Music Publishing Weekly Roundup: Rap Genius vs NMPA, Lorde Signs with Songs & More
The NMPA sent take-down notices to 50 unlicensed lyric sites, most notably Rap Genius, on Monday. The other 49 sites can be found here. NMPA President David Israelite described the take-down notices as a precursor to filing copyright infringement lawsuits, but stressed that the NMPA intends to facilitate licensing deals, so these businesses, songwriters and publishers can be business partners, not adversaries. The unlicensed lyric site conversation intensified back in late August when UGA's David Lowery released his Undesirable Lyric Website Study.
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Rap Genius responded on Thursday by announcing its first licensing deal with Sony/ATV. It appears as if this is the first of many deals Rap Genius will make with writers and publishers, rather than rolling the dice with with a Fair Use defense. Whether other lyric sites will see this as precedent and follow suit remains to be seen.
- The bidding war for New Zealand's singer-songwriter sensation has come to an end. Songs Music Publishing inked a $2.5 million deal with Ella Yellich O’Connor, the 17-year old star better known as Lorde. Kobalt, Sony/ATV, Universal Music Publishing Group, Spirit and a few other publishers were reportedly also aggressively pursuing the young star.
- UMPG signed an exclusive worldwide music publishing agreement with Miley Cyrus to administer her songwriting interests in 'Bangerz' and extended its publishing deal with Kieth Urban to include his latest album 'Fuse'. Kobalt will provide admin and creative services in a new partnership with Martin Kierszenbaum, the co-founder of Cherrytree Records, to launch Cherrytree Music Publishing.
Courtesy of Songtrust - Global royalty collection for music professionals.
