In today's CMU Daily: PRS For Music has been hit with another lawsuit by songwriter members of the collecting society, including King Crimson’s Ropert Fripp and two members of The Jesus & Mary Chain. They claim that the organisation puts up “unreasonable and unnecessary hurdles” for writers who want to directly license their live performances

One Liners: Mustard, NoCopyrightSounds, Socios Music deals; Warner Records, Rimas appointments; Ye settles with Donna Summer estate; AI music principles; 50th UK festival cancellation; T-Time launches; MTV News archive pulled; AIM Future Independents speakers; new releases from Sophie, Bicep, Stefflon Don, Kim Gordon, The Waeve, Donna Thompson

Also today: Suno CEO mouths off over RIAA lawsuit; the Believe takeover is nearly done and dusted with 95% of shares in control of the takeover consortium; Tom Kiehl officially becomes UK Music CEO; Sirius sued over music royalty fee; European Commission agrees that Apple is not compliant with Digital Markets Act

Plus: SuperJazzClub are CMU Approved

PRS sued over “unreasonable and unnecessary hurdles” for writers directly licensing their live performances

A group of songwriters - including King Crimson founder Robert Fripp and two members of the Jesus & Mary Chain - have sued PRS. They say that the collecting society has put in place “unreasonable and unnecessary hurdles” when songwriters want to directly license live music. PRS has already responded and says it intends to “vigorously defend” itself. 

The writers involved in the lawsuit say that, while “the efficiencies of collective rights management make perfect sense for songwriters and composers”, PRS has “strayed significantly from the principles on which it was founded 110 years ago, to the point that the organisation’s policies no longer appear to be operating in the best interests of its members”. 

When it comes to live music, the industry has traditionally relied on a collective licensing approach. A venue or promoter gets a blanket licence from the local performing rights collecting society - PRS in the UK - which allows them to stage live performances of a vast catalogue of music. The venues and promoters pay royalties to the society. It then passes the money on to the relevant songwriters and music publishers, deducting admin fees for its efforts. 

Because collecting societies usually only issue licences in their home country, PRS allows other societies to issue licences covering its members’ works in other markets. The local society collects the money from venues and promoters, passes it to PRS, which pays the writers and publishers. In that scenario, both societies usually charge admin fees, often referred to as “double commission”. 

However, an increasing number of artists are opting to do direct licensing deals around live music, most often when significant artists are doing big tours. 

Drumsheds, Broadwick Live // Senior Operations Manager (London)

Drumsheds, Broadwick Live // Duty Operations Manager (London)

Drumsheds, Broadwick Live // Operations Coordinator (London)

terrible* // Finance Assistant/Bookkeeper (London)

SJM Concerts // Event Ticketing Manager (Manchester)

Sentric Music // Revenue Optimisation Manager (London/Liverpool)

Sentric Music // Copyright Manager (Liverpool/London)

Horizon is CMU's new weekly newsletter - published each Friday - that brings you a hand-picked selection of early-stage career opportunities from across the music industry.

Whether you're looking for your first job in music or you're ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster.

👉 Click through to see the current selection.

ONE LINERS

Sophie, Kanye West, Rimas Entertainment + more

DEALS 

Mustard has partnered with BMG to release his fourth album ‘Faith Of A Mustard Seed’. “I'm happy to join forces with BMG, a company known for its dedication to nurturing artistic independence, integrity and innovation”, he says. “Together, we'll continue to push the boundaries of creativity and deliver groundbreaking music that resonates with audiences worldwide”.

Electronic label NoCopyrightSounds, which offers free music to creators, has announced a new partnership with popular music rhythm game Geometry Dash. "I have long been a fan of NCS and know there is a huge amount of user-generated Geometry Dash content on platforms like YouTube featuring the catalogue already”, says the game’s founder Rob Topala. “The longevity of our game has been in part down to the passion and creativity within our community and there have been repeated calls for us to partner with them, so this is long overdue. We’re delighted to partner with a like-minded company and I'm really excited to see what our community comes up with”.

Universal Music’s Island Records and Virgin Music Group have partnered with Carín León’s Socios Music label. The first release under the deal was León’s latest album ‘Boca Chueca Vol. 1’, which came out last month. “Carín León is a true outlier. He transcends not only stylistic and sonic boundaries, but also cultural boundaries”, say Island’s co-CEOs Justin Eshak and Imran Majid. ‘We’re THRILLED to work with Carín and manager Jorge Juarez via this new partnership with Virgin Music Group and Socios Music. There’s no limit to what we can accomplish together.”

APPOINTMENTS

Warner Records in Nashville has hired Kelly Bolton as VP A&R. “I'm excited for this new role”, she says. “It’s a unique position. Living and working in Nashville and helping artists reach a global platform is the best of both worlds”.

