{"id":234623,"date":"2025-06-20T16:58:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T15:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=234623"},"modified":"2025-06-20T17:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T16:14:09","slug":"from-ed-sheerans-copyright-victory-to-the-eus-downtown-deal-review-its-mbws-weekly-round-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/from-ed-sheerans-copyright-victory-to-the-eus-downtown-deal-review-its-mbws-weekly-round-up\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ed Sheeran’s copyright victory to the EU’s review of UMG’s Downtown buyout\u2026 it\u2019s MBW\u2019s Weekly Round-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to\u00a0Music Business Worldwide<\/a>\u2019s weekly round-up \u2013 where we make sure\u00a0you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW\u2019s round-up is supported by\u00a0<\/i>Centtrip<\/i><\/span><\/a>,\u00a0which helps over 500 of the world\u2019s best-selling artists maximize their income and reduce their touring costs.<\/i><\/p>\n

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This week, the European Commission<\/strong>\u00a0set a provisional deadline of July 22<\/strong> to make its initial decision in the Phase 1 investigation of Universal Music Group’s<\/strong> proposed acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, HarbourView Equity Partners<\/strong> is leading\u00a0an $85 million <\/strong>investment in Animaj<\/strong>, a kids and family content-focused entertainment company which uses “proprietary GenAI tools”.<\/p>\n

Also this week, a copyright lawsuit between a group of music publishers<\/strong> and Elon Musk\u2019s<\/strong> X <\/strong>has been paused for 90 days <\/strong>while they\u00a0try to settle out of court.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile,\u00a0the US Supreme Court<\/strong> has rejected an attempt at a rehearing in a copyright infringement case over Ed Sheeran\u2019s<\/strong> hit\u00a0Thinking Out Loud<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Finally,\u00a0US President Donald Trump<\/strong>\u00a0extended\u00a0ByteDance\u2018s<\/strong> deadline to sell TikTok\u2019s<\/strong> US operations by another 90 days<\/strong>, pushing the latest deadline to mid-September.<\/p>\n

Here’s what happened this week…<\/p>\n

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<\/figure>1) EUROPEAN COMPETITION REGULATORS TO MAKE INITIAL RULING ON UNIVERSAL\u2019S $775M DOWNTOWN BUYOUT BY JULY 22<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n

Europe\u2019s competition watchdog \u2013 the European Commission<\/strong> \u2013 revealed in April that it was\u00a0preparing to\u00a0investigate\u00a0Universal Music Group\u2018s<\/strong> proposed acquisition of\u00a0Downtown Music<\/strong> Holdings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

UMG was required to formally notify the EU about the deal, which would kickstart a Phase 1 investigation, at the end of which we\u2019ll find out if the deal has been approved or raises serious competition concerns. We won\u2019t have long to wait…<\/p>\n

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<\/figure>2) HARBOURVIEW LEADS $85M INVESTMENT IN AI-POWERED KIDS ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY ANIMAJ<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n

HarbourView Equity Partners<\/strong> is leading an $85 million<\/strong> investment in Animaj<\/strong>, a kids and family content-focused entertainment company.<\/p>\n

Animaj uses proprietary GenAI production tools and what it calls a \u201cmulti-platform franchise-building model\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Paris-headquartered company says that it \u201cacquires and scales high-potential IPs by using data-driven insights, automating animation pipelines through AI,\u201d and then distributing that content to platforms like\u00a0YouTube<\/strong>,\u00a0Roblox<\/strong>, TikTok<\/strong>, and Spotify.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/figure>3) MUSIC PUBLISHERS AND ELON MUSK\u2019S X GRANTED 90 DAY PAUSE TO COPYRIGHT LAWSUIT FOR \u2018GOOD FAITH NEGOTIATIONS\u2019 TO TRY TO SETTLE OUT OF COURT<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n

The many music publishers who sued Elon Musk<\/strong>\u2019s X<\/strong> over alleged copyright infringement are aiming to settle the matter out of court.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to an order for a stay of proceedings filed by the court on Wednesday (June 11), and obtained by MBW.<\/p>\n

According to the order, the judge has temporarily frozen all legal proceedings in this case for\u00a090\u00a0days after both parties jointly requested the pause to try to settle the dispute outside of court<\/p>\n

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<\/figure>4) US SUPREME COURT REJECTS APPEAL IN ED SHEERAN COPYRIGHT CASE OVER \u2018THINKING OUT LOUD\u2019<\/a>
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The US Supreme Court has rejected an attempt at a rehearing in a copyright infringement case over Ed Sheeran\u2019s hit Thinking Out Loud.<\/em><\/p>\n

On Monday (June 16), the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Structured Asset Sales (SAS) \u2013 which lost a case in a lower court, where it claimed that Thinking Out Loud violated the copyright on Marvin Gaye\u2019s 1973 song Let\u2019s Get It On…. (MBW)<\/p>\n

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<\/figure>5) TRUMP GRANTS THIRD TIKTOK EXTENSION AS US SALE TALKS STALL<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n

US President Donald Trump<\/strong> will extend\u00a0ByteDance\u2018<\/strong>s deadline to sell TikTok\u2019s US operations by another 90 days, pushing the latest deadline to mid-September.<\/p>\n

White House Press Secretary\u00a0Karoline Leavitt\u00a0said in a\u00a0statement\u00a0to multiple news outlets on Tuesday (June 17): \u201cPresident Trump will sign an additional Executive Order this week to keep\u00a0TikTok\u00a0up and running.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/figure>MBW\u2019s Weekly Round-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world\u2019s best-selling artists maximise their income and reduce their touring costs.<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6911,"featured_media":111195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6911"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}