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If investors and music companies want high streaming growth rates, they should look beyond the suddenly sluggish U.S. market.
Of the few countries that have released midyear recorded music industry figures, the U.S. has the lowest growth rate for streaming — by far. Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany and Spain each easily bested the 3.8% growth rate mustered by the U.S. in the first half of 2024, though they are far smaller markets.
In Brazil, the ninth-largest market in 2023, streaming revenue improved 21.1% to 1.442 billion BRL ($284 million) in the first half of 2024, according to the country’s trade group, Pro-Música Brasil. Subscription revenue rocketed 28.4% to 995 million BRL ($196 million) while ad-supported streaming rose just 6.6% to 436 million BRL ($86 million).
Streaming accounts for 99% of total revenue in Brazil, a market that was early to adopt streaming platforms. (Pro-Música Brasil did not include synch and performance royalties in the midyear numbers. In 2023, those two segments accounted for 12% of Brazil’s total revenue.) The former internet radio service Rdio — acquired by Pandora in 2015 — launched in Brazil in 2011. Muve Music, acquired by Deezer in 2015, launched a partnership with leading mobile carrier TIM in 2013. Deezer still powers TIM’s music streaming platform and extended that partnership in January.
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Important markets in Asia and Europe also delivered impressive streaming gains in the first half of the year. Spain nearly matched Brazil with 19.1% streaming growth and a 16.6% improvement in total revenue. In Italy, recorded music revenue jumped 15.1% and streaming revenue, which accounts for 80% of the total market, grew 18.1%. (Figures in currency were not provided by Italy’s trade group, FIMI.) The world’s second- and fourth-largest markets, Japan and Germany, had streaming gains of 12.7% and 9.0%, respectively.
In aggregate, the five ex-U.S. markets grew 12.2% compared to the first half of 2023, with the smallest markets having the highest streaming growth rates. Brazil’s market is less than 3% the size of the U.S., while Spain and Italy are 3% and 4% the size of the world’s largest market, respectively. Germany’s market is 15% as big as the U.S. Japan is just a quarter of its size.
What the U.S. lacks in momentum it makes up for in size. Based on total market revenue for 2023, the U.S. was more than twice the size of the five ex-U.S. markets combined — $11.04 billion to $5.47 billion, according to IFPI figures. In fact, the U.S. is so large that a 3.8% streaming gain was worth $404 million — more than the entire Spanish recorded music market ($355 million) and nearly as big as Italy’s ($477 million). To reiterate, that’s not just streaming — we’re talking about those countries’ entire market revenue.
The rate of streaming growth underpins much of the money flowing into the music business. Investors and companies are betting the global market can generate nearly double-digit growth through the end of the decade. The latest Goldman Sachs “Music in the Air” report, a standard reference point for gauging the potential of music as an investment, forecasts that global streaming revenue will grow at a 10% compound annual growth rate through 2030. That would turn last year’s $19.3 billion streaming market into $37.8 billion by the end of the decade.
But the enormity of the U.S. market, which accounted for 42% of global streaming revenue in 2023, according to the IFPI, means other markets will need to continue those rapid paces for the global market to maintain that 10% streaming growth rate. The five ex-U.S. markets’ 12.2% growth rate is nearly halved to 6.4% when their $5.47 billion total value is combined with the U.S. market, which is worth $11.04 billion.
Developing markets certainly have the potential to contribute to global growth, but many of the most populous countries — India, Indonesia, the Philippines — are relatively small and based more on advertising than high-value subscriptions. For the math to work, the global market needs a strong U.S.
Few people are having a better week than Sabrina Carpenter. The singer capped one of the most complete ascents to pop stardom in recent memory with the release of her latest album, Short N Sweet — the culmination of an extended campaign in which she was able to build her career brick by brick, single by single, into the upper echelons of pop music and culture — which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 362,000 equivalent album units, the best week of her career and the third-highest debut week of the year so far.
That type of success doesn’t happen by accident: Carpenter’s team worked all sides for this project, which included radio (two songs, “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” are in the top 10 of Billboard‘s Radio Songs Chart), streaming (Short N Sweet also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Streaming Songs chart, with 233 million official on-demand streams) and sales (with nine vinyl variants, she sold 105,000 vinyl records, the second-largest week of the year and good for No. 1 on Billboard‘s Vinyl Albums chart). Four digital album variants, available for a limited time, moved 45,000 units, while five different CD editions added another 33,000 to the total. And all that activity and wide-ranging success helps Island Records’ senior vp/head of commercial strategy Marshall Nolan earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Here, Nolan walks through the strategy that led to Carpenter’s career-best debut. “The plan from the start was that every detail mattered,” Nolan says. “We knew to double down on her strengths, in areas like e-commerce, and once we built a rhythm there, it afforded us the time to nurture elements that still had room for growth.”
This week, Sabrina Carpenter landed her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with Short N Sweet. What key decision(s) did you make to make that happen?
Sabrina’s ability to world-build alongside her incredible team of creatives is unparalleled. We challenged ourselves to take that world and embed it into every e-commerce experience, building a range of carefully-curated collectibles for her superfans.
In many ways, the rollout of this album was very traditional: single built on top of single, radio play and streaming build-up, all leading into the climactic album release. Was that the plan from the start, or did things evolve along the way?
The plan from the start was that every detail mattered. We knew to double down on her strengths, in areas like e-commerce, and once we built a rhythm there, it afforded us the time to nurture elements that still had room for growth.
How did her singles’ success at radio help the digital campaign for the album?
Constant communication with our promo team, who are the best in the business, allowed us to narrate each movement and growth spurt in real-time. We as a team never focused on the successes of an individual single; the intention was always to build Sabrina as an artist and brand first. We welcomed any success that came along with that.
The album had nine vinyl variants, five CD editions and two cassettes available — what was the physical strategy for the album rollout, and what was behind the success of the vinyl in particular?
The variants are first and foremost a reflection of the incredible creative team surrounding Sabrina, who built products that fans immediately embraced as must-have collectible items. From the packaging finishes to the stylized content with which it was promoted, her passion for each variant came through in every detail. Each product paid special tribute to the many layers of Sabrina’s sharply sweet world.
How much does fan demand play into your commerce plan for any album?
This was another important factor in deciding to offer a wide range of album variants. Sabrina crafted a world we’re lucky to be a part of; we ensured that each album offering felt like an extension of it.
