Business
Page: 2
Indie Week has unveiled the keynotes, panels, speakers and topics for its 2025 conference, which is set to run June 9-12 in New York.
This year’s keynotes will come from Cherie Hu, founder of Water & Music, who will discuss the future of indie music tech; Shira Perlmutter, register of copyrights/director of the U.S. Copyright Office; and a yet-to-be-announced representative of Apple Music.
Topics will include the state of the independent music industry, advocacy, artificial intelligence, global opportunities, catalog, culture and wellness, data analytics, distribution, fan engagement, marketing, music journalism in 2025, publishing, sampling, streaming, synch, sustainability, touring/live and more. The conference will also feature workshops from Beatdapp, Spotify, BabyJam, ONErpm, Bandcamp, Chartmetric, Red Bull Records and Continued Legal Education curated by Perkins Coie, LLP.
New to the conference this year is IndieVest, described as “a curated track of programming directly connecting the financial investment sector with the independent music community.” Taking place on Wednesday, June 11, the gathering will offer a meet and greet mixer, a panel featuring thought leaders in music investment, and a pitch competition in partnership with Triple G Ventures through which innovators will present ideas to industry leaders, investors and creators. Confirmed IndieVest judges and panelists will be announced in the coming weeks.
You can find a select rundown below. To check out the full slate of programming and/or purchase a badge, go here.
Trending on Billboard
A2IM INDIE WEEK 2025 PRELIMINARY KEYNOTES, WORKSHOPS & PANELS
(more to be announced soon)
Keynotes:
Cherie Hu, Founder – Founder of Water & Music – The Future of Indie Music Tech
Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director, U.S. Copyright Office – Details to be announced.
Featured Keynote, Apple Music – Details to be announced.
Workshops:
IndieVest presents The Indie Hustle:Music Innovation Pitch CompetitionMusic Investments 101: Unlocking Capital in the Independent Sector
Continued Legal Education (CLE) curated by Perkins Coie presents:Ethical and Legal Issues in NegotiationEmerging Technology Law Issues Impacting the Music BusinessLabor & Employment in 2025 – Changes with the New AdministrationHot Legal Issues for the Music IndustryMusic Industry M&A: Trends and Key Legal ConsiderationsCybersecurity for Music Companies
Beatdapp presents:Fake Streams, Real Damage: Uncovering Fraudulent Networks and AI’s Role in Streaming FraudBeyond Fraud: How Data Transparency is Reshaping Streaming
Spotify presents:Level Up Your Release Strategy: Spotify’s Tools for Audience Development
BabyJam presents:NORDER : AI as your Manager/Assistant
ONErpm presents:Keeping Indies Independent: How Working with Independent Labels Fuels Innovation and Artist Development
Chartmetric:How Can Independent Artists Discover and Grow Their Audience with the Power of Data
Bandcamp – Details to be announced.Red Bull Records – Details to be announced.
Panel Topics:
What Does Indie Mean Today, and Why Does It Matter?
Dealmaking in the Age of AI: Ensuring Proper Value and Protections for Independent Music
Independent Music’s Top Women, Opening Doors for the Next Generation
Deal or No Deal: Live Contract Negotiation
Mastering Social Media: Sustainable Strategies & Microcontent Management
The State of Indie Music Journalism: Navigating a Shifting Landscape
Breaking Borders: Global Opportunities for Independent Music Publishing
Data Analytics All Stars: Turning Numbers into Music Industry Gold
How the Law Shapes the Future of Independent Music Distribution
A2IM, Celebrating 20 Years, and Looking Ahead to What’s Next
Annual General Meeting
Tucked away along California’s Central Coast is a small yet growing music festival that managed to survive one of the most tumultuous periods in the music business thanks to a little ingenuity and a heaping helping of support from its fans.
Launched in Monterey, Calif., in 2010, the California Roots Music and Arts festival celebrates its 15th anniversary this summer with a packed lineup that includes Jamaican artist Buju Banton’s first performance in the United States in more than a decade. The Memorial Day festival, set for May 23-25, also includes headliners Rebelution, Slightly Stoopid and Dirty Heads with sets from Collie Buddz, Iration, T-Pain, The Elovaters, Protoje, Atmosphere, J Boog, The Movement, SOJA, Common Kings, Steel Pulse and Matisyahu.
“It’s kind of cool when you see fans out there that have been coming to California Roots for 10 years, and they met their future wife or husband here, or they were pregnant at California Roots,” says Dan Sheehan, who created the festival with his wife Amy through their Central Coast production company Good Vibez.
Trending on Billboard
California Roots was once considered the largest reggae festival in the U.S., but competition from events like Cali Vibes in Long Beach, coupled with rising costs for festival talent and production, has made it much more difficult to do business since the end of the pandemic.
“We’re ahead of last year and right now we’re about even with 2022, which was a hard year to beat because we were on sale three years” due to the pandemic, Sheehan says. Unlike his competitors, California Roots has a limited marketing budget and focuses primarily on artists who don’t get much airplay or media support.
Billboard sat down with Sheehan to break down the long-term success of California Roots and zero in on the four reasons he believes the festival is on track to have one of its best years ever.
