Reservoir Media Management is a new type of music publisher, launched in 2021 through the financial vehicle of a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) on the NASDAQ. Reservoir has grown by acquiring legendary recording and music publishing catalogues such as Chrysalis Records, Shapiro Bernstein and Tommy Boy Records. The following blog post tells the story of how Reservoir became one of the largest music rights companies in the US, with a lot of acquisition capital at stake for further expansion.
Read moreMusic as an Investment – part 5: The rise and fall of the Hipgnosis Songs Fund
For several years, Hipgnosis made headlines with spectacular acquisitions of music rights catalogues worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It bought the music catalogues of Shakira, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and other superstars, and in 2018 went public as Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd. in the largest IPO on the London Stock Exchange. The weakening economic environment due to high inflation and rising interest rates has also had a negative impact on Hipgnosis, which has suffered from high financial costs over the past two years. It seems that the success story of the former stock market darling has come to an end and the following blog post tells the story of the rise and fall of the Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd.
Read moreInternational Journal of Music Business Research – October 2023, vol. 12, nr. 2
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Volume 12, no 2, October 2023
Editorial by Peter Tschmuck, p. 45
Dan G. Hodges Jr.: Nashville: The Creative Business Cluster and its Life Cycle, pp. 47-56
Zarja Peters & Phillip Cartwright: A Perspective on NFTs in the Arts-and-Music Industry, pp. 57-77
Book review by Benjamin Morgan: Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation by Nick Seaver, pp. 79-81
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Music as an Investment – part 4: Round Hill Music
In 2010, former hedge fund manager Josh Gruss founded the music publishing company Round Hill Music in New York City together with Neil Gillis and Richard Rowe with the aim of acquiring and commercially exploiting music copyrights. How Round Hill Music has become a major player in the music rights market that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade through investment funds to acquire music rights is now presented in more detail in this blog entry of the series “Music as an Investment”.
Read moreInternational Journal of Music Business Research – April 2023, vol. 12, nr. 1
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Volume 12, no 1, April 2023
Editorial by Peter Tschmuck, p. 1
Benjamin Oduro Arhin, Mark Millas Coffie, Hope Senalor Konu & Edwin Ekow Annan Ferguson: Split Sheets in Ghanaian Recording Studios, pp. 3-12
William E. Tsitsos & R. Saylor Breckenridge: The Work of Reproduction in the Age of Digital Art: The Role of ‘Aura’ in the Revitalisation of Vinyl Records and Cassettes, pp. 13-23
Farley J. Joseph: Sustaining Innovation: Digital Live Music Models in a Post-COVID-19 Trinidad and Tobago, pp. 25-41
Book review by Catherina Strong: Rethinking the Music Business: Music Contexts, Rights, Data and COVID-19. Edited by Guy Morrow, Daniel Nordgård and Peter Tschmuck, Springer Music Business Research book series, pp. 43-44
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Music as an Investment – Part 3: Primary Wave
Primary Wave is a new type of music publisher founded in New York City in January 2006 by former Virgin Records CEO, Larry Mestel. Primary Wave does not aim at the acquisition and exploitation of classical publishing rights, but instead purchases the artist’s share of publishing rights and master rights, primarily to monetise their use in TV, film and advertising (synchronisation rights to musical works). Part 3 of the series “Music as an Investment” analyses Primary Wave’s rise to one of the most influential players in the international music rights market. Read more
Music as an Investment – Part 2: BMG re-enters the music rights business
Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) is an interesting case of a company exiting the music business in the 2000s and re-entering it in 2009 to invest billions of dollars in publishing and master catalogues and to become the fourth largest music company in the world behind the three majors – Universal, Sony and Warner. BMG’s re-entry into the music industry thus marks the first phase of the boom around the purchase of music rights, which is examined more closely in this case study of BMG.
Music as an Investment – Part 1: An Overview
Until a few years ago, music publishing was considered to be a rather boring business field in which music rights are acquired and licensed for various uses. This business model has not principally changed, but music rights have become a speculative investment in recent years, when new players such as Hipgnosis, Primary Wave and Round Hill entered the market with spectacular music catalogue acquisitions in the multi-digit million range.
This blog entry traces the development of the music rights market and the most important players in recent years and is the introduction to a multi-part blog series on “Music as an Investment”.
13th International Music Business Research Days in Retrospective
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After the Poplive! project team of the Erasmus University Rotterdam had successfully organized the International Music Business Research Days 2021, the conference took place again this year at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Based on the main topic of the partner conference – Parallel Societies – this year’s talks and discussions focused on “Parallel Worlds in the Music Industry” on 20 October 2022.
On the morning of the third day of the conference, Beate Flath from the University of Paderborn dealt with the “New Virtual Worlds for Music”. Based on case studies such as the avatar artist Hatsune Miku, the ABBA Voyage Music Hall in London and the concert performances of musicians in the video game Fortnite, Beate Flath showed that these virtual music applications are by no means parallel worlds, but are extensions or supplements to real music life. A kind of parallel world was also created by the numerous lockdowns during the COVID 19 pandemic in the past two years. The manifold effects of the pandemic are discussed in the recently published anthology “Rethinking the Music Business”, which was presented by Guy Morrow from the University of Melbourne. The subsequent panel discussion with Guy Morrow, Beate Flath, Zarja Peters and Daniel Nordgård referred to both the new virtual music worlds and the book presentation and tried to trace new developments in music business.
The afternoon, which was also the kick-off event for the conference “Parallel Societies” of IASMP-DACH and the Society for Popular Music Research (GfPM), was entirely dedicated to the topic “Parallel Worlds of Music Streaming”. Hyojung Sun (University of York) and David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds) addressed current developments in the music streaming economy in their presentations. Hyojung Sun’s keynote, entitled “Asset Economy in the Music Streaming Business”, focused on the current acquisitions of music catalogues by the music majors and new players such as the Hipgnosis Songs Fund. David Hesmondhalgh went on to show how the algorithms of music recommendation systems not only determine music selection, but can also foster social inequalities. These effects of the music streaming economy were then discussed in detail by the two keynote speakers with the Vienna-based musician Yasmo and the founder of the label collective Analogsoul, Fabian Schütze, under the direction of Hannes Tschürtz (ink music).
On the previous day, October 19, the Conference Track Day took place, in which researchers from Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the USA presented and discussed current results of music industry and business research. Among the topics were the production network perspective in the music industry, the functioning of netlabels, the Internet of Musical Things, the live music industry in the Netherlands and the role of blockchain technology and NFTs in the music business.
The 13th International Music Business Research Days traditionally kicked off on the first day – October 18 – with the Young Scholars’ Workshop, in which PhD and master students from Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, the USA and the UK presented their projects and discussed them with mentors. The presentation of the Best Paper Award, this time to Farley J. Joseph from the University of the West Indies/Trinidad & Tobago for his paper entitled “Sustaining innovation: Online concert models in a post-COVID-19 Trinidad & Tobago”, amarked the end of the conference on October 20.
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