Analysis News From Drake suing Universal Music to TikTok facing a US ban… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-Up The biggest stories from the past week – all in one place…
News 21 Savage, Gunna, Metro Boomin’, and Wiz Khalifa to perform at Balad Beast 2025 in Saudi Arabia The MDLBeast-organized event takes place January 30-31 at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Al-Balad
News UK-based Melody Rights launches new rights management and distro platform Melody Rights says that its distribution network includes access to what it calls 'top-tier platforms in stock music, gaming, and social music categories'
News As TikTok prepares to shut down in the US, Trump mulls executive order to keep it running (report) Legal experts have questioned the Trump administration’s ability to delay or water down the TikTok law through executive orders
News Reservoir acquires publishing catalog of Lastrada Entertainment New York-based Reservoir has spent some $1 billion on catalog acquisitions since its founding
Analysis News Here’s the list of music piracy sites being watched by the US government, and what they do ‘Bulletproof’ internet providers are frustrating the fight against music piracy, US Trade Representative report warns
News Vimeo wins appeal in long-running copyright dispute with record labels An appeals court has upheld a lower court's ruling that Vimeo is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
News Caldecott Music appoints David Nam Le as MD of Vista Musical Instruments and Jon Bahr as Senior Advisor at BandLab Technologies The appointments "underscore Caldecott Music Group’s commitment to our mission of empowering our community of artists, creators, and fans"
News Universal Music Group set to list on US exchange; Pershing Square to sell $500m in UMG stock to make it happen The deal requires Pershing to sell at least $500 million worth of its UMG holdings as part of the listing process.
Analysis On… Los Angeles, The Grammys, and The Recording Academy’s TV gamble. MBW founder Tim Ingham's latest 'Review' for MBW+ subscribers
Analysis News There are now over 200m tracks on audio streaming services. Nearly 100m of them aren’t played more than 10 times each year. MBW explains new stats revealed by market monitor and analysis platform Luminate today (January 15)
News Now Drake launches full-blown defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group – read the filing here Lawsuit follows Drake's withdrawal of a previous legal petition against UMG and Spotify
News DICE sells electronic music platform Boiler Room to live giant Superstruct, which was acquired by KKR in a $1.4bn deal in 2024 DICE acquired the UK's Boiler Room, an electronic music-centric livestream platform, in 2021
News While Grammys show goes on, BMG, Downtown, NMPA/Billboard, Friends ’N’ Family and others join in canceling events The California wildfires have caused a significant disruption to what is one of the music industry's most important networking and celebration weeks
News Grand Ole Opry owner expands into music festivals with majority stake in Southern Entertainment Founded in 2015, Southern Entertainment has produced more than 500 music events
News Deezer partners with Sacem to adopt artist-centric payment model for publishing rights in France The France-headquartered streaming service began rolling artist-centric payments for recorded music in 2023
News Drake drops legal action against Universal Music and Spotify over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ Drake has officially withdrawn his legal petition
News The next big music biz acquisition will be $500m-valued Tempo Music, say MBW sources Deal could be weeks away, we're told – with at least one major music company around the table