business
Music Industry Author-Activist Dorothy Carvello Tests Her Power As Shareholder With Letter to WMG
A lawyer for author, social activist, public relations consultant and former music industry A&R executive Dorothy Carvello has sent a letter to board members of the Warner Music Group requesting records relating to the company’s investigations into previously-reported sexual misconduct claims and royalties accounting at the label, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Billboard. In the letter, which references several previously–reported allegations of misconduct against Warner executives, Carvello’s lawyer writes that Carvello has “concerns that WMG’s management is not doing enough to investigate and act upon allegations of sexual misconduct at the company, and not monitoring the distribution of artist royalties in a manner that ensures sound accounting and payment. Both issue...
Abra announces plans for US bank supporting digital assets
Cryptocurrency trading platform Abra said it was “in the process of” establishing a United States-based state-chartered bank allowing clients to deposit digital assets. In a Monday announcement, Abra said the bank, named Abra Bank, would be regulated to operate within the U.S. and give customers the ability to use digital assets in seemingly the same way as fiat at traditional banks. The company also planned to launch Abra International, a digital asset-focused business based outside the U.S. “The best way to become the default Web3 wallet and crypto bank for everyone is by embracing a global regulatory framework that provides for transparency, oversight, security, and agency,” said Abra. We have some BIG news. Today we’re announcing the formation of Abra Bank and the launch of Abra Boost,...
Why Can Miley Cyrus Be Sued for Posting a Photo of Herself to Instagram?
Stars like Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa keep getting sued for posting paparazzi pictures of themselves to social media. That might seem unfair, but the law just isn’t on their side. Cyrus became the latest celebrity to face such accusations on Friday when photographer Robert Barbera filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the star, claiming she reposted his 2020 photo that showed her waving to onlookers to Instagram without a license. If that sounds familiar, it should: the same photographer filed a very similar lawsuit against Dua Lipa in June, similarly accusing her of violating his copyrights by posting one of his photos to social media. This doesn’t seem fair. Why can he sue celebrities over images of themselves? For celebrities who are hounded by paparazzi, it may seem only fair th...
Minimal Oversight and Few Obvious Repercussions Leave YouTube’s Royalty System Ripe for Abuse
Louis Armstrong released “What a Wonderful World” in 1967, and the track eventually made its way to YouTube, like nearly every other recording, where it earns royalties for the single’s owner as well as its songwriters. For roughly a month in 2017, however, about $468 of the song’s publishing royalties made its way to the company Create Music Group, despite the fact that Create did not represent any of the parties involved in the song. Create later said that its claim on Armstrong’s classic, made through YouTube’s online rights management portal, was the result of an error, according to emails shared with Billboard. The mistake was subsequently rectified with a payment to the proper entity. Publishing rights are infamously complicated, and sources from around the music business say YouTube...
The Ledger: How Do Music Executives’ Pay Compare to Other Entertainment Leaders?
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. Music industry executives at publicly traded companies are paid well – but they’re not the only ones. As Billboard reported in the inaugural Money Makers list of music’s highest-paid executives and stockholders at publicly traded companies, 10 business leaders earned nearly or more than $9 million in 2021. Of those, most of their compensation came from stock awards and stock options, not base salary or performance bonuses. For example, only 5% of SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz’s $32.6 million total compensation came from a guaranteed salary. As is common practice among publicly traded corporations, SiriusXM tied most of Wit...
Nio Garcia Sues Management Company, Accuses Late Owner’s Mother of Sabotaging His Career
Urbano artist Nio Garcia has filed suit against his management company for “derailing” his career, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Miami on Thursday (Sept. 8). In the 14-page complaint, filed by attorney Edwin Prado-Galarza, Garcia alleges that AH Entertainment’s current president Ilianes Ruiz is attempting to sabotage his career after illegally taking ownership of the company following the death of her son, AH founder and Garcia’s frequent collaborator Flow La Movie. He’s asking for damages of no less than $3 million and for a court order allowing him to release his own music, citing breach of contract by Ruiz. According to Garcia, Ruiz — now acting as AH Entertainment — has tried to stall his career by “arbitrarily” failing to release his new album and associ...
