👋 THE KNOWLEDGE: our weekly mix of the best news, analysis, and insider tips from across Music Ally's services. It's FREE, fun*, and every Friday. Plus receive a copy of the Sandbox Music Marketing Campaigns of the Year 2023 Report! Sign up here:
*actual levels of fun may vary
SoundCloud’s global dealmaking continues as it works towards launching its new SoundCloud Go premium tier outside the US.
Its latest agreement is with publisher Sony/ATV: a multi-territory agreement for Europe that extends the companies’ existing partnership in the US.
Yesterday, it was reported that YouTube’s licensing agreement with Universal Music Group expired earlier this year, meaning that it has switched to a rolling monthly contract while a new deal is negotiated.
Music Ally can reveal that YouTube is not the only music-streaming service in such a position: Spotify is in a similar month-to-month rolling contract with at least two of the major labels, and if not already, soon with all three.
Our sources indicated that Spotify has entered a rolling contract with Universal Music and Warner Music, although the status of its deal with Sony Music is unknown – but if not expired already, is expected to be soon.
2016 is a massive year for the music industry’s relationship with YouTube – and not just because of the former’s drive for recalibration of safe-harbour legislation.
All three major labels are due to negotiate new licensing deals with YouTube in the coming months, with a well-briefed Financial Times piece suggesting the negotiations will see the labels attempt to “reset” their agreements with Google’s video service.
US music-streaming firm Cür Media has been granted more time to make its first licensing payments to labels and publishers, after missing its first deadline on 31 January.
The company recently launched its Cür Music service in beta in the US, and had agreed to make $8m of upfront payments to some rightsholders for the rights to make their catalogues available to stream.
As predicted on Friday, Sony Music has officially confirmed its licensing deal with SoundCloud.
The public details match those of its previous agreements with Universal Music and Warner Music: access to the label’s catalogue for SoundCloud’s upcoming subscription tier, as well as more promotional tools and data for Sony.
SoundCloud may finally have a full set of major-label deals, with both The Verge and Music Business Worldwide reporting that Sony Music has signed a licensing agreement.
Both cite anonymous sources as confirming the agreement, indicating behind-the-scenes briefings ahead of an official announcement. Neither firm is commenting officially for now.
Music startup Dubset is launching its new MixBANK platform for clearing and distributing licensed remixes and longform DJ mixes, bagging an impressive first client: Apple Music.
The company’s technology will identify music used in remixes and mixes, and clear its use via deals with labels and publishers, before distributing it to digital services.
A single paragraph in the Wall Street Journal’s profile of Cür Media – the company behind new US streaming service Cür Music – offers a useful snapshot of music licensing in 2016, based on comments from CEO Tom Brophy.
“After starting the company in 2014, he has obtained licenses from all three major record companies, giving them a collective $8 million in advance money as part of the deal and issuing them a 5% stake in the company,” explained the WSJ. “Cür still needs to raise more money to launch the service, Mr. Brophy said.”
One label executive quoted anonymously in the piece claimed that his company licensed the service ‘primarily because it didn’t want to turn down the advance money’.
We were first with the news of US music-streaming service Cür Music’s launch yesterday. Now we can report on the licensing agreements that made the launch possible.
In the last week, parent company Cür Media has published two financial filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealing new licensing deals with Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music.
British collecting society PRS for Music and YouTube have extended their licensing deal, publishing the terms publicly so the music industry can see exactly how much…
No, sorry, just a joke: the deal remains as under-wraps as ever. But it has been extended, for an unannounced period.
SoundCloud has bagged a licensing deal with its second major label: Universal Music, following its agreement with Warner Music in November 2014.
The deal was announced this afternoon (although leaked in the New York Post yesterday): it’s a multi-territory agreement that covers Universal’s recorded-music division and its publishing group.
The boundaries of European safe-harbour legislation won’t be tested in court just yet, after SoundCloud reached a settlement with collecting society PRS for Music that ends the latter’s copyright-infringement lawsuit.
The deal followed five years of licensing negotiations that ended in acrimony this August when PRS for Music filed its lawsuit.
Key points? “The licence covers the use of PRS for Music repertoire since SoundCloud’s launch” – previously a key sticking point in the negotiations, with PRS having argued that SoundCloud’s existing free service required a licence, and SoundCloud maintaining that as a user-generated platform it qualified for safe harbour protection.
