As the year draws to a close, we want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude for your support, engagement, and trust. Whether it was breaking news, industry insights, or celebrating the incredible stories behind the songs, your support has been the heartbeat of everything we do.

This holiday season, we wish you and your loved ones warmth, joy, and memorable moments filled with laughter and love. Here’s to a new year filled with exciting beats, groundbreaking news, and the music that keeps us all connected.

Thank you for being part of our community. We can’t wait to keep the rhythm going in 2025!

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

In this newsletter:

YouTube is partnering with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to develop tools for detecting AI-generated content, including deepfakes of celebrities.

UK-based CMO PPL has distributed £45.3m in Q4 2024 to over 137,000 performers and recording rightsholders, including first-time payments to 9,400 members.

Organizations including IMPALA, AIM and IMPF have come out in opposition to the blockbuster deal, arguing it will squeeze independents in an already concentrated market.

Now, the details...

Exploration Weekly - December 20, 2024
Compiled by Ana Berberana

Youtube Partners With Creative Artists Agency on AI Deepfake Recognition Tools

YouTube will bring in talent from Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to help it build a tool to identify AI-generated content, including AI deepfakes of famous faces. As part of the collaboration, “several of the world’s most influential figures” will gain access to the tech YouTube is developing to “identify and manage” AI-generated content, YouTube said. “They’ll provide critical feedback to help us build our detection systems and refine the controls.” CAA is one of the US’s most prominent talent agencies, representing numerous artists. The agency also represents sports talent, and early next year, “top talent” from the NBA and NFL, along with “leading celebrity talent,” will begin testing YouTube’s tools to detect AI-generated content, YouTube said. Notably, YouTube said the program with CAA – the first partnership of its kind – was “the first step of a larger testing effort,” and the platform plans to bring on board other cohorts of testers, including YouTube creators, creative professionals, and “other leading partners representing talent.”

PPL Pays out £45.3m in Q4 Distribution to More than 137k Members

UK-based CMO PPL has announced its distribution for Q4, paying out £45.3m to more than 137,000 performers and recordings rightsholders. The company said that more than 9,400 of those members were receiving a payout for the first time. PPL also hailed the fact that it is distributing royalties from 69 international CMOs, a record total. “We are pleased to end our 90th year with a strong performance in line with our December payments over the past five years,” said CEO Peter Leathem, citing first-time payments from societies in Azerbaijan and Guatemala as evidence of PPL’s growing footprint for royalty collections. The Q4 distribution is actually down slightly from the £48.7m it paid out last December – a record for the quarter.

Indie Music Community Reacts to Virgin’s Downtown Acquisition: ‘Another Land Grab’

Independent record labels and publishers are urging regulators to block the acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings by Universal Music Group (UMG) over fears that the deal weakens competition, to the “severe detriment” of artists and fans. UMG-owned Virgin Music Group announced on Monday (Dec. 16) that it had agreed to buy Downtown Music Holdings for $775 million cash. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, bolsters UMG’s share of the music market by bringing a number of independent distributors, publishing and rights administration businesses owned by Downtown under its control. Those businesses include distributors CD Baby and FUGA, publishing administrator Songtrust and Los Angeles-based rights management company AdRev. “This is another land grab,” said Helen Smith, executive chair of independent labels trade body IMPALA — which represents more than 6,000 indie labels and music companies in Europe, including Beggars Group, Cooking Vinyl, Domino and Epitaph — in a statement about the Virgin-Downtown deal. “We expect competition authorities in key jurisdictions to carry out thorough investigations and block these deals,” Smith added. She also pressed the European Union’s executive branch, the European Commission, “to set the standard internationally.”

Brazilian Judge Orders Adele Song “Million Years Ago” Pulled Globally Over Plagiarism Claim

A Brazilian judge has ordered the Adele song “Million Years Ago” pulled worldwide from streaming services over a plagiarism complaint. The injunction threatens Brazilian subsidiaries of Sony and Universal—Adele’s labels—with a fine of $8,000 per act of non-compliance with the order. The injunction was made by judge Victor Torres in Rio de Janeiro’s sixth commercial court, pending activity in the continuing plagiarism case brought forth by Brazilian composer Toninho Geraes. There does not seem to be an option to appeal the decision, either. The complaint alleges that Adele’s 2015 song from her album 25 plagiarized the music of his samba classic “Mulheres (Women)” which was recorded by Brazilian singer Martinho da Vila in 1995. Geraes is suing for lost royalties, $160,000 in moral damages, plus he is seeking a song-writing credit on Adele’s work. The preliminary injunction orders Sony and Universal to stop “immediately and globally from using, reproducing, editing, distributing, or commercializing the song ‘Million Years Ago’ by any modality, means, physical or digital support, from streaming or sharing platforms. It is a landmark for Brazilian music, which has often been copied to compose successful international hits,” argues Fredimio Trotta, the Brazilian composer’s lawyer. “International producers and artists who… have Brazilian music ‘on their radar’ for possible parasitic use will think twice, given this decision,” the lawyer concludes.

Random Ramblings

Who is Exploration?

Exploration is proud to be the company of choice to administer much of the world’s most important media. We rely on advanced technology and a competent, full-time staff of 70+ people to help our clients and partners better control their data and collect their money.

We wrote a free book on how the music business works.

To see who is collecting your royalties, request a free copyright audit.