What did you learn from rolling out this release that you can take into other projects in the future?
Everything starts with trust — learning to build it, continuing to maintain it and working to strengthen it every step of the way. We never take for granted the role we are fortunate enough to play in maximizing and achieving an artist’s wildest dreams. Sabrina taught us all to allow time for a slow rise, there is so much to learn and look forward to along the way.
The gaming platform Roblox announced on Friday (Sept. 6) that it will roll out music charts early in 2025, bringing songs a new level of potential visibility for its nearly 80 million daily active users.
At the Roblox Developer Conference, the company also said it was entering a new partnership with DistroKid, allowing the distributor’s acts to make their music available in the Roblox ecosystem, which consists of millions of games. This marks the platform’s first partnership with a major rightsholder in the music business. However, the independent artists who avail themselves of this opportunity won’t make any money from Roblox when their songs are used, underscoring the thorny relationship between the music and gaming industries.
Artists and labels are dying for better ways to reach gamers — a hefty chunk of the world’s population, many of them young, who often get just as enthusiastic about music as they do about the games they love. But artists and labels also want to be paid for their work.
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Across the aisle, games would love to benefit from artists’ credibility and add pizzazz to their soundtracks. But they often have little patience for the music industry’s licensing system, which they view as old-fashioned and overly complicated, and its interest in steep up-front fees. And games’ success usually does not depend on music industry involvement.
The chasm between these views has limited the opportunities for artists in gaming — especially those who aren’t already stars — outside of a few titles.
But the music industry would still like to bridge the gap, and Roblox’s virtual universe is a particularly tempting target. That’s because it has a tantalizing number of users whose avatars are wandering around, hanging out with friends, or flocking to games like Adopt Me!, where they raise virtual pets. Labels would love to reach these crowds.
Roblox chief product officer Manuel Bronstein says the platform wants to help. To drive more music discovery, it will add a sort of audio player that can show users what track is playing in the Roblox experience they are enjoying.
As a result, “users are going to be able to see the name of the song, the artist [behind it], and even like the song,” Bronstein says. That information will then flow into the platform’s music charts, which will rank tracks according to engagement. In an ideal world, charts function like a two-way mirror — they reflect listening habits but also facilitate discovery for curious listeners. (Roblox will also set up a separate ranking that tallies the popularity of music experiences on the platform to help players seeking out what are known as “rhythm games,” where activity is usually linked with playing an instrument or dancing.)
The music industry’s approach to Roblox has evolved gradually in the last few years. Initially, stars like Lil Nas X made headlines with one-off concerts. However, these are expensive and time-consuming to put together, and the payoff is short-lived. They have largely gone out of vogue.
Artists and labels have also built their own Roblox experiences. But it’s tough to stand out in the land of a million-plus games, and a big name does not ensure a big audience.
On Aug. 29, for example, the electronic producer Zedd announced that he was taking over Universal Music Group’s Roblox experience, Beat Galaxy. Visits jumped up from around 4,000 on the 28th to around 10,000 a day later, according to the site RoMonitor, which tracks Roblox activity. Not bad, except that that amounts to a drop in the platform’s ocean-sized audience. Piggy, where players try to escape a homicidal swine wielding a baseball bat, attracted more than 2.7 million visits the same day. And RoMonitor’s data indicates that there are over 30 Roblox experiences earning more daily visitors than Piggy.
“There are so many games on the platform,” says Mat Ombler, who works as a music and gaming consultant while also editing MusicEXP, a newsletter about the intersection of the two worlds. “There is absolutely no guarantee that launching an activation will get artists in front of those 80 million players.”
Some artists have had success “activating in already thriving experiences,” according to Jessie Wylde, senior director of artist and business development at Artist Partner Group (APG). “And short-form Roblox UGC edits across socials” — clips of Roblox activity posted on TikTok and elsewhere — “continue to be a key driver for consumption across APGs roster.” (In the future, Wylde would love to see “more native means for players to save songs and/or follow artists on streaming services while remaining in Roblox.”)
For Ombler, Charli XCX’s recent collaboration with the wildly popular game Dress to Impress represents a new high-water mark for artists in Roblox. In his newsletter, he noted that “daily visits for Dress to Impress jumped from 22.49 million on Aug. 16 to 34.09 million on [the collaboration’s Aug. 17] launch, an increase of 41%.” Concurrent users also jumped from a peak of 290,000 to a peak of 641,000.
But Charli XCX, a well-known artist with major hits, doesn’t need Roblox to break through. The Holy Knives are interested in the platform’s partnership with DistroKid because it could afford smaller acts like them a chance to find new listeners. “Majors probably don’t need more exposure,” says Kody Valentine, a member of the duo along with his brother Kyle. “As independent artists, that’s the number one thing we need. If that can come through Roblox, that is amazing.”
The band opted to make their music available on Roblox so that game developers can put it into experiences. (DistroKid artists must opt in to be part of the program.) The hope is that they will gain enough fans to offset the fact that they won’t be directly compensated for any use of their songs.
Bronstein points out that if artists like The Holy Knives are discovered on Roblox, “they also have means to monetize outside of the platform” — if players go stream the band elsewhere, for example. (It’s also easy for artists to start selling virtual merch on Roblox, which has been lucrative for some stars; Ombler believes more artists should try this.) But Roblox is “starting as a promotional vehicle to begin with,” Bronstein notes.
Artists only have one career, so they will often trade royalty income for exposure. DistroKid earns money when artists sign up to distribute their music and doesn’t share in the royalties they make, so it doesn’t have a dog in the fight. For the major labels, on the other hand, giving away music for free is a tough pill to swallow, especially recently.
UMG CEO Lucian Grainge made this clear during a speech in 2022. Initially, “[we] were given a lot of reasons why our artists shouldn’t get paid” by MTV and YouTube, Grainge recalled. “People said, ‘It’s great promotion,’ or ‘you can use it as a platform for discovering new artists.’ Technology platforms were built on the backs of the artists’ hard work.”
When asked about the potential for future monetization opportunities, Bronstein says, “We want to get there. Once you get the momentum, you have the opportunity to think about creative ways in which artists can monetize.” (Karibi Dagogo-Jack, who previously served as Roblox’s head of music partnerships, is no longer with the company.) But the music industry’s fear is that the opposite thing happens: Platforms get momentum and then use that leverage to argue they should pay even less for music.
