business
Italian Regulator Fines Viagogo 23M Euros for Inflating Ticket Prices to Maneskin, Dua Lipa Concerts
LONDON —Italy’s communications regulator has fined Viagogo 23.5 million euros ($24.8 million) for selling tickets to concerts by rock and pop stars like Maneskin, Pearl Jam and Dua Lipa at vastly inflated rates, thereby violating the country’s strict rules around the resale of concert tickets. Following a board meeting on June 23, Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM), a government regulator that oversees Italy’s telecommunications, audio visual and publishing industries, also ordered the secondary ticketing company to remove all “illegal content” listed on its platform within seven days. The fine follows an investigation by AGCOM and Italy’s financial crime enforcement agency, the Guardia di Finanza, which looked at tickets for 131 events listed on www.viagogo.it. As well a...
Celsius Network hires advisers ahead of potential bankruptcy: Report
Crypto lending platform Celsius Network has reportedly onboarded advisers from a management consulting firm in advance of the company possibly facing bankruptcy. According to a Friday report from the Wall Street Journal, Celsius hired an unknown number of restructuring consultants from the firm Alvarez & Marsal to advise the platform on potentially filing for bankruptcy. The report followed one from June 14, which said Celsius had hired lawyers in an attempt to restructure the company amid its financial issues. Steady lads https://t.co/5YAdmq5kt8 — Ben McKenzie (@ben_mckenzie) June 24, 2022 Celsius has been at the forefront of discussions in the media around significant volatility in the market amid the crypto lending platform’s decision to pause “all withdrawals, swaps and transfers b...
Red Light Execs Van Haze, Haley McLemore & JT Pratt Launch Otter Creek Entertainment
Three Red Light Management executives — Van Haze, Haley McLemore and JT Pratt — have launched Otter Creek Entertainment, their own management and strategic partnerships company. They bring with them their existing talent roster, including artists Roman Alexander, Maddie & Tae and Brett Young. “We are a small team and have always wanted to remain independent,” Haze tells Billboard via a statement. “The past few years brought us all closer and it just felt like the right time to do it.” Haze joined Red Light Management in 2015 and previously served as vp of promotion for MCA Nashville. He also made career stops at Capitol Nashville and Universal South. McLemore joined Red Light in 2014 and previously spent time at 377 Management and Mercury Nashville. Pratt spent over four years at Red L...
White hat hacker attempts to recover ‘millions’ in lost Bitcoin, finds only $105
Joe Grand, a computer engineer and hardware hacker known by many for recovering crypto from hard-to-reach places, spent hours breaking into a phone only to find a fraction of a Bitcoin. In a YouTube video released on Thursday, Grand traveled from Portland to Seattle in an effort to potentially recover “millions of dollars” in Bitcoin (BTC) from a Samsung Galaxy SIII phone owned by Lavar Sanders, a local bus operator. Sanders originally purchased the BTC in July 2016 in a “super sketchy” way, paying a person at a cafe and storing the crypto in a wallet on the phone before putting it in storage and losing track of the device. After finding the phone in 2021, Sanders couldn’t recall the swipe password, but remembered setting up the option of erasing the data if too many incorrect attempts wer...
Weekly Report: India mulls 28% GST on crypto, Tether to launch Pound Sterling-backed stablecoin, FalconX secures $150M raise and more
Here are all the exciting headlines you missed in the NFT, DeFi and crypto niches across regulations and business verticals. Crypto broker FalconX raises $150 million, reaching an $8 billion valuation US-based firm digital assets brokerage on Wednesday disclosed it had raised $150 million in the latest financing round led by Singaporean wealth group GIC and Swiss firm B Capital. Other investors that took part include private equity firm Thoma Bravo, Tiger Global Management, and investment manager Adams Street. Notably, the series D funding round comes when crypto entities suffer losses and try to stay afloat. Falcon X’s total funding now stands at $430 million, having secured a massive $210 million from its Series C funding. Its valuation has more than doubled from $3.75 billion to $8...
One of Music’s Biggest Wholesalers Is Going Public
Alliance Entertainment, the giant music, video and gaming wholesaler, will be going public and trade on the New York Stock exchange, the company announced Thursday (June 23). The public listing will be done through a reverse merger with Adara Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The deal is subject to the approval of the shareholders of Adara Acquisition Corp., which trades on NYSE under the symbol ADARA. If the deal closes — as expected in the fall — Alliance Entertainment will trade under the symbol AENT. The deal has assigned Alliance Entertainment a pre-deal valuation of $480 million. Alliance Entertainment serves as a one-stop for all titles to brick-and-mortar and online retailers. In the first nine-months of its fiscal year ended March 31, the compan...
