business
OnlyFans Founder Tim Stokely Steps Down as CEO
OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely has stepped down as chief executive and will be immediately succeeded by Amrapali “Ami” Gan, the company said on Tuesday. Gan was most recently the chief marketing and communications officer for OnlyFans and will now “assume the day-to-day leadership” of the London-based company from Stokely, who is leaving to “pursue new endeavors,” OnlyFans said. Stokely will remain on as an adviser to assist with the leadership transition. A company spokesperson declined to comment further on Stokely’s reason for leaving the company. “Ami has a deep passion for OnlyFans’ business and I’m passing the baton to a friend and colleague who has the vision and drive to help the organisation reach its tremendous potential,” Stokely said in a statement. “OnlyFans is still a new compa...
Record Industry Makes Strides Toward Greener Future With Music Climate Pact
LONDON – When Will Hutton was appointed Beggars Group’s inaugural head of sustainability in September of last year, his first task was tackling “low hanging fruit” at the indie powerhouse, which includes labels 4AD, Matador, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young labels. That included calculating the businesses’ carbon footprint and identifying areas where action could be taken quickly, such as reducing business travel, installing solar panels at Beggars Group’s London offices and improving the sustainability of products. “Now the conversation moves onto what we need to do as an industry,” says Hutton. This month, the global music business took a significant step towards a greener, more sustainable future when all three major record companies — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment...
Judge Recommends Russian Stream-Ripping Sites Pay $82.9M in Damages
A federal judge has recommended that the operators of two Russian stream-ripping websites pay more than $80 million in damages for circumventing YouTube’s anti-piracy measures and infringing copyrights of audio recordings. In a case brought by more than a dozen record labels, including UMG Recordings, Warner Records and Sony Music Entertainment, U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan said the sites operated by Tofig Kurbanov, a Russian national, should be shut down permanently via injunctions and that statutory damages of $50,000 be awarded for each of the 1,618 copyrighted works the sites infringed. Kurbanov operates www.FLVTO.biz and www.2conv.com, which the Fourth Circuit has previously recognized as “two of the most popular stream-ripping websites in the world and…among the most popula...
Crypto exchange FTX US partners with four Washington, DC sports teams
The company behind four major Washington, D.C.-based professional sports teams has announced FTX US will be its official crypto exchange and nonfungible token partner. In a Monday announcement, Monumental Sports and Entertainment, or MSE, said FTX US would be the official crypto partner of the Washington Capitals hockey team, the Washington Wizards men’s basketball team, the Washington Mystics women’s basketball team and the Capital City Go-Go basketball team as part of a multi-year deal. According to MSE, FTX US’ NFT platform will have exclusive rights to future token drops by the four teams and the exchange will be a partner for an in-game highlight series, dubbed “Big Block-Chain.” “The integration of blockchain technology with the sports experience has only just begun, and together we ...
Former acting comptroller of the currency joins Voyager Digital’s board
Crypto trading platform Voyager Digital announced Bitfury CEO and former Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks has joined the firm’s board of directors. In a Monday announcement, Voyager chair Philip Eytan said Brooks had joined the board as an “independent, non-executive director,” citing the former comptroller’s experience at crypto companies and his leadership behind regulatory initiatives in the United States during his time at the OCC. Brooks served as acting Comptroller of the Currency until January, was Coinbase’s chief legal officer from 2018 to 2020 and held the position of CEO at Binance.US for less than four months this year. Welcome Brian Brooks as the newest member of our Board of Directors Brooks, the Former Acting Comptroller of the U.S. Currency, is a globally rec...
Former acting comptroller of the currency joins Voyager Digital’s board
Crypto trading platform Voyager Digital announced Bitfury CEO and former Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks has joined the firm’s board of directors. In a Monday announcement, Voyager chair Philip Eytan said Brooks had joined the board as an “independent, non-executive director,” citing the former comptroller’s experience at crypto companies and his leadership behind regulatory initiatives in the United States during his time at the OCC. Brooks served as acting Comptroller of the Currency until January, was Coinbase’s chief legal officer from 2018 to 2020 and held the position of CEO at Binance.US for less than four months this year. Welcome Brian Brooks as the newest member of our Board of Directors Brooks, the Former Acting Comptroller of the U.S. Currency, is a globally rec...
Inside Hipgnosis Songs’ Mid-Year Report
Hipgnosis Songs Funds improved its gross revenue for the six months ended Sept. 30 by 35% year-on-year to $85.3 million, primarily due to the revenue from eight catalogs with 1,315 songs acquired in the previous six months, the company announced Thursday (Dec. 16) in its bi-annual report to investors. Net revenue—gross revenue minus royalties paid to songwriters under contract and administered catalogs—grew 31% $74.1 million during the same period. Since its launch in 2017, Hipgnosis has built a catalog of over 65,000 songs with a net asset value of $1.63 billion as of Sept. 30, up from $1.46 billion on March 31. (NAV is the acquisition costs less amortization.) An alternative measure, “operative” NAV, which adds to NAV the increase in the catalog’s fair value...
Festival Where Drakeo the Ruler Was Killed Signed JV With Live Nation This Year
The organizers of a Los Angeles festival that was the scene of a high-profile homicide Saturday night (Dec. 18), when rapper Drakeo the Ruler was fatally stabbed, had recently made a major management change, ending its relationship with the organizers of Coachella in July to ink a new joint venture with global concert promoter Live Nation. Last month, Live Nation came under heavy fire for its alleged role in the deadly Astroworld festival headlined by Travis Scott that killed 10 people and left scores more injured. Authorities say that Drakeo was murdered in a stabbing attack Saturday during the Once Upon a Time in LA festival at Exposition Park and Banc of California Stadium in downtown Los Angeles. Headlined by Snoop Dogg, the festival was a joint venture between Live Nation and veteran ...
How Do You Tell the Story of Live Music? ‘Rock Concert’ Author on Tackling the Superstar Subject
In the live music business, it doesn’t get any bigger than stadium concerts. Thanks to the large seating capacity of most stadiums, artists playing at the top echelon of touring can earn $4 million to $5 million per show — double and triple what they can earn at arenas. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news But the model for stadium touring business wasn’t drafted by a major concert promotion company or a professional sports executive, but by a 16-year-old girl named Kay Wheeler who found herself swept off her feet by a Mississippi singer named Elvis Presley. According to the new book Rock Concert by Wall Street Journal music and arts contributor Marc Meyers, Wheeler convinced the Cotton Bowl to host a concert headlined by the “B...
What Is Eldridge Industries? A Primer on Sony’s Springsteen Partner
Bruce Springsteen’s blockbuster catalog sale to Sony Music Group this week also established a new player in rights acquisitions. Investment firm Eldridge Industries, which partnered with Sony to finance the purchase of Springsteen’s publishing, now holds a stake one of the industry’s most coveted catalogs — around which it can build an attractive portfolio. Eldridge Industries is a private investment firm with holdings in tech, media, retail, entertainment and other sectors. Co-founded in 2015 by Todd Boehly, a former president at Guggenheim Partners, Eldridge investments include the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, sports gambling company DraftKings, private jet provider Flexjet and personal finance app Truebill, among others. Eldridge owns a stake in P-MRC, a joint venture of MRC and P...
UnitedMasters Names David Reich President
David Reich has been named president at UnitedMasters, the company announced Friday (Dec. 17). He succeeds Lauren Wirtzer-Seawood, who departed the role in May to join SoundCloud as chief content and marketing officer. Reich arrives at UnitedMasters following five years at Uber, where he led product and growth in 60 countries before founding and leading Uber Transit as general manager and head of product. Prior to that, he was a founder and CEO at Assured Labor, a digital recruitment platform in Latin America. “David has played a key role in building some of the most impactful digital marketplaces in the world,” said UnitedMasters founder and CEO Steve Stoute in a statement. “We are excited that he has joined the UnitedMasters team at such an important inflection point in the music industr...
Going meta: digital cities, attacks on female creators, and more
Following the announcement that Facebook’s parent company would be rebranding in a shift towards the metaverse, many projects have started similar initiatives entering the virtual space, from buying property to testing the limits of what this universe has to offer. Digital cities: Santa Monica and Seoul The Downtown Santa Monica District west of Los Angeles was one of the first real-world areas to allow users to have access to the metaverse through the FlickPlay app. Branded as a metaverse tool, walking around the district seems to be more of a limited augmented reality experience rather than a virtual one, with people collecting digital tokens in the style of Pokémon GO. In contrast, Seoul’s entry into the metaverse is expected to be a 100% virtual environment once launched in early...
