Music as an Investment – Part 3: Primary Wave

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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.

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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”.

Call-for Papers: Rethinking the Music Business – Music Contexts, Rights, Data and COVID-19

Call for chapters for an edited volume to be submitted to Springer’s Music Business Research Series

Editors
Guy Morrow (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Daniel Nordgård (University of Agder, Norway)
Peter Tschmuck (University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Austria)

 

COVID-19 had, and is having, a global impact on health, communities and the economy. As a result of COVID-19, music festivals, gigs and events were cancelled or postponed across the world. This directly affected the incomes and practices of many artists and the revenue for many entities in the music business. Despite this crisis however, there are pre-existing trends in the music business – the rise of the streaming economy, technological change (virtual and augmented reality, blockchain etc.), new copyright legislation etc. Some of these trends were impacted by the COVID-19 crisis while others were not.

 

This edited volume will therefore be structured in two parts. The first part will feature more general perspectives and the second will focus on the impact of COVID-19 on the music business. This edited volume thus welcomes chapters that address issues within the music business before, during and after COVID-19.

 

The volume will be composed of 8000 word chapters (including footnotes and references), an Introduction by the editors and an Afterword.

– Deadline for submission of abstracts (300-400 words) and bio notes (100 words): 1 December 2020
– Notification of acceptance: 15 January 2021

– Book proposal submission: 20 January 2021
– Book contracted: February 2021
– First book chapter draft: 30 July 2021

 

Initial expressions of interest, enquiries and/or abstracts should be submitted to editors: Guy Morrow (guy.morrow@unimelb.edu.au), Daniel Nordgård (daniel.nordgard@uia.no) and Peter Tschmuck (Tschmuck@mdw.ac.at)