business
The Legal Beat: Cardi B’s Bizarre Trial – Plus Gunna, Ed Sheeran & More
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly column about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between. This week: Cardi B goes to trial in a weird case over a bawdy album cover, Gunna is again refused bond in Atlanta, Ed Sheeran warns that a copyright ruling might “strangle” future songwriters and much more. THE BIG STORY: Cardi Heads to Trial Over Bawdy Album Cover In one of the weirder cases you’ll ever hear about, Cardi B is headed to a federal courthouse today to defend against claims that the cover of her debut mixtape “humiliated” a man named Kevin Brophy, who alleges he was unwittingly photoshopped into the artwork to make it look like he was performing oral sex on the now-superstar. Yes, you read that r...
Why Jann Wenner Doesn’t Think Springsteen’s Lawyer Is Rock Hall Worthy
An inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is protesting one of the Hall’s upcoming inductions. Complicating matters is that the protest comes from Jann S. Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone and a co-founder and former chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, who was himself inducted into the institution as a non-performer in 2004, when he was a recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award. Wenner says that entertainment attorney Allen Grubman, who is also a founding board member and set to receive the Ertegun award next month, does not meet the Hall’s criteria for the honor. “Allen Grubman has made no contribution of any kind, by any definition, to the creative development or the history of rock & roll,” says Wenner. “He has been chosen because of his clout as entertain...
The Ledger: How Streaming Platforms Are Looking Beyond Music to Boost Their Margins
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. The 2004 documentary Super Size Me took a humorous look at the health consequences of fast-food restaurants’ practice of up-selling customers to higher-priced, larger-portioned items – a super-sized cup of Coca-Cola rather than a large, for example. To the customer, up-selling looked like a good deal: the additional soda or food cost only a few cents more. For restaurants, the tactic padded margins because the difference in price dwarfed the cost of goods. Super Size Me comes to mind when looking at music subscription services and their quest to improve their margins. Those services have the equivalent of a super...
Newly-Formed Indie Promoter Restless Presents Launching With L.A.’s Substance 2022 Festival
Veteran Los Angeles concert promoters and talent buyers Brian Tarney and Liz Garo have joined forces to form Restless Presents, an indie promotion company that’s producing the upcoming Substance 2022 festival. Previously produced by Tarney’s ticketing and marketing company Restless Nights and Live Nation, the annual celebration of dark rock, industrial, electronic post-punk will feature one of its strongest lineups to date, with performers including Jesus And Mary Chain, The Chameleons, Clock DVA, Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Steven Mallinder, electro-royalty ensemble Miss Kittin And The Hacker, Boy Harsher, Light Asylum, Youth Code, SEXTILE and Kontravoid. The festival is slated for Oct. 21 and 22 at the Los Angeles Theater. Tarney and Garo have...
Crypto users renew calls for Satoshi Nakamoto to win Nobel Memorial Prize for economics
Bitcoin (BTC) enthusiasts on social media platforms have reiterated their annual petition to have the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences awarded to Satoshi Nakamoto. On Oct. 10, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced three recipients of the economic prize — former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, and U.S. economists Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig — for “research on banks and financial crises.” Many crypto enthusiasts have argued for years that Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, was the most deserving candidate for the economic award, first instituted in 1968, “according to the same principles as for the Nobel Prizes that have been awarded since 1901,” according to a description from the institution. “In 2008: Bernanke printed money to bail out banks w...
Muserk Launches AI-Enhanced Platform to Collect ‘Every Royalty Everywhere’
Muserk, a global rights management company which helps music and video rights holders collect royalties from digital platforms, has launched Music Connect, a publishing administration platform. The platform will be full-service, using Blue Matter — the company’s propriety AI — to help ease the notoriously complicated and messy royalty collection process for compositions. As CEO Paul Goldman puts it, “the music industry is a broken, outdated system that can’t keep up with the modern tech platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. Currently the music royalty process is a biased system that works in favor of the tech platforms while leaving modern day copyright owners at a huge disadvantage.” Streaming makes up 84% of U.S. music industry revenues, according to RIAA’s latest midyear report. Howeve...