Cali Roots festival
@rileykathleenimages
Remember That Your History is Your Brand
When it comes to California Roots’ longevity in the festival space, Sheehan says part of its success stems from its longtime home at the Monterey County fairgrounds.
“This was the site of the 1967 Monterey Pop festival,” explains Sheehan, referring to the three-day concert series featuring Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix and The Who that would inspire the creators of the Woodstock Festival to launch an East Coast counterpart to Monterey Pop in 1969.
“Knowing the history of this site and the energy here — it’s very special,” says Sheehan, adding, “I think there’s a lot of similarities between California Roots and Monterey Pops…each have their own approach to counterculture and going against the grain.”
Sheehan’s long history on the site has been critical for overcoming one of the festival’s biggest technical challenges: correctly mixing the audio for the site’s large metal seating bowl, where about half the headliner performances take place each year.
“There’s a science to mixing the bowl and angling the speakers” that dates back to Monterey Pop and has been refined over time by fairground staff, Sheehan says. “It’s technically pretty complicated because the shape of the bowl means if you don’t hit it right, the sound can bounce around.”
Invest Early and Invest Often in the Genre
Sheehan and his wife Amy have long been key supporters of the California Roots movement, celebrating the state’s contribution to the reggae genre while creating a music lane distinguished from the reggae’s foundational Jamaican roots.
Distinguishing a difference between traditional Jamaican reggae — which includes acts like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Barrington Levy and Toots and the Maytals — and stateside counterparts including Slightly Stoopid, the Dirty Heads, Iration and Sublime is largely about respect for reggae’s Caribbean origins and avoiding allegations of cultural appropriation. Creating a clear off-ramp for California-rooted reggae also means creating a unique identity for the genre that fans can actively support.
“There’s artists like Stick Figure who were playing on our small stage 10 years ago and are now headliners,” says Sheehan. “I think as festival producers, especially in a niche, it’s something that we have to do, continuing to develop these artists to sell tickets and stream their music. That message to support these acts really resonates with fans, who are looking to be part of a musical movement.
California Roots festival
@eyesofjem
Build the Community
One of the biggest challenges facing Sheehan and other festival organizers is the increasing costs of staging large events, as everything from staging to insurance and backline equipment has increased significantly since the end of the pandemic.
“My biggest concern is that the fan says, ‘I can’t afford this anymore,’” Sheehan says. “We can’t operate at a loss — we have to stay affordable while also making sure we make money each year. We have to make money. But if money is the byproduct of putting on a great event and it’s not the primary focus of it, then I think there’s a little bit more soul to it.”
Sheehan says his focus is to continue to “develop artists to keep selling tickets and selling streaming music and all the stuff that kind of goes with it. That’s a big part of the development of California Roots.” He adds, “A few years ago, we decided not to do streaming, and we ended up bringing it back after we got so much heat for canceling it. There’s a lot of people who have made it part of their Memorial Day tradition, and maybe one year they can’t afford it. So instead they can stream it. So we brought it back that year and people responded positively to the news.”
Find Ways To Keep It Affordable
Payment plans have become an important tool for keeping prices down, Sheehan says, noting that 65 to 70 percent of fans use payment plans to pay for their tickets each year. Fans can pay as little as $29 to reserve tickets and then make monthly payments for the festival, which costs $158 for one day and $358 for three days.
“If you buy them on the loyalty on-sale, you have almost a year to pay off your ticket,” Sheehan says. “You pay once a month on an auto withdraw. It’s easier for people to afford and a lot of people utilize it.”
Sheehan has contingency plans in place for fans who default on their payments to help them bring their accounts current, though he adds the default rate is quite small.
“It’s a free, no-interest loan and a lot of people are thankful we offer it,” he says.
President Donald Trump will hold a Wednesday meeting with aides about possible investors who could buy a stake in TikTok, a deal that could potentially stop the social media site from being banned in the United States.
The details of the meeting were confirmed by a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
There has been uncertainty about the popular video app after a law took effect on Jan. 19 requiring its China-based parent, ByteDance, to divest its ownership because of national security concerns. After taking office, Trump gave TikTok a 75-day reprieve by signing an executive order that delayed until April 5 the enforcement of the law requiring a sale or effectively imposing a ban.
Among the possible investors are the software company Oracle and the investment firm Blackstone.
Trending on Billboard
Likely to attend the Oval Office meeting with Trump on Wednesday are Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
CBS News first reported on the meeting.
Talking to reporters Sunday while on Air Force Once, Trump said he would “like to see TikTok remain alive.” He previously indicated that he might consider reducing tariffs against China if the country approves the sale.
During his first term, Trump tried to ban TikTok on national security grounds, which was halted by the courts before his administration negotiated a sale of the platform that eventually failed to materialize. He changed his position on the popular app during last year’s presidential election and has credited the platform with helping him win more young voters.
“I won the young vote by 36 points. Republicans generally don’t do very well with the young vote,” he said Sunday. “I think a lot of it could have been TikTok.”
Trump has said that the deadline on a TikTok deal could be extended further if needed. He previously proposed terms in which the U.S. would have a 50% stake in a joint venture. The administration hasn’t provided details on what that type of deal would entail.