Bad Bunny’s Rimas Entertainment has hired Rodrigo Prichard as General Manager and Kristen Quintero-Garriga as VP Brand Partnerships for the company’s new creative consultancy RIT.MO. “I am THRILLED to welcome Rodrigo Prichard and Kristen Quintero-Garriga to our corporate leadership team”, says COO Jorge Bracero. “Their deep knowledge and experience in the music industry and in creating strategic alliances are invaluable to us at this time of growth and evolution. I am confident that their leadership will be crucial in further driving Rimas’s success in the future”.

LEGAL

Kanye West has agreed a settlement with the estate of Donna Summer over the unauthorised sampling of her song ‘I Feel Love’ on the track ‘Good (Don’t Die)’ from his album with Ty Dolla $ign ‘Vultures 1’. The track was pulled from streaming services and download stores prior to the Summer estate’s lawsuit. The estate’s attorney has said that deal bars the rappers from re-releasing it.

DIGITAL 

More than 50 music organisations have now signed up to a set of principles for music creation with AI, launched by Universal Music and instrument maker Roland earlier this year. “We are pleased to see the growing list of principle supporters from across the ecosystem of tools, services, educators and services addressing the needs and interests of current and future artists”, says Chris Horton, UMG’s SVP Strategic Technology. “The scope of support reflected by all of these participating organisations clearly indicates emerging consensus about the importance of strongly advocating a thoughtful approach to AI adoption”.

LIVE BUSINESS 

With the cancellation of Northwich's Geronimo Festival, the Association Of Independent Festivals has announced that 50 UK festivals have now been postponed, cancelled or completely closed down in 2024. “This is a regrettable landmark for the UK’s festival sector”, says AIF CEO John Rostron. “This is the most challenging time for independent festivals who desperately need an intervention from the incoming government before more events inevitably fall. Our research suggests around 100 festivals will throw in the towel before the year is out, and more will go into 2025 at risk if there is not the temporary fiscal support they need”.

MANAGEMENT

Tara Richardson has announced that she is leaving Q Prime Management after seventeen years to launch her own company T-Time Management. “I’ve both scouted and closely developed a number of powerful and globally successful artists over the past two decades, and the inception of T-Time feels like a positive outcome of that experience”, she tells Music Week. “The company will grow into a strong collective of smart, creative individuals across all disciplines, and those joining us will all be on an equal footing. I’m really excited to get going with it”.

MEDIA

Paramount Global has deleted its MTV News and CMT websites, erasing decades of music journalism from the internet. MTV News stopped producing new content last year, as part of cost-cutting measures at Paramount. “Eight years of my life are gone without a trace. All because it didn't fit some executives’ bottom lines”, wrote former editor Patrick Hosken on X. “Infuriating is too small a word”. 

INDUSTRY EVENTS

AIM’s Future Independents conference for independent artists, labels and music entrepreneurs will return on 10 Jul. Its first wave of speakers has just been announced, including a keynote Q&A with grime pioneer Elijah. Free registration here. 

RELEASES

A new posthumous album by Sophie is set for release on 27 Sep. Close to completion when she died in 2021, it has been finished by her studio manager Benny Long and other friends. Out now is ‘Reason Why’ featuring Kim Petras and BC Kingdom. 

Bicep have released the fourth track in their ‘CHROMA’ series, ‘CHROMA 004 ROLA’. They are also set to play two outdoor shows under the ‘CHROMA’ banner this summer, on Brighton Beach on 19 Jul and London’s Finsbury Park on 2 Aug. 

Stefflon Don has released new single ‘Dilemma’ featuring late Indian rapper Sidhu Moose Wala. Her debut album ‘Island 54’ is out this week.

Kim Gordon has released new single ‘ECRP’, an outtake from her recent solo album ‘The Collective’. The release comes as she prepares for UK shows, starting tonight at Koko in London.

The Waeve has announced that they will release their second album ‘City Lights’ on 20 Sep. Out now is new single ‘You Saw’. 

Donna Thompson has released new single ‘Fever Bubbles’. She is set to play PRAH Recordings’ tenth anniversary show at Rough Trade East on 17 Jul.

Suno boss accuses music industry of “reverting to its old lawyer-led playbook”

The CEO of music AI business Suno has said that the record companies have “reverted to their old lawyer-led playbook” by suing his company for copyright infringement. In response, record industry trade group the RIAA insists that Suno “continues to dodge the basic question: what sound recordings have they illegally copied?”

Suno AI CEO Mikey Shulman was commenting on lawsuits filed yesterday against his company and rival AI business Udio by the Recording Industry Association Of America on behalf of its members. The RIAA-member labels accuse Suno and Udio of training their generative AI models with copyright protected music without obtaining licences, which constitutes copyright infringement. 

