Copyright and AI: Bologna-based Musixmatch acquires Music Reports
The deal aims to bring together two complementary businesses, both of which serve to reconcile music streaming figures with the rights of those who composed and published the music
Musixmatch has announced the acquisition of Music Reports. The Italian company manages song lyrics rights by developing artificial intelligence-based solutions for artists and publishers operating within the world of global mega-platforms. It has decided to join forces with an American firm that is twice its age and which, in turn, deals with music rights across all forms of distribution. As these are unlisted companies, the value of the deal has not been disclosed. The funds that control them are both American: TPG, which has held a stake in Musixmatch since 2022, and MidOcean Partners, which has held a stake in Music Reports since 2020.
The strategic significance of the deal lies in the innovative potential arising from the integration of two complementary businesses: both serve to reconcile music streaming figures with the rights of those who composed and published the music, and both produce and manage vast amounts of data. According to Max Ciociola, who founded Musixmatch in Bologna sixteen years ago, this provides the basis for building the next generation of royalty management, powered by artificial intelligence.
The issue is highly complex. Recorded music is now streamed on global digital platforms, on the radio and on television, on video platforms and in many other ways. Every track played triggers, via its metadata, the process leading to the payment of royalties. But the system is far from perfect: platforms are not necessarily integrated, the pace at which new music is created is difficult to track, and the ways in which music is consumed are remarkably complex. ‘Artificial intelligence is simply accelerating these trends. At least 30 per cent of streams go unpaid because the information linking the tracks to their creators is missing,’ says Ciociola.
The point is that by bringing together all music-related data – from authorship attribution to publication, from distribution to streaming, from licence management to royalty accounting and payments – on a single platform, the foundations are laid for a breakthrough: a new generation of royalty management technology is on the horizon, in which AI agents can continuously identify, match and reconcile music uses. ‘Every rights holder,’ in Ciociola’s vision, ‘will have an agent issued by us that reconciles data, tracks the music wherever it has gone, collects royalties and ensures payment. The integration of the platforms will take a year.’ This will kick-start a new transformation of the music market.
Musixmatch works with over 250,000 music publishers worldwide, nearly three million songwriters and the leading digital services, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon Music, Pandora, Snapchat and Instagram, and has around a hundred employees. In 2025, according to Report Aziende, it generated a turnover of 83 million, up 10 per cent. According to the company, it recorded an EBITDA of 30 million, which Ciociola expects to reach 50 this year. In 2025, it recorded a loss of just under 20 million, due to the statutory amortisation of goodwill arising following the entry of the TPG fund, which does not appear to affect cash generation.