TikTok and ByteDance have not publicly commented on the talks. It’s also unclear if ByteDance has changed its position on selling TikTok, which it said early last year it does not plan to do.
What will happen on April 5?
If TikTok is not sold to an approved buyer by April 5, the original law that bans it nationwide would once again go into effect. However, the deadline for the executive order doesn’t appear to be set in stone and the president has reiterated it could be extended further if needed.
Trump’s order came a few days after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a federal law that required ByteDance to divest or be banned in January. The day after the ruling, TikTok went dark for U.S. users and came back online after Trump vowed to stall the ban.
The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court.
Who wants to buy TikTok?
Although it’s unclear if ByteDance plans to sell TikTok, several potential bidders have come forward in the past few months.
Aides for Vice President JD Vance, who was tapped to oversee a potential deal, have reached out to some parties, such as the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI, to get additional details about their bids, according to a person familiar with the matter. In January, Perplexity AI presented ByteDance with a merger proposal that would combine Perplexity’s business with TikTok’s U.S. operation.
Other potential bidders include a consortium organized by billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, which recently recruited Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as a strategic adviser. Investors in the consortium say they’ve offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for TikTok’s U.S. platform. And if successful, they plan to redesign the popular app with blockchain technology they say will provide users with more control over their online data.
Jesse Tinsley, the founder of the payroll firm Employer.com, says he too has organized a consortium, which includes the CEO of the video game platform Roblox, and is offering ByteDance more than $30 billion for TikTok.
Trump said in January that Microsoft was also eyeing the popular app. Other interested parties include Trump’s former Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and Rumble, the video site popular with some conservatives and far-right groups. In a post on X last March, Rumble said it was ready to join a consortium of parties interested in purchasing TikTok and serving as a tech partner for the company.
This article was originally published by The Associated Press.

Non-profits Live Music Society and Salt Lick Incubator have teamed up with D-TOUR, a network of independent venues and promoters, to present a fresh approach to touring. The collaborative tour, called One Night Live, will feature three rising artists — Ellie Williams, Sofia Lafuente and Farayi Malek — on a three-week trek supported by the organizations.
Together, Live Music Society, D-TOUR and Salt Lick Incubator have envisioned a new model that enables rising young artists to break into new markets and build their fanbase while tapping into local scenes and meeting local bands and introducing venues to new talent. The tour, which kicks off on May 16 at Gramps in Miami, will have the financial backing of Live Music Society. The mission is to create a viable alternative for independent artists and venues that have been hit hardest by the growing cost of live events.
Live Music Society supports a large and growing network of small performance venues across the U.S. through multiple grant programs, through which it has issued 210 grants to 180 venues totaling more than $4 million. While working closely with these venues, several recipients requested funds to enable them to present emerging artists.
Trending on Billboard
“The venues in our community want to, and need to, present new artists and welcome touring acts and new customers into their spaces, but it is becoming financially harder and harder to go on tour, and harder to run a smaller venue,” said Live Music Society executive director Cat Henry in a statement. “Artists need places to play, places to stay, and people to listen, and with our partners in One Night Live, we can help make this happen and demonstrate a model that might increase the odds of success for all involved.”
The tour will run through locally owned venues across the East Coast, South and Midwest, with the billed artists performing alongside local and regional artists selected by each venue. Each act will perform their own set every night, with the two others — in an effort to create a more efficient touring model — serving as backing musicians.
Salt Lick Incubator has been working closely with the artists featured on the tour via writing camps, collaborations, gig opportunities and branding/marketing support to help set them up for success.
“It has become exceedingly difficult for an emerging artist to build their hard ticket history if they don’t land a coveted opening slot on a bigger tour and or have a viral moment,” added Salt Lick Incubator president Liza Levy. “The support that Live Music Society, D-TOUR, and these independent venues are providing in this non-traditional way is a formidable win for the developing artist community.”
D-TOUR worked with its affiliate venue members to book the tour, organize the routing, identify local support acts and market the shows. The dates will include stops at Tampa’s Crowbar, Altar (Masquerade) in Atlanta, the Smiling Moose in Pittsburgh and DRKMTTR Collective in Nashville.
“Now more than ever these pathways are needed to protect the relationship between independent venues and artists as well as to enhance the experience of the music fan who finds value and joy in discovering their next favorite artist in this intimate setting for one night live,” added D-TOUR COO Tom DeGeorge.
Tickets for One Night Live are available now via each venue’s website. The full list of tour dates is below.
One Night Live
Courtesy Photo

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. sent a letter via email to all Recording Academy members on Wednesday (April 2) sharing a report that the academy created and quietly posted on its website in January. In the report, the academy attempts to quantify its impact and summarize the changes it has made over the five years since Mason stepped into the top job at the organization (initially as interim CEO following the departure of Deborah Dugan).
“While many people know us as just an awards granting institution, we are actually a purpose-driven impact organization serving music makers and aspiring music makers around the world 365 days a year,” Mason wrote in his letter. … “This Grammy Impact 2024 report puts into one place all the ways the Recording Academy positively affected music people last year.”
