business
Drake and LeBron James Sued Over Rights to ‘Black Ice’ Hockey Documentary
Drake and LeBron James are facing a new $10 million lawsuit over the underlying rights to an upcoming documentary they’re producing called Black Ice, about the history of Black players in professional ice hockey. In a complaint filed Monday in Manhattan court, longtime NBA players union exec Billy Hunter said he owns the exclusive film rights to a 2004 book that forms the basis for the soon-to-be-released documentary – but that he wasn’t involved in the production of the film. “While the defendants … are internationally known and renowned in their respective fields of basketball and music, it does not afford them the right to steal another’s intellectual property,” Hunter wrote. “Yet that is exactly what occurred.” Directed by Canadian filmmaker Hubert Davis, Black Ice is set to premiere t...
Russell Gordon Named VP of YouTube Theater and Hollywood Park
Hollywood Park has named Russell Gordon its vice president and general manager of the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater located at the sprawling, 300-acre sports and entertainment venue in Inglewood, Calif., being developed by Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke. The state-of-the-art theater is a 227,000-sq-ft., three-story indoor venue situated under the same roof canopy as SoFi Stadium and American Airlines Plaza. Gordon will be responsible for the evaluation, execution and management of events at YouTube Theater and will report to Otto Benedict, senior vice president of campus and facility operations and SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park. Additionally, Gordon will concentrate on developing the intimate venue into a must-play stop for artists, musicians and entertainers alike. “Russell’s vast net...
Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy Awards Universal Music With Peace Prize for Wartime Support
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has awarded Universal Music Group the Ukraine Peace Prize for its support of Ukraine during the country’s war with Russia. At a ceremony on Monday (Sept. 5) at UMG’s Belgium headquarters in Brussels, Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, presented the award to Frank Briegmann, UMG’s chairman and CEO of Central Europe. UMG, which was among the first major labels to declare its support for economic sanctions against Russia after it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, is the first music company to receive the award from Ukraine. “Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Universal Music has proven that they are true friends of Ukraine,” Stefanishyna says. The label says its efforts include support f...
Nirvana Beats Lawsuit Claiming ‘Nevermind’ Baby Cover Was Child Porn
A federal judge on Friday (Sept. 2) sided with Nirvana and dismissed a child pornography lawsuit filed by the man who appeared as a nude baby on the cover of the band’s 1991 album Nevermind, ruling that the case was filed years too late. Spencer Elden, now in his 30s, claimed the album violated federal child pornography laws by displaying a sexualized image of a minor. But Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled that the case was filed well past the statute of limitations for such cases. Federal child pornography laws have a 10-year time limit that starts from when a victim “reasonably discovers” either the crime or the injury caused by it. Under either time limit, Judge Olguin said Elden had clearly filed his case too late. “Because it is undisputed that plaintiff did not file his complaint within...
More than 50% of reported Bitcoin trading volume is ‘likely to be fake or non-economic’ — Report
Bitcoin trading data from 157 exchanges reportedly did not match up to what companies claimed. According to an Aug. 26 report from Forbes, Javier Pax of the news outlet’s digital asset arm said there was a mismatch between the Bitcoin (BTC) trading data reported by crypto exchanges and the actual numbers. The Forbes contributor found that a group of small exchanges had BTC trading volumes roughly 95% less than those reported, while those operating “with little or no regulatory oversight” — including Binance and Bybit — claimed to have more than double the analyzed volume: $217 billion as opposed to $89 billion. “More than half of all reported trading volume is likely to be fake or non-economic,” said Pax. “The global daily Bitcoin volume for the industry was $128 billion on June 14. That i...
The Ledger: Buying Into the K-Pop Craze Just Got Less Risky for US Investors
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. An exchange-traded fund, or ETF, focused on Korean music started trading on the NYSE Arca exchange on Thursday, giving American investors a means to buy shares of companies that trade on exchanges in South Korea. But the ETF stands out for another reason: a bundle of K-pop stocks will carry less risk than standalone companies that rely on dozens of labels, each with a handful of top artists as well as deep catalogs. Trading under the aptly named ticker KPOP, the ETF includes the stocks of 30 corporations, including several music companies: HYBE, the home of K-pop megastars BTS and up-and-coming acts Tomorrow X Together ...
