Publishing
Red Hot Chili Peppers Selling Song Catalog
The band members — Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith — collectively write many of their songs, so it appears that a majority of them would have needed to agree to sell their shares of the rights to make this deal happen. According to BMI, the Red Hot Chili Peppers song catalog is administered by Moebetoblame Music, under the guidance of lawyer Eric Greenspan, managing partner of the law firm Myman, Greenspan, Fox, Rosenberg Mobasser, Younger & Light LLP. Sources say Greenspan shopped the deal for the band. The Red Hot Chili Peppers song catalog generates $5 million to $6 million in net publishers’ share (usually known as gross profit — although in this case its likely to include all revenue from the catalog), sources say, and it traded at a ab...
Downtown Lays Off Nashville Employees Following Concord Publishing Sale
Downtown declined to say how many employees were let go, though sources say it was the creative staffers involved in working with publishing the catalog sold to Concord. Downtown’s statement goes on to add that the company has ended the lease on its Nashville office and is exploring “our options to support the needs of our ongoing business. We continue to employ Nashville-based executives at Downtown Music Services, Songtrust, and Songspace.” Downtown only sold the portion of its publishing catalog that it had an ownership stake in and not the songs and catalogs where it serves as administrator, including those of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Miles Davis, John Prine, the Wu-Tang Clan and others. The company will now focus on being a multi-faceted service organization for...
MLC Collects $40M for January, Makes First Rights Holders Payments
Overall, the MLC said that the mechanical pool of revenues amounted to slightly more than $53 million in royalties, which means that direct deals between services and publishers account for approximately $13 million. The Music Modernization Act and its regulations allow the services to carve out, or withhold, that portion of royalty funds from the MLC and instead pay them directly to the publisher. What amount is actually paid to the publishers for those direct deals is unknown because a publisher with a direct deal might negotiate a rate higher than the statutory rate; and if they do, that higher amount comes out of the service’s pocket, not the mechanical pool. But even though the MLC doesn’t collect those funds, it still gets the play reports for songs that are involved in those direct ...
Reservoir Leading Music Publishing Funds Onto the US Stock Market
Ross CH Acquisition II is bringing $115 million to Reservoir’s public offering as part of the deal. Some institutional investors including Caledonia have been lined up as anchor shareholders, which will bring in $150 million in gross proceeds. In the end, after investment banking, legal fees and other expenses, Reservoir will be left with $246 million in gross proceeds from the transaction. The company’s current shareholders, including the Khosrowshahi family, will roll over all their Reservoir equity into the new company, giving it an enterprise value of $788 million. That means that the Reservoir shareholders will likely have a lock-up period — maybe 180 days — before they can cash in any of their shares. In the meantime, the company has an implied pro-forma equity value of $...
The Deals: MOD SUN Signs With Big Noise, ADA Pairs With Billy Mann
Big Noise is a record label, publishing and media company offering artists the opportunity to develop and transform their artistry. The company manages artists across various genres like hip-hop, alternative and pop. Warner Music Group’s ADA Worldwide announced a partnership with Billy Mann and Benton James for their new label icons+giants. Mann, who is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, producer, entrepreneur and artist manager and James, an A&R executive and artist manager, will combine their digital marketing and A&R track record with ADA’s global influence, resources and connected artist services. “On behalf of everyone at ADA and Warner Music, we welcome Billy and Benton and the icons+giants team to the ADA family,” said Eliah Seton, president of independent music and ...
Dr. Luke’s Publishing Co. to Start Paying Royalties in Bitcoin
Prescription Songs is likely the first established music company to pay its talent in the cryptocurrency. Prescription Songs, the independent music publisher founded by Dr. Luke (a.k.a. Lukasz Gottwald), announced Thursday (April 1) that it will allow its roster of songwriters and producers the option of receiving royalty payments in Bitcoin, making it seemingly the first music company to do so. To facilitate the payments, the publisher has partnered with BitPay, a leading provider of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services. “Prescription Songs has always been an industry leader providing the best services to our songwriters, producers and artists. Some of our creators asked about being paid in Bitcoin so we wanted to get ahead of the pack and provide that service,” said Dr. Luke...