Trending on Billboard
In an interview with Billboard, Mason shed further light on his aims with the report, which takes the form of a slick and visually appealing deck brimming with facts and figures. But Mason says the numbers aren’t the point. “To me, the bottom line is that they get a sense that the academy is making a real impact on the lives of music people beyond just giving trophies,” he says. “What I’m trying to do is hopefully build support for the academy, through seeing it maybe through a different lens, rather than just who got snubbed or who won or who didn’t win. That’s the objective of this report.”
Mason has long tried to get people to see the academy as more than just the dispenser of shiny gramophones. “When I took the role, one of my objectives and goals was to heighten the awareness of what happens the other 364 days of the year,” he says. “I did experience a lot of interaction with music people in studios as I was coming up where people just thought of the Grammys as a night to get an award, whereas I was always encouraging them to see the bigger picture; to see all the service work that’s being done; the advocacy, the education, the philanthropy, MusicCares; all the different parts of the academy.
“A lot of people know and love the awards ceremony,” he continues. “I’m thankful for that, but it is a challenge for us as an organization to tell the larger story as to why we exist. [This report is] a new way of positioning the academy. We needed to do a better job of explaining why the academy exists beyond to celebrate one night a year. So, this was an intentional effort for us over the last few years to make sure we’re telling that story in a new way.”
Perhaps the most eye-popping statistic in the deck presentation is one that was already reported in the academy’s 2024 membership report, which was released Oct. 3 and reported in Billboard that same day: That a whopping 66% of current academy voting members have joined since 2019.
“It’s great [in the] sense in that we are continuing to remain relevant,” Mason says, “to attract new music-makers, people who are at the height of their careers, or coming into their careers, and we are moving away from having people who have been members…” Mason pauses and starts anew. “We always want to keep our long-term members, but we want to make sure they’re continuing to qualify as voting members [by being able to show recent credits]. We don’t want people that have had music careers in the 1960s or ’70s still voting on music that maybe they’re not involved in making, so we’re making sure we’re refreshing the membership; making sure the membership’s relevant to professionals in the industry working today.”
The deck also includes the statistic, also first reported in the membership report, that people of color now constitute 38% of the voting membership. “I’m pleased with the progress,” Mason says. “We still feel like we have some room to go. You think about why are these numbers important: Why do you care about changing the make-up of our membership? It’s mostly because we want to make sure our membership reflects the industry.”
Mason says he has no set points in mind as to when the academy will have achieved its membership goals. “We’ll never be done, because these numbers are going to fluctuate,” he says. “They’re going to adjust based on what’s happening in our community, in music; changing based on genre popularity, so we’re going to be in a constant search to perfect our membership. We’re always going to continue to work and tinker with the numbers because we have to remain relevant. I don’t think we’re where we want to be yet. I’m not sure we’ll ever accomplish the perfect membership, but we will continue to [work on it].”
At this year’s Grammy Awards, artists and songwriters of color won three of the four highest-profile awards: album of the year (Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter) and record and song of the year (Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”). Does Mason see that as a reflection of the academy’s overhaul of its membership?
“Not necessarily,” Mason says. “I see it as a reflection of the quality of their individual work. I like to think having a relevant membership — regardless of their race — is probably what gives us the best outcomes, but I think those people had amazing years creatively and our voters recognized that.”
The deck also repeats the stat that the Recording Academy has added more than 3,000 women voting members since 2019, surpassing its 2019 goal to add 2,500 women voting members by 2025. Women now make up 28% of the voting membership.
“We really needed to increase the number of women voters,” Mason says. “A great first step is adding 3,000 new members. We’re not [yet] where you want to be.”
The deck also speaks to the academy’s “bold global expansion, working with stakeholders in Africa and the Middle East to help foster the dynamic music markets there.” (The academy first released this information on June 9.)
Asked why that effort is a priority for the U.S.-based academy, Mason replies, “Obviously, a big focus is on our American members, and it will continue to be that. We are an organization that represents music all around the world. If we’re going to do that, we have to have people that represent those genres. It very much can be said in the same way about Latin music: Why do you care about Latin music? Why did you build a Latin Academy? It’s because the music is very popular. It’s a thriving music community and it continues to affect people as they listen to it and consume music, and the same can be said for other parts of the world.
“We are not living in a time when music only comes from American creators,” he continues. “Music is coming from creators all around the planet. As a group that serves music people and hopefully uplifts music people, we want to be able to do that for people regardless of where they’re from. As long as they’re making music, we want to have an impact on those music groups.”
Here’s Mason’s letter to the academy membership in full:
Academy members,
I am writing today to share an exciting report that we recently created. You frequently hear me say that music is a powerful force for good in the world, and that the people who make it deserve an organization dedicated to their well-being. I feel so incredibly privileged to work for the organization that exists to do that.
But our highest purpose isn’t merely to serve music creators, it’s to make a positive impact on their lives and careers. And that’s exactly what we work to do, every single day of the year, through the tireless and amazing effort of our board and our teams.
While many people know us as just an awards granting institution, we are actually a purpose-driven impact organization serving music makers and aspiring music makers around the world 365 days a year. Every piece of legislation we help pass has a tangible impact on the music people we serve. Every event hosted by a chapter or wing, every dollar distributed by MusiCares, every scholarship we provide, and every time we open the Grammy Museum doors to a child, it impacts our music community. And yes, every Grammy nomination and award alters the trajectory of someone’s life and career.
