Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly roundup. Over the past seven days, we’ve found five biggest stories to catch the five biggest stories. MBW Roundup is supported St Stripover 500 of the world’s best-selling artists will help maximize income and reduce tour costs.
This week, US copyright owners ruled that cutting off copyrighted content without permission to train AI models is not considered “fair use.” I got it. However, this ruling may not apply to the generated AI where music companies are suing AI companies.
Also in the AI world, MBW reported this week on the ongoing work of Tiktok parental bytedance in the field of AI Music.
Elsewhere, Sony Group Corp reported its calendar fourth quarter revenue this week. Sony’s global music rights manipulation generated $2.7 billion over three months starting from the end of December 2024, across recorded music and music publishing.
Also, there are some notable news from Warner Music Group this week as we will bolster our M&A efforts by strengthening our corporate development team led by Michael Ryan Southern. According to a press release, Warner is calling for “turbocharge its growth” through M&A.
Speaking of M&A, Universal Music Group announced today (February 14th) that it has acquired a majority stake in A-Sketch, a Japanese-based artist management business and record label.
This is what happened this week…
1) Training AI without permission using copyrighted content is not “fair use.”
A US court has ruled for the first time whether using copyrighted material without permission to train AI would be “fair use” under copyright law. This news is pretty much a good thing for copyright owners. company.
However, there is one big wrinkle. The judge said in the ruling that it does not necessarily apply to the generated AI where music companies are suing AI developers.
The case has been announced to Los Intelligence, the owner of Reuters News Service, to enable media and news conglomerate Thomson Reuters to access a database of coat cases edited through machine learning (AI) technology. We have pitted against Loss Intelligence, the current deprecation service we provide.
2) Bytedance is building AI Music Beasts… a little help from the Beatles and Michael Jackson
Bytedance, Tiktok’s $300 billion parent company, is one of the busiest AI developers in the world. Although they plan to spend billions of dollars on AI chips this year, the technology will allow Sam Altman’s Openai to make money.
Bytedance’s Duobao AI Chatbot is currently China’s most popular AI assistant, with 78.6 million active users per month as of January.
You can also generate music.
In September, Bytedance added the AI Music Generation feature to its Duobao app. This “it seems like it supports more than 10 different musical styles, and allows you to write lyrics and compose music in just one click.”
3) Sony generated $2.7 billion from recorded music and publications on Calendar Q4 as Ateez tops the company’s global sales charts.
Sony’s global music rights manipulation generated $2.7 billion over three months starting from the end of December 2024, across recorded music and music publishing.
This is based on MBW calculations based on the results of Sony Group Corp’s Calendar Q4 2024 (Fiscal Q3), as announced by Japanese companies on Thursday (February 13th).
The $2.7 billion figure rose 7.1% year-on-year for a certain currency in which the US dollar was converted (reported on the fourth quarter 2023 calendar).
However, the Calendar Q4 figures were boosted by changing the way Sony reports quarterly recorded music streaming sales from one digital platform to a net base. The exact impact of this change was not stated by Sony…
4) Join the M&A team of Alfonso Perez-Soto and Michael Lobiondo of the Warner Music Group’s Michael Ryan Southern
Warner Music Group is serious about M&A.
On Monday (February 10th), WMG revealed that it is strengthening its corporate development team led by Michael Ryan Southern. According to a press release, Warner is calling for “turbocharge its growth” through M&A.
With this move, Alfonso Perez-Soto has focused on EVP, corporate development and recorded music, while Michael Lobiondo has appointed SVP, corporate development and focused on publishing.
The pair report to Michael Ryan Southern, EVP, Chief Corporate Development Officer. He said today that these two appointments have “a strong M&A machine that will work together to find opportunities across the WMG Group.”
5) Universal acquires a majority stake in Japanese music company A-Sketch
Universal Music Japan (UMJ), a division of Universal Music Group (UMG), has acquired a majority stake in Japanese music company A-Sketch.
A-Sketch operates both as an artist management business and as a record label. It is home to popular Japanese artists such as the cocky dog, Franpur and Ayum Imazu.
Japan is the second largest recorded music market in the world, after the US.
A-Sketch will operate as a label division within Universal Music Japan under the ongoing leadership of Nobuyuki Soma, CEO and CEO of Universal Music Japan, reporting to Naoshi Fujikura .
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