Alex Tarrand, COO/co-founder of STYNGR, has tried to come up with a way for rightsholders to get their music played on Roblox but also get paid for it. STYNGR has licenses with all the major labels and publishers; game developers can then use that music without paying up-front.
In the Roblox universe, this music comes out of a boombox — old-school radio in a newfangled virtual world. Users either shell out for listening time, or developers can put an ad-funded version of the product into their experiences. The revenue from user payments and advertisements is then shared between major labels, publishers, game developers and STYNGR. “Session lengths go up for the people who are actively engaging with the music player,” according to Tarrand. “And we see session frequency go up.”
Despite some of the ongoing friction between the music industry and Roblox, the search for common ground continues. This week, Tarrand flew to the Roblox Developer Conference to meet with more developers. “Music is a big topic of conversation at this RDC,” he says. “That’s promising.”
k.d. lang and The Reclines will perform together for the first time in 35 years in Edmonton on Sept. 14 for the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Awards.
lang may have found international fame as a pop superstar with a powerful and emotionally expressive voice and as a queer icon, but her roots in country music run deep. She first made her mark in Canadian music as a maverick cowpunk artist back in the ’80s, at the start of a career that has spanned over four decades.
“Reuniting with The Reclines after 35 years in Edmonton for the CCMA Awards feels like a full-circle moment,” shares lang. “The bond we shared, both musically and personally, remains as strong as ever, and revisiting a song that shaped our journey together is incredibly special. I’m thrilled to bring this experience to life on such a celebrated stage and share it with fans, both old and new.”
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Based in her birthplace of Edmonton, k.d. lang and the Reclines were together from 1983 to 1989, after starting out as a Patsy Cline tribute act. The first band featured Stu Macdougal on keys, Dave Bjarnson on drums, Gary Koligar on guitar and Farley Scott on bass.
After regular gigging at Edmonton’s Sidetrack Café, the group gained national attention with its 1984 album, A Truly Western Experience. Her unique sense of fashion and energetic performance style caught the attention of Rolling Stone, who dubbed her “a Canadian Cowpunk.” lang earned a 1985 Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist, famously accepting the award wearing a borrowed wedding dress.
k.d. lang will also be inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame, adding to her remarkable legacy of accolades. –Kerry Doole
The Billboard Canada Women in Music Industry Spotlight
This week, Billboard Canada unveiled the full Billboard Canada Women in Music honours.
Stars like Alanis Morissette, Charlotte Cardin and LU KALA will be at the Billboard Canada Women in Music event on September 7 in Toronto.
In addition to those award-winners, which include Executive of the Year Kristen Burke, the head of Warner Music Canada and the only female major label head in the country, there is also an Industry Spotlight list of women from throughout the Canadian music industry.
From label boardrooms to influential positions in radio, touring, festivals, artist funding and more, women and gender-diverse people are shaping music.
Each person featured on the Industry Spotlight list also gave their advice for the next generation of women in the music industry, from speaking honestly and authentically, to surrounding yourself with other talented and supportive women.
There are also exclusive videos of interviews and performances of Billboard Canada Women in Music honourees, including The Beaches, Allison Russell and artist manager Laurie Lee Boutet.
Because of the incredible contributions of women and gender-diverse individuals, Billboard Canada Women in Music is not only a celebration of women, but of Canadian music as a whole – and a vision for where it can go next. –Richard Trapunski
AP Dhillon Safe Following Reports of Gunshots at His Home Near Victoria, B.C.
Gunshots were fired into the home of Punjabi-Canadian musician AP Dhillon early Monday morning (September 2).
B.C. police are investigating the incident, with CTV News reporting that around 1:15 a.m. the RCMP was called to the house. There are reports of two vehicles set on fire, in addition to multiple gunshots, as well as reported video of the shooting circulating online.
“I’m safe. My people are safe,” Dhillon shared on Instagram.
The Times of India reports that an associate of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang has claimed responsibility for the shooting on social media, threatening Dhillon for working with Salman Khan. The actor and producer Khan had a cameo appearance in the video for Dhillon’s new Billboard Canadian Hot 100-charting single, “Old Money,” and the gang reportedly has a history of targeting Khan.
“Preliminary investigation suggests that this was a targeted event and there is no information to believe that the general public is at any further risk as a result,” says a statement from the West Shore RCMP detachment.
The gunfire follows Dhillon’s recent major label signing with Republic Records, with “Old Money” marking the first release as part of that deal. –Rosie Long Decter
Last spring, while working with Post Malone on his upcoming country album, the hired studio songwriters took a break. Malone started noodling on guitar. “He’d be playing, like, old B-sides, Toby Keith songs, that nobody knew,” recalls Chase McGill, a Nashville veteran who has written songs for Morgan Wallen, Kenny Chesney and many others. “But he knew everything.”
When Malone’s F-1 Trillion came out in late August, the pop and hip-hop star had an advantage that previous country crossover hopefuls have lacked. He plunged into the country-music business, and into Nashville, working with respected local songwriters (like McGill, Taylor Phillips and James McNair), gigging at key local clubs (Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and the Bluebird Cafe), collaborating with veterans (he performed with Dwight Yoakam on SiriusXM) and recording duets with other stars (Hank Williams Jr., Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, Luke Combs and Wallen are on the album).
“That’s the difference when somebody brushes up against the genre vs. someone who immersed themselves into the genre,” says Randy Chase, programming executive vp for Summit Media, the Birmingham, Ala., broadcaster that owns nine country stations. “When people try to cross into country from other genres, a lot of times it’s on their terms, and they want to put their foot into the pool. He went all in, even with the risk that it could hurt him down the road.” Adds Tom Poleman, chief programming officer for top broadcast chain iHeartMedia: “He understands country music. It’s not like he’s just trying to learn how to be a country artist overnight.”
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Post’s duet with Wallen, “I Had Some Help,” debuted at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs and the Hot 100 in late May, scoring 76.4 million streams and, earlier this week, topped Billboard’s Songs of the Summer chart.
Adding “I Had Some Help” to heavy rotation was “a no-brainer,” says Steve Stewart, Cox Media Group’s director of country content. “Morgan continues to be one of the hottest artists on the planet, so that immediately gave us the green light.” Similarly, Summit’s country stations played “I Had Some Help” twice an hour throughout its debut day, then once an hour the next day and repeatedly through the weekend. “I heard the song about two weeks before it came out,” adds Summit’s Chase. “I said, ‘This is a country record that is also going to go pop.’”
