Kobalt Music Group is an independent
rights management and
music publishing
A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers started to play a role in the management of the intellect ...
company. Founded in 2000 by CEO Willard Ahdritz,
[ Kobalt acts primarily as an administrative publishing company, not owning any copyrights. Also offering label services and ]neighboring rights
In copyright law, related rights (or neighbouring rights) are the rights of a creative work not connected with the work's actual author. It is used in opposition to the term "authors' rights". ''Neighbouring rights'' is a more literal translation ...
,[ the company has developed an online portal to provide royalty income and activity to artists and allow them to manage their rights and royalties directly.]
In 2015 it was reported that Kobalt was "the top independent music publisher in the UK and the second overall (to Sony/ATV) in the US," with around 600,000 songs and 8,000 artists in its catalogue Examples of artists served by Kobalt include Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
, Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Foo Fighters was initially formed as a one-man project by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Following the success of the eponymous debut album, Grohl (lead vocals, guitar) re ...
, John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...
, The Weeknd
Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), known professionally as the Weeknd, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. Known for his sonic versatility and dark lyricism, his music explores escapism, Romance (love), ...
and Marshmello
Christopher Comstock (born May 19, 1992), known professionally as Marshmello, is an American electronic music producer and DJ. His songs "Silence", "Wolves", "Friends", " Happier", and " Alone" have been certified multi-platinum in several ...
.
Kobalt owned 17.3% of the top 100 radio songs in the US in of 2015, ranking it third after Universal. With headquarters in London, Kobalt also has offices in New York, Berlin, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Stockholm and Sydney. Kobalt paid $29.8 million for the acquisition of Fintage House's Music Companies.
History
Founding and early years (2000–11)
Kobalt Music Group was founded in 2000 in New York City, with founder Willard Ahdritz, a native of Sweden, taking on the role of CEO. Together with Klas Lunding, Ahdritz had previously launched ''Telegram Publishing'' in Stockholm in 1988. Kobalt's initial business model focused on collecting and distributing royalties for artists, with the stated goal of ensuring artists were paid appropriately and promptly. In 2005 the company debuted its Kobalt Label Services Portal, an online portal for artists to track and manage their own portfolios.
Kobalt Music Group won Independent Music Publisher of the Year at the 2009 Music Week Awards, winning the following year as well. Kobalt added a neighboring rights
In copyright law, related rights (or neighbouring rights) are the rights of a creative work not connected with the work's actual author. It is used in opposition to the term "authors' rights". ''Neighbouring rights'' is a more literal translation ...
division in 2011. In December 2011, Kobalt bought Artists Without a Label (AWAL), a digital distribution and label services company. Kobalt as a result gained access to AWAL's network of digital retail partners, which among other companies included iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
, Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
, Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
, eMusic
eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. In exchange for a monthly subscription eMusic users can download a fixed number of MP3 tracks per month. eMusic was established in 1998, is headquartered in New York Ci ...
, Rhapsody
Rhapsody may refer to:
* A work of epic poetry, or part of one, that is suitable for recitation at one time
** Rhapsode, a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry
Computer software
* Rhapsody (online music service), an online m ...
, 7Digital
7digital Group Plc is a British publicly listed company that offers access to music, tracking and reporting for clients. London-based, 7digital provides end-to-end music services for the fitness, social media, DSPs, and gaming industries with b ...
, Beatport
Beatport is an American electronic music-oriented online music store owned by LiveStyle. The company is based in Denver, Los Angeles, and Berlin. Beatport is oriented primarily towards DJs, selling full songs as well as resources that can be used ...
, Deezer
Deezer is a French online music streaming service. It allows users to listen to music content from record labels, as well as podcasts on various devices online or offline.
Created in Paris, Deezer currently has 90 million licensed tracks in i ...
, and Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
.[ The acquisition also allowed Kobalt to begin supplying advanced data analytics to clients.]
