Several significant deals have recently been finalized across various sectors of the music industry, impacting publishing, live entertainment, streaming, and AI-driven music creation.

Round Hill Music has expanded its portfolio by acquiring the publishing catalogs of several prominent songwriters, including Terry Shaddick (known for olivia Newton-John’s “Physical”), Linus Eklöw (icona Pop’s “I Love It”), and Carmine appice (Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”). The acquisitions also include publishing assets from the band Dirty Heads (“Vacation”) and a portion of the master rights for Al Stewart (“Year of the Cat”). Following the sale of its London Stock Exchange-listed fund to Concord in 2023, these moves bring Round Hill’s catalog value under management back to over $1 billion. The company continues to manage five private funds.

Rezonate Music Rights, a new investment platform backed by a $150 million partnership with Bridgepoint Credit, has launched with the goal of acquiring music producers’ royalty rights. This investment will enable Rezonate to pursue “high-profile” catalog acquisitions. Bridgepoint is also acquiring a minority stake in Rezonate’s management company. co-founded by music producer Cam Blackwood, Rezonate has already acquired rights from producers including Loma Blackwood, Mark Crew, James Earp, and Jussi Karvinen.

Live Nation has acquired SD Concerts,a live entertainment company based in the Dominican Republic that promotes Latin and international talent in several countries,including Aruba,Chile,Colombia,Costa Rica,Guatemala,Panama,and Puerto Rico. SD Concerts also operates a ticketing platform that will become part of the Ticketmaster ecosystem. Live Nation reports that fan attendance in the Latin American region increased by more than 25% in the frist quarter of this year.

In the streaming sector, Audiomack has partnered with music fraud detection company Beatdapp to combat streaming fraud on its platform. The deal will see Beatdapp analyzing streaming activity on Audiomack to remove fraudulent streams from sales reports and detect bots. Audiomack CEO Dave Maclean stated, “By partnering with Beatdapp, we have adopted the best-in-class technology from an impartial third party to demonstrate our commitment to both our creator and rights holder partners, and to uphold the integrity of our editorial recommendations and chart activity.”

Spotify has partnered with United Airlines to offer over 450 hours of free, Spotify-curated playlists, podcasts, and audiobooks on more than 130,000 United seatback screens. According to Spotify, this marks the first time it has offered audiobooks and video podcasts on an airline. Starting next year, United passengers will be able to log in to the Spotify app on the airline’s in-flight screens using their personal devices, allowing them to continue listening from where they left off on their personal accounts.

AI and Music Licensing

SourceAudio has launched an AI dataset licensing marketplace, offering AI companies access to 14 million fully cleared tracks via an opt-in model. The tracks come from major publishers,indie artists,and production music libraries,providing AI companies with training datasets while compensating writers and publishers. The company has partnered with several AI companies, including Wondera.ai, generating over $1.35 million in new annual recurring revenue for participating artists and publishers. Revenue from dataset licensing is paid upfront or throughout the license agreement term.

“This game-changing deal allows karaoke singers…to perform songs by iconic Warner Music Group artists,all using the original backing tracks,”

Element,a karaoke technology company,has signed an agreement with Warner Music group to bring original master recordings from the label’s artists to the Singa platform. The agreement includes both Warner Chappell Music and Warner Recorded Music. Singa co-founder/CEO Atte Hujanen said, “This game-changing deal allows karaoke singers at home and Singa-powered venues worldwide to perform songs by iconic Warner Music group artists, all using the original backing tracks.” This is Singa’s first deal with a major label, following previous agreements with publishers and indie labels.

Sony Music India has formed a joint venture with The hello Group (THG) to create THG India.This partnership will combine Sony Music India’s local reach with THG’s international touring and artist development network,aiming to support Indian artists in the country’s growing live music scene and beyond. THG India will offer talent management, global concert booking, and publishing support, while Sony Music India will provide strategic investment and access to its platforms.

AEG Presents has acquired Gary Musick Productions,a Nashville-based special events production company,and its affiliated entity,Destination Musick City. Gary Musick Productions will retain its name and continue providing corporate and social event services, including audio-visual production, scenic fabrication, custom set design, live streaming, and branding integration. Destination Musick City will remain a destination management company offering immersive experiences for groups visiting Nashville. The deal will allow Gary Musick productions to expand its services to music festivals and concerts while giving its clients access to AEG’s venue network.

Symphonic Distribution has partnered with Hitmakers Entertainment, which represents Australian pop and R&B artist Tash. The collaboration will support emerging and established artists from Australia and Southeast Asia. Hitmakers boss mark Feist stated, “this collaboration allows us to further expand Tash’s career as well as our continually growing roster with the help of Symphonic’s creative and strategic vision.”

Songfox, a new sweden-based generative AI startup, has partnered with Musical AI to use its platform of fully cleared music catalogs to train its models. Musical AI will provide reports detailing the data contributing to each generated song, enabling Songfox to compensate rightsholders. Songfox allows users to generate and “tweak” full songs, including AI-assisted lyrics and a library of licensed voices.