The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), two performing rights organizations operating in the US, have teamed up to form a joint task force aimed at addressing fraudulent activities associated with musical works within the collective management ecosystem. 

The alliance builds upon the two parties’ SONGVIEW collaboration, launched in December 2020, to provide detailed copyright information, including reconciled ownership shares and administration shares of music licensed in the US.

The newly formed task force comprises a diverse team of copyright, technical, distribution, legal, business, and product experts from both ASCAP and BMI.

Music companies are jumping into the virtual-artist space in a big way.

The three majors – Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – have all invested in virtual artist projects, but they are hardly the first.

The trend really began in Japan and Korea as far back as the 1990s, but back then, the technology was experimental, expensive and – maybe most importantly – audiences may not have been ready for virtual singers and bands, represented by cartoons or avatars and with no presence in the real world.

All that seems to be changing today, with social media sites often acting as incubators for a new generation of virtual artists.

Polar, created by TheSoul Publishing, boasts 1.9 million followers on TikTok. Lil Miquela, the brainchild of music producer Trevor McFedries and tech entrepreneur Sara DeCou, has 2.8 million Instagram followers.

But the phenomenon didn’t start with social media.

In fact, you can trace the history of virtual artists all the way back to the middle of the 20th Century, when Hollywood cartoon producers and comic book companies cashed in on the burgeoning rock music scene with bands like The Archies and the Grammy Award-winning Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Australian music tech company Jaxsta has launched an online record store for vinyl records, catering to the renewed popularity of physical music formats and the nostalgia associated with vinyl.

Vinyl.com went live on Monday (May 15), offering a catalog of vinyl records across all genres with verified creative contributions metadata on every album.

According to Jaxsta, the “iconic” vinyl.com URL “offers a deep catalog of vinyl records, powered by Jaxsta’s Official Music Credits”.

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