From Luminate’s midyear Music Report to Mubert’s 100m AI-generated tracks… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-Up

Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their income and reduce their touring costs.

This week, US market monitor Luminate published its Midyear Music Report, which reveals music consumption stats and listening trends for the US and globally from the first half of the year.

According to Luminate’s report, in the world’s largest recorded music market, the United States, on-demand audio streams grew 13.5% to reach 616.5 billion in H1 2023.

Globally, total on-demand audio song streams rose 22.9% YoY to 2 trillion.

Elsewhere, Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), the UK-listed entity that owns stakes in over 65,000 songs, published its financial figures for FY 2023 (to end of March 2023), revealing that its like-for-like net revenues grew 10.9% YoY in the period.

Also, Los Angeles-headquartered music distribution and payments platform Stem secured a $250 million credit facility from Chicago-headquartered Victory Park Capital.

Plus, Universal Music Group called on US Congress to pass new rules regulating AI, while AI music creation platform Mubert announced that its AI has generated 100 million tracks – roughly equal to the entire catalog available on Spotify.

Here’s what happened this week…

1) ENGLISH LANGUAGE MUSIC’S POPULARITY ON STREAMING SERVICES IS SHRINKING IN THE US… AND GLOBALLY.

According to Luminate’s mid-year music report, in the United States, in H1, the streaming share of English language content in the Top 10,000 total on-demand (audio and video) tracks was down 4.2% since 2021.

Spanish language music’s streaming share of the Top 10,000 US on-demand (audio and video) tracks, on the other hand, has grown 3.6% in the same time frame.

In the US, English language music’s streaming share of the Top 10,000 US on-demand (audio and video) tracks was 88.3% in H1. Spanish language music had a 7.9% share of the equivalent metric….

2) HIPGNOSIS SONGS FUND’S LIKE-FOR-LIKE NET REVENUES ROSE 10.9% IN FY 2023, STREAMING REVENUES UP 14.8% LAST YEAR

Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), the UK-listed entity that owns stakes in over 65,000 songs, saw double-digit growth in its latest fiscal year – in what the firm calls its strongest FY performance since its IPO five years ago.

HSF on Thursday (July 13) published its financial figures for FY 2023 (to end of March 2023), revealing that its like-for-like net revenues grew 10.9% YoY in the period.

3) STEM RAISES $250M FROM VICTORY PARK CAPITAL TO EXPAND ARTIST ADVANCES

Los Angeles-headquartered music distribution and payments platform Stem says it has secured a $250 million credit facility from Chicago-headquartered Victory Park Capital.

According to Stem, its partnership with VPC, a global alternative investment firm specializing in private credit, will allow it to expand its artist-advance product.

Along with advances for yet-to-be-released music, artists will also have the option to take advances against previously released albums and songs, “presenting a range of opportunities to support their growth”, Stem said on Tuesday (July 11)…

4) UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP CALLS ON US CONGRESS TO PASS NEW RULES REGULATING AI

Universal Music Group (UMG), the world’s largest music rights holder, has called on the US Congress to enact laws protecting creators and other rights holders against copyright infringement by AI developers and users.

At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on intellectual property on Wednesday (July 12), Jeffrey Harleston, General Counsel and Executive Vice President for Business and Legal Affairs at UMG, laid out three specific laws UMG would like to see enacted.

They include: A nationwide right of publicity law; the ability of copyright owners to see what has gone into the training of AI models; and the labeling of AI-generated content…

5) 100 MILLION AI-GENERATED TRACKS HAVE BEEN CREATED BY MUSIC PLATFORM MUBERT

AI music creation platform Mubert announced Wednesday (July 12) that its AI has generated 100 million tracks – roughly equal to the entire catalog available on Spotify.

Mubert says the audio files were generated “exclusively using licensed music for input.” The company says it has established relationships with music creators who contributed audio samples to its AI, allowing Mubert to create a database of 2.5 million “proprietary sounds” on which it trains its algorithms…

MBW’s Weekly Round-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and reduce their touring costs.Music Business Worldwide