Last week, F-1 Trillion landed atop the Billboard 200, Post’s first No. 1 since his pop album Hollywood’s Bleeding in 2019. (The new album also hit No. 1 on Top Country Albums in its debut week.) “There are legitimately 15-plus songs that could be radio singles,” says Scott Donato, program director and operations manager for WGTY, a country station in York, Penn. “It reminds me of late-’90s, early-2000s country. He’s been able to capture every corner of the format.”
Before Post Malone became famous as a hip-hop artist with 2015’s “White Iverson,” he performed at a Dallas-area Italian restaurant where he worked during high school, and later covered songs by Hank Williams and Bob Dylan in videos he posted online. He became an established star who could fill U.S. arenas, then began transitioning to country around 2018.
The marketing teams at Big Loud Records and major label Mercury/Republic Records, already working together on Wallen’s releases, soon began brainstorming Post Malone marketing plans from the conference room at Big Loud headquarters in Nashville. (The two labels are teaming up on radio promotion – Big Loud for country, Mercury for Top 40 and other formats.) “Post ingratiated himself within the creative community — opened up to writers, collaborators and session musicians — that were the throughline of this campaign,” says Patch Culbertson, executive vp and general manager of Big Loud, adding that his company helped make introductions to Parton, Shelton, Williams and others. “They had a great vision from the beginning.”
Big Loud execs persuaded Mercury’s team to start the album’s campaign earlier than planned, so it could set up a splashy CMA Fest appearance, in which Post and Shelton performed “Pour Me a Drink.” “He got the hit on TV, which is a whole different demo from what he was used to serving,” says Candice Watkins, Big Loud’s senior vp of marketing. “He got to meet the industry.”
In April, Post performed at the Stagecoach Festival, where Jordan Pettit, the Grand Ole Opry’s director of artist relations and programming, was in attendance. Pettis later spoke to Alex Coslov, executive vp of Mercury Records, and “there was immediate interest on their behalf to pursue his Opry debut as part of their launch plan,” Pettit recalls.
Post performed at the Opry for the first time in mid-August. “It began to take on the feel that this was not just a pop artist leaning into country music for a moment in time,” Pettit says. Coslov added to Billboard: “Our core strategy was built around showcasing the authenticity of Post’s entry into country music by highlighting his time in Nashville.”
Several country programmers say Post is the type of artist who will be able to toggle between genres, depending on his musical impulses, and may not be absent from Top 40 and hip-hop radio playlists for long after F-1 Trillion. (His first three albums combined for 11 billion to 12 billion on-demand streams apiece, according to Luminate, but he dipped on 2022’s Twelve Carat Toothache, with just 1.88 billion streams.) “This is a guy who went, ‘This is my art, here it is,’” says Tim Roberts, vp of programming and format captain for radio chain Audacy. “Could he make a whole pop album next year? Absolutely.” Post’s tour begins this Sunday in Salt Lake City, and “it really is all country-based,” according to Big Loud’s Watkins, although she expects pop hits, too.
So far, Post’s pop-to-country transition has far surpassed similar moves by Sheryl Crow, Jessica Simpson, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, or even Beyoncé, whose Cowboy Carter album was a culture-dominating hit earlier this year, but did not stick to country radio formats. “The Beyoncé songs weren’t great country songs; they were great Beyoncé songs,” says Nate Deaton, general manager of online country station KRTY.com in San Jose. “The Sheryl Crow country record was really good, but it didn’t have any hits on it — it didn’t have ‘Pour Me a Drink.’ It didn’t have one of those songs that was a standout runaway smash.’”
Deaton calls Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker’s debut country album, 2008’s Learn to Live, a more apt comparison: “He did the exact same thing that Post Malone did. He went to Nashville and ingratiated himself with Nashville songwriters. Darius got on a bus and went to all these radio stations, even though he was a big star.” For Post Malone, Deaton adds, “It would not surprise me at all to see an ongoing country career, a la Darius.”
Travis Scott was fired up. “IM FCKING JUMPING THRU WALLS,” he wrote on Instagram. The reason: He planned to officially re-release Days Before Rodeo, his decade-old pre-stardom mixtape, on streaming services on August 23.
Sabrina Carpenter‘s Short n’ Sweet was slated to come out the same day, and before Scott’s announcement, it was expected to coast to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart — an inevitable coronation after a string of high-flying singles. Instead, Carpenter’s release squeaked out a No. 1 finish, earning 362,000 units to Scott’s 361,000.
Short n’ Sweet out-streamed the rapper’s old mixtape by a wide margin, racking up 233 million official on-demand streams to Scott’s 40.6 million. But remarkably, he sold 300,000 digital downloads of Days Before Rodeo, according to Luminate. On the final day of the tracking week, Scott put out six different digital variations of his album — each of which included at least two extra tracks and cost just $4.99, the minimum price for chart eligibility — as part of a ferocious last-ditch attempt to snatch victory from Carpenter. She responded in kind, serving up three $4.99 digital variants of her own and ultimately selling 45,000 digital downloads. (All nine variants were available exclusively on the artists’ web stores.)
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This tactic has been around for years: Release digital variants near the end of the week; sell them cheap; polish off a rival; tout the accomplishment. The technique is getting more attention lately because clashes between titans are being decided by digital variant release strategies. Scott was nearly able to erase Carpenter’s mile-wide streaming lead thanks in part to his blitz of variants. And these duels have spurred the latest round of music industry conversations about whether artists and labels are trying to game the charts — or take advantage of their most devoted followers.
“People are keeping that ammo in the chamber: ‘Let’s save these four variants that we know we’re going to have to drop at different times throughout this week,’” says one major-label A&R who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Does it enhance the fan experience, or does it actually lessen it? I think it’s manipulative.”
When asked about this practice, another prominent manager would say only that “it’s ironic that the institution which is allowing the problem to exist is reaching out for a quote.” (“Billboard is always reviewing, in consultation with Luminate and the industry at large, what sales channels are included for chart eligibility, and has updated its policies when necessary based on market behavior,” Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard‘s executive vp of charts and data partnerships, said in a statement.)
On the other hand, some label executives believe that digital variants help create eye-catching first-week totals and race-to-the-finish-line dramas that are good for the music industry, sort of like its version of Barbenheimer: Before Taylor Swift’s showdown with Billie Eilish in May and Carpenter vs. Scott more recently, it had been a whopping eight years since two albums cracked the 300,000-unit mark during the same week.