Expansion and new services (2012–14)
After the AWAL acquisition, Kobalt formed the label services division Kobalt Label Services
Kobalt Music Recordings is a division of Kobalt Music Group. KLS provides record label services to artists, receiving a share of revenues, while allowing artists to retain ownership of their master recordings. The company was founded in 2012 wh ...
in 2012.[ In July 2012, Kobalt Music Group signed a deal with ]MPL Communications
MPL Communications (which stands for McCartney Productions Ltd.) (NAICS 512230, SIC 2741) is the umbrella company for the business interests of Paul McCartney and was established in 1969. In addition to handling McCartney's post-Beatles work, MP ...
to exclusively provide administrative services to MPL in "the world outside North America, the U.K. and Ireland." The catalog included 1,200 songwriters such as Hugh Masekela
Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 January 2018) was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father of South African jazz". Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for ...
and Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
, with classic songs such as "Baby It's Cold Outside
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a popular song written by Frank Loesser in 1944 and popularized in the 1949 film '' Neptune's Daughter''. While the lyrics make no mention of a holiday, it is commonly regarded as a Christmas song owing to its winter ...
" and "Luck Be A Lady
"Luck Be a Lady" is a song written and composed by Frank Loesser in 1950 and first performed by Robert Alda. The song was featured in the musical ''Guys and Dolls''. The lyrics relate the point of view of a gambler, Sky Masterson, who hopes that ...
."[ ]Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...
signed a deal in May 2013 to market and distribute his work with Kobalt, with his rights over his masters left intact.
Recent developments (2014–present)
In 2014 Kobalt purchased the American Mechanical Rights Agency (AMRA), a collection agency
Debt collection is the process of pursuing payments of debts owed by individuals or businesses. An organization that specializes in debt collection is known as a collection agency or debt collector. Most collection agencies operate as agents of ...
. Kobalt announced that it was preparing to expand into the Latin American
Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...
market in April 2014, and that June the company raised US$140 million in funding to "accelerate rapid growth" and that year Kobalt also raised US$66 million from investors such as MSD Capital
MSD Capital is an American private investment firm that manages the capital of Michael Dell and his family. The firm, which is based in New York and has offices in Santa Monica and West Palm Beach, was formed in 1998.
In 2009, the principals of ...
.
In February 2015, Google Ventures
GV is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides Seed investment, seed, Venture capital financing, venture, and Growth investing, growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Venture ...
in London made Kobalt its inaugural investment, with Google Ventures' president explaining that Kobalt was "changing the way artists are treated in the music business, particularly when it comes to providing trust and transparency and compensating creators for their work." Google Ventures (with MSD Capital
MSD Capital is an American private investment firm that manages the capital of Michael Dell and his family. The firm, which is based in New York and has offices in Santa Monica and West Palm Beach, was formed in 1998.
In 2009, the principals of ...
once again investing) raised US$60 million for the company which Kobalt announced would largely be used to develop their technology and open new offices in Miami, Brazil, and South East Asia. This brought the total of equity raised by Kobalt to $126 million. At that point, Kobalt had also invested $100 million of the initial $153 million it had raised to "help finance the second strand of its business – label services where Kobalt either buys part or all of an artists' rights to help collect royalties on their behalf."
''Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'' reported in May 2015 that Kobalt was "the top independent music publisher in the UK and the second overall (to Sony/ATV) in the US," with around 8,000 artists and 600,000 songs in their catalogue. At the time, Kobalt continued to collect royalty money directly from services such as Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
, iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
, YouTube, and various collection agencies.
In December 2017, Kobalt acquired Songs Music Publishing Songs Music Publishing, also known as SONGS, is a Music publisher (popular music), music publishing company founded by Matt Pincus and joined by partners Ron Perry (music), Ron Perry in 2004 and Carianne Marshall in 2006. The company has offices in ...
for an estimated $150 million.
With headquarters in London, Kobalt currently has offices in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
, Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, Berlin, Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, Miami, Hong Kong, and Sydney.
On 1 February 2021, Kobalt sold AWAL
AWAL (an initialism of Artists Without a Label) is a British music distribution company owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The company serves as an alternative to the traditional music label deal, offering deal structures to artists and independ ...
and Kobalt Neighboring Rights to Sony Music
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...
for $430 million, pending regulatory approval. The deal was completed in May 2021.
On July 24, 2022, Kobalt removed its entire catalogue of 700,000 tracks from Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
and Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
, two social media networks owned by Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms, Inc., (file no. 3835815) trade name, doing business as Meta and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns Facebo ...
, in the United States.