This Grammy Impact 2024 report puts into one place all the ways the Recording Academy positively affected music people last year. As we say in the report, it is the combined work of the more than 300 dedicated employees of the Recording Academy, the Latin Recording Academy, the Grammy Museum, MusiCares, and thousands of music creators who volunteered their time in service to their peers.
Please take a moment to read through the report, and reflect on the ways you and your colleagues personally contributed to these outcomes. I hope you feel a sense of pride and purpose in what was accomplished, and for the role you play every day in serving the music people who rely on us.
Of course, we’re now into 2025, and while we celebrate the achievements of last year, we are also looking ahead to the impact we will make this year and beyond. Grammys on the Hill is right around the corner, the Day that Music Cares is coming soon, and much more awaits us in the months ahead.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to our work. It is making a lasting impact.Gratefully,Harvey Mason jr.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Dua Lipa shuts down a copyright lawsuit over her smash hit “Levitating”; Tony Bennett’s daughters sue their brother over the late singer’s estate; Latin music exec Angel Del Villar is convicted of working with a promoter with links to Mexican cartels; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Dua Lipa Levitates Out of Another Lawsuit
Back in March 2022, Dua Lipa was sued for copyright infringement twice in just four days over “Levitating,” her breakout hit that spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. But three years later, both cases are now dead and gone.
Trending on Billboard
In a decision issued last week, a federal judge granted Lipa summary judgment in a lawsuit filed by songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, who accused the superstar of ripping off their 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and their 1980 song “Don Diablo.”
The complaint cheekily claimed that Lipa “levitated away plaintiffs’ intellectual property,” but Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that there was essentially no IP to steal — that the songs shared only the kind of basic musical building blocks that are not covered by federal copyright law.
“It is possible that a ‘layperson’ could listen to portions of plaintiffs’ and defendants’ songs and hear similarities,” the judge wrote in her decision. “But … the similarity between the works concerns only non-copyrightable elements of the plaintiffs’ work.”
The other lawsuit against Lipa — filed by a Florida reggae band named Artikal Sound System over their 2015 track “Live Your Life” — was voluntarily dropped in 2023 after another judge ruled in her favor that there was no sign that anyone involved in creating “Levitating” had had “access” to the earlier song — a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit.
As we wrote back in 2022, it seems you’re not truly a pop star until you’ve been sued for copyright infringement a few times; just ask Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran or Katy Perry. Now, Lipa can truly join that distinguished group — as someone who has not just faced such cases, but fought back and won.
Other top stories this week…
FAMILY FEUD – Tony Bennett’s daughters (Antonia and Johanna Bennett) expanded their legal battle against their older brother (D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett), claiming in a new lawsuit that he has “abused” his power over the late singer’s affairs to “enrich himself.” Echoing an earlier case, the sisters accused Danny of “improper and unlawful conduct” both before and after the legendary singer’s 2023 death, including “excessive and unearned commissions” and giving “gifts to himself and his children.” Danny’s lawyers have called such accusations “baseless” and argued he was “fully authorized to take the steps he took.”
GUILTY VERDICT – Latin music executive Angel Del Villar was convicted by a federal jury on felony charges of doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels, setting the stage for a potential decades-long prison sentence for the Del Records CEO. Prosecutors alleged Del Villar had repeatedly arranged concerts with Jesus Pérez Alvear, a Guadalajara-based promoter subject to federal sanctions for helping cartels “exploit the Mexican music industry to launder drug proceeds and glorify their criminal activities.” Del Villar’s attorneys vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the jury “got it wrong.”
AI RULING – A federal judge issued a ruling denying Universal Music Group’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have immediately blocked artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC from using copyrighted lyrics to train future AI models. The judge said that it remained an “open question” whether using copyrighted materials to train AI is illegal — something of a trillion-dollar question for the booming industry — meaning UMG and other music companies could not show that they faced the kind of “irreparable harm” necessary to win such a drastic remedy.
SAMPLING SPAT – Ye (formerly Kanye West) was hit with a copyright lawsuit claiming he sampled a song by German singer-songwriter Alice Merton despite her express refusal to license it to him because of his history of antisemitic statements. Merton said she’s the direct descendant of Holocaust survivors and that being involuntarily associated with the controversial rapper left her “shocked and humiliated.” The case is the latest of at least a dozen lawsuits West has faced over his career over allegations of unlicensed sampling or interpolating.
GOIÂNIA, Brazil — As the global pandemic deepened, Brazilian country artist Alex Ronaldo watched his career ebb away. So the veteran music writer cooked up a side hustle: He took hundreds of demos he regularly received from aspiring artists — mostly in the sertanejo, or Brazilian country, genre — and put them out on Spotify under false names and fake artists, with fake cover art, all created from his luxury seafront condo.
In December, three years after he launched his illegal money-making scheme, prosecutors arrested and charged Ronaldo Torres de Souza, who performs under the moniker Alex Ronaldo, in the first prosecution of an individual in Brazil for streaming fraud. The sertanejo artist confessed to uploading more than 400 tracks by other artists under false names to Spotify that generated more than 28 million fake plays — using artificial intelligence to aid in the scheme.