Music’s Most Compensated: 5 Top Money Makers You May Not Know
Kang Hyo-won, Yoon Seok-jun (aka Yenzo Loon) and Kim Shin-gyu are hardly marquee names in the music business, but they accounted for three of its five largest paydays in 2021, according to Billboard Pro‘s inaugural Executive Money Makers ranking — a breakdown of executive compensation and stock ownership at publicly traded companies. All three are valued members of HYBE, the South Korean entertainment giant behind BTS, Tomorrow X Together, NewJeans and other K-pop acts, and in 2016, their efforts turning the company into a global success were rewarded with stock options that netted them the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars when the company went public last year. Stock options are often used to incentivize and reward employees when a company is privately held. In a statement to Bil...
Ricky Martin Files $20M Lawsuit Against Nephew Who Accused Him of Harassment
Ricky Martin has filed a $20 million lawsuit against his nephew, claiming his younger relative tried to “assassinate” his reputation and integrity when he accused the singer of stalking and harassing him earlier this year. According to legal documents obtained by Billboard, Martin — who filed the complaint in San Juan, Puerto Rico — says he is being “persecuted, besieged, harassed, stalked and extorted by a maladjusted person whose interest is to obtain an economic benefit.” He claims his nephew, Dennis Yadiel Sanchez, has messaged him via Instagram demanding money and also made his phone number public on social media, among other allegations. Martin is asking the court to order Sanchez to “immediately refrain” from communicating with him and his family either in person, by phone or throug...
At IFA Panel, Qualcomm Talks Snapdragon Sound
At a panel presented with Billboard after the first day of the IFA consumer electronics trade show, Qualcomm general manager James Chapman and musicians Ryan Marrone and Adam Hanson spoke with Billboard deputy editorial director Robert Levine about what the company’s Snapdragon Music technology means for the future of digital sound. For years, Chapman said to an audience of about 60 Qualcomm partners and technology journalists, the goal was getting as much music as possible available at the click of a button – and, more recently, on wireless headphones. Sound was secondary. Now, though, advances in bandwidth and other technologies have made it possible to deliver this music with the kind of sound quality consumers enjoy at home. Snapdragon Sound isn’t a product, Chapman explained, but a te...
Music’s Top Money Makers: The Highest-Paid Executives and Stockholders at Publicly Traded Companies
Kang Hyo-won is not a marquee name in the music industry. The South Korean producer is better known as Pdogg, the studio wizard behind hits by K-pop supergroup BTS and other acts on the roster of Korean entertainment company HYBE. Because Kang played a key role in HYBE’s global success, his employer gave him 128,000 stock options in 2016 that turned into about $35 million when Kang exercised them. (All currency conversions to U.S. dollars in this story are based on the average 2021 exchange rate.) That made Kang the second-highest-paid music industry executive last year among those whose earnings are publicly disclosed. Yoon Seok-jun (aka Lenzo Yoon) and Kim Shin-gyu, co-CEO of HYBE America and chief artist management officer, respectively, also benefited from HYBE going public. Yoon nette...
Music Writer Jim DeRogatis Fighting Subpoena to Testify at R. Kelly Chicago Trial
A music writer who spent decades raising awareness about sexual misconduct allegations against R. Kelly is fighting a bid to force him to testify at the R&B singer’s federal trial on child pornography and trial-fixing charges, according to a Tuesday court filing. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Lawyers for Jim DeRogatis, who in 2019 released his book Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly, invoked constitutional and other protections for the press in asking Judge Harry Leinenweber to rule that DeRogatis need not testify. DeRogatis was a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times in the early 2000s when he anonymously received a video that he gave to police that helped lead to Kelly’s child pornography trial in 2008 in state court.&nb...
Trademark applications for crypto, NFTs and Metaverse surge in 2022: Report
The number of U.S. trademarks filed related to cryptocurrencies, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), Web3 and the Metaverse since January have reportedly passed those filed in 2021. According to data compiled by intellectual property lawyer Mike Kondoudis on Tuesday, individuals and businesses filed more than 3,600 trademark applications for cryptocurrencies and crypto-related services with the United States Patent and Trademark Office as of Aug. 31, compared to 3,516 in all of 2021. In addition, Kondoudis reported that the number of NFT applications had surged even higher — more than 5,800 in 2022 compared to 2,087 in 2021 — while the number of trademark filings related to the Metaverse or Web3 had more than doubled: 1,866 in 2021 and 4,150 as of August 2022. So far in 2022 over 5800 trademark app...
