Music Deals -- Week 29 2021

Warner Music Group has acquired the assets of 12Tone Music, the independent music company founded in 2018 by former Universal Music Group's Chairman and CEO Doug Morris. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Warner said that Morris will continue to be "actively engaged in the day-to-day activities of 12Tone Music and its artists." 12Tone was distributed by WMG's services company for the independent sector ADA. Its roster includes Dolly Parton, Anderson Paak, the 88 Rising collective (featuring Joji), Lauren Daigle, and Illenium. “We’re very pleased that Doug has chosen Warner as the team to continue nurturing the amazing artists that 12Tone has signed and developed over the past three years,” said WMG's CEO of Recorded Music Max Lousada. Commented Morris: “After leading all three major music companies, I loved returning to my indie roots by starting 12Tone. I want to thank Steve Bartels and the 12Tone team for being such a big part of the picture. This three-year run has been a lot of fun. I look forward to remaining fully engaged with the WMG team, who are outstanding professionals."

ATC Management ​has entered a partnership with London-based music technology ​company ​Spitfire Audio​ ​to provide ATC artists and composers access to Spitfire's studios, software, tools and services, as well as the opportunity to collaborate on new products and initiatives with Spitfire’s team of developers. ​"Our composers and Spitfire are true innovators in the world of composition and our artists have used their products for a long time. This partnership feels like a logical next step in pursuing our shared goal of challenging preconceived notions of who can be a composer and what constitutes a great score​," said ATC Management​​'s principal ​Toby Donnelly​. ​Founded 12 years ago by composers Christian Henson and Paul Thomson, Spitfire Audio ​has developed​ a vast catalogue of sample libraries​, with contributions from the likes of is​ ​Hans Zimmer, Eric Whitacre, Ólafur Arnalds, Warp Records, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Abbey Road and the London Contemporary Orchestra​, among others.

​Toronto-based lyrics licensing platform LyricFind has launched a new service that allows labels and rights holders to quickly and easily turn their tracks into dynamic and engaging lyric videos.​ Using proprietary technology, LyricFind’s new tool can automatically generate a high quality branded video in seconds. The tool provides custom backgrounds, fonts, and visualizers to animate a song’s lyrics. LyyricFind said the tool is ideal for catalogues and other large collections of recordings. The video creation tool also includes vetted translations in seven languages, as well as other high-quality features. LyricFind does not charge for access the tool. Instead it takes a share in the revenue generated from video views. “This new lyric video service is part of our mission to create innovative ways for labels and rights holders to use lyrics to benefit their business and for artists to raise their profile and connect with fans – and generate revenue," said Darryl Ballantyne, co-founder and CEO of LyricFind (pictured, below).

Bolo Indya has partnered with rights management and identification solutions expert Audible Magic Corporation to allow India’s home-grown social livestreaming platform to "proactively manage both occurrences of licensed and unlicensed copyrighted media on their site." Bolo Indya is working with Audible Magic to deploy a scalable identification service to respond to the service's rapid growth in livestreaming and short-form videos usage. "We stand focused on providing copyright solutions for user-generated content on our platform. This expanded solution on our platform will use the robust technology to support the compliance and licensing of user generated content on platform," said Varun Saxena, CEO and Founder of Bolo Indya. Added Vance Ikezoye, President and CEO at Audible Magic: “We are pleased to help Bolo Indya to identify licensed and unlicensed use of copyrighted music proactively. The partnership leverages our strength in content identification technology, coupled with the trust we’ve built with rights holders.” 

Universal Music Group has signed a licens​ing agreement with Singapore-based Lomotif​, providing the video sharing app​'​s users access to​ UMG's repertoire for use in video clips. ​Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. “We are very pleased that Lomotif’s fast-growing community of users around the world will be able to take inspiration from the artists and music they love, all while ensuring UMG’s artists are fairly compensated for the value music generates on Lomotif’s platform," said Michael Nash, UMG’s Executive Vice President of Digital Strategy. The Lomotif app is currently available on more than 225 million devices globally and more than 300 million videos are watched on the platform each month.