Exploration Weekly - SoundExchange Strikes Royalty Agreement With SAMPRA / UK Music Returns $9.6B to British Economy / Court Asked To Review Ed Sheeran “Thinking Out Loud” Legal Victory

SoundExchange is a non-profit collective rights management organization, meaning that they administer the copyrights of others. Pandora, SiriusXM, and webcasters are required by law to pay for streaming musical content. SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties from the use of sound recordings on behalf of more than 155,000 recording artists and master rights owners (typically the record label) and administers direct agreements on behalf of rights owners and licensees. It is the only organization officially designated by the U.S. Congress to do so. SoundExchange pays featured and master rights owners for the non-interactive (you don’t choose which song plays) use of sound recordings under the statutory licenses outlined in 17 U.S.C. § 112 and 17 U.S.C. § 114.

It is important to reiterate that SoundExchange administers performance royalties and deals only with the sound recording (master) copyrights attached to a song.

If you would like to learn more about our copyright administration services to find you unclaimed royalties, please visit our website.

In this newsletter:

• SoundExchange Strikes Royalty Agreement With SAMPRA, Opening New Revenue Streams For US and South African Artists
• UK Music Returns $9.6B to British Economy – But Global Competition and AI Threat Signal ‘Tipping Point’
• Court Asked To Review Ed Sheeran “Thinking Out Loud” Legal Victory
• Labels Told Apple Six Times to Kick Musi Out of App Store, New Legal Filing Reveals

US recording artists will now get neighboring rights royalties from South Africa, thanks to a new deal between SoundExchange and SAMPRA.

The UK music industry contributed £7.6 billion to the economy in 2023, up 13% from the previous year, driven by major tours and strong demand for British music.

Structured Asset Sales (SAS), the rights holder for part of Let’s Get It On, is appealing a ruling in its copyright case against Ed Sheeran.

Now, the details...

Exploration Weekly - November 22, 2024
Compiled by Ana Berberana

SoundExchange Strikes Royalty Agreement With SAMPRA, Opening New Revenue Streams For US and South African Artists

US recording artists will receive neighboring rights royalties from South Africa for the first time following a reciprocal agreement between SoundExchange and the South African Music Performance Rights Association (SAMPRA). The deal, announced Monday (November 18), applies retroactively to the 2022 distribution period. The two parties said the deal ensures that performers from both countries will be compensated when their music is played in either nation. “The successful execution of this agreement is directly tied to the advocacy SoundExchange demonstrates around the world on behalf of the creators we represent,” said Michael Huppe, President and CEO of SoundExchange. “I am pleased that our case for fairly paying creators for their work resonated so deeply with SAMPRA and has resulted in a significant step forward for US performers.” The scope of the deal extends beyond featured artists to include studio musicians and backup singers through the involvement of the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund.

UK Music Returns $9.6B to British Economy – But Global Competition and AI Threat Signal ‘Tipping Point’

The United Kingdom’s music industry is at a “tipping point” due to increasing competition from other international markets and the threat posed by unregulated generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), the head of umbrella organization UK Music has warned. In 2023, the music industry contributed £7.6 billion ($9.6 billion) to the country’s economy, up 13% from the previous year, according to the organization’s annual This Is Music study, which measures the economic impact of the U.K. music industry across all income streams including live, record sales, publishing, merch, brand endorsements and public performance revenue for UK based music creators and rights holders. Huge grossing U.K. tours by Beyonce, Burna Boy and Harry Styles helped drive the record economic contribution, said UK Music, which bases its calculations upon the gross value estimates of money generated through music sales, concerts, recording studios, touring and music tourism — roughly equivalent to pre-tax profits and salaries. However, despite strong appetite for British artists and songs, the country’s music market is facing several significant challenges that threaten its continued prosperity, says UK Music. It identifies increasing competition from other international markets, tough financial conditions for grassroots artists and music venues, as well as the potential risks posed by generative AI on music creation as the biggest dangers to the sector.

Court Asked To Review Ed Sheeran “Thinking Out Loud” Legal Victory

Despite Ed Sheeran’s court victories last year in which he successfully fended off accusations that his hit song Thinking Out Loud copied Marvin Gaye’s iconic song Let’s Get It On, one of the cases may yet find itself back in court. The owner of part of the rights to Let’s Get It On is asking an appeals court to overturn one of last year’s court rulings, arguing that a new Supreme Court decision means the previous ruling in the case no longer applies. Last summer, Sheeran won two lawsuits in a New York federal court in which he was accused of ripping off Let’s Get It On. One of those lawsuits was brought by Structured Asset Sales (SAS), a company founded and led by David Pullman, known for being one of the early innovators of music-backed bonds. The company owns part of the publishing rights to Let’s Get It On. In May 2023, US District Court Judge Louis Stanton dismissed SAS’s case, overturning an earlier decision to bring the case to trial. That ruling came a few weeks after a jury in another trial presided over by Judge Stanton had concluded that Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud didn’t infringe the copyright on Let’s Get It On. SAS appealed that decision and argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeal that Judge Stanton had erred by barring SAS’s musicology experts from testifying and relying instead on the “deposit copy” of the song filed with the US Copyright Office.

Labels Told Apple Six Times to Kick Musi Out of App Store, New Legal Filing Reveals

Apple has told a court in California that it should dismiss a lawsuit filed against it by music streaming app Musi, which went legal last month after being kicked out of Apple’s App Store in September. Responding to the lawsuit, Apple says that - under its App Store terms - it’s allowed to remove the Musi app “at any time, with or without cause”. And even if it wasn’t, the decision to kick Musi out “followed numerous, credible complaints alleging that the Musi app violates the legal rights of third parties”, the tech giant’s new legal filing reveals. We knew that a complaint from YouTube in July prompted the axing of Musi from the App Store, but Apple says that it also received a complaint from the US National Music Publishers Association and at least seven complaints from the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry. Musi sources in its music from YouTube. As Apple describes in its new court filing, the app then “removes YouTube advertising content and replaces it with Musi’s own or allows ad-free streaming for a fee”. Apple adds that it “received many complaints from third parties alleging that Musi reproduces copyrighted content from YouTube without authorisation from the copyright holders and deprives artists and other rightsholders of royalty revenue”.

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