In today's CMU Daily: More drama as Hipgnosis Songs Fund says Hipgnosis Song Management "cherry picked" assets to sell to partner Blackstone

Also today: Anthropic thinks it should get to fight lyric lawsuit in "its Silicon Valley backyard" say music publishers; MVT annual report details venue losses; Nottingham City Council makes a complete hash of Splendour festival paperwork process.

Plus: Jess Partridge, Executive Director of European Music Managers Alliance looks at the year ahead.

CMU's virtual masterclass Music + AI In 2024 takes place on Tuesday 20 Feb - and our main masterclass series starts next week, Tue 30 Jan. Attendees can access the sessions live on Zoom and then on-demand via the CMU learning platform. Click here for information on all of the upcoming CMU online masterclasses and to book now before early bird pricing ends later this week.

Hipgnosis Song Management “cherry picked assets” for proposed sale to Blackstone says latest briefing from Hipgnosis Songs Fund

The Hipgnosis vs Hipgnosis war of words continues with Hipgnosis Songs Fund and Hipgnosis Song Management firing out briefing memos and counter-briefing memos at an increasingly frantic rate.

In the latest development, Hipgnosis Songs Fund - or ‘SONG’ - has issued a memo alleging that Hipgnosis Song Management “cherry picked” assets from the SONG catalogue for a proposed sale to another investment fund, Hipgnosis Songs Capital.

The machinations between the various Hipgnosis entities are somewhat complex, not least because there are so many Hipgnosis-named companies involved. That said, it doesn’t become much easier to understand, even once you have a handle on that. But let’s try.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund is the publicly traded investment fund listed on the London Stock Exchange as ‘SONG’, while Hipgnosis Song Management is the Merck Mercuriadis led firm that acts as ‘investment adviser’ to SONG.

Hipgnosis Song Management is majority owned by private equity giant Blackstone, which runs another investment fund which is private not public. That fund is called Hipgnosis Songs Capital and Mercuridias holds a minority stake in Hipgnosis Songs Capital, as well as his minority stake in Hipgnosis Song Management. Hipgnosis Song Management also acts as investment adviser to Hipgnosis Songs Capital. Phew.

The proposed sale for which this “cherry picking” is alleged to have happened - known as the ‘First Disposal’ - was ultimately knocked back by SONG shareholders at an AGM in October.

That AGM served as a coalescence of a number of relatively dramatic events - at least by the standards of otherwise relatively staid City of London fund management conventions. One of those events was SONG launching a ‘strategic review’ of HSM’s investment adviser role, and the other was the replacement of SONG’s board.

The bold statement comes from that new board and is backed, says the memo, by two “independent research reports” from City analysts.

👉 There's a lot more to this story - read it in full on our website.

Ninja Tune // Product Manager (London/Hybrid)

ATC Management // Day-to-day Manager (London)

Full Time Hobby Music // D2C Marketing Assistant (London)

Como No & La Linea // Director (London/Hybrid)

UK Music // Chief Executive (London/Hybrid)

Deviate Digital // Digital Marketing Assistant (London)

ONE LINERS

OVO Sound, Ludacris, Johnny Marr + More

DEALS

Santa Anna Label Group has invested in and formed a new partnership with OVO Sound, which is Drake, Mr Morgan, Noah ‘40’ Shehib and Oliver El-Khatib’s record label. “After ten years, it’s exciting to reunite with Drake, Morgan, 40, Oliver and the OVO Sound team to collaborate on new ways to support their impressive roster of artists”, says Santa Anna founder Todd Moscowitz, who was previously CEO of Warner Records which had an alliance with the indie label. “Together, I look forward to working with a best-in-class management team to develop opportunities to help scale their business and take their artistry to new heights”.

Verve Label Group has announced two new signings, with Phosphorescent signing to Verve Records and The Messthetics joining Impulse! Records. Another Verve Records artist, Jon Baptiste, has just picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for ‘It Never Went Away’ from his ‘American Symphony’ documentary.

Tuned Global has signed a deal that allows new clients to also enrol with lyric licensing platform LyricFind when they sign up to the B2B music services provider. “We are constantly striving to give our clients the tools to succeed, and for us, engagement and fan excitement equal success”, says Tuned Global MD Con Raso. “LyricFind will give our clients and their users many more ways to find and fall in love with music. We are excited that, thanks to this integration, clients can improve their engagement by simply opting in”.

APPOINTMENTS

Emma Banks of booking agency CAA has been announced as the new Chair of music therapy charity Nordoff And Robbins. "It is a true honour to become Chair of Nordoff And Robbins”, she says. “We have an incredibly strong board that we will be looking to add to in the coming months as our new strategy develops, and I welcome anyone who is interested in becoming involved with Nordoff And Robbins to reach out to me”.

