Musixmatch built its name on song lyrics. Now it wants to sit underneath the royalty checks too. On October 19, 2026, Bologna-based Musixmatch announced it has acquired Music Reports, Inc., the Los Angeles company behind the Songdex copyright registry, along with its London music data business Blokur. It is the first acquisition in Musixmatch's 16-year history, according to the company.
What Musixmatch is buying
Music Reports was founded in 1995 and is based in Los Angeles, with operations in London and Nashville, Music Business Worldwide reported. Its Songdex registry holds copyright information covering more than 200 million distinct sound recordings and compositions, according to RouteNote, citing Music Reports. Blokur, founded in London in 2015 and bought by Music Reports in January 2024, builds technology that matches recordings to the songs behind them. The deal also includes Cuetrak, software that studios, streaming services and broadcasters use to produce and manage cue sheets for music in film and TV.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Financing for the transaction came from Tikehau Capital, MBW reported. Music Reports had been owned by private equity firm MidOcean Partners since 2020, when it bought the company from ABRY Partners and co-founders Ronald Gertz and Douglas Brainin.
From lyrics to royalties
Musixmatch described the purchase as its biggest step yet, turning it from a leader in lyrics and music data into what it calls “a full-stack rights and royalties platform” covering mechanical, sync, print and performance rights. The plan is to combine its own dataset with Songdex to build “a comprehensive metadata layer that connects recordings, compositions, and rights information across the global music ecosystem,” according to the announcement quoted by Music Ally.
The pitch is about money that gets stuck. “When recordings cannot be accurately matched to their underlying compositions and rightsholders, licenses may not be secured and royalty payments can be delayed or lost,” Musixmatch said.
“Music is being created and used faster than the industry can track it, and AI is only accelerating the trend,” said Max Ciociola, Musixmatch's founder and CEO. “When no one can identify who wrote a song, who owns it, or who should be paid, creators lose.” He summed up the goal in one line: “Every use of music identified, every owner known, every creator paid.”
Why fans and songwriters should care
Musixmatch says it already works with more than 250,000 rights owners and music publishers and nearly three million songwriters, plus services including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon Music. The company has been building toward this for a while. In October 2025 it signed AI licensing deals with Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner Chappell Music covering more than 15 million works for non-generative AI tools, and in March 2026 it launched Sentinel, a real-time copyright detection service whose first customer, in August, was AI music company Suno, MBW reported.
Not everything is settled. MBW notes that Musixmatch and its controlling owner TPG Growth face a lawsuit from rival lyrics provider LyricFind, which claims an exclusive lyrics deal between Musixmatch and Warner Chappell breaches U.S. antitrust law. Musixmatch has said that claim is “without merit.” For writers who have chased a missing royalty statement, the bigger test will be whether one company holding lyrics, registry data and cue sheets actually gets more money to the right people, faster.