Universal Music Group CEO bans streaming exclusives

These deals restrict an artist's release to one streaming service for varying lengths of time. They've become commonplace in the age of streaming, with services vying for artists to align themselves with the brand - TIDAL have Prince, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Kanye West, while Apple Music have tied down Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, and Drake.

Grainge's decision to outlaw these deals was apparently delivered via an internal memo on Monday - if true, UMG will become the first major label to outlaw the practice, which has grown divisive in recent months. Given that a number of high-profile exclusives have been with UMG artists, this could have a huge impact.

This puts an immediate spanner in the works of an Apple Music deal with Cash Money, a division of a division of Universal - they recently inked an exclusive deal with Apple.

UMG is home to labels such as Def Jam, Republic, Island, Polydor, Interscope, and EMI, and released seven of last year's top ten best-selling records. They had roughly 38.5% of all recorded music sales in 2015.

[via The Guardian]