And the contest between Carpenter and Scott was a nail-biter until the end, as both camps released their final variant in the last two hours of the tracking week. Since January 2020, there have only been seven weeks when the gap between Nos. 1 and 2 was less than 1,000 units. (Representatives for Carpenter and Scott did not respond to requests for comment.)
Despite the prominence of digital albums in some recent release campaigns, digital album sales have plummeted from 103.3 million in 2015 to 18.3 million in 2023, according to Luminate’s annual reports. Within this category, Luminate also tracks an “others” grouping that reflects sales from artists’ direct-to-consumer web stores along with non-major digital retailers. So far this year, sales in “others” total just 1.7 million, which amounts to 0.23% of year-to-date total album consumption (730.45 million equivalent album units*).
While this represents a tiny sliver of overall activity, it can make a difference in close chart races. Swift released additional digital variants when she went head to head with Eilish and against Ye and Ty Dolla $ign‘s Vultures 2 in August. (Eilish and Ye and Ty released their own as well, to no avail.) And Blink-182 used a digital variant of One More Time as part of a successful effort to scrape by Drake‘s For All the Dogs and nab No. 1 in October.
These face-offs also demonstrate how far labels and artists are willing to go to try to get that top spot. Getting a No. 1 demonstrates that labels “still have the ability to move the needle,” says industry veteran Ray Daniels. “That is a big reason why certain artists will go to certain labels.” And “ego is a lot of it,” adds Joey Arbagey, a former major-label A&R executive.
Most prominent artists want to top the chart as well, though they may be loath to admit it. “It’s a way of an artist on the rise saying they have arrived,” Daniels says. And scoring a No. 1 can then serve as a springboard, creating “a domino effect of other opportunities, whether that’s working with brands or getting significant press,” according to Nick Groff, an artist manager and former A&R.
In more recent years, artists and labels have used hyper-aggressive price discounting, bundling albums with tickets or merchandise, box sets, vinyl variants and other techniques to try to jack up an album’s chart position. (There are dissenters: “It’s crazy how much time and energy is wasted on shit like this,” says one former major label executive, practically eye-rolling through the phone, “instead of focusing on signing good artists and making good music.”) When chart rules change, so do the industry’s strategies for impacting them.
Some of these options disappeared in 2020 after Billboard stopped counting albums sold in merchandise bundles and ticket bundle offers. Label executives say selling digital variant downloads is one of the few maneuvers they have left to goose numbers late in a chart week. The other is putting a deluxe version of the album with additional tracks on streaming services, also an increasingly common tactic.
But adding an unreleased track or two onto the album and selling it exclusively through an artist’s web store is a more potent option. This can also be done quickly and at the last minute, as a Hail Mary when a chart race suddenly becomes competitive. Acts usually make these releases available for a limited time only, which both further juices fan interest and underscores that the artists are focusing on the all-important release week.
In many cases, this strategy is effectively a sale of a lone song masquerading as an album purchase — artists often just add one live track or unreleased loosie to the original project and make it available as a new variant. Some artists don’t even include a new song in a digital variant; they just change up the artwork, or digitally “sign” the album art.
“If there is exclusive music available in these variant releases, that can be a great strategy and a fun way to engage with your fan base,” says Greg Hirschhorn, founder of the distribution company Too Lost. “If there is only a change in the track list or a different album artwork, I feel like the only real goal or outcome is chart manipulation.”
Steeply discounted digital variants also threaten to snub the diehards who ordered an album ahead of time at full price. If a fan pays $9.99 for a pre-order on iTunes, they may feel like a sucker when they see the same album augmented with bonus material and made available for just $4.99 near the end of the tracking week. “It feels like people should wait until Thursday afternoon to buy the album” and get the best deal, the major-label A&R says.
But for now, any potential fan backlash to the rise of variants appears to be outweighed by their impact on the charts. “When you’re in it and you’re fighting so hard for No. 1, it can seem obnoxious [to people outside the industry], but that’s the only thing that matters,”Arbagey says. “They’re pulling out all the stops.”
“I’ve definitely been in one of those heated races,” Groff adds. “You figure out everything you can possibly do to boost the numbers.”
*Through the week ending Aug. 29, total U.S. album consumption in 2024, as represented by equivalent album units — excluding units caused by user generated content — equals 730.45 million, according to Luminate. Each equivalent album unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
By some measures, the recorded music business has never been better. U.S. sales grew 8% in 2023 to hit a record high $17.1 billion; streaming continues to grow around the world; and revenue and operating income are rising at the three major labels and many smaller companies as well. The subscription streaming model is appealingly predictable, and the explosion of other forms of online media, from video games to virtual exercise programs, is creating plenty of opportunities for growth.
By other measures, the industry is in a tough spot. The flood of new music pouring into streaming services — both legitimate and not — is diluting the royalty pool for professional musicians. (This, and some other things, might be good for some players, but it seems to be bad for the business.) Although comparisons are complicated, it seems harder than ever to break new acts. Underneath all of this is the part of the iceberg most people don’t see: The deals labels sign with acts are generally less advantageous, because artists have more leverage than ever.
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The numbers say it’s the best of times. Layoffs at Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group say otherwise. And although the recorded music business isn’t in any real danger — the only question is how fast it’s going to grow — it’s hard to escape the idea that something just feels off.
Welcome to the music business version of the “vibecession” that’s affecting the U.S. economy as a whole. The term, coined in June 2022 by the financial analyst Kyla Scanlon, describes the apparent disconnect between positive economic indicators and negative public perceptions. In layman’s terms, if the numbers look so good, why do things feel so bad?
Outside the music business, most of the economic news is good, or at least good-ish by the standards of the dismal science. Inflation is down and the economy seems to be growing again. The problem, in industry terms, is that people just aren’t feeling it. One example: Job loss concerns are high at a time when the level of layoffs is low, according to Marketplace. The article compares the current situation to a doctor talking to a healthy patient who thinks he’s sick. There are explanations for this: Perhaps our minds are still adjusting to higher prices, which continue to rise even as the rate of inflation declines, or maybe troubling political news just makes more of an impression than economic indicators.
This could be more than a feeling, as a Boston economist might say, since people and companies that believe the economy will decline might cut back their spending and, inadvertently, contribute to making it happen. Although the music business is much harder to measure, the same thing could happen there. The pessimism that has already led to layoffs and restructuring means there will be fewer A&R executives signing fewer acts and then spending less money on marketing and promotion. That might be necessary. But it’s unlikely to help.
