Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly digest. Here are the five biggest stories that made headlines over the past seven days. Rounding in MBW is supported in: cent tripHelping over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their earnings and reduce travel costs.
The catastrophic wildfires still unfolding in Los Angeles County have certainly overshadowed all aspects of music industry news this week.
Music Business Worldwide Thoughts go out to everyone affected.
In the Blight: Malibu’s Lovers harbor studiowhich recorded many superstars’ albums, was unfortunately destroyed by the Palisade Fire.
Yesterday (January 9th), the news was confirmed on Instagram, the owner Jack Brandon wrote: “I cried this morning, but it wasn’t because the port was on fire. I cried because it dawned on me that Harbor had been taken from so many artists who cared so deeply about him. It was a place of musical freedom. It was a sanctuary in the most literal sense. I loved it.”
Brandon pledged that his team would “come out stronger from this,” writing, “Thankfully, the magic our customers have placed on us is something that can never leave.” It’s in the soil, it’s in the air, it’s in our souls.”
Elsewhere in the music industry this week, we’ve seen breaking news involving Travis Scott, Daniel Ek, Blackstone, Spotify, and more.
Here are five of the biggest headlines in music over the past few days.
Credit: Christian Bertrand/Shutterstock
1) TRAVIS SCOTT, SZA, FUTURE sued for copyright infringement on 2023 hit ‘Telekinesis’
There is only one week left in 2025. The first blockbuster copyright infringement lawsuit of the year has already been filed in a New York court.
According to legal documents obtained by MBW, Travis Scott, SZA and Future are being accused by RocNation signee Victory Boyd and her publisher Songs of Glory of copying her song Like The Way It Sounds to create their 2023 hit. I was sued. tumult.
Telekinesis has been streamed over 413 million times on Spotify alone. It was released as part of Scott’s smash hit US No. 1 album Utopia (Cactus Jack/Epic Records/Sony Music).
Sipa USA/Alamy
2) DANIEL EK has cashed out over $500 million worth of SPOTIFY stock to date and secured another $28 million this week.
Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek is kicking off 2025 with another major financial move.
Ek continued his pattern of significant stock trading by selling an additional $27.8 million worth of company stock on Wednesday (Jan 8).
Ek has raised about $568 million in total SPOT stock sales (including the latest deal) since he first cashed out his Spotify shares in July 2023, according to MBW calculations.
Credit: John Hanson Pye/Shutterstock
3) Blackstone made a majority acquisition of Citrin Cooperman, one of the music industry’s largest valuation firms.
It is one of the leading valuation and advisory firms in the music blockbuster M&A market. Now Citrin Cooperman (CC) has an exciting new owner and a hefty price tag.
The Blackstone-led investment group acquired a majority stake in New York-based CC, buying out the company’s previous investor, New Mountain Capital.
The Financial Times reported that the deal values Citrin Cooperman, which claims to be one of the largest professional services firms in the country, at more than $2 billion.
Credit: Republic/UMG
4) UK music streaming subscription revenue reached $2.58 billion in 2024, up 7.8% year-on-year. This has increased due to the SPOTIFY price increase.
The amount of money spent by UK consumers on music subscriptions rose 7.8% last year compared to the previous year, a healthy increase.
This is according to new preliminary figures from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), whose members include Spotify, Amazon, YouTube and SoundCloud.
Around £2.018 billion (US$2.58 billion) was spent on music streaming subscriptions in 2024, up from £1.87 billion in 2023, according to data from ERA.
In monetary terms, this is an increase of £146.4 million on the previous year.
(To be clearer, ERA’s figures are retail dollars, meaning they are the amount consumers spend on subscriptions, not the wholesale amount paid to music rights holders. This does not include revenue from ad-supported tiers.).. ( MBW)
Source: NESRIN DANAN/Press
5) NABS 48-hour exclusive SPOTIFY for the weekly ‘BILLIONS CLUB’ concert film
Spotify is exclusively debuting a concert film by superstar artist The Weeknd on its platform this week as the streaming company expands its video content strategy.
Starting Tuesday (January 7), the 45-minute special, titled Billions Club Live with The Weeknd: A Concert Film, will stream exclusively on Spotify for 48 hours before it becomes available on other platforms.
The 48-hour exclusivity period represents Spotify’s first major test of time-limited long-form video content…