Here’s Why Dua Lipa Can Be Sued for Posting Photos of Herself
For the second time in a year, Dua Lipa is facing a lawsuit over posting a paparazzi picture of herself to her Instagram account. In a suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in California, New York-based photographer Robert Barbera claims that the singer committed copyright infringement by posting pics he took of her to the platform in July 2018. On the surface, it might seem odd that a celebrity can be sued for posting a picture of themselves on social media. But in these cases, the law is fairly clear on what rights stars have when it comes to this corner of the intellectual property world. “Generally, under U.S. copyright law, the person who ‘authored’ a work is the copyright owner,” reads an explainer article posted by the business/entertainment Romano Law firm on the subject in N...
The community-centered approach to Web3 — Aave founder and CEO
Aave founder and chief executive officer Stani Kulechov said the firm was continuing to develop its decentralized social media platform, with Web3 potentially changing the way many view ownership. Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Collision conference in Toronto on Thursday, Kulechov said Web3 — a buzzword often thrown around which generally describes the next evolution of an internet based on blockchain technology — could impact how people use social media in much the same way cryptocurrency changed perceptions on finance. The Aave CEO remarked how developers had adapted protocols to handle custody, and the rise in nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, seemed to point to a community-centered approach. “I think Web3 is quite a lot related to the concept of ownership,” said Kulechov. “As we have owne...
Vinyl Prices Might Seem High Today, But They Were Worse in 1978
As far as albums go, 1978 was one for the record books. The Saturday Night Fever and Grease soundtracks topped the Billboard 200 album chart for a combined 36 weeks. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, released in 1977, was the No. 1 album in the U.S. the first two weeks of the year. Billy Joel’s 52nd Street topped the chart for the final seven weeks of the year. The Rolling Stone’s Some Girls and Boston’s Don’t Look Back each topped the chart for two weeks. It was also a notable year for another reason: In 1978, vinyl records were more expensive than any other time since the RIAA began tracking sales in 1973. That year, the average retail sale price of a vinyl EP/LP was $7.32 – equal to $30.18 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation. That was the second-highest vinyl sales year in U.S. histor...
Dua Lipa Sued (Again) for Posting Paparazzi Photos of Herself to Instagram
Dua Lipa is being sued for posting paparazzi photos of herself to Instagram for the second time in a year, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in California. This time, a New York-based photographer named Robert Barbera is claiming the singer committed copyright infringement after posting photos he took of her in July 2018 to the social media platform. “Without permission or authorization from Plaintiff, Defendant volitionally selected, copied, stored and displayed each of Plaintiff’s copyright protected Photographs,” the complaint, written by attorney Craig Sanders, reads. The photos in question, which were also taken in July 2018 and attached as an exhibit to the suit, show Lipa wearing a black sweater bearing the word “HEROES” in large capital letters. As in the pr...
Universal Music Launches Media Platform to Better Connect Artists With Brands
Universal Music Group for Brands (UMGB) has launched an advanced media and data platform designed to more easily connect brands with exclusive UMG artist content, the company announced Wednesday (June 22). Called the UMusic Media Network, the platform will give brands access to UMG’s inventory of music video content spanning all leading social platforms as well as UMG data and insights, allowing them to hyper-target audiences at scale. Content offered through the network will include official music videos, songs and lyrics videos, artist vlogs and lifestyle content from UMG-owned platforms including Rebel Labs, Mercury Studios and Polygram Entertainment. The network will also offer branded content and partnership opportunities across all of UMG’s labels and artists. UMGB claims to boast te...
SiriusXM’s Senior Director, Country Programming JR Schumann to Exit
JR Schumann, senior director of country programming at SiriusXM, will exit his role July 15, the company has announced. SiriusXM’s vp, programming, Darrin Smith, will then oversee those channels on an interim basis. “After almost seven years, I’ve decided to leave SiriusXM and pursue other opportunities and adventures,” Schumann said in a statement. “I’m beyond proud of everything my team and I have accomplished and wish everyone at SiriusXM nothing but continued success.” Schumann joined SiriusXM in December 2015, and his role included overseeing SiriusXM’s country and Christian programming, as well as the Elvis Radio channel. Prior to his role at SiriusXM, Schumann served as operations manager for Cumulus Media’s Dallas stations, as well as program director duties for country stations KS...
