Diritti d’autore e AI, la bolognese Musixmatch acquisisce Music Reports

Musixmatch, an Italian firm specializing in music rights management, has acquired Music Reports, an American company, according to recent wire material. Music Reports handles music text rights, leveraging AI solutions for artists and publishers operating on global mega platforms. This acquisition, neither of which is publicly traded, keeps the specific value undisclosed. The parent companies behind both firms are American: TPG invested in Musixmatch since 2022, while MidOcean Partners backed Music Reports from 2020.

Musixmatch's founder, Max Ciociola, envisions the operation as a crucial step towards the next model of royalty management using AI. However, the challenge is complex, as music is consumed through various global streaming platforms, radio, TV, video platforms, and more. With each listen, metadata triggers a payment process for rights.

But the system lacks integration, struggles to track new music creation speed, and suffers from significant complexity in consumption methods. Ciociola asserts that AI accelerates these trends, with up to 30% of listens currently unpaid due to missing information linking tracks to their authors.

By uniting all data on music - authorship, publishing, distribution, listening, licensing, royalty computation, and payment - into one platform, Musixmatch and Music Reports aim to launch an innovative new generation of royalty management technology. Here, AI agents could identify, match, and reconcile musical uses continuously.

"Every right holder" believes Ciociola, "will have an agent released by us that reconciles data, goes wherever the music goes, collects rights, gets paid. The platform integration lasts for a year."

This move is poised to transform the music market. Musixmatch collaborates with over 250,000 music publishers worldwide, about three million authors, and major digital services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon Music, Pandora, Snapchat, Instagram, among others, employing a hundred people. In 2025, the company reported revenues of 83 million, up 10% year-over-year, with an Ebitda of 30 million.

However, it also incurred a loss of just under 20 million in 2025, primarily due to civil amortization costs arising from the TPG investment, which does not appear to harm cash generation. Music Reports owns Songdex, a database containing over 200 million recordings and compositions, and Cuetrak, which manages information on music used in TV productions and audiovisual content.

According to company data, it serves more than 500 clients, produces over 12 million annual reports, and administers over 400 million dollars in royalties annually, generating its revenues from service fees and software provided to platforms.