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CMU Digest
CMU Digest 08.10.18: BASCA, Ticketfly, NAFTA, Tencent, National Trading Standards
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 8 October 2018
The key stories from the last week in the music business…
BASCA formally announced its opposition to Sony’s bid to take complete control of the EMI Music Publishing catalogue. The UK songwriters association spoke out after Sony Corp filed paperwork with competition regulators in Europe in relation to its deals to buy out the other shareholders in the EMI songs business. Those deals will allow Sony to properly merge EMI Music Publishing with its own Sony/ATV music publishing company. That would create a “major-superpower” in music rights that will “limit creator choice” and “potentially undermine the future autonomy of creator rights”, said BASCA. [READ MORE]
Tencent Music published more information about its upcoming IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. A new filing said the proposed share sale should generate about a billion dollars, though sources say the company will probably push for double that when it actually floats. The money will be spent on product expansion, content creation, marketing and possibly a few strategic investments and acquisitions. The filing also revealed that Warner Music and Sony Music together spent $200 million buying stock in the music division of the Chinese web giant. [READ MORE]
Eventbrite was sued over the hacking of the Ticketfly website in the US back in May. The lawsuit filed in Illinois claims that the ticketing firm didn’t do enough to prevent the hack in the first place and then failed to properly alert those whose data was grabbed by the hacker. Eventbrite previously admitted that the personal data of some 27 million customers was exposed in the hack that caused the Ticketfly website to go offline for a time. The new lawsuit is seeking class action status, which would mean all those customers could be part of the action. [READ MORE]
The Recording Industry Association Of America expressed disappointment over the copyright elements of the revamped North American Free Trade Agreement. Governments in the US, Canada and Mexico have now approved the new trade treaty, which will be called the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The RIAA is disappointed that the American copyright safe harbour has been included in the treaty without any of the limitations the music industry would like to see introduced in the US itself. Though on the upside, Canada agreed to extend its copyright term for songs to life of the creator plus 70 years. [READ MORE]
It emerged that UK government agency National Trading Standards is charging nine people in relation to ticket touting operations. The people behind three ticket touting companies – Connoco, BZZ and Ticket Queen – are accused of breaching British consumer rights law. The prosecutions in the UK came as a class action civil lawsuit was filed Stateside against Live Nation’s Ticketmaster over its involvement in the secondary ticketing market which, plaintiff’s claim, constitutes “unjust enrichment”. [READ MORE]
The big deals from the last seven days in the music business…
• Sony Music signed a deal with the ‘Baby Shark’ company [INFO]
• Warner/Chappell signed Scouting For Girls’ Roy Stride [INFO]
• Dotblockchain announce an alliance with Warner Music [INFO]
• BMG renewed its deal with Jeff Tweedy [INFO]
