Five trade groups representing South Korea’s K-pop industry have warned that the ongoing dispute between HYBE, its label ADOR, and K-pop girl NJZ, formerly known as NewJeans, could destabilize the industry if it sets a precedent.

The groups urged the government to take action against “tampering” – the practice of attempting to poach artists who are under an exclusive contract.

“If tampering attempts succeed, Korea’s entertainment management industry will collapse,” the groups said in a statement issued Wednesday, as quoted by The Korea Times.

“This issue extends beyond domestic disputes — foreign capital could step in and take over the K-pop industry entirely.”

The groups behind the statement are the Korea Management Federation, the Korea Entertainment Producer’s Association, the Record Label Industry Association of Korea, the Recording Industry Association of Korea, and the Korea Music Content Association.

While the groups didn’t directly allege that tampering has occurred in the case of NewJeans – who rebranded themselves as NJZ earlier this month – their statement did reference news reports last fall alleging that Min Hee-jin, the former CEO of ADOR and the person credited with creating NewJeans, had attempted to lure the group away from ADOR.

HarbourView Equity Partners has agreed to acquire the publishing catalog and select masters of artist, producer and songwriter T-Pain.

T-Pain is a six-time Grammy Award winner. HarbourView notes that he has sold over 50 million singles, accumulated billions of streams, and racked up 10 No.1s on the Billboard Hot 100.

Added T-Pain: “This catalog represents years of hard work, creativity, and unforgettable moments, and I’m grateful to see it continue to reach new heights. I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.”

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Since its inception in 2021, HarbourView says that it has amassed roughly $1.45 billion in regulatory assets under management including over 60+ music catalogs to date and investments in two media production companies, MACRO and Mucho Mas Media, both with a mission to center premium storytelling.

The firm’s music portfolio features a catalog of more than 29,000 songs across both master recordings and publishing income streams.

The company’s portfolio of music assets includes James Fauntleroy, George Benson, Noel Zancanella, Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo, Nelly, Jeremih, Wiz Khalifa, Kane Brown, Full Force and more.

Last year, HarbourView secured $500 million in debt financing led by investment giant KKR.

In an interview with MBW last year, Sherrese Clarke said HarbourView has a “global audience frame” and is “focused on building an investment firm across the entertainment, media, and sports segments. We invest in things outside of music [and] what that creates is a very rich ecosystem. It is more than acquiring only music and music catalogs.”

San Francisco-based independent label, distribution and publishing company EMPIREhas made a strategic investment in un:hurd music, a platform specializing in automated music marketing and promotion.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

According to a press release from un:hurd, this strategic investment takes place as part of the company’s ongoing fundraise, “of which current investors such as Willard Ahdritz and Dan Runcie’s Trapital Ventures have already re-invested alongside Mindset Ventures MusicTech”.

The financial backing from EMPIRE aims to speed up the development of un:hurd’s technology and at the same time provide EMPIRE artists with marketing tools. EMPIRE is known for launching the careers of artists like Kendrick Lamar, Fireboy DML, Shaboozey, Asake, XXXTentacion, and Anderson .Paak.

“EMPIRE’s investment is a very credible nod to the work we do and it’s [a] credit to the team for the work they’ve put in over the last 12 months to make this happen,” said Alex Brees, CEO and founder of un:hurd.

“I’m incredibly excited to be working with EMPIRE, whose legacy as a leading independent publisher, distributor, and label is monumental and to be able to support their roster of talented artists globally.”

MBW’s Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry. Stat Of the Week is supported by music data analytics firm Chartmetric.

US performance rights organization ASCAP has reported its revenue and royalty payout numbers for 2024, with both numbers hitting all-time highs.

Revenue came in at $1.835 billion for calendar 2024, up 5.7% year over year. Of that, ASCAP distributed $1.696 billion to artists, songwriters, and music publishers, an increase of 6.5% YoY.

In a statement issued on Thursday (February 27), ASCAP said the record-breaking numbers were “fueled by revenue growth and the lowest overall cost allocation overhead rate in the US at 10%.”

US-licensed performances brought in $1.397 billion in revenue, up 5.3% YoY, with revenues from streaming audio, audio-visual and general licensing driving the growth. Of that, ASCAP paid out $1.284 billion to rights holders, up 5.5% YoY.

Foreign revenue collections came in at $438 million, up 6.8% YoY, of which $411 million was paid out to rightsholders, up 9.8% YoY.

Over the past 10 years, ASCAP has seen a compound annual growth rate of 7% for revenue and 8% for distributions, indicating a long-term trend towards paying out a larger share of revenue to rightsholders.

ASCAP also reported that its membership “soared past the 1 million mark” in 2024 as it attracted a slew of new members. Among them are country star Kacey Musgraves, eighties rockers Def Leppard, pop star Tate McRae, film/TV composer Cliff Martinez, rapper Sexyy Redd, songwriter Justin Tranter, rock icon Jack White of The White Stripes, Dear Evan Hansen star Ben Platt and folk rocker Graham Nash.

AI music generator Suno has been making a lot of big headlines in recent months.

Just last month, the $500 million company was sued for copyright infringement by GEMA, the German collection society and licensing body.

In June, Suno was sued by the major record companies, along with fellow AI firm Udio, for allegedly training their systems using the majors’ recordings without permission – an accusation they pretty much admitted to in court filings in August.

The platform’s controversial reputation in the music industry doesn’t seem to have prevented tech giant Amazon – owner of Spotify rival Amazon Music – from partnering with it.

Amazon has unveiled a new AI-powered version of its Alexa voice assistant, and among the capabilities of the “next-generation” Alexa+ is an integration with AI music platform Suno.

“Using Alexa’s integration with Suno, you can turn simple, creative requests into complete songs, including vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation,” Amazon said in a blog post on Wednesday (February 26).

SoundCloud has announced a new ‘Artist’ subscription tier “to help emerging and aspiring musicians get their music out into the world easily and affordably.”

The music streaming platform describes the tier as “bridging the gap” between Basic and the Next Pro tier for professional artists – a tier that has now been renamed Artist Pro.

“We’re renaming Next Pro to Artist Pro to better reflect the evolution of our offerings and our commitment to supporting artists at every stage of their careers,” SoundCloud said in an announcement on Tuesday (December 17).

At $3.25 per month in the US, or $39 per year, the new Artist tier offers many of the same services as the Next Pro tier, but at a considerably lower price than the $8.25 for the newly renamed Artist Pro.

It comes with three hours of uploads per month (versus unlimited uploads on Artist Pro), offers distribution of two tracks per month to SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, TikTok, and more than 60 other platforms; monetization on SoundCloud and other platforms; and one credit per month towards AI mastering.