Kyber Network offers bounty following $265K hack of decentralized exchange
KyberSwap, the decentralized exchange built on liquidity protocol Kyber Network, has offered a hacker 15% of the funds from a $265,000 exploit as a bug bounty. In a Thursday blog post, Kyber Network said a hacker had used a frontend exploit to pilfer roughly $265,000 worth of user funds from KyberSwap. The protocol said it will compensate all users for any missing funds related to the exploit, and directly addressed the hacker to give them an opportunity to return the funds in exchange for “a conversation with our team” and 15% of what was taken — roughly $40,000. “We know the addresses you own have received funds from central exchanges and we can track you down from there,” said Kyber Network. “We also know the addresses you own have OpenSea profiles and we can track you through the NFT c...
Australia’s Music Industry Issues Apology as Review Into Abuse, Discrimination is Published
BRISBANE, Australia — A united Australian music industry has apologized to the many women and men who’ve been subjected to abuse in the workplace, details of which are exposed in a damning new report. Following a months-long consultation process, Raising Their Voices, a review into sexual harm, harassment, and systemic discrimination across the contemporary music industry, was made publicly available Thursday (Sept. 1) for the first time. It makes for uncomfortable reading. Based on the contributions of 1,600 victims, witnesses and advocates, the document paints a picture of widespread sexual harassment, sexual harm and bullying, with the vast majority of those incidents going unreported. Among the key report figures, 55% of respondents experienced some form of workplace sexual harassment ...
R. Kelly Says He Won’t Testify in Chicago Trial as Defense Calls First Witnesses
R. Kelly’s lawyers began mounting a defense Thursday in Chicago against federal charges of child pornography, enticement of minors for sex and fixing his 2008 state trial, with an initial witness contending the singer was himself a victim of blackmail. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The presentation to jurors won’t include Kelly taking the witness stand. Judge Harry Leinenweber asked Kelly directly on Thursday morning if he would testify, and the Grammy Award winner responded that he would not. The judge raised the issue minutes before attorneys for Kelly and two co-defendants began calling their first witnesses, endeavoring to counter two weeks of government testimony — including from four women who accused Kelly of sexual abuse. Co-d...
CAA Signs Italian DJ Duo Tale Of Us
CAA has signed Tale Of Us in all areas in North and South America. Formed in 2008, the world-renowned Italian duo is helmed by artists Anyma (Matteo Milleri) and MRAK (Carmine Conte). Milleri and Conte founded Afterlife Recordings in 2016, which is the best-selling melodic house & techno label on Beatport, according to CAA, and Tale of Us has put on many of the biggest electronic music events around the world. Tale Of Us is currently hosting their acclaimed Afterlife residency at Hï Ibiza for its third installation in the summer of 2022. The duo have participated in artist residencies on the island since 2016. Tale Of Us released the album Enter Endless via the label Deutsche Grammophon in March 2017, an album the band describes in its bio as “profound and beautiful,” which “liberated ...
NetEase Aquires ‘Beyond: Two Souls’ and ‘Star Wars Eclipse’ Developer Quantic Dream
NetEase has just announced its acquisition of French video game developer Quantic Dream, making the latter the first European studio the Chinese tech giant has purchased. The company first acquired a minority stake in the developer more than three years ago and will now be buying it outright, although no purchase price has been listed publicly. Quantic Dream’s previous projects include Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, Detroit: Become Human and Fahrenheit, and are currently working on the open-world action RPG Star Wars Eclipse as well as a mysterious deep-sea exploration game set in the North Sea, called Under the Waves. Despite becoming NetEase’s subsidiary, the video game studio will reportedly continue to operate independently, developing both first-party and third-party ti...
Publishers, Streamers Reach Deal for Highest Streaming Royalty Rate Ever: Here’s How It Works
Songwriter and publisher U.S. mechanical streaming royalty rates are going up — slowly — to a headline rate of 15.35% of total revenue from 2023-2027. That’s the big news out of Wednesday’s (Aug. 31) joint announcement on the “Phonorecords IV” settlement from the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Nashville Songwriters Associations International and the Digital Media Association (DiMA). But how long will it take to get there and at what pace? What are the other conditions? Billboard now has more more key details about the deal. Under the new settlement agreement — which the NMPA touts will set the “highest royalty rate in the history of streaming anywhere” — the headline rate will escalate from 15.1% of revenue in 2023 to 15.2% in 2024 and then a half a percentage point inc...