Technology
Kobalt has developed a number of technologies to increase its own efficiency at tracking and collecting royalties. In 2005 the company debuted its Kobalt Portal, an online portal for artists to track and manage their own portfolios. In 2014, Kobalt introduced ProKlaim, a YouTube integration that by 2014 had significantly increased artist revenue on the platform. ProKlaim serves as an "advanced detection platform" by integrating with YouTube's own music detection technology. As of 2015, Kobalt had started describing their backend technology as "KORE." KORE manages rights, and tracks, collects and pay royalties across disparate markets, with the collected data accessible through the Kobalt Portal.
Divisions
Current catalogue
Kobalt currently has licensing deals with around 8,000 artists and 600 publishing companies, representing a catalogue that totals around 600,000 songs.
Selected publishers
The following publishers are currently signed to Kobalt Music Group:
*B-Unique Music
*Big Life
Big Life was a record label established in 1987 by Jazz Summers and Tim Parry. It featured hundreds of releases from artists such as The Orb, Stare, Yazz, Junior Reid, Coldcut, De La Soul, and Damage.
In 1999, the label was put into receivers ...
Music
*Blue Mountain Music
*Cherry Tree
A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...
*Communion Defend Music
*Disney Music Group
Disney Music Group (DMG) is the music recording arm of Disney Platform Distribution, a division of The Walt Disney Company. It is located at the studio's headquarters in Burbank, California. The division's subsidiaries consist of two owned record ...
(Australia)
*Getty Images
Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creative ...
*Hipgnosis Songs Fund
Hipgnosis Songs Fund is a British Guernsey-registered music IP investment and song management company founded by Merck Mercuriadis and Nile Rodgers in 2018. Focused on songs and associated musical intellectual property rights, it was founded ...
*Inside Assage
*Lateral
* Little Louder
*Monstercat
Monstercat (formerly known as Monstercat Media) is a Canadian independent electronic music record label based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 2011 by Mike Darlington and Ari Paunonen, the label released music on a tri-weekly basis unt ...
* MPCA
*MPL Communications
MPL Communications (which stands for McCartney Productions Ltd.) (NAICS 512230, SIC 2741) is the umbrella company for the business interests of Paul McCartney and was established in 1969. In addition to handling McCartney's post-Beatles work, MP ...
*National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
*Nettwerk
Nettwerk Music Group is the umbrella company for Nettwerk Records, Nettwerk Management, and Nettwerk One Publishing.
Established in 1984, the Vancouver-based company was created by Nettwerk principals Terry McBride and Mark Jowett as a record ...
*Owsla
Owsla (stylized in all caps) is an American record label and creative collective. It was founded by Skrillex, Tim Smith, Kathryn Frazier, and Clayton Blaha in 2011. Skrillex announced the label on August 17, 2011. The label's first release was ...
* Polar Patrol Publishing
* San Remo
*Secretly Canadian
Secretly Canadian is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Secretly Canadian is a label included in Secretly Group, which ...
*Songs Music Publishing Songs Music Publishing, also known as SONGS, is a Music publisher (popular music), music publishing company founded by Matt Pincus and joined by partners Ron Perry (music), Ron Perry in 2004 and Carianne Marshall in 2006. The company has offices in ...
*Soul Kitchen Music
*Ten
* Third and Verse
Awards and nominations
The following is an incomplete list of awards won by Kobalt Music Group:
*2009: Music Week Awards
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
– Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2010: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2011: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2012: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2013: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2014: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2015: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2016: Music Week Awards – Independent Music Publisher of the Year
*2017: Music Week Awards – Publisher of the Year
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
See also
*List of record labels
File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg
File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg
File:Bingola1011b.jpg
Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organized alphabetically, b ...
*Kobalt Label Services
Kobalt Music Recordings is a division of Kobalt Music Group. KLS provides record label services to artists, receiving a share of revenues, while allowing artists to retain ownership of their master recordings. The company was founded in 2012 wh ...
*Independent Music Companies Association
The Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), originally the Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association, is a non-profit trade association established in 2000 to help European independent record labels represent their agenda a ...
References
External links
KobaltMusic.com
{{Music industry
2000 establishments in England
Mass media companies based in London
Mass media companies established in 2000
Music publishing companies of the United Kingdom