Exceed Talent Capital

07/12/2023

07/10/2023

As TikTok dives into the music streaming market with 'TikTok Music', can it leverage its massive user base to dethrone Spotify? Lets decode the future of music streaming.

Today, July 6, comes the answer to months of rumors surrounding TikTok's bold venture into the music streaming market: the official launch of 'TikTok Music', a powerful new contender ready to joust with Spotify.

Ole Obermann, the Global Head of Music Business Development at TikTok, characterizes the app as a fresh breed of service, merging TikTok's potent music discovery capabilities with an exemplary streaming platform.

Exclusive to premium subscribers, TikTok Music has landed in Indonesia and Brazil, backed by licensing agreements with all three major record companies: Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music. Notably, Sony Music's catalog, previously withdrawn from ByteDance's Resso, is once again accessible on Resso and now on TikTok Music, starting this day.

In other news, Resso will soon become obsolete in Indonesia and Brazil, expected to terminate operations from September 5, 2023, following the advent of TikTok Music. Resso users can seamlessly transition to the new app, and Resso will continue its service in India beyond the specified date.

TikTok touts its new app as a "social music streaming service", designed to leverage TikTok's music discovery prowess. Its offerings include an extensive catalog of music, ad-free listening, offline downloads, and a commitment to enhancing opportunities and revenues for artists and rights holders. A prominent feature is the streaming of full versions of viral TikTok songs on TikTok Music.
An intriguing aspect was TikTok's experimental agreement with Apple Music in May to direct users to their service.

TikTok Music's initial feature suite includes a Lyrics Search, Real-Time Lyrics for a karaoke-style experience, and Song Catch, a tool reminiscent of Shazam. The service, available from today in Brazil and Indonesia, offers new users a one-month free trial.

Brazil and Indonesia may seem random choices for launching TikTok's new app, but they are, in fact, strategic. Brazil, with over 84 million users, is TikTok's third-largest market, while Indonesia, with an estimated 113 million active users, is the second-largest, according to Datareportal.

Both these countries also demonstrate promising growth in the music streaming industry, making them a fitting stage for a new subscription music streaming service. Spotify, whose premium subscriber base grew by 15% year-on-year in Q1 to 210 million, must now watch closely as its new competitor steps into Brazil, the world's 9th largest music market.

If TikTok can successfully transition a fraction of its massive user base to its new Music app, Spotify could potentially face significant market share issues in Latin America and South East Asia.

07/03/2023

ByteDance, the creator of TikTok, steps into the realm of music creation with their new AI app, Ripple. Is this just an addition to their product suite or a strategic move to revolutionize the music industry?

ByteDance, the tech giant valued at $220 billion, has been an influential player in the music industry with its popular video-sharing app TikTok. Now, it plans to give aspiring creators the tools to craft the music for their short videos. ByteDance has constructed its own music app, leveraging its trained model to encourage creation.

As reported last month, ByteDance has been developing an AI music app designed to make the process of music creation more accessible. Today, it confirms the launch of a free-to-use music production app, Ripple, featuring two primary attributes: a 'Melody to Song' generator and a virtual recording studio.
The 'Melody to Song' generator allows users to sing or hum a melody into the app, which Ripple then expands into an instrumental accompaniment in various genres. The app matches the length of the generated music to the length of the inputted melody and currently, the model can only create instrumental music. Other adjustable features include the beats per minute and various effects.

The AI model that powers Ripple was trained using music licensed to or owned by ByteDance, as confirmed by the company, but was not trained on music from major record companies. Music produced in-house by ByteDance was also used to train the model.

A representative from ByteDance stated, "Ripple is designed to inspire musical creativity and help musicians, artists, and composers express themselves. We're excited to see how creators use Ripple to soundtrack their own short-form videos."

ByteDance's new app Ripple aligns with two key trends in music technology: the emergence of mobile music production apps aimed at hobbyist music makers and aspiring musicians, and the rapid development of AI-powered generative music models by tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Meta.
One notable competitor in this space is BandLab, based in Singapore, boasting over 60 million registered users on their social music-making app. The introduction of Ripple now presents BandLab with a formidable rival.

ByteDance's Ripple is scheduled to launch in the US on June 30 for a small group of beta testers, invited exclusively. The app, similar to other smart digital audio workstations, also features a virtual recording studio. ByteDance confirms that users will be able to share their music on TikTok and other social platforms, though the app doesn't currently support music distribution to the TikTok song library.