The major labels, via Brazil’s recorded music association Pro-Música Brasil, along with Brazil’s anti-piracy body Association for the Protection of Phonographic Intellectual Rights (APDIF), cooperated on what they are calling Operation Out of Tune. “Simply put, streaming manipulation of this nature is theft — stealing directly from artists and betraying fans,” Victoria Oakley, the CEO of IFPI in London, said in a statement last week.
Trending on Billboard
As seemingly important as his arrest was, in Goiânia — the “Nashville of Brazil” — the case underscored to music executives how little was being done to tackle a more serious problem plaguing the Brazilian industry: the buying of fake streams by artists, managers and music label executives to prop up artists on Spotify’s charts.
Brazilian music executives said a furious scramble for Spotify chart dominance is spurring artists to spend tens of thousands of dollars on fake plays for individual songs — and Spotify is doing little that they can see to stop it.
“Everything is bought and paid for here,” Gláucio Toledo, a sertanejo music manager, said about music streaming success in Brazil. “I know three people who got rich selling fake playlists. It has become an unfair competition in the digital world.”
Other industry observers are hearing similar concerns. “Brazil is on a lot of people’s minds across the industry, big and small,” says Morgan Hayduk, the co-CEO and co-founder of Beatdapp, a Vancouver-based company that specializes in streaming fraud detection. “When we talk to rights holders or to platforms there are questions about what they see in their Brazil data.”
One top music manager told Billboard that so-called stream brokers peddle 1 million streams for 50,000 reais ($8,750). That level of spending outpaces the average of around $4,000 that Spotify pays out for a million streams, this person said. The typical fraud scheme involves accessing fake-stream farms in Brazil or outside the country that use dozens if not hundreds of laptops and cell phones to run Spotify accounts continuously.
Spotify says it “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews” to prevent, detect and mitigate artificial streams on its platform. “When we identify stream manipulation, we take action that includes removing streaming numbers and withholding royalties,” a Spotify spokesperson said. “Bad actors are always evolving, so our dedicated fraud prevention team is always working to identify new trends and methods used to game the system.”
Nevertheless, competition to out-buy other sertanejo artists “is hindering other genres, such as funk, pop, MPB and electronic music, which sometimes struggle to make it into the top 10 or 15 because [the lists] are inflated,” says Raphael Ribeiro, CEO of AudioMix Digital, the Goiânia-based label and artist management company that launched several big sertanejo artists, including Gusttavo Lima, Jorge & Mateus and Wesley Safadão.
Fraud is also limiting the barriers to entry for less wealthy artists in Brazil. “Nowadays, it’s hard for an artist to break through if you don’t get involved in a scheme, if you don’t pay for streams, if you don’t create a bot, because there’s a lot of money involved,” Ribeiro says.
Heavy stream-buying could at least partly explain sertanejo’s dominance in Brazil over the past several years. Seven of the top 10 most-played tracks on streaming platforms last year were sertanejo, according to Pro-Música, with Felipe & Rodrigo’s live version of “Gosta de Rua” grabbing the top spot.
In Brazil, streaming success on Spotify strongly impacts touring and sponsorship fees for artists. Top concert earners include Jorge & Mateus and Lima, the latter of whom is so popular that until two weeks ago he was publicly weighing a run for president of the country next year. (He said he would focus instead on conquering the Spanish-language Latino music market.) Reaching the top 50 on Spotify typically boosts an artist’s touring fee to at least 300,000 reais (about $52,000), two Brazilian music managers said.
Brazil’s overall recorded music market is among the fastest growing in the world. Last year it grew 21.7% to 3.49 billion reais ($609 million) to land in ninth place on IFPI’s global ranking (88% of revenues came from on-demand streams), despite the country’s currency remaining historically weak compared to the U.S. dollar. That’s up more than double from the $296.2 million and 12th place it held in 2020, according to IFPI’s annual Global Music Report.
Allegations of an underground market in Brazil for buying and selling fake streams to prop up artists first began to spread during the pandemic, when a senior manager at a streaming platform and one executive at a major label — both based in Brazil then — told Billboard that stream-buying by big-name artists was prevalent, especially in sertanejo — and that indie and major labels were involved.
Fraudsters have had a head start on Brazilian investigators. The public prosecutor’s office in the state of Goias, where Goiânia is located, only organized a cybercrime unit last year. And prosecutors acknowledged that the Torres de Souza probe, which involved authorities in two other states, piggy-backed on reporting by Brazilian news site UOL — largely because none of the more than 50 composers who were victimized reached out to authorities first, they said.
Still, Brazil has done more than most countries.
Previous law enforcement efforts have focused on shutting down websites peddling fake streams and stream-ripping services, rather than on rooting out individual fraudsters. Pro-Música president Paulo Rosa told Billboard in 2022 that most of the illicit activity affecting Brazil was being conducted outside the country by mirror sites in Russia. Last year, Operation 404, a global anti-piracy effort, dismantled the top three most popular stream-ripping mobile apps in Brazil, while another initiative, Operation Redirect, targeted illegal music sites in Brazil associated with malware distribution.