ARTIST NEWS

Ludacris is working on a new comedy drama TV series based on his time as a presenter on Atlanta radio station Hot 97.5, according to The Hollywood Reporter. No broadcast date has yet been announced.

Johnny Marr has reacted to The Smiths track ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ being played at a Donald Trump rally. Unsurprisingly, he’s not a fan. “I never in a million years would’ve thought this could come to pass”, he tweeted. “Consider this shit shut right down right now”.

GIGS & FESTIVALS

Applications for this year’s Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition will open at 9am this Friday and close again a week later on 5 Feb. As well as getting to play the festival, the winner will receive a £5000 bursary from the PRS Foundation. Two runners up will receive £2500 each. More details here.

Nicole Scherzinger, Gladys Knight and Rylan are set to headline this year’s Henley Festival on 10-14 Jul. More info here.

Wednesday 13 has announced UK tour dates marking (slightly belatedly) the 20th anniversary of the forming of Murderdolls, his former band with late drummer Joey Jordison. The dates are set to run through October and November, including a show at London’s Electric Ballroom on 9 Nov. Tickets go on sale on Friday.

MØ will play XOYO in London on 22 Mar to mark the tenth anniversary of her debut album ‘No Mythologies To Follow’.

RELEASES

Jada Kingdom has released new single ‘Top Tier’.

Sekou has released new single ‘Crying’.

Mark Knopfler has released new single ‘Ahead Of The Game’. His new album ‘One Deep River’ is out on 12 Apr.

Fat White Family will release new album ‘Forgiveness Is Yours’ on 26 Apr. Out now is new single ‘Bullet Of Dignity’.

Arab Strap will release new album ‘I’m Totally Fine With It 👍 Don’t Give A Fuck Anymore 👍’ on 10 May. Out now is new single ‘Bliss’ and there will be UK tour dates following the LP release in May.

Pillow Queens will release their new album ‘Name Your Sorrow’ on 19 Apr. Out now is new single ‘Gone’. They’ve also announced UK tour dates in June.

Water From Your Eyes have released the video for ‘Out There’ from their 2023 album ‘Everyone’s Crushed’.

Saint Saviour has released new single ‘Be Gentle’. Her new album ‘Sunseeker’ is out on 22 Mar and she will play a handful of UK shows the same month, including at The Courtyard Theatre in London on 30 Mar.

Adult Jazz are back with their first new music for eight years ‘Dusk Song’. They’ve also announced a show at the ICA in London on 24 Oct. Tickets for that are available now.

Publishers hit back at Anthropic's claim that AI copyright cases should be filed in "its Silicon Valley backyard"

Universal Music Publishing, Concord and ABKCO have responded to AI company Anthropic's attempt to have a copyright lawsuit they filed against it dismissed on jurisdiction grounds. Their lawsuit was filed in Tennessee, but Anthropic reckons any legal battle should be fought in its home state of California. "Anthropic claims that it is subject to jurisdiction only in its Silicon Valley backyard”, the publishers note in a new legal filing, “that is plainly wrong".

They argue that Anthropic hires employees and signs up customers in Tennessee; specifically trains its chatbot Claude to ensure it knows about shopping options, tourist spots and dancing opportunities in the state; and even has Claude regurgitate copyright protected lyrics to Tennessean users.

Anthropic is accused of infringing the copyright in the publishers’ lyrics. First, by using them to train AI chatbot Claude without getting permission. And secondly, by having Claude spit out their lyrics in response to simple prompts. Anthropic argues that AI training is fair use, meaning no permission is required, and insists it has put safeguards in place to stop the publishers' lyrics appearing in messages generated by Claude.

However, in its initial response to the publishers' lawsuit last November, the AI firm didn't dwell too much on copyright matters, instead arguing that Tennessee was the wrong jurisdiction for the litigation. The court, it said, should dismiss the lawsuit on that basis. Or transfer the case to California, where most of the other lawsuits testing the copyright obligations of AI companies have been filed.

Having set out all of their objections to that request, the publishers new legal filing concludes “we respectfully request that the court deny Anthropic’s motion in full".

CMU GUIDE: AI + MUSIC

Artificial intelligence + the music business: CMU's guide to (nearly) everything that mattered in 2023

There was a lot of discussion in 2023 within the music community about how AI will impact on music creation, music marketing, and the music business more generally.

There are clearly opportunities created by AI, and many ways that AI technologies will enhance the business.

An increasing number of music creators and music companies are exploring and identifying way to capitalise on those opportunities, and figuring out which AI products and services may offer ways to enhance their work.

Read CMU's (very) deep dive guide to the deals, disputes and debates, lawsuits and lobbying, and innovation and exploration that informed the conversation.

