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European media giant Bertelsmann, facing setbacks, wants to grow music unit BMG through an acquisition with a rival or a “breakout investment”. That’s according to a report from The Financial Times on Tuesday (March 26), citing an interview with Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe.   “BMG could potentially be an opportunity for a breakout investment and joining forces with a competitor,” Rabe said. “If […]

HYBE has struck what it calls an expanded long-term agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG).  The deal provides UMG with exclusive distribution rights for HYBE’s music for the next 10 years. The even bigger news? The deal will also see UMG invest in – and further collaborate with – HYBE’s global superfan platform, Weverse. (Sources tell MBW

Music data and lyrics platform Musixmatch has teamed up with artificial intelligence company Runway to allow musicians and creators to convert their lyrics into video content. The collaboration integrates Runway’s generative video models with Musixmatch’s music data library. This integration allows musicians, regardless of their technical expertise, to easily produce lyric videos for their music,

Just days after Neil Young’s unexpected return to Spotify, Joni Mitchell has also seen her music reappear on the streaming platform. This move comes more than two years after both artists removed their catalogs from Spotify in protest of what they perceived as the platform’s amplification of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. Young announced in January 2022 that he was pulling his

Australia-born AI music company Splash has appointed former SoundCloud, Twitch and Spotify executive Tracy Chan as its new CEO, effective immediately. Chan’s appointment as CEO at Splash means that he has exited his role as Chief Content Officer at SoundCloud, where he has overseen music content, licensing and intelligence, and Creator strategy at the platform. He also led

Universal Music Publishing Group has appointed Adriana Ramos as Managing Director, UMPG Brazil, effective immediately. Based in Rio de Janeiro, she will report to Alexandra Lioutikoff, President Latin America & US Latin. Ramos replaces longtime Brazil MD Marcelo Falcao who, according to UMPG “has decided to step down from the role”.   Based in Rio de

Two prominent UK-based live music promoters, Communion Presents and FKP Scorpio UK, have joined forces to create a new company called Communion ONE. The consolidated company says it will take advantage of FKP Scorpio’s European touring network, with offices in 11 European countries. In 2023, the Germany-headquartered live music giant sold 4 million tickets across

Back in January, Ed Newton-Rex – a former exec at Stability AI and founder of music-making AI platform Jukedeck – launched Fairly Trained, a non-profit whose mission is to evaluate and certify AI tech based on its respect for creators’ rights. The non-profit is something of a crusade for Newton-Rex, who resigned from Stability AI on

The creative community in the United States has applauded Tennessee’s adoption of the “Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act”. The bipartisan ELVIS Act was signed into law on Thursday (March 21) by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee at a hony-tonk in Nashville. The ELVIS Act will officially go into effect on July 1 and will

BandLab, the social music creation platform owned by Singapore-based BandLab Technologies, just reached a significant milestone. The app has surpassed 100 million registered users, which means that it has added 40 million users since January 2023, when, as MBW reported at the time, the app confirmed that it had 60 million registered users. News of BandLab’s 100 million user milestone was first reported by Bloomberg this