“Suno’s mission is to make it possible for everyone to make music”, Shulman says. “Our technology is transformative; it is designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorise and regurgitate pre-existing content. That is why we don’t allow user prompts that reference specific artists”. 

The company “would have been happy to explain this to the corporate record labels that filed this lawsuit - and in fact, we tried to do so”, Shulman adds. But, “instead of entertaining a good faith discussion, they’ve reverted to their old lawyer-led playbook”, a clear reference to the  lawsuits the record industry filed in the early days of digital music, from Napster onwards. 

However, in its response, the RIAA notes that - despite all the lawsuits it was involved in during the early days of digital music - the “winners of the streaming era worked cooperatively with artists and rightsholders to properly license music”, while “the losers did exactly what Suno and Udio are doing now”. 

Approved: SuperJazzClub

SuperJazzClub, a pioneering Ghanaian collective, have crafted an infectious sound that feels both instinctive and innovative. Their contemporary West African music unites a breadth of influences and vocalists, creating song structures that effortlessly bridge niche sounds and conventionally mainstream tonalities.

Self-described as a “fusion project”, their latest EP‘Monochrome Radio’ melds the sounds of early 2000s R&B with Ghanaian hiplife and homegrown local hip hop from their native Accra. 

The EP’s third single ‘UNO’,featuring British artist-producer BenjiFlow, is a synthesis of black diasporic synergies, with Benji’s Jamaican heritage seamlessly blending with SuperJazzClub’sGhanaian flair to simulate the vibe and ambience of an underground basement party.

Speaking on the collaborative process of ‘UNO’, they say, “It was a beautiful and seamless moment working with Benji. [Group co-founder] Øbed pulled out a pack of beats at the session and that beat happened to be the last one we played and he instantly connected with it. The energy in the studio was full blast from then on. It’s a song inspired by the things we love to talk about like life, God, relationships and money”.

🎧 Listen to ‘UNO’featuring BenjiFlow here

Upbeat news for Believe as shareholders show resounding support for founder’s “amicable buy-back”

The Denis Ladegaillerie-led consortium that orchestrated an “amicable buyback” of Believe shares has announced that an “overwhelming” majority of shareholders have “decided to tender their shares to the offer”. 

The buyback - first proposed in February - allowed investors in the publicly listed company to sell their stock to Upbeat Bidco at €15 per share. Upbeat BidCo is the vehicle created by Ladegaillerie and his private equity partners to implement the takeover, which now, after the offer to shareholders closed on 21 Jun, controls 94.99% of Believe’s shares and “at least” 94.29% of voting rights. 

While this gives Upbeat more than enough clout to institute a ‘squeeze-out’ of the remaining 5.01% of shareholders - who between them own 5,044,680 shares - the company clarified earlier this month that it would not implement a mandatory squeeze-out.

This means that the small minority of shareholders who decided to stick with Believe will be able to maintain their stake in the company. However, now that the free float - or tradable shares - of the company has fallen below 15% of the share capital, this fact “should lead to Believe’s shares soon being removed from certain stock market indices”. 

As a result, those minority shareholders are likely to be individuals and funds that have a positive long term view on the value of Believe, as once shares are removed from the listed markets they will have limited liquidity should they want to sell those shares.

Between them - and at the offer price - those shares had a combined value of just north of €75 million representing a substantial amount of money still tied up in Believe as it enters its new era.

Part of that new era sees the exit of Ventech from the Believe board. Ventech was one of Believe’s earliest investors and has now divested itself of its entire 12% stake in the company, resulting in a total return of €175 million. 

Ventech was one of Believe’s earliest investors, leading on the company’s €4 million Series A back in September 2008, with a presence on Believe’s board throughout its tenure. The exit represents “a remarkable exit” for the Paris-based VC, bringing it a 36x multiple on its investment, and the crown of “France’s biggest VC exit in a decade”.

UK Music names Tom Kiehl as new CEO

Cross sector trade group UK Music has announced that Tom Kiehl has been appointed as Chief Executive, following nine months as interim CEO. His confirmation as CEO is the last in a batch of recent CEO appointments across a number of the UK’s key strategic organisations in music, including BPI, AIM, and The Ivors Academy. During his tenure as interim CEO, the organisation says that it considered applications for the top job from over 130 people. 

“We are entering a critical new era of change for the music industry when the political landscape is also rapidly changing”, says UK Music Chair Tom Watson. “At this important time, I'm confident Tom is the right person for the job”.

Kiehl succeeds Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, who left UK Music in August 2023 to become Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Director Of Strategy, something he may now regret given his boss looks almost certain to be handing back the keys to 10 Downing Street at the end of next week. Kiehl officially takes over as the trade group’s CEO as Sunak plummets out of government (and possibly politics altogether), with Labour leader Keir Starmer expected to take his place following next month’s General Election.

