Member Updates
Music Biz broadcasts the latest announcements from around our community on our social feeds as our member companies continue to push the industry forward. If you are launching a new product, have been featured in an industry trade publication, or have a major announcement coming soon, we’d love to help spread the word — share it with Henryk Bik, Music Biz’s Communications & Content Manager, at henryk.bik@musicbiz.org.
NEW FOR 2024 Music Biz’s member news will be shared exclusively on our social channels, as the Member Updates section of our website is set to go offline later this year.
March 2, 2021 – SOCAN is Hiring! — Chief Membership Officer
Music Biz partner SOCAN is looking to hire a new Chief Membership Officer: Overall Responsibility: Lead the Member Services Department to champion and advocate for SOCAN members and clients ensuring pro-active service is provided through problem identification and resolution. Areas of the department include relationship management focused on recruitment, retention and repatriation also customer service and pro-active royalty tracking and query management. About SOCAN SOCAN is Canada’s largest member-based rights management organization. We serve and champion more than 160,000 music creators,... Read More
March 2, 2021 – Music Biz Member SoundCloud Preps Launch of User-Centric Royalty Payments Structure
SoundCloud today announced that starting April 1, 2021, it will begin implementing its own version of a user-centric royalty payment structure — dubbed “fan-powered royalties” — for its nearly 100,000 independent artists on the platform. User-centric payment systems distribute royalties to artists from a percentage of each music fan’s subscription fee, based on the artists or labels they individually listen to in a given month. This move differs from the typically implemented “pro rata” model, where royalties are distributed based on each artist or label’s total market share of plays across a platform,... Read More
March 1, 2021 – Music Biz Member EMPIRE Opens West Asia & North Africa Division
EMPIRE has announced the expansion of its independent label services, publishing and distribution businesses into a new territory: North Africa and West Asia. To lead operations in the region, the company has hired Suhel Nafar as its new VP of Strategy & Market Development. Nafar previously served as Global Lead of Arab Music & Culture for Spotify, who helped the country launch in and specifically program content for the region, including more than 120 curated playlists tailor-made for the region.... Read More
February 24, 2021 – Music Biz Member Pex Secures $57 Million Investment Round
Music Biz member Pex announced this month that it has secured $57 million in investments, which it plans to use to scale up its Attribution Engine (AE) technology. Pex hails AE’s ability to analyze over 10,000 hours of content per minute to find all available audio & video copyright uses, attribute the copyrights to every owner, and ensure that rightsholders have properly licensed & cleared the copyright so creators are properly compensated. “My vision has always been to deliver a set of technologies that brought transparency,... Read More
February 24, 2021 – Music Biz Member Vevo Launches Moods AI Tool for Emotion-Based Ad Targeting
This month, Vevo has launched Moods, an AI-based tool that identifies and groups Vevo music videos by the mood they convey (i.e., fun, heartfelt, impassioned, empowering, etc.) in order to create more favorable brand-interaction experiences for consumers as they watch Vevo content. The company worked with music data company Musixmatch to build a proprietary model that matches videos with labels based on the energy and tone of each song. “With Moods, we can not only curate Vevo programming to better match a person’s mood,... Read More
February 23, 2021 – Music Biz Member Spotify Announces HiFi Tier, New Tools for Creators, and Global Expansion Plans
During their “Stream On” event this past Monday, Spotify announced a slew of new products and services marking significant steps to expand their platform in 2021 and beyond. This include a new HiFi high-resolution music streaming subscription tier set to launch some time this year, as well as new exclusive podcast content. Spotify also announced new and expanded tools in support of creatives, with its Canvas product being made available to all artists from here on out.... Read More
February 22, 2021 – NEW MEMBER PROFILE: Feed Media Group
Please join us in welcoming Feed Media Group to the Music Biz member community! The company is dedicated to innovation in music licensing and distribution with one goal in mind: help businesses of all shapes and sizes create amazing user experiences with music. Feed works with the industry to experiment with new solutions that both address the nuances of each licensing use case and that serve every stakeholder — rightsholders, businesses, and consumers alike. Its Feed.fm product powers non-interactive radio for apps,... Read More
February 17, 2021 – Music Biz Members UMG and TikTok Enter New Licensing & Artist Support Agreement
Universal Music Group and TikTok have announced a new partnership, including a renewed music licensing agreement, that will also allow the companies to collaborate on new initiatives involving digital marketing, A&R, user data and more. Under the terms, TikTok will compensate artists and songwriters from UMG and Universal Music Publishing Group when their music is used in video clips on its apps, allowing users to use clips from UMG’s full catalog of music across its network of labels,... Read More
February 11, 2021 – New MTSU Program Supports Students of Color Seeking Country Music Careers
Music Biz Academic Partner Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) has announced the launch of its new “Bridges to Nashville: Exciting Career Opportunities in Country Music” initiative. This five-month pilot program was designed to educate college students of color nationwide about opportunities available to them in the Country music industry. The first Bridges to Nashville session, to be held on Wednesday, February 24, will feature a conversation between artist/hit songwriter Shy Carter and songwriter/producer Shannon Sanders, who also serves as executive director of BMI’s Nashville office,... Read More
February 10, 2021 – Music Biz Member Songtrust Announces Expansion of Executive Team
This week, Music Biz member Songtrust has announced the elevation of three team members to executive roles — Lisa Robinson has been named Vice President of Income Tracking; Anna Bond has been appointed Head of Creative and Partnerships, a new department for the company; and Rob Wetstone who has been promoted to Global Head of Client Relations. The company also revealed that it now works with clients hailing from more than 145 countries. “Music publishing is notoriously complex,... Read More