Top Songwriters Ask Artists & Execs to Stop Taking Credit for Songs They Didn’t Write in Open Letter
Within two hours of the letter going live, songwriters including Warren — who sources say spearheaded the effort — Tranter, Golan, Victoria Monet, Tayla Parx, Joel Little and many others signed. Collectively, those songwriters have worked with artists including Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and more. The Pact is a newly formed organization, which debuted over the weekend posting as @_the_pact on Instagram declaring it was “time to make some changes” for the betterment of songwriters. This effort arrives when songwriters — and their catalogs — are under a brighter spotlight than ever. Earlier this year, investment companies like Merck Mercuriadis‘ Hipgnosis are spending billions to acquire publishing catalogs (resulting i...
Bob Dylan Argues Co-Writer Gets No ‘Double-Dip’ From $300M Songs Sale
According to the memorandum in support of dismissal, Dylan was one of the rare songwriters who owned copyrights to his musical compositions. He evidently maintained full publishing control, and with respect to songs co-written with others, sole ownership also came because he treated these musicians as employees in contract. As for the catalog sale last November, Dylan says he “no longer owns the copyrights or has any right to royalties from their exploitation.” But, Dylan’s court papers add that while he’d no longer be getting new money from exploitation of his legendary songs including “All Along the Watchtower,” “Tangled Up in Blue” and “The Times They Are A-Changin,'” he ensured that Universal would assume obligations...
Thelma Plum’s ‘Better In Blak’ Wins Vanda & Young Songwriting Comp
Its parent album placed second in the triple j album of the year listeners poll in 2019, was shortlisted for the prestigious Australian Music Prize, and scored the Brisbane-based artist six ARIA Award nominations, winning for best cover art. “Feeling so honored that ‘Better in Blak’ has won the Vanda & Young competition,” she wrote on social media after her name was called out. Plum also gave “heartfelt thanks” to her co-writers Alex Burnett and Oli Horton “for their creativity and to everyone who connected to a song that is deeply personal, written when I was feeling very alone. I don’t feel alone today.” Baker Boy, the one-time young Australian of the year, takes second spot with “Meditjin” and is the first prize recipient to include lyrics in a language other than English. A Yolngu ...
Citing Reforms, CISAC Readmits Troubled Spanish Society SGAE
Paris-based CISAC temporarily expelled the Spanish society in May 2019 after finding it had violated the international confederation’s rules, which included discriminatory treatment of rights holders and irregularities in its distribution of royalties. CISAC set out a list of 17 reforms it required SGAE to implement to comply with CISAC’s rules. “CISAC has worked for over three years to monitor, support and evaluate SGAE’s transformation into a society that is compliant with international standards,” CISAC director-general Gadi Oron and board chairman Marcelo Castello Branco said in a joint statement. “This has been a complex task of utmost importance both to CISAC members, who depend on the integrity of the collective management system internationally, and to Spanish creators and rights h...
Helen Reddy to be Posthumously Honored at APRA Awards
Reddy won a Grammy Award for “I Am Woman, co-written with Ray Burton, and went on to reach the summit of the Hot 100 with “Delta Dawn” in September 1973 and “Angie Baby” in December 1974. Upon the latter’s coronation, she tied the then-record for most No. 1s among solo women, sharing the honor with Cher, Roberta Flack and Connie Francis. Across her career, Reddy notched 20 career entries on the Hot 100, and 25 million albums sold. She also chalked-up 24 entries on the Adult Contemporary airplay chart, with eight of those topping the tally. Her place in history was confirmed in 2006 when she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, and the story of her journey was documented in the 2019 biopic I Am Woman. Traci Donat will accept the award the Ted Albert Award o...
David Crosby Sells Legendary Catalog to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group
Irving Azoff‘s newly-launched venture Iconic Artists Group has partnered with David Crosby on a wide-ranging deal to monetize the California singer-songwriter’s life work in the digital era, the two parties announced today (March 3). Under the agreement, Iconic has purchased the publishing and recorded music rights to Crosby’s catalog, which includes his solo work as well as his output as a member of The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and the later Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The deal also includes Crosby’s songs as a duo with Nash. “I’ve known David as a friend and have admired him as a great artist since our earliest days at Geffen Roberts Management shortly after I moved to Los Angeles,” Azoff said in a statement. “This is an incre...
