Kakao Entertainment, the entertainment division of South Korean internet company Kakao Corp., is doubling down on its metaverse push with the launch of a new four-member virtual K-Pop girl group called MAVE.

Kakao launched MAVE in January through its Metaverse Entertainment joint venture with South Korean mobile game developer Netmarble. Metaverse Entertainment was founded in August 2021.

The group’s members are Siu, Zena, Tyra, and Marty, who are presented as human-like avatars with natural-looking movements and facial expressions.

Reuters says the members can speak four languages: Korean, English, French and Bahasa, although they are not able to respond to prompts and only rely on scripts prepared by humans.

Apart from MAVE, Metaverse Entertainment also developed another virtual character called RINA, described as a 22-year-old with a “free-spirited lifestyle who loves fashion and music and is passionate about what she likes.”

RINA already has 32,600 followers on Instagram, which was launched on March 29, 2022, and has amassed 2.3 million likes and 138,000 followers on TikTok.

Apple’s standalone ‘Apple Music Classical’ app is now available on the App Store just weeks after the company teased its launch.

Apple Music subscribers are able to download and use the new app at no additional cost as part of their existing subscription.

The app is now available worldwide where Apple Music is offered, excluding China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Taiwan and Turkey, while available features and content may vary by country or region, according to the Apple Music Classical page on the App Store.

It requires an Apple Music subscription, but is not available with the Apple Music Voice Plan, a subscription tier for Apple Music that is designed to work with Siri.

US music rights management company BMI has clinched victory in a rate court dispute against live events promoters Live Nation, AEG, and the North American Concert Promoters Association (NACPA).

The win will see songwriters get a 138% increase in rates to 0.5% of every event’s revenue.

Live Nation downplayed the impact of the ruling on concert promoters, saying this will instead cost performers about $15 million a year, divided among thousands of artists

Warner says that Garvey has “a stellar track record at major labels in senior executive positions”.

The exec’s career includes five years as SVP of Commercial Channels and Consumer Marketing at Warner Music International and, before that, VP of Digital at EMI.

She joins WMUK from Abbey Road Studios, where she was appointed Managing Director in 2014.

During her tenure at Abbey Road, according to Wednesday’s (March 29) announcement, “she drove the world-famous studio into the future by expanding both the studio footprint and the brand, launching digital production services and establishing Europe’s first incubator for music tech innovation, amongst many other achievements”.

YouTube recently revealed that as of December, its TikTok rival Shorts was averaging over 50 billion daily views and that in 2022, the number of channels uploading content to the Shorts platform daily grew over 80%. 

On Thursday (March 30), YouTube’s Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen revealed, via a blog post, a new set of stats that hone in on music’s performance on the platform.

The headline stat, according to YouTube, is that in January 2023, the top 1,000 songs on Shorts saw more than 280 billion combined views.

Also in January, fan-created Shorts reportedly increased the average artist’s audience of unique viewers by more than 80%.

Spotify’s France-based rival Deezer has teamed up with US speaker maker Sonos to power the latter’s streaming radio service Sonos Radio and its subscription service Sonos Radio HD globally.

The partnership will see Deezer deliver its catalog of 90 million tracks, metadata, licensing, reporting and royalty management, business intelligence and data to Sonos users, starting in April.

Deezer says it will also provide key services for Sonos Radio and Sonos Radio HD, as well as strategic collaboration for growth and monetization of the service, according to a press release.

The new alliance will deliver services to 16 countries including the US, Canada, the UK, France and Germany.

In addition, both companies will also explore opportunities to expand “the Sonos music experience,” and collaborate on new ways to help listeners discover music and soundtrack.