{"id":226293,"date":"2025-12-10T22:14:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/226293\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T22:14:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:14:39","slug":"biggest-music-publishing-stories-of-2025-ai-spotify-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/226293\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Music Publishing Stories of 2025: AI, Spotify &#038; More"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe bigger deals were on the publishing company level, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/sony-music-publishing-acquires-hipgnosis-songs-group\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sony acquired the Hipgnosis Songs Group<\/a>, which was the operational part of the Hipgnosis effort, and included traditional songwriting deals for an undisclosed amount. In the meantime, at the end of 2024, the Universal Music Group\u2019s Virgin Music Group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/umg-downtown-deal-eu-objections-competition-concerns\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">agreed to acquire Downtown<\/a>, though that deal still needs approval from EU regulators and faces strong opposition from the independent label community.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn addition to Downtown\u2019s formidable distribution presence, Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) could have an issue if the deal gets approval, as Downtown maintains a strong publishing operation with a roster that boasts traditional name songwriters including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/Tori-Amos\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tori Amos<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/yoko-ono\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yoko Ono<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/john-lennon\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Lennon<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/george-gershwin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Gershwin<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/john-prine\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Prine<\/a>, among others; as well as Songtrust, which began as an administrator for DIY songwriters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn May, Concord agreed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/concord-broadway-licensing-global-acquisition\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acquire Broadway Licensing Global <\/a>in a deal that widened its presence in theatrical plays, including musicals. The latest deal brings in plays by the likes of Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepard, Alan Menken, Arthur Miller and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions under the umbrella of Concord, which already owned Rogers &amp; Hammerstein Theatricals, Tams-Witmark, Samuel French and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAnd as the year began drawing to a close, sources told Billboard that Spirit Music\u2019s first music portfolio, owned by Northleaf Capital Partners, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/north-leaf-sell-spirit-music-catalog-t-rex-assets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was on the block<\/a>. The catalog was heavily weighted toward publishing assets but also included some master recording assets, with the seller said to be seeking a more than $500 million valuation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bigger deals were on the publishing company level, as Sony acquired the Hipgnosis Songs Group, which was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,19,17,2624,14353,82,116831],"class_list":{"0":"post-226293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-music-news","15":"tag-spotify","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-year-end"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115697579685453699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}