From Jungkook’s 35.5m month-to-month Spotify listeners to Avid’s $1.4bn sale to STG… it’s MBW’s Weekly Spherical-up

Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be certain you caught the 5 greatest 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 maximise their revenue and scale back their touring prices.

Three massive tales involving lawsuits hit our pages over the previous seven days.

On Wednesday (August 16), SoundExchange introduced that it’s suing SiriusXM, claiming that the satellite tv for pc streaming service “wrongfully withheld greater than $150 million in unpaid royalties over the previous a number of years”.

In the meantime, on Monday (August 14),  Elon Musk’s X filed a movement to dismiss a $250 million-plus copyright lawsuit filed towards the social media platform by music publishers earlier this yr.

And on Friday (August 11), file labels sued the Web Archive, alleging “huge ongoing violation” of music copyrights on the web library’s ‘Nice 78 Challenge’.

Additionally this week, we reported on the sale of audio know-how firm Avid, which has been acquired by non-public fairness agency, Symphony Expertise Group (STG).

Avid, which additionally operates a DIY music distribution service known as AvidPlay, is being offered in an all-cash transaction price $1.4 billion.

Elsewhere, Tencent Music Leisure reported that hit 99.4 million subscribers in Q2, whereas Ok-pop star Jungkook surpassed BTS’s month-to-month listener tally on Spotify.

Listed below are 5 of this week’s greatest tales…

1) ELON MUSK’S X FILES MOTION TO DISMISS MUSIC PUBLISHERS’ $250M+ COPYRIGHT LAWSUIT; NMPA SAYS PLATFORM HAS ‘CONSISTENTLY FAILED’ TO STOP ‘RAMPANT PIRACY’ ON ITS PLATFORM

Elon Musk-owned social media service X (previously often known as Twitter) was hit with a multi-million-dollar copyright lawsuit in June.

The entities behind the litigation included outstanding impartial music publishers, in addition to Sony Music Publishing, Common Music Publishing Group and Warner Chappell Music.

The go well with, which named Musk’s X Corp as the only real defendant, alleged “rampant infringement of copyrighted music” on the platform, in search of over $250 million in damages.

Music publishers argued within the criticism that, “whereas quite a few Twitter rivals respect the necessity for correct licenses and agreements for using musical compositions on their platforms, Twitter doesn’t, and as an alternative breeds huge copyright infringement that harms music creators.”

Now, two months on from the launch of that litigation, X / Twitter has filed a movement asking the courtroom to dismiss the criticism “in its entirety…”

2) SOUNDEXCHANGE SUES SIRIUSXM OVER ALLEGED $150M IN UNPAID ROYALTIES OWED TO ARTISTS AND RIGHTSHOLDERS

US efficiency rights group SoundExchange has launched a lawsuit towards SiriusXM to get better what it claims are “substantial unpaid royalties and late charges owed beneath the Copyright Act” for using sound recordings on the satellite tv for pc streaming service.

SoundExchange says that it estimates that SiriusXM has “wrongfully withheld greater than $150 million in unpaid royalties over the previous a number of years”.

In a criticism filed with the US District Court docket for the Jap District of Virginia on Wednesday (August 16), SoundExchange alleged that SiriusXM “has exploited the inventive efforts of recording artists with out paying legally mandated compensation….”

3) PRIVATE EQUITY’S LOVE OF MUSIC TECH CONTINUES, AS STG ACQUIRES PRO TOOLS MAKER AVID FOR $1.4BN

One of many world’s most outstanding makers {of professional} music-making software program is being acquired in a deal price $1.4 billion.

Avid Expertise, the developer of video and audio enhancing instruments, together with the well-known Professional Instruments DAW, has agreed to be acquired by non-public fairness agency Symphony Expertise Group (STG) in an all-cash transaction price round USD $1.4 billion, together with debt.

The deal is anticipated to shut throughout This fall 2023, topic to Avid stockholder approval and regulatory approvals…

4) TENCENT MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT REACHED 99.4M PAYING SUBSCRIBERS IN Q2, AS MUSIC REVENUES JUMPED 47.6%

Tencent Music Leisure (TME), China’s largest operator of music streaming providers, has reported one more huge bounce in paying subscribers and paying-subscriber income.

The Shenzhen-headquartered firm, which operates music providers QQ Music, Kugo and Kuwou, got here inside a hair of 100 million paying subscribers in Q2 2023, the corporate stated in its newest earnings report, launched on Tuesday (August 15).

Particularly, the corporate reported 99.4 million subscribers for the quarter ended June 30. That represents a rise of 20.2% from the identical quarter a yr earlier, when the corporate reported 82.7 million paid subscribers…

5) JUNGKOOK NOW HAS 35.5M+ MONTHLY LISTENERS ON SPOTIFY – OVER HALF A MILLION MORE THAN BTS.

Jungkook is a solo celebrity. On the time of writing, in line with stats obtainable publicly on Spotify, the HYBE-signed Ok-Pop artist has 35,578,104 month-to-month listeners on the music streaming platform.

BTS, the megastar Ok-Pop group of which Jungkook is a member, has 34,981,739 month-to-month Spotify listeners, which implies that he has formally overtaken his personal band’s month-to-month listener rely on the platform, by 596,365 month-to-month listeners, in line with our calculations…

MBW’s Weekly Spherical-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their revenue and scale back their touring prices.

 Music Enterprise Worldwide