Downtown-owned CD Baby and Soundrop Lay Off Employees, Citing ‘Economic Conditions’
CD Baby and Soundrop have both laid off employees, citing “economic conditions” and “uncertain times,” according to a company-wide email written by Downtown’s new chief people officer Love Whelchel on Oct. 5. Whelchel started at Downtown just last month. News of the layoffs was first published by Digital Music News. While the outlet reported that 30 employees were let go from the two companies, a spokesperson for CD Baby and Soundrop tells Billboard this figure is incorrect. It remains unclear how many people were laid off from the companies. News of these layoffs arrives about a week after parent company Downtown announced that it would be combining multiple of its businesses to consolidate and streamline its B2B operations under the new monicker Downtown Music. This new one-stop-shop wil...
Rex Orange County Charged With 6 Counts of Sexual Assault in the U.K.
British singer-songwriter Rex Orange County has been charged with six counts of sexual assault in his native U.K., Billboard has confirmed. The charges stem from an accusation that the artist (born Alexander O’Connor) twice assaulted a woman in the West End on June 1. That was allegedly followed by four additional assaults against the same woman the following day: once in a taxi and three more times at his home in London’s Notting Hill district. On Monday (Oct. 10), O’Connor denied all counts during an appearance at Southwark Crown Court in London. He has been set free on unconditional bail ahead of a provisional trial date on Jan. 3. The news was first reported by The Sun. “Alex is shocked by the allegations which he denies and looks forward to clearing his name in court,” said a represen...
Inaugural ‘Hollywood & Mind’ Mental Health Summit Set for May 2023
Hollywood & Mind, a new mental health and entertainment-focused event, will launch its inaugural iteration in May 2023. The one day experience and brainchild of veteran entertainment journalist Cathy Applefeld Olson will take place on May 11, 2023, at the Beverly Hills campus of founding sponsor United Talent Agency. Additional sponsors include Hallmark Media, Milk & Honey Music + Sports + Ventures, MTV Entertainment Studios and Publicis Health. “Hollywood & Mind is a formal expression of the need and willingness for both mental health professionals and the entertainment industry to come together to provide a powerful platform for discussion,” Olson said in a statement. “We are thrilled to be having our in-person launch event on UTA’s beautiful campus.” Cathy Applefeld Ols...
How Much Are Loretta Lynn’s Royalties Worth?
Loretta Lynn, who died Tuesday at 90, has long been one of country music’s queens, with 16 No. 1s and 51 top 10s on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart throughout her six-decade long career. All told, the singer and songwriter’s catalog — best known now for “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” and “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” — generates about $1.62 million annually, according to a Billboard estimate. Lynn’s recordings — which are largely owned by Universal Music Group through deals she struck with Decca and MCA, before leaving to work with a variety of labels in the 1990s and onward — generated about $1.18 million in revenue last year, based on Billboard’s estimates. Those recordings bring in about $440,000 in publishing revenue. Am...
Executive Turntable: Sony Music Taps SVP of Strategy & Investments; L.A. Radio Legend Retires
Angela Lopes was promoted to senior vp of strategy and investments at Sony Music Entertainment as part of the company’s newly-announced combination of its corporate and digital investments, M&A and strategic planning teams. In the role, Lopes — who was previously senior vp of digital strategy & investments — will work with Sony Music’s executive leadership and global digital business teams to develop strategies and investing opportunities to support the company’s creative and financial growth. She will also focus on expanding Sony Music’s investments across development areas, including global streaming, artist services, the creator economy, social media, gaming, NFTs and the metaverse. The New York-based Thomas reports to COO Kevin Kelleher and president of global digital business ...
U2 in Talks With Azoffs for Management — But Deal’s Not Done
U2 are in discussion with Irving Azoff, Jeffrey Azoff and Brandon Creed’s Full Stop Management after splitting with manager Guy Oseary last week, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. The talks are ongoing and no final decision has been made by either side. The talks follow news that Azoff is now involved in booking the MSG Sphere at the Venetian, part of Azoff Company’s long-term consulting deal with MSG properties. U2 is scheduled to open the MSG Sphere at the Venetian in November 2023, which Billboard first reported in July. Oseary had managed U2 under the Live Nation-owned Maverick artist management collective for nearly a decade. In 2020, he left Live Nation but agreed to continue to provide consulting services to CEO Michael Rapino, whose company now has 450 a...
