Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be certain you caught the 5 largest 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 maximize their revenue and scale back their touring prices.
If there was one overarching theme in music enterprise information this week, it was… music disappearing.
Yesterday (March 14), we discovered that, amid the continued licensing dispute between Common Music Group (UMG) and TikTok, UMG has issued over 37,000 takedown requests to TikTok, leading to 120 million movies being muted.
TikTok has already muted the audio on movies that includes UMG-licensed music, however its detection mechanism is being bypassed by ‘modified’ (sped up or in any other case modified) variations of UMG-owned tracks uploaded by customers.
Additionally this week, we discovered that streaming service Deezer has eliminated 26 million tracks from its platform in latest months. “The tracks which have been eliminated embody noise, mono-track albums [albums made of copies of a single track], pretend artists and tracks that haven’t been listened to previously 12 months,” CEO Jeronimo Folgueira stated.
If there was one other dominant theme in music enterprise information this week? It was… TikTok.
Apart from the continued dispute with UMG, we discovered this week that TikTok mother or father ByteDance‘s efforts to develop music AI go a lot additional than what we’ve seen up to now. Amongst different issues, the corporate is creating a mannequin known as StemGen, which is “skilled to take heed to musical context and reply appropriately.”
In the meantime, a invoice to pressure ByteDance to divest TikTok within the US or face a ban of the platform within the nation handed the Home of Representatives this week. The invoice’s progress via the legislative course of has been operating at breakneck pace.
Lastly, in non-TikTok-related information, we bought an replace on the continued rivalry between Warner Music Group (WMG) and a consortium led by Imagine CEO Denis Ladegaillerie over the acquisition of Imagine. France’s securities authority has been known as in to referee one essential facet of the method, whereas Imagine’s board has rejected – in the intervening time – WMG’s request for confidential monetary data on the corporate.
MBW has obtained proof that, since February 1, Common Music Group has hit TikTok with over 37,000 separate copyright takedown requests to take away totally different ‘Sounds’ from the platform.
These 37,000+ requests have resulted in – await it – roughly 120 million movies on the ByteDance platform being muted.
The vast majority of these takedowns, sources inform me, have focused ‘modified’ variations of UMG-controlled music uploaded by TikTok customers – i.e. sped up, slowed down, pitched up, or pitched down variations of unique recordings.
As a result of the audio of those tracks is ‘modified’, they typically bypass TikTok’s copyright detection filters – the identical copyright detection filters that will robotically block customers from importing movies that includes un-modified Common tracks…
France-headquartered streaming service Deezer’s soon-to-be-former CEO, Jeronimo Folgueira, has been elevating the alarm for a while about low-quality content material flooding music streaming companies, degrading the person expertise and diluting the cash earned by official artists.
“There’s loads of content material now getting uploaded to our platform each week, and that quantity retains rising and rising and rising,” he stated on an earnings name in March 2023.
“We wish to give our prospects a high-quality expertise and related content material, so clearly getting AI to flood our catalog shouldn’t be one thing we’re tremendous eager on, and we’re engaged on that.”
It seems Deezer was certainly “engaged on that” – the corporate has confirmed that it has eliminated over 26 million tracks within the months because it first launched its Common Music Group-approved artist-centric cost system (in September 2023)…
MBW has lined TikTok and mother or father firm ByteDance‘s work within the subject of AI music-making and machine studying extensively over the previous few years.
In August 2022, MBW broke the information that TikTok and ByteDance had been hiring a number of extremely expert specialists in machine studying and AI music creation in each the US and China. (They nonetheless are.)
That preliminary hiring spree adopted its acquisition in July 2019 of Jukedeck, a UK-based AI Music startup specializing in creating royalty-free music.
ByteDance has additionally launched a machine-learning-driven music-making app known as Mawf previously couple of years, in addition to Ripple – an AI-powered music-making app that may flip a hummed melody right into a track.
Extra lately, TikTok has been testing an AI Track function that makes use of a big language mannequin to energy lyric technology.
Now, MBW has unearthed two latest analysis papers that point out ByteDance’s ambitions within the realm of AI-made music go a lot additional than what we’ve seen up to now…
A invoice that will pressure China-based ByteDance to promote TikTok or face a ban within the US is one giant step nearer to turning into regulation, after passing via the Home of Representatives.
The Defending Individuals From Overseas Adversary Managed Functions Act handed 253 to 65 on the Home flooring on Wednesday (March 13), with one lawmaker voting “current.”
The vote got here little greater than every week after it was launched by Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, and 6 days after it sailed via the Home Power and Commerce Committee in a unanimous (50-0) vote.
By the requirements of the US Congress, that’s breakneck pace…
Proper. Earlier than we let you know the newest within the fast-unfurling cleaning soap opera of Imagine, Warner Music Group, and Denis Ladegaillerie‘s consortium, it’s in all probability useful to deliver you in control.
Imagine you me, MBW would love to only skip to the newest chapter: Imagine’s board* calling within the AMF – France’s equal of the USA’s Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) – to rule on whether or not one essential transfer by Denis Ladegaillerie’s consortium will get the AOK, or the A-Oh-Nay.
However with out the requisite context, belief us, this story will in all probability depart you misplaced at sea.
So earlier than we get to the good things, right here’s a fast chronological recap on what’s occurred up to now, primarily based on a flurry of bulletins issued by Imagine and its board (and one by WMG) in latest weeks…