Two grassroots venues close down every week, according to new report from Music Venue Trust

Grassroots music venues in the UK closed down at a rate of two per week in 2023, says the latest annual report from the Music Venue Trust.

According to its research, the grassroots venue sector at large achieved a 0.5% profit margin on the £500 million in revenues it generated. Without support from grants and donations, including MVT's own Pipeline Investment Fund, the sector would have operated at a loss. Meanwhile, the top end of the live business is booming.

“Enough is enough", MVT CEO Mark Davyd declared at the launch of the new report. "We will not allow this to continue. We must either find a way to act collectively to get these venues and the artists who rely on them the financial support they need to survive or we will seek legislation to compel it".

MVT has been campaigning for a levy to be applied to ticket sales on large-scale shows to provide support for the grassroots sector, similar to a scheme already in place in France. Last month it said that, if the industry couldn't agree to a voluntary scheme, the government should seek to create some kind of levy system through legislation.

Confirming that the trade group is now seeking manifesto commitments for such support from all the UK political parties ahead of the next general election, Davyd continued, "the idea that we, as an industry, cannot voluntarily create a levy to support our grassroots sector, unilaterally and without government intervention, is absurd but we cannot escape the fact that we are simply not acting fast enough".

It's no secret that the grassroots live sector has been facing significant challenges ever since the COVID shutdowns ended. High energy costs and rent increases averaging at 37% are cited by MVT as being particularly problematic.

As a result, 125 grassroots venues closed last year, while 38% of those still operating reported a loss despite increased demand for tickets. According to the MVT report, the 835 members of the organisation's Music Venue Alliance employ over 28,000 people and staged over 187,000 events in 2023, with 1.7 million individual artist performances attracting audience visits of over 23.5 million. That resulted in over £500 million in revenues, but total profits for the sector were just £2.5 million.

“2023 was the worst year for venue closures since Music Venue Trust launched ten years ago”, added MVT COO Beverley Whitrick. “We are still losing on average two venues a week and those that have survived are now consumed by threats to their continued existence that they have no chance of overcoming without immediate help. Without external support our entire sector would be bankrupt".

"We have been warning of these consequences for the last six years", she went on. "Yet still the top end of the live music sector posts record profits while, with a few notable exceptions, turning a blind eye to those who discover, nurture and develop the artists that generate that revenue for them".

👉 Get MVT's annual report here

The year ahead: Jess Partridge, Executive Director of EMMA

As we head into 2024, CMU recently sat down with the bosses of many of the music industry’s trade organisations to talk about their work, the key challenges faced by their members, and what to expect in the year ahead.

Today, Jess Partridge, Executive Director of the European Music Managers Alliance, which brings together music manager representative bodies from across Europe.

Nottingham's Splendour festival cancelled because of delays in council tendering process

The 2024 edition of Nottingham's Splendour festival has been cancelled because Nottingham City Council, which operates Wollaton Park, where the event is staged, took too long to complete a tendering process.

The MD of promoter DHP, George Akins, tells the BBC: "We have tried hard to make Splendour work in 2024, but the delays caused by the tendering process have meant this just hasn't been possible. It has been a hugely frustrating time for us".

Akins adds that he warned the council that any delays in the tendering process could impact on the feasibility of being able to stage a 2024 edition, stating: "2023's headliners were contracted more than a year in advance and everyone was aware of this".

DHP has promoted the event in Wollaton Park since 2008, working with Nottingham City Council. However, last year it was told by the council that it would need to go through a tendering process in order to secure the rights to continue staging a festival in the park.

The council explained that this was a requirement under its new commercial strategy. Going through such a process, it added, would "protect the authority legally [and] financially, and ensure the festival was achieving best value for the council and the residents of Nottingham".

Nottingham City Council has faced a number of challenges in the last year, resulting in it issuing a 'section 114 notice' last November, which basically constituted the local authority declaring itself bankrupt. While this certainly had a knock on effect, Akins points out that some of the delays in the tendering process pre-date the issuing of that notice.

Plus, he says, "Splendour is a significant income generator, not a cost, for the council. We would like to take this opportunity to say how sad we are for all the local businesses, musicians and staff that will be affected by us not being able to stage Splendour this year".

Nevertheless, he concludes, "we will always be willing to work with the council to make it happen in 2025 and beyond".

A spokesperson for the Council told reporters, "Since its inception in 2008, the festival has grown to become one of the best-loved in the country. We, therefore, completely understand why people will be disappointed that it won't take place in 2024”.

The tendering process, they added, “is complex and has taken longer than we would have liked - this has made the viability of delivering a festival in 2024 very difficult. However, we remain optimistic that we will be able to secure an event for future years and hope to announce plans regarding this in the coming months".