Last year, ByteDance introduced machine-learning-driven music-making app Mawf, and a music creation app in China called 'Sponge Band', geared towards improving audio effects and background music for short videos.

06/29/2023

An eight-figure deal sees Influence Media Partners acquire Logic's publishing catalog.

This deal comes hot on the heels of Influence Media Partner’s recent acquisitions of publishing catalogs from Future, Blake Shelton, The Stereotypes, Tainy, Jessie Reyez, Julia Michaels, and Tyler Johnson.

Let’s dive into the details:

In a flurry of music rights deals this week, the headline-grabber comes from Influence Media Partners. The music and rights investment firm, making strategic moves, has acquired the publishing catalog of Grammy-nominated rapper and producer Logic. The deal, reported to cross into the eight-figure range, includes a variety of Logic's chart-toppers like "1-800-273-8255," "EVERYDAY," "HOMICIDE," and "6 SUCKER FOR PAIN."

Influence Media Partners, founded in 2019 by Lylette Pizarro, Lynn Hazan, Rene McLean, and Jon Jashni, has carved out a niche in the music industry. The firm announced a massive $750 million fund in early 2022, backed by BlackRock Alternative Investors and Warner Music Group, to invest in “high-value compositions from diverse artists.”

With investments in over 25 music catalogs from Grammy-recognized artists like Future, Blake Shelton, The Stereotypes, Tainy, Jessie Reyez, Julia Michaels, and Tyler Johnson, Influence Media Partners has been an active player in the music rights arena. The acquisition of Logic's catalog solidifies their commitment to the future of hip-hop within the music publishing and content rights market.

This announcement comes hot on the heels of Logic's eighth studio album, College Park's release, and the revelation of his upcoming US tour "Logic: The College Park Tour" with Special Guest Juicy J. Logic's collaboration with Influence Media Partners follows his 10-year journey with Def Jam Records, punctuated by his multi-platinum track "1-800-273-8255."

In the words of Logic, “Making music has always been a creative outlet and a form of therapy for me, and I’ve been humbled by how deeply it has connected with people around the world.” He eagerly anticipates his partnership with Influence Media Partners.

Rene McLean, a partner at Influence Media, praises Logic as a changemaker with an independent mindset. He commends Logic’s cultural influence and lauds his commitment to mental health awareness. McLean reaffirms Influence Media's commitment, saying, “Influence Media is proud to partner with Logic to ensure his powerful body of work is heard for generations to come."

This acquisition is a strategic move by Influence Media to diversify their music catalog and elevate their impact in the music rights marketplace, aligning with their mission to support 'modern evergreen' music. By ensuring Logic's cultural contributions continue to resonate, Influence Media Partners signals an exciting phase in the evolving landscape of music publishing and rights.

06/28/2023

Warner Music Group and Polygon Labs venture into uncharted territory with their music accelerator program. But is the music industry ready for this blockchain-driven innovation, and what will it mean for artists and their fan communities?
Let's dive in 👇

In an example of cross-industry innovation, Warner Music Group (WMG) and Polygon Labs have teamed up to launch a music accelerator program. This cutting-edge initiative targets the intersection of Web3 and music, hoping to support developers and music-oriented projects flourishing on the Polygon network.

This accelerator program is specifically designed to tap into the thriving ecosystem of companies and entrepreneurs operating where music, technology, and Web3 converge. It casts a wide net, covering a range of potential innovation areas. These include cultivating artist-fan communities, developing decentralized music production and distribution, reshaping ticketing solutions, exploring music-related merchandise, and blending music with interactive technology and gaming.

To qualify for the program, applicants need to bring more to the table than just an idea. They should demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for the future of music, and their ideas should already have moved beyond the concept stage. The strongest candidates will be those already actively applying their concepts within the Polygon blockchain protocols.

If selected, the projects can expect to receive funding from WMG and Polygon Labs. But it doesn’t stop at financing; the selected initiatives will be in line for an array of support options including mentorship, strategic advising, networking, and marketing promotion.

Speaking on this venture, Oana Ruxandra, Chief Digital Officer and EVP, Business Development at WMG, stated, “WMG is focused on enabling its artists and songwriters to build, activate, engage, and monetize their communities in this next era of music creation and consumption.”

Echoing the same sentiment, Ryan Wyatt, President of Polygon Labs, added, “We’re delighted to join forces with WMG in our shared mission to bolster creativity and enterprise in music through new technology.”

06/27/2023

As AI enters the world of rap, are we ready for the repercussions?
With Microsoft's DeepRapper spitting rhymes and rhythms, what's the future of human creativity in music? Let's explore.

