News Chris Brown and Drake sued for at least $5m over alleged copyright infringement on ‘No Guidance’ 'No Guidance' has been streamed more than 1 billion times on Spotify, and viewed more than 480 million times on YouTube
Analysis News HYBE’s CEO just issued an apology to K-Pop artists, fans and rival labels amid a torrent of controversies from leaked internal documents. What’s going on? Disparaging comments about certain K-pop stars have angered fans, while other revelations have piqued the interest of regulators
News Megan Thee Stallion joins Weverse, as HYBE revamps superfan platform to include ‘advanced translation features’ for artist posts Megan Thee Stallion becomes the latest superstar to join the platform
News DistroKid to lay off 37 union workers DistroKid estimates that it distributes 30-40% of all new music in the world
News CVC joins KKR in acquiring live events firm Superstruct The news follows KKR's announcement in June that it would be acquiring Superstruct in a deal reported to be worth $1.4 billion
News The Hipgnosis Songs Fund catalog has just been valued at $2.36bn… around $150m more than HSF’s enterprise value when Blackstone acquired it Blackstone raises nearly $1.5 billion in debt financing via new ABS, based on substantial valuation for Hipgnosis Songs Fund assets
News Concord closes $850m Asset-Backed Securities transaction to ‘fuel strategic growth and acquisitions’ Transaction was led by Apollo
News PPL steps up to sponsor Administrator of the Year category at Music Business UK Awards The UK's music licensing company joins growing band of big-name sponsors backing industry’s most enjoyable night out
News Atticus Shelley appointed VP of Finance at TuneCore Shelley played a key role at Spotify during the streamer's rapid growth ahead of its NYSE listing
News SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man debuts new agency, A2O Entertainment Lee left SM Entertainment last year amid a power struggle, and is now returning to the pop music game with A2O Entertainment
News Another large indie distributor inks direct agreement with TikTok, as Ditto leaves behind expiring Merlin deal with platform Established acts currently distributing their music through Ditto include Chance The Rapper, Russ Millions, and Darkoo
Analysis News From Timbaland’s Suno partnership to UnitedMasters’ direct TikTok deal… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-Up The biggest stories from the past week – all in one place…
News Primary Wave strikes music rights deal with estate of country and folk singer-songwriter, Jerry Jeff Walker Included in the deal are some of Jerry Jeff’s biggest hits such as Mr. Bojangles, Sangria Wine and Railroad Lady
News Universal Music uses AI voice cloning tool to create Spanish-language version of Brenda Lee’s hit ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ Universal's strategic partner SoundLabs is creating official "ultra-high fidelity" vocal models for UMG artists using their own voice data
News Josh Mateer promoted to Head of A&R for the UK and Europe at TikTok’s SoundOn Exec joined TikTok in 2022
News Warner Music to spotlight French-language artists via new Africa Francophone venture led by Marc-André Niang and Yoann Chapalain New venture to spotlight talent from Francophone Africa
News Qobuz launches ‘first of its kind’ high-fidelity streaming and download service in Japan Japan's music market lags behind others when it comes to adoption of streaming services, and Qobuz sees an opportunity in that.
News NetEase Cloud Music inks deal to give its subscribers in China 30-day exclusive access to releases from K-Pop firm Kakao Entertainment NetEase is increasingly positioning itself as the place to go for K-pop in China's music streaming market