“There have been very few streaming cases channeled through proper authorities anywhere around the world,” Hayduk says. “To see three in Brazil is still a meaningful number.”
Homegrown Streaming Fraud
That said, Torres de Souza’s case showed that a relatively uncomplicated streaming fraud operation can go undetected for years. At his apartment in Recife, in the northeast of the country, the artist, who has 13,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, used fake documents and emails to register other artists’ demos with distributors. Then he published the songs on Spotify and social media platforms under fake names and fake artists, using AI-generated fake cover art.
The heart of the scheme involved setting up 21 computers that ran the open-source program Sandboxie on various internet browsers, which could generate up to 16 virtual computers on each machine. That meant he could have up to 2,000 browser windows open simultaneously pumping out mostly Spotify streams for the music he illicitly appropriated, prosecutors described in their 90-page complaint.
Investigators found a wall of laptops generating millions of illicit Spotify streams at the condo of Ronaldo Torres de Souza in Recife, Brazil.
Courtesy of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the state of Goiás, Brazil
Investigators seized computers and hard drives containing thousands of demos and hundreds of pieces of cover art. Torres de Souza ran the computers 24 hours a day, only disconnecting them when he traveled to avoid starting a fire, Fabrício Lamas, a prosecutor with Goiânia’s cybercrime unit, CyberGaeco, tells Billboard.
In the first year or so, the sertanejo artist relied on demos from aspiring artists to generate his illicit income. Then in the past year, he turned to fast-evolving AI programs to also create fake music, prosecutors said.
By all accounts, Torres de Souza, 47, was acting alone in the scheme. His wife of more than a decade was oblivious to what he was doing with a wall full of laptops running Spotify accounts all day long, according to prosecutors.
The scheme wasn’t always that sophisticated. The sertanejo artist ascribed fake male artist names to some songs that had female singers. And some AI-created cover art didn’t even refer to actual songs. Fake artist “Regis Costa,” for example, had cover art for “Taça de Vinho” (Wine Glass) — with an image of a martini glass instead of a wine glass — but there was no such song on the album.
Prosecutors estimated Torres de Souza generated more than 300,000 reais ($52,000) in illicit royalties from the first 400 or so songs identified. They expect that number to grow significantly when they gain access to his bank account in a few months, as proscribed under Brazilian banking law.
Torres de Souza faces a potential prison sentence of more than 10 years for the fraud scheme, Lamas said. Prosecutors and his attorney José Paulo Schneider said the music artist cooperated fully in their probe and expressed remorse for his actions. He was released from jail and is awaiting trial.
“This operation, when they got to Alex Ronaldo, was just the tip of the iceberg, but [investigators] didn’t look at the bigger picture,” Schneider says. “There are many artists who use this kind of non-organic reproduction to be able to make their songs go viral — in short, to monetize them.”
Blame Game
The length of Torres de Souza’s potential sentence could come down to who claims they were a victim, which is not so clear, Lamas says.
“There is a lot of confusion,” the prosecutor says. “The composers’ associations, the record companies’ associations and the streaming companies say, ‘We are not victims.’ But who is paying? The streaming companies, who say, ‘We don’t pay them, we pay the distributor’? It’s kind of a blame game.”
Goiânia prosecutors criticized Spotify, saying the company chose not to collaborate. “In this specific case, there was no delivery of platform information,” says prosecutor Gabriella de Queiroz Clementino. “Spotify stated that it had no interest in the criminal investigation.”
A Spotify spokesperson denied that charge. The platform “cooperated fully with the authorities to provide all requested information and certainly did provide an explanation about its processes to detect and mitigate artificial streams,” the spokesperson said, noting that Spotify “continues to be collaborative during this investigation.”
Lamas says prosecutors “are aware of other situations” involving steaming manipulation but would not provide further detail. “For us to effectively combat this, the state needs better collaboration from the companies that receive this data,” he adds.
For music industry officials who see stream-buying happening in Brazilian country music with impunity, new fraud probes couldn’t come soon enough.
“To me, the greatest harm from this [fraudulent stream] activity is that it generates a lack of credibility in the market,” says Marcelo Castello Branco, president of the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC). “There will come a time when even the consumer will not believe these numbers.”
Alexei Barrionuevo is Billboard’s former International Editor.
Tony Bennett’s daughters have expanded their legal battle against their older brother, claiming in a new lawsuit that he has “abused” his power over the late singer’s affairs to “enrich himself.”
Echoing allegations from a separate case they filed last year, Antonia and Johanna Bennett accuse D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett of “improper and unlawful conduct” in his role as trustee of the family estate, both before and after the legendary singer’s 2023 death.
They say the legal action is necessary to “protect their father’s wishes,” which were that all four of his children “be treated equally.”
Trending on Billboard
“Since Tony’s death, Johanna and Antonia have discovered that Danny exercised complete and unchecked control over Tony and his financial affairs prior to and following his death through multiple fiduciary and other roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his own significant financial gain,” attorneys for the Bennett sisters write in the Monday filing.
Among other allegations, Antonia and Johanna say Danny paid himself “excessive and unearned commissions” and gave “substantial loans and gifts to himself and his children” prior to the singer’s death: “Danny engaged in these improper transactions without accountability or oversight of any kind, freely using and controlling Tony’s assets and trust assets often as if they were Danny’s own.”