Earlier this year, Google announced an innovative language model known as MusicLM, designed to generate new music from text prompts.

Hot on Google's heels, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, unveiled its own text-to-music AI generator named MusicGen last weekend. This novel AI system, which Meta states has been trained on "20,000 hours of licensed music, including 10,000 high-quality tracks and 390,000 instrument-only tracks from ShutterStock and Pond5," promises to push boundaries in the digital music arena.

Yet, Google and Meta aren't the only tech giants exploring the intersection of AI and music. Microsoft is a significant player in this field with their extensive research project known as 'Muzic'. Microsoft characterizes 'Muzic' as a "project on AI music that empowers music understanding and generation with deep learning and artificial intelligence."

Originating in 2019 under 'The Deep and Reinforcement Learning Group' at Microsoft Research Asia (MSR Asia), Muzic continues to expand its repertoire. MSR Asia, described as “a world-class research lab” with branches in Beijing and Shanghai, has been making strides in research areas central to Microsoft’s long-term strategy and future computing vision since 1998.

One standout project from Muzic is the DeepRapper, an AI-powered 'rap generator'. Microsoft's researchers note in a paper outlining the development of DeepRapper that, "to [the researchers’] knowledge, DeepRapper is the first [AI] system to generate rap with both rhymes and rhythms.” Further, they assert, "Both objective and subjective evaluations demonstrate that DeepRapper generates creative and high-quality raps."

The research paper provides detailed insights into the development of DeepRapper. The model was built upon a unique "data mining pipeline to collect a large-scale rap dataset, which includes a large number of rap songs with aligned lyrics and rhythmic beats," due to the lack of existing rap datasets with rhythmic beats. Moreover, the researchers used their "data mining pipeline to collect another two datasets: 1) non-rap songs with aligned beats, which can be larger than rap dataset since non-rap songs are more general than rap songs; 2) pure lyrics, which can be even larger than non-rap songs.”

The DeepRapper was trained on these datasets during a "pre-training stage," and then the model was fine-tuned on rap songs with aligned beats. As stated in the paper, “Both objective and subjective evaluations demonstrate that DeepRapper generates high-quality raps with good rhymes and rhythms.”

While DeepRapper presents an intriguing advance in AI-driven music creation, it also raises significant questions. The candid disclosure of how DeepRapper’s data was obtained from the internet may fuel concerns among music rightsholders about potential copyright infringement.

Microsoft's interest in AI-powered rhyme and rap technologies extends beyond DeepRapper, with a "Voice Synthesized Participatory Rhyming Chat Bot" also in its portfolio. This distinct tool, awarded a US patent in April 2021, is said to have multiple uses, such as to "support rap battles" and "participate in the music creation process in a social way,". This development further underscores Microsoft's commitment to exploring the potential of AI in music creation.

06/23/2023

One of the world’s biggest ever music catalog acquisition deals took place two years ago, when legendary songwriter Paul Simon sold his music publishing catalog to Sony for a price believed to be in the region of USD $250 million-plus.

Today, Simon has sold other valuable assets related to his catalog to BMG, for an undisclosed sum.

In other words: BMG will be paid Simon’s artist royalty share whenever Simon & Garfunkel’s classic recordings – which continue to be owned by Columbia/Sony Music – are streamed or purchased.

BMG will also, in future, be paid money previously paid to Simon when Simon & Garfunkel’s recordings are broadcast on TV or radio, or played in public spaces, around the world.

Thomas Scherer, BMG’s President, Repertoire & Marketing, Los Angeles and New York, said, “In any list of the true greats, Paul Simon stands as one of the pillars of popular music history.

“We will play our part to ensure his music continues to be honored and respected.”

BMG’s incoming CEO, Thomas Coesfeld, said, “We are delighted to have secured the agreement of Paul Simon for BMG to acquire his royalty interests in Simon & Garfunkel recordings and his neighboring rights income.

“This is a significant transaction. Our ability to secure this deal demonstrates once again that BMG provides the best home for the greatest artists.”

06/23/2023

DaylinXL’s upcoming album ‘The Hills Revisited’ takes listeners on a captivating journey of self-discovery through his experience living in two vastly different worlds. Invest in him today at the link in bio and earn a portion of his new album’s streaming income! 🔥 invest.exceedtc.com/exceedposts

06/22/2023

One of the most commonly asked questions we get is how investing in music works. Here’s a simple guide that will help you get started and take your love of music to the next level! Download the app at invest.exceedtc.com/exceedposts!