What’s killing the vibe in music? Partly, expectations have changed. The hypergrowth phase of streaming is ending, but big music companies, especially UMG and WMG, are under some pressure to grow faster than the overall business. Subscription streaming is going from the savior of the music business to another new format that boosts some kinds of music at the expense of others. There aren’t many new stars — one of the big hip-hop stories this year was the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. (This is both the winter of our discontent and the season of diss content.) And new albums by established stars like Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa are off to a slow start (although it’s hard to know what that means in a streaming-driven business).
There may also be a sense, both in the music business and in the economy as a whole, that the foundation is not as solid as it seems. There’s more talk of quick fixes, both in the overall economy (Blockchain!) and in the music business (NFTs!). But there’s not much effort to get at the heart of the problems: The economy seems increasingly rigged toward finance and the pro-rata royalty distribution of streaming services prizes viral sensations in a way that may make it hard for different kinds of artists to build careers.
In the meantime, the numbers keep going up. The stock market has skyrocketed, undeterred by COVID, inflation and conflict in the Middle East — but that can’t last forever. The recorded music business keeps growing, too, and it will almost certainly continue to do so — just perhaps not in the ways we have come to expect. Over the past few years, labels have spent fortunes signing viral superstars who win big — but how many of them will be around in a decade? Meanwhile, popular tastes are harder than ever to predict. Two years ago, when it seemed like the future belonged to hip-hop, could anyone have predicted such a big country comeback? Giving people what they want is a fine strategy — but only if they keep wanting it.
It’s a good time to toast the good times — but it’s tempting to ask for a strong drink, too. Both the music industry and the broader economy keep climbing over problems to reach new peaks. And they’re great places to be — until you realize that it’s all downhill from there.
Welcome to another edition of Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across music. While you’re here, check out Billboard’s fresh list of top R&B and Hip-Hop executives leading the genres forward, plus our weekly interview series spotlighting a single executive and a regularly updated gallery honoring many of the industry figures we’ve lost throughout the year.
Erika Savage has joined the entertainment department of top music law firm King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano, Billboard can announce. A multi–year honoree in our annual list of influential women in music, Savage was most recently senior vp of global music operations at United Talent Agency, where she oversaw all operational elements of UTA’s global touring division. The bulk of Savage’s roughly 25-year career, however, was spent at Universal Music Group, where she rose to senior vp of strategic development at Interscope Records, developing integrated artist brand strategies across music, brand partnerships, merchandise and touring. “We are delighted to supplement our deep bench of entertainment attorneys with someone at the top of her game,” said managing partner Howard King. Here, Savage expands on her big move from agency life to KHPS:
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Why join private practice at this point in your career? The idea of artist advocacy. Being an artist lawyer in the music industry is the greatest privilege because you are entrusted to protect your client’s rights and to bring value as a strategic advisor. After many incredible experiences gained working within a major label, building brands, and in global touring, I finally feel like I’m doing what I was meant to do – directly advocating for artists. I’m particularly inspired by the fact that more women artists, producers and songwriters are looking for women to be part of their team as lawyers, managers, agents and business managers. It’s exciting that our shared experiences as women in music will allow us to find ways to be entrepreneurial together.
What issue concerns you the most in music? When I started in business affairs at UMG, the major label deal was largely considered the path to superstar artist status. Now, while it’s great that there are fewer gate keepers and far more access points for artists to distribute their music, the legal landscape is far more complicated for developing artists. Navigating all these distributors and platforms can be really overwhelming for an artist just trying to break through. Being a TikTok artist is an incredible catalyst but career longevity requires a strategy beyond achieving 24 hours on the top of a For You page. We represent some incredible legacy artists. We want to make sure that our clients who are currently young and developing clients have similarly vibrant legacy careers in 20 years.
Meanwhile…
All My Friends, the event production company behind the floating dance festival FriendShip, hired industry veteran Randy Sosin as its first head of creative content. As AMF’s creative chief, Sosin will manage everything from ideation to delivery of all areas of creative branding and promotion for the company, founded by dance impresario Gary Richards. Sosin arrives to AMF following a six-year stretch as chief content officer at The X, a digital content agency not to be confused with the social network. He has also held senior roles at Insomniac Events, MTV, Gang of Fore and Interscope, where he spent the early aughts producing videos, short films and other visual goodies for artists including Eminem, 50 Cent, Enrique Iglesias and others. “I am so fortunate that I am able to come on board and help Gary and AMF grow and expand FriendShip (the greatest party in the world), but also be a part of an amazing team,” said Sosin. “Gary is an inspiration to me, and I look forward to helping show the world what I have known for years.”
Christoffer Lindh was promoted to head of A&R and Atena Banisaid to general manager of Sony Music Publishing Scandinavia. Both Stockholm-based execs will continue reporting to Johnny Tennander, managing director and svp of A&R international for SMPS. As his title implies, Lindh is now tasked with leading the company’s A&R-related endeavors across Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark). In his 15 years at the publisher, Lindh has signed and/or worked with Yung Lean and Sad Boys, Scarlet Pleasure, Cashmere Cat and others. For Banisaid, her role as GM means growing the overall business and crafting forward-thinking initiatives. She’ll also continue lending a hand on Lindh’s A&R team, where she has worked with Benjamin Ingrosso, Giift and other artists. “It feels very good to elevate Christoffer and Atena to these key positions for Sony Music Publishing Scandinavia,” noted Tennander. “They have for a long time both proven to be incredibly important to our A&R team, but also to our wider team and company.”
Downtown Music promoted David Driessen to chief commercial officer, effective immediately. He’ll lead efforts to drive revenue across the company’s four divisions — publishing, distribution, artist/label services and financial services — and continue to report to CEO Pieter van Rijn. Driessen was previously CCO of FUGA, the Downtown-owned B2B music distributor, before sidling over to Downtown in early 2023 to become chief business officer.
PULSE Music Group promoted Tizita Makuria to senior vp of A&R for both PMG and PULSE Records. She’ll focus on signing and developing new talent, and then finding creative opportunities for them. Based in Los Angeles, Makuria holds bragging rights as the company’s first hire to PULSE Records, where she was part of the team that signed “Million Dollar Baby” phenom Tommy Richman to the PULSE/ISO Supremacy joint venture. Prior to joining PMG in 2022 as vp of A&R, Makuria held down the senior director of A&R role at Artist Publishing Group. “Tizita brings a positive energy to every meeting—she’s passionate about her writers and recording artists and she has a relentless drive to deliver good results for them,” said co-CEOs Scott Cutler and Josh Abraham, and president Ashley Calhoun. Earlier this summer, PMG upped Steven Gringer to svp of A&R.