Antonia and Johanna first sued Danny in a petition filed last summer in the same New York court, but that case sought only to force Danny to open the books for the family trust. The new filing is more of an outright lawsuit, accusing him of various forms of wrongdoing and is seeking monetary damages.
An attorney for Danny did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations Tuesday.
In court filings in the earlier case, Danny’s lawyers have argued that he was “fully authorized to take the steps he took” and that Bennett had “specifically excluded his daughters from ever having any role in such matters after his death.” They also say he has been “fully transparent” about the details of the Iconoclast deal, including providing them with the full agreement and a detailed breakdown of income.
“The undisputed facts establish that Tony provided Danny with authority to manage his affairs and business opportunities, and that Danny did so honestly and in an appropriate manner,” his attorney wrote in a February filing seeking to dismiss the case. “Ironically, Petitioners, despite their baseless complaints, are the beneficiaries of Danny’s hard work and devotion to his father.”
Like the earlier case, Monday’s lawsuit repeatedly references last year’s sale of Bennett’s likeness rights and other intellectual property to the firm Iconoclast. Antonia and Johanna say Danny earned millions from that deal and had “clear conflicts of interest” when he executed it, but has refused to provide them with a clear accounting of the proceeds or other key information about the sale.
“Danny’s explanation for the timing and reasons for the Iconoclast transaction contradict the financial information Danny has provided and fail to establish in any way that the transaction was appropriate, properly valued, free of conflicts of interest and improper self-dealing, and in the best interest of the beneficiaries,” attorneys for the daughters write.
Iconoclast is not accused of any wrongdoing in the lawsuit. The company, which describes itself as “dedicated to preserving and growing the legacy of culturally significant artists,” did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The daughters also claim that Danny mishandled Bennett’s physical property after his death, doing so in a “malicious and retaliatory manner” simply because they had asked for more transparency into the financial affairs.
“Danny prohibited Johanna and Antonia from retaining certain items that are priceless to them, and he kept them from even entering Tony’s apartment to see these items for a prolonged period of time,” their lawyers write. “Danny also discarded items of tremendous sentimental value to Johanna and Antonia without notice.”
While some industry observers looking back on 2024 may see a half-empty cup due to slowing music industry revenue growth, a lackluster stock performance from the publicly traded major music companies and slightly declining valuation multiples in private catalog deals, Shot Tower Capital says it sees the “half-full” side of things.
That’s because Shot Tower, the boutique investment banking firm specializing in music asset transactions, says the sector still enjoys plenty of investor interest, adding that the industry is recession-resistant, as proven over time. As a result, it foresees stable valuation multiples.
Even though fewer music asset transactions closed in 2024 than in any year since 2018, some of the transactions for music assets carried valuations larger than $1 billion resulted in the “highest dollar value year for music M&A transactions in the post-streaming era,” according to Shot Tower’s annual Year in Review and Music Industry Outlook report. In 2024, transactions with an aggregate dollar value in excess of $8 billion have closed, according to the Baltimore-based firm.
Trending on Billboard
Moreover, Shot Tower notes that while some institutional investors like KKR, Vine Alternative Investments and Elliot Management have exited the music asset space, other private equity groups have entered it or increased their investments in the sector, including Hellman & Friedman, which bought a majority stake in Global Music Rights; New Mountain Capital, which acquired BMI; and Flexpoint Ford, which launched
in the music space with an investment in Nettwerk Music Group in March 2023 and has since invested in Create Music Group, Goldstate Music and Duetti.
Finally, while interest rates now offer competitive returns on music assets, thus negating somewhat the attractiveness of some music assets while making potential deals more expensive to finance, that has been offset by the breakout of asset-backed securitization, which allows buyers to finance deals at rates more favorable than rates offered by bank lenders.
During the last 18 months, Shot Tower has been either the financial advisor or sell-side advisor in transactions that included the sale of 50% of Michael Jackson music assets to Sony Music Group; the sale of a majority interest in Mavin Records to Universal Music Group; and the sale of the Hipgnosis Songs Fund to Blackstone. And those are just the publicly disclosed deals; the company declines to say how many deals it participated in last year.
Shot Tower compiled data on some 25 publicly known and privately sold music asset transactions during 2024, including deals it advised on and other deals it was aware of, even if it wasn’t a participant. From that, it reports that typical music publishing multiples averaged 16.1 times net publisher share (NPS) in 2024 versus 16.7 times in 2023.
However, if iconic transactions — assets with valuations over $200 million — are included, then average multiples are larger but nevertheless also declined from 2023’s 18.4 times NPS to 17.5 times NPS in 2024.
(How are multiples figured? If a song catalog collects $25 million in revenue and, after paying out royalties of $15 million, leaves $10 million in net publisher share, or NPS; and if that catalog is then sold for $200 million, that means the transaction carried a 20 times NPS multiple.)
Recorded music multiples also declined last year. Net label share (NLS) fell to a 13 times multiple for music asset transactions — excluding deals of iconic assets — from the prior year’s 13.8 times NLS multiple. If iconic transactions