Warner Music just locked in a South Korean management agency to push homegrown talent onto the global stage, starting with a fresh single drop.
Warner Music partners with MAINSTREAM
Warner Music teamed up with MAINSTREAM Winter Inc.
South Korean agency manages Lee Young Ji and Kik5o.
Robot is the first single under this new deal.
Warner Music Korea plays a central collaborative role.
Lee Young Ji brings serious Korean clout
Lee Young Ji won Show Me The Money 11.
High School Rapper 3 was another competition victory.
Her YouTube series No Prepare went viral.
Hit tracks span Small Girl through Dejavu.
Key execs drove this partnership forward
Oscar Scivier championed the deal from Warner's APAC side.
Scivier expressed strong...
Germany's recorded music growth basically just kept pace with inflation after the market's expansion rate nosedived from 7.2% down to 2.3%.
German recorded music hits EUR 2.42 billion
Revenue climbed only 2.3% compared to 7.2% prior.
That converts to roughly $2.73 billion in USD.
GDP grew a measly 0.2% after two recessionary years.
Inflation sat at 2.2%, nearly matching the revenue bump.
Streaming dominates, but momentum is fading
Streaming revenue grew 4.1% to hit EUR 2 billion.
That category alone represents 84.4% of total revenue.
Digital formats overall grabbed 85.8% of the market.
BVMI's Dr. Florian Drücke called growth solid regardless.
Physical formats keep bleeding out in Germany
Physical revenue dropped 5.9% to EUR 345...
Most copyright claims just crumbled against Kanye West over his Donda album, but a sliver of the case survives heading into an April trial.
The bulk of ARA's infringement case gets axed
Artist Revenue Advocates sued West back in July 2024.
Judge Michelle Williams Court tossed the majority of claims.
Hurricane and Moon were the two tracks in question.
A February 20 mediation attempt went nowhere.
Ownership paperwork sank the composition claims
ARA never secured a valid written copyright transfer.
Federal law requires signed documentation for ownership conveyance.
Oral agreements carry zero weight under the statute.
Every composition-based claim got wiped in one move.
Sound recording sampling claims also fell flat
Dr. Joe Bennett...
A KRW 29.25 billion court deposit landed on the exact same day Min Hee-Jin offered to give up every won if HYBE just stops suing everyone.
Min Hee-Jin dangles a bold swap offer
Min Hee-Jin offered to waive her 25.6 billion won payout.
Her condition demands that all litigation get dropped immediately.
NewJeans members and fan communities were named specifically.
Min addressed HYBE's Bang Si-hyuk directly at her presser.
HYBE moved to stall the payout instead
HYBE deposited KRW 29.25 billion with a Seoul court.
That cash secures a delay while appeals play out.
An appeal got filed on February 19 over shareholder terms.
Courts generally grant stays when funds are secured.
Backstory involves a messy corporate blowup
HYBE audited Min...
Symphonic Distribution just leveled up its Asia-Pacific game by bumping its regional point person into a full director seat.
Guji Lorenzana gets a bigger APAC title
Guji Lorenzana climbed to Director of A&R, APAC.
His territory spans Southeast Asia through Australia.
Lorenzana previously served as Symphonic's first APAC manager.
Ed Poston praised the regional squad's performance.
Two new hires join under Lorenzana
Arie Legowo came aboard as Indonesia's lead.
Legowo carries 20 years of experience across Warner and The Orchard.
Abegail Ungab handles content and rights for APAC.
Ungab previously worked at Ingrooves Music Group.
Label signings keep stacking across the region
DYNA Music, the oldest Philippine catalog, jumped on.
Korean...
A homegrown AI detection system is now scanning every track on Qobuz to flag and tag machine-made music across the platform.
Qobuz rolls out its own AI sniffer tool
Qobuz built a proprietary system spotting AI-generated tracks.
Both fresh uploads and the existing catalog get scanned.
Tags will surface across Qobuz apps within months.
Fraudulent AI uploads are getting yanked entirely.
Deezer already blazed this particular trail
Deezer patented its own AI detection tech last year.
Over 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks arrive there daily.
Deezer plans to license its tool industry-wide.
Visible AI labels already exist for Deezer users.
Fake tracks face real financial consequences
Impersonation and stream-manipulation uploads get...
A hostile bid worth up to $1.2 billion just landed on Reservoir Media's desk from one of its own biggest shareholders.
Irenic Capital makes its move on Reservoir
Irenic Capital Management lobbed an unsolicited takeover offer.
Per-share pricing sits between $10 and $11.
Reservoir's stock popped 15% on the news alone.
Financing talks with private credit firms are underway.
Ownership structure complicates any buyout
Wesbild Inc controls around 44% of Reservoir's equity.
Golnar Khosrowshahi's father runs Wesbild directly.
Richmond Hill Investments holds roughly 21% on top.
Irenic's 9.2% stake makes it a major shareholder.
Activist pressure has been brewing for months
Irenic demanded a full strategic review back in 2024.
Reservoir...
A potential $1.5 billion buyout would hand Primary Wave its very first in-house publishing administration machine.
Primary Wave eyes Kobalt Music Group
Larry Mestel's outfit is the sole remaining bidder.
Kobalt's valuation could hit double its 2022 price tag.
Francisco Partners grabbed a 90% stake for $750 million.
FP apparently feels no rush to let Kobalt go.
Kobalt's CEO pushes back on takeover buzz
Laurent Hubert fired off an internal memo to staff.
His message stressed Kobalt staying independently operated.
Hubert pointed to strong platform performance under FP.
Market interest keeps circling the company regardless.
Deal math gets wild at these numbers
Primary Wave sits at roughly $6 billion in value.
The combined entity could...
A federal appeals court just torched the landmark royalty bump that would have more than doubled what US concert promoters pay songwriters.
BMI's big rate court win gets tossed
BMI celebrated a 138% royalty hike back in 2023.
Second Circuit judges called those rates unreasonable.
Judge Louis Stanton's original ruling got vacated entirely.
Rates had jumped from roughly 0.21% to 0.5%.
Revenue definition was a sticking point
Stanton stretched gross revenue beyond ticket face value.
VIP packages and resale market sales were folded in.
Appeals judges said that the expansion lacked any precedent.
NACPA and Live Nation fought the broadened scope.
Benchmark comparisons drew sharp criticism
Stanton leaned on SESAC and GMR rate data...