As well as leading UK Music at a time of great political upheaval, Kiehl also takes on his new role at a time of significant developments and debate in the music industry. 

“It’s an immense privilege and great responsibility to take on the role of leading UK Music at such a pivotal moment”, he says. “I am looking forward to working with our fantastic members to press their case with the new government for the changes we want to see – ranging from strong copyright protections and more music teachers, to key safeguards around AI and greater support for music freelancers”.

“I want young people across the UK to see our industry as the most inclusive and exciting place to work, and one which will reward their talents”, he goes on. “We need to turn this moment of considerable political change into a moment to achieve change for UK Music”.

Kiehl joined UK Music in 2012 as Director Of Public Affairs. He was promoted to Deputy CEO in 2018 and previously spent nine months as interim CEO between Michael Dugher stepping down as CEO at the end of 2019 and Njoku-Goodwin being appointed in September 2020. Prior to that, he spent eleven years as a senior advisor and researcher in the Liberal Democrat Whips’ Office.

SiriusXM breaches consumer rights by charging an extra music royalties extra fee, says lawsuit

SiriusXM has been sued over its ‘US Music Royalty’ fee - an extra cost added on top of the advertised price of its music plans which covers what the US satellite radio company pays the music industry. The fee increases the price of any Sirius satellite radio subscription in the US that includes access to a music service by 21.4% at check out.

A class action lawsuit filed in Washington state declares that “reasonable consumers” would expect that the advertised price for SiriusXM’s music plans would include the “fundamental costs” to access music content. No other music services, it adds, “charge any separate royalty fee over and above their advertised music plan prices”. 

According to the lawsuit, Sirius advertises its various satellite radio subscription plans before the 21.4% fee is applied, with the phrase “plus fees and taxes” included, usually in a smaller typeface. On the Sirius Platinum plan, which is $23.99 a month, the music royalty fee adds $5.13 to the bill. Across the Sirius subscriber base - around 33.9 million subscribers according to the lawsuit - those additional fees generate massive revenues. 

The lawsuit claims that, in 2023, the total music royalty fees collected by Sirius topped $1.36 billion which, it adds, exceeded the entire company’s net profits of $1.26 billion. Of course, the music royalty fees are used to cover payments Sirius makes to the music industry, but that's still a lot of money from a hidden cost to the customer. 

Apple’s amended app rules still don’t comply with Digital Markets Act, EU confirms

The European Commission has published details of why it thinks that Apple’s App Store rules are still not compliant with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. In particular, it specifically focuses on the rules around the sign-posting of alternative payment options within iOS apps, something that Spotify has been particularly vocal about.

Under the DMA, app developers should be able “to inform their customers of alternative cheaper purchasing possibilities, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases”, and this should be “free of charge”, says the Commission in its statement.

“Our preliminary position is that Apple does not fully allow steering”, says Margrethe Vestager, the Commission’s EVP in charge of competition policy. “Steering is key to ensure that app developers are less dependent on gatekeepers’ app stores and for consumers to be aware of better offers”. 

App developers - and especially Spotify - have long complained about Apple’s rules around in-app payments. Developers must use Apple’s own transactions system for taking in-app payments, which charges a 15-30% commission. In addition to that, developers were prohibited from sign-posting or linking to other payment options - such as making payment via a developer's own website - because of a thing called the anti-steering provision in Apple’s rules. 

Following a complaint by Spotify, the Commission investigated Apple’s anti-steering provision and concluded it was anticompetitive, even before the DMA had gone into force. 

On the back of both that ruling and the DMA, Apple changed its rules so that developers are allowed to sign-post users towards alternative payment options. However, there are restrictions on how that works, and Apple currently charges a 12-27% commission on any purchases that begin with a link in an iOS app. 

The continuing restrictions by Apple mean that, “developers cannot provide pricing information within an app”, says the Commission. And while links can now be included to web pages where payments can be made, "several restrictions imposed by Apple prevent app developers from communicating, promoting offers and concluding contracts”.

As for Apple still charging fees on external payments, the Commission says that although charging a fee for “facilitating via the App Store the initial acquisition of a new customer” is reasonable, it thinks that “the fees charged by Apple go beyond what is strictly necessary”. 

These preliminary findings have been sent to Apple, which will now respond. If the findings are confirmed and Apple’s rules do not comply with the DMA, then the Commission says that this will result in a formal “non-compliance decision” from the EU - and a potentially huge fine.

The possible fines for non-compliance of the DMA can be enormous. When reports of these preliminary findings first circulated earlier this month, the FT noted that “if found to be breaking the DMA, Apple faces daily penalties for non-compliance of up to 5% of its average daily worldwide turnover, which is currently just over $1 billion”.