Creative Industries
Main stories — Week 14, 2023
Below is a list of the main stories published by Creative Industries News in the past week:
COPYRIGHT & REGULATION
> Italy’s competition authority AGCM starts probe into a possible abuse of SIAE’s economic dependence by Meta Platforms
> Canada’s Bill C-11 moves forward as House of Commons rejects amendments protecting content uploaders
> OFCOM recommends further investigation into the cloud market in the UK
> Recording Academy’s Grammys on the Hill Awards to honour Pharrell Williams and US Senators Chuck Schumer and Bill Cassidy
> Canada’s government gives the green light to Rogers Communications’ CA$20bn acquisition of Shaw Communications
LITIGATION
> IFPI welcomes new decision from Italian court ordering CloudFlare to blocks sites providing access to BitTorrent sites
> US court orders AllAccessTV and Quality Restreams operator to pay studios $30 million for copyright infringement
> German court issues injunction ordering an individual to stop making stream ripping software YouTube-DL available
> British court gives a suspended sentence and a £373,000 fine to a man accused of selling counterfeit copies of vinyl records
CMOs & LICENSING
> GEMA’s 2022 collections hit an all-time high at €1.17bn, up 13% year-on-year
> CISAC and JASRAC delegation meets in Tokyo with Japan Prime Minister Kishida Fumio
> CONNECT Music Licensing appoints Sundeep Chauhan as President
> Good Neighbour secures neighbouring rights representation for Andy Grammer, Max Frost, Khruangbin and Uffie
DATA
> YouTube’s Shorts boost artists’ audience of unique viewers, according to Lyor Cohen
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
> Bertelsmann reports record revenue of €20.2bn, up 8.3% year-on-year
> Utopia’s Roberto Neri joins Believe as CEO of Believe Publishing to develop ‘a comprehensive publishing business’
> Sire Records co-founder Seymour Stein who signed Madonna, Talking Heads, The Ramones and The Pretenders dies aged 80
> Sound Royalties supports Paul Irizarry’s new Miami project The Lab Studios
DIGITAL ECONOMY
> Deezer’s major shareholders agree to coordinate any upcoming sales of their shares on the market
> Electronic Arts is reducing its workforce by about 6% as part of an overall review of the video game company’s priorities
> Songtradr finalises the acquisition of B2B digital platform 7digital for £19.4 million
> Netflix restructures its film division with a focus on producing less movies
> Tidal launches new in-app Live to share music between subscribers
DEALS
– Faber Music acquires Manners McDade
– Kobalt seals global publishing admin deal with Artism Mind Music Publishing
– Primary Wave Music acquires a stake in Sarah McLachlan’s music publishing and recorded music catalogues
– Wise Music Group takes a controlling interest in Edition Peters Group
– Matt Schuster signs global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Nashville
– Beatroot Music signs distribution deal for the recordings of 7-year-old King Moore
– Kobalt signs kids’ catalogue specialists Leader Entertainment / El Reino Infantil Network to a global administration deal
– Michaël Brun has signed a recording agreement with Astralwerks
– Deutsche Grammophon signs Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi to a recording deal
– Concord Music Publishing signs Colony House’s Caleb Chapman to a global publishing agreement
IN THE NEWS
– Anna Bond joins Secretly Distribution
– Believe UK strengthens its leadership team
– Sachin Kamble named Head of Digital Business at Sony Music Entertainment India
– Mark Collen leaves Sony Music Entertainment to launch new consultancy firm Night Manager Entertainment
– Beatport names Sofia Ilyas as its first Chief Community Officer
– FreshTracks Music UK launches with John Clifford as Managing Director
– SM Entertainment taps Jang Cheol-hyuk as its new CEO to roll out SM 3.0 strategy
INTERVIEWS
In case you missed it, Creative Industries News published recent Q&As with:
– Matteo Fedeli (SIAE): ‘Some big shots in California have decided how much our repertoire is worth’
– 3 questions to Chris McMurtry (Pex): ‘Apple Music Classical is a game changer’
– David Israelite (NMPA): ‘The rate setting system is broken and needs to be reformed’
– Robert Singerman (LyricFind/BELEM project)
– Bruno Guez (Revelator)
– Andrea C Martin (PRS for Music)
– Cécile Rap-Veber (SACEM)
– Molly Neuman (Songtrust)
– Jordi Puy (Unison)
– Olivier Chastan (Iconoclast)
– Ken Umezaki (Verifi)
– Paul Pacifico (AIM)
– Spek (PopArabia)
– Merk Mercuriadis (Hipgnosis) (Part 1)
– Merk Mercuriadis (Hipgnosis) (Part 2)
OPINION
In case you missed it, Creative Industries News published recent opinion pieces from:
– Jeff Liebenson (IAEL): ‘Music in the Metaverse — Negotiating Key Issues’
– David Lowery: ‘Why windowing releases works for me’
– Chola Makgamathe (SAMRO): South Africa needs a comprehensive, multifaceted strategy to curb the economic impact of piracy
– Susan Cotchin (Good Neighbour Rights): ‘Australia’s decision to limit the application of Art. 15 of WIPO’s WPPT has impacted Australian artists in a big way’
– Helen Smith (IMPALA): ‘We don’t believe equitable remuneration is equitable at all’
– Jonathan Reichman and Jeremy King (Hunton Andrews Kurth): ‘Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith is an opportunity for US Supreme Court to clarify fair use’
– Kevin Casini: ‘Stakeholders need to take a long-term view with the Copyright Royalty Board’s rate-setting proceedings’
– Barry Scannell (IMRO): ‘Royalty-based NFTs have limited fungibility’
Creative Industries
Dynamite Songs names Claudia Namukasa as Catalogue Manager and Charlotte Hancock as Rights Acquisition Manager
SOCAN distributed CA$512m in 2025 from revenue of CA$587.1m, up 5% y-o-y
Secretly Distribution acquires data and analytics company Babel Ops
SPEDIDAM announces the departure of Managing Director Guillaume Damerval
The MLC plans webinars to show members how to use tools to manage song data
Six takeaways from The MLC’s first annual report for 2021: distributions, membership, matching rates, processed works, historical unmatched works and expenditures
Olivier Chastan (Iconoclast): ‘Name, image and likeness will be as important as music rights in the future’
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Collective Management Organisations3 years agoThe MLC plans webinars to show members how to use tools to manage song data
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Collective Management Organisations4 years agoSix takeaways from The MLC’s first annual report for 2021: distributions, membership, matching rates, processed works, historical unmatched works and expenditures
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Interview4 years agoOlivier Chastan (Iconoclast): ‘Name, image and likeness will be as important as music rights in the future’
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Collective Management Organisations4 years agoCécile Rap-Veber (SACEM): ‘We are a solutions provider to create value, a tech company, and we are less and less seen as some sort of cultural institution’