Spotify over the years in order to guarantee its members the fairest possible remuneration for the use of their works. Together, Sacem and Spotify will continue to explore this ever-changing and strategic market for the entire music ecosystem. Warner Chappell Music signed a worldwide publishing agreement with multi-platinum record producer Vinylz. He’s become a go-to producer for numerous stars like Travis Scott, Drake, Justin Bieber, Rihanna and many more. “I couldn’t be happier to be reunited with Vinylz. We’ve had a great, longstanding successful relationship spanning...
Influence Media Buys Stake in Julia Michaels’ Song Catalog
Also included are Michaels’ publishing stakes in several of her songs as a solo artist, including “Issues,” “I Miss You” (with Clean Bandit), “Carry Me” (with Kygo) and “Friends” (with Justin Bieber and BloodPop). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Michaels acquisition is the second from Influence Media’s music fund with the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (MERS of Michigan), which boasts $100 million in initial capital to invest in the recording and publishing rights of commercially proven songs. Its first joint acquisition, of select copyrights from songwriter Ali Tamposi’s catalog, was announced in April. “Like Carole King, Sia and Bruno Mars before her, Julia Michaels belongs in the pantheon of great songwriters who can write classics for themselves as well as o...
Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker Honored For Streaming Milestone
“During the recording session,” Parker told APRA AMCOS staff, “I was working myself up to tell him I was going to take it back.” There were no bad feelings from Ronson. The Brit Award-winning producer bestowed the songwriter of the year award to Parker during the annual APRA Awards, via video link. “You think of ‘The Less I Know the Better,’” Ronson explained during his speech, “it’s one of the most iconic basslines of the past 20 years.” Parker wrote, recorded, produced and mixed the song, which appeared on the Grammy-nominated album Currents and went to No. 1 on the triple j station’s Hottest 100 listener’s poll for decade. Currents went to No. 1 in Australia, and Top 5 on both side of the Atlantic. Today, the song is four-times platinum certified in Australia, double-platinum in t...
