Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be sure you caught the 5 largest tales to hit our headlines over the previous seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their earnings and scale back their touring prices.
That is proving to be a 12 months of regulatory complications for Stay Nation and its ticketing subsidiary, Ticketmaster. Not solely is the corporate battling an antitrust lawsuit introduced by the US Division of Justice, it’s now dealing with a probe by the UK’s competitors regulator over using dynamic pricing within the on-sale of tickets for Oasis‘ reunion tour subsequent 12 months.
In a brand new evaluation, MBW founder Tim Ingham took a have a look at the predicament created by the truth that demand for Oasis tickets far exceeds any potential provide, and concluded that Ticketmaster may be providing an important artist service available on the market at the moment: Being a ache sponge.
Elsewhere within the music world, we acquired phrase this week that Brazil‘s recorded music trade, one of many fastest-growing on the planet, grew a formidable 21% YoY in H1 2024.
In the meantime, Bertelsmann-owned BMG is dealing with a patent infringement lawsuit within the US, introduced by an organization referred to as Muvox LLC, which alleges the music firm infringed on a patent masking track choice based mostly on temper.
Talking of courtroom battles, this week we dug into the small print of Spotify‘s victory in a lawsuit over unlicensed streaming of Eminem songs – a lawsuit the streamer received regardless of the courtroom concluding that it didn’t even have a license for these songs.
Right here’s what occurred this week…
1) UK COMPETITION REGULATOR LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO TICKETMASTER OVER OASIS TICKET SALE
The UK’s Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into Stay Nation-owned ticketing big Ticketmaster.
The rationale for the investigation? Saturday’s on-sale for Oasis’ 2025 UK and Eire stadium tour, together with “how so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ could have been used”, the CMA stated in a press release on September 5.
The competitors watchdog stated that it plans to scrutinize “whether or not the sale of Oasis tickets by Ticketmaster could have breached shopper safety regulation”.
Over 10 million followers from 158 nations are confirmed to have queued up on Saturday (August 31) to purchase tickets to the tour…
2) ON… OASIS, TICKETMASTER, ‘DYNAMIC’ PRICING, UBER, MONEY, AND THE TRUTH.
Looks like everybody working in music nowadays needs to be in artist companies.
However have you learnt what may be essentially the most worthwhile artist service supplied by any nook of the music trade?
Being a ache sponge. Absorbing the hate and the brickbats and the accusations of greed and skulduggery so the artist doesn’t must – and doing it with out criticism.
Who’s the No.1 artist ache sponge on the planet?
Ticketmaster, after all…
3) THE US MUSIC STREAMING MARKET MIGHT BE FEELING LESS-THAN-FIZZY, BUT OVER IN BRAZIL… IT’S STILL PARTY TIME.
It’s honest to say that the worldwide music enterprise felt a bit of glum final week.
It will have taken a foolhardy exec to pop open the Tattinger after the RIAA confirmed on Thursday (August 29) that the biggest recorded music market on the planet, the US, solely grew trade revenues by 4% YoY within the first half of 2024. Whole streaming subscription accounts within the US grew by simply 2.7% YoY in the identical interval.
However what’s this?
One of many world’s most commercially thrilling – and fastest-growing – markets had no hassle bouncing up by double digits in H1 2024…
4) BMG FACES LAWSUIT IN THE US FOR ALLEGED PATENT INFRINGEMENT
An obscure firm referred to as Muvox LLC has filed a lawsuit in opposition to BMG in the USA for alleged patent infringement.
The lawsuit was filed in a Texas courtroom final month and references a patent titled ‘Music streaming, playlist creation and streaming structure‘, which describes “a technique for choosing a track” based mostly on different songs with related “moods”.
As first reported by patent litigation info useful resource RPX, the lawsuit targets “track suggestion options” inside the BMG Synch service.
Based on a lawsuit filed in the identical Texas courtroom on August 21, the corporate suing BMG additionally seems to be suing expertise big IBM for alleged infringement of the identical patent…
5) SPOTIFY JUST WON A LONG-RUNNING LAWSUIT OVER STREAMING OF EMINEM’S CATALOG – DESPITE THE COURT FINDING IT DIDN’T HAVE A LICENSE FOR THE MUSIC. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR PUBLISHERS?
After a five-year-long courtroom battle, Spotify has successfully received a courtroom case by which it was accused of getting streamed Eminem songs with out permission.
The music streaming big received the case regardless of the courtroom discovering that Spotify didn’t have a license to stream these tracks.
The courtroom additionally concluded that, if Spotify have been to be on the hook for copyright infringement, the penalty would have needed to be paid by… Kobalt Music Group.
But the most important loser on this case is Eight Mile Model, the co-publisher of 242 Eminem tracks, together with the rapper’s largest hit, Lose Your self, and different hits akin to Stan, The Actual Slim Shady, The Means I Am, and With out Me…
MBW’s Weekly Spherical-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their earnings and scale back their touring prices.Music Enterprise Worldwide