Mike Harris announced his departure as executive vp and COO of Universal Music Group Nashville. According to Music Row, Harris is leaving the position at the end of the month for an as-yet unannounced opportunity. A source tells Billboard that a replacement will be announced soon. Harris joined UMGN in 2016 as COO following a three-year stint as evp/general manager of Caroline, UMG’s since-renamed label and artist services company. Harris’ previous work experience includes 15 years with EMI in a variety of roles, including evp/GM for label services, evp/finance director, global A&R operations for EMI’s new music division and evp/CFO for various labels and divisions within EMI.
NASHVILLE NOTES: The Core Entertainment added day-to-day managers Jackie Gomez and Brittani Johnson to the company’s artist management team in Nashville. Gomez most recently served as DtD manager of Charlie Puth while at Friends at Work, where she also A&R’d a number of up-and-coming artists. Johnson arrives from Big Loud, where as director of Southwest promotion she played a major role in boosting the signals of Morgan Wallen, HARDY, Ashley Cooke and others … Invasion Group expanded with the launch of a new Nashville office. Leading the Music City office is artist manager Courtney Oertel. Among the artists on Invasion Group’s roster are Ani DiFranco, John Driskell Hopkins, Rissi Palmer, The Righteous Babes, Blackstar Symphony and Ken Butler.
Jared Gibo was named CEO of specialty live entertainment company LiveCo’s new full-service, global faith-based promotion arm, TPR. TPR merges three promotion companies that LiveCo previously acquired—Transparent, Premier and Rush Concerts—into the newly-minted TPR. With the creation of TPR, Transparent Productions founder and CEO Tim Taber has been promoted to the LiveCo management team as chief strategy officer. Premier Productions CEO Michael Pugh was also promoted to LiveCo as chief operating officer. TPR works with artists including Anne Wilson, Cece Winans, Chris Tomlin, Forrest Frank, Gaither Vocal Band, Dude Perfect, Jeremy Camp, Josiah Queen, KB, MercyMe, Tauren Wells and more. –Jessica Nicholson
Music curation and licensing firm SoStereo elevated Lindsey Camerota to CEO, effective immediately. Camerota joined SoStereo in March, as chief marketing officer, following senior marketing roles at fintech startup Tomo, experiential tech company Superlogic, something called “Spotify” and fitness giant Equinox. Earlier in her career, Camerota served as a marketing manager at Republic Records. “Building a career in the music industry has been a lifelong dream,” she said. “I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to advance SoStereo’s mission of making brand narratives powerful, memorable experiences with accessible, high-quality music.”
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Amanda Smith is promoted from president to chief executive officer of Fairchild Media Group, overseeing a portfolio of brands that includes Women’s Wear Daily, WWD Weekend, Beauty Inc, Footwear News, Sourcing Journal, Rivet and Fairchild Live Events. Like Billboard, FMG is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Prior to joining Fairchild in September 2020, Smith served in senior positions at print powerhouses including Fast Company, The New York Times, Vogue and The Wall Street Journal, among others. She is based in NYC and reports to Celine Perrot-Johnson, executive vp of operations and finance at PMC.
Kerri Kolen is the new vp of PAVE Publishing House, the independent print and audiobook division of PAVE Studios. Kerri was previously vp and head of audiobooks at Pushkin Industries and a creative executive at Audible, and has worked with notable authors and celebrities, including Kelly Osbourne, Carrie Fisher, Kate Winslet and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, among others.
ICYMI:
Jackie Winkler
Recent executive of the week Jackie Winkler was promoted to senior vp and head of A&R at Island Records … Martijn Tel joined BMI as the performing rights organization’s new chief financial officer … Ultra Records veteran Eddie Spears joined Republic Records as its new evp of creative … and Rachelle Jean-Louis was named executive of the year in Billboard‘s 2024 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list.
Last Week’s Turntable: HYBE-Owned Label ADOR Replaces CEO
Maddox Batson, a 14-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose breakthrough song, “Tears in the River,” made its way to the top 20 on Spotify’s U.S. Viral 50 chart earlier this year, has signed a deal with Warner Records, the company tells Billboard. On Thursday (Sept. 5), Batson also releases a new song, “X’s” (video below).
“Just seeing what they did with [Batson’s now-Warner labelmates] Zach Bryan, Warren Zeiders, Bailey Zimmerman, all those people, it just felt like a no-brainer for me [to sign with Warner],” Batson tells Billboard via Zoom. “I could tell they were going to take care of me and not push me to do things that I don’t want to do. They make sure I do everything right for my artistry and everything that’s right for my fans.”
In March, Batson released a video for “Tears in the River” on TikTok. The clip has since surged to 12.5 million views, and the impact has spilled over into streaming — the song, which Batson wrote with Nick Bailey, Josh Dorr, Benjamin Negrin and Elysse Yulo, has earned over 6 million streams on Spotify’s platform alone.
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“It was one of my first-ever writing sessions with more than just one person,” Batson says. “We got in the room and were thinking, ‘What do girls want to hear?’ They want to hear that you want to take care of them, maybe they got out of a bad relationship, they come to you and now it’s going to be a good relationship. And that’s what we wrote.”
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Batson’s follow-up single, the polished pop-country track “I Wanna Know,” has more than 2 million streams on Spotify. But it’s not only his music that’s connecting with fans — so is Batson’s gregarious, social media-savvy persona. A TikTok clip released in February that showed him getting ready to attend a dance earned over 30 million views.
Warner Records CEO/co-chairman Aaron Bay-Schuck told Billboard in a statement, “Several members of our Warner A&R team were the first people to bring Maddox to my attention after seeing his growth online. We were immediately drawn to his star power and charisma, as well as his fantastic instincts with respect to self promotion. While the social metrics were outpacing the consumption story, what we did find is that Maddox is a naturally gifted songwriter who sees an open lane for himself and has a clear vision for how he is going to own it.
“We look forward to nurturing his artist development process as he hones his craft, works with those who will help make him better and solidify his sound, and continue to build a strong fanbase that is with him not only for his online persona but because they love the music he makes and what he represents. We are confident we have Country and Pop’s next young star in Maddox.”
Batson was born in Nashville and raised in Birmingham, Ala. Growing up, he was inspired by ‘80s and ‘90s country artists including Alan Jackson and George Strait, but also the pop sounds of artists such as Justin Bieber. Last summer, he played more than 20 shows, honing his sound and developing his musical skills through playing with his musician father.
Maddox says he was inspired to write his new song, “X’s,” after attending an Abby Anderson concert at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville.
“I walked in and of course, your boy is not old enough to drink alcohol, so the security guard drew a big X on my hand. The show was great, and when I went to the studio the next day and this guy saw the X on my hand — I promise, I shower, it was just written in Sharpie — but he saw my hand and we just wrote this song in 15 minutes. It was one of the easiest writing experiences of my life.”
Recording the song, however, was not without a minor challenge or two.
“Just seeing that song coming from the demo to the final version is just so crazy because my voice changed while we recorded those two different versions [demo and master recording] of the song,” Batson says. “So we had to [record] it in a completely different key. But seeing it come out is going to be absolutely money. I’m so excited.”
In addition to writing his own hits, Batson’s song “Tough” — which he wrote about his father and grandfathers — was recently recorded and released by Lana Del Rey (who is prepping a country album titled Lasso) and Quavo.
“I come from a long line of farmers,” Batson says of writing the song. “My mom’s dad was a tobacco farmer and my dad grew up in the construction sites, so just really work ethic-heavy people, and hopefully that got passed down.”
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Batson, who is signed with Prosper Entertainment for management, WME for booking and Warner Chappell for publishing, says he expects a project to be released in 2025. In June, he joined singer-songwriter Wyatt Flores to perform Flores’ “Please Don’t Go” during Nashville’s CMA Fest. Days later, he also became the youngest artist to perform at the popular Nashville music series Whiskey Jam, with a full-capacity audience that caused Whiskey Jam to expand entry to the normally 21-and-up show to fans of all ages.
Presently, Batson — who is starting ninth grade and transitioned to homeschool just before releasing “Tears in the River” — is balancing school with a slate of primarily weekend tour dates opening for “I Hope” hitmaker Gabby Barrett.
“Yeah, when I finish up this interview, I’m enrolling for the new school year,” he says.
Spotify has defeated a long-running lawsuit that claimed Eminem’s music was streamed illegally “billions” of times on the platform, winning a ruling that sharply criticized the rapper’s publisher for filing the case in the first place.
Eminem’s publisher, Eight Mile Style, sued Spotify in 2019, claiming the streamer had made hundreds of the rapper’s songs available without proper licenses. That included mega-hits like “Lose Yourself,” which has been streamed more than 1 billion times on the service.
But in a decision last month, a federal judge dismissed those accusations entirely, ruling that Eight Mile had essentially manufactured a lawsuit for its own gain. The publisher knew for years that its songs were being played on Spotify, the judge wrote, but had chosen to do nothing in order to build a more lucrative legal case against the streamer.
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“Eight Mile Style was not a hapless victim,” Judge Aleta A. Trauger wrote. “While Spotify’s handling of composer copyrights appears to have been seriously flawed, any right to recover damages based on those flaws belongs to those innocent rights holders who were genuinely harmed, not ones who, like Eight Mile Style, had every opportunity to set things right and simply chose not to do so for no apparent reason, other than that being the victim of infringement pays better than being an ordinary licensor.”
An attorney for Eight Mile Style did not immediately return a request for comment on the decision. Eminem himself was not involved in the case.
At the center of the long legal battle is the chaotic system that governed streaming royalties in the U.S. for much of the 2010s, in which streamers like Spotify often failed to pay the proper rights holders. That messy situation was mostly fixed by the 2018 enactment of the federal Music Modernization Act (MMA), which created a single blanket license for streamers to pay.
The MMA largely immunized streamers like Spotify from lawsuits over past misdeeds, wiping the slate clean if they paid for the blanket license and complied with other requirements. But a year after the statute was enacted, Eight Mile sued anyway — arguing, among other things, that the landmark law itself was unconstitutional because it violated due process and negated the company’s copyrights.
In her ruling last month, Judge Trauger entirely avoided those lofty constitutional questions about the MMA, saying she would leave them “for a future case involving an appropriate plaintiff.” But like other aspects of her ruling, she suggested that “teeing up a constitutional showdown” had been another “strategic” decision by Eight Mile aimed at securing a bigger payout.
“The MMA framework was the culmination of what may have been one of the most high-stakes policymaking efforts in the history of copyright, and whether that framework survives has implications for the economy of music that go far beyond the rights of any individual artist, even a popular one like Eminem,” the judge wrote. “A lawsuit that imperiled the MMA could cost Spotify a great deal more than any one artist could ever claim — and could, potentially, justify a more generous settlement.”
In technical terms, Judge Trauger’s ruling cited the legal doctrine of equitable estoppel, which bars litigants from behaving unfairly to win advantage in court cases. In applying that rule to Eight Mile, she said the publisher “improperly chose the cultivation of infringement damages over the proper functioning of the copyright system.”
Eight Mile clearly knew that some of its most valuable IP was being used by Spotify, the judge wrote, and the entire lawsuit could have been avoided if Eight Mile had “simply sent a single, clear cease-and-desist letter.” But she said the company instead “simply allowed its rights to be violated.”
“If Eight Mile Style had come forward to contest the status quo, it would have brought this situation to a much quicker end, but it did not,” Judge Trauger wrote. “The only plausible reason for this course of action is that … allowing infringement to continue on a large scale is more economically beneficial to the purported victim than the licit streaming economy would be.”
Even if Eight Mile’s accusations against Spotify had been legally valid, the judge ruled that the damages wouldn’t have been Spotify’s to pay. Instead, she ruled that the liability would have belonged to Kobalt, because the company had signed a licensing deal with Spotify for the Eminem songs at issue and had agreed to indemnify the streamer for any such legal problems.
As it was, that question was largely moot because the judge had mostly rejected Eight Mile’s lawsuit. But she ruled that Kobalt would likely need to cover Spotify’s legal expenses incurred in defending the lawsuit — likely a sizeable sum after five years of litigation. That issue will be subject to future proceedings.
A representative for Spotify did not immediately return requests for comment. A representative for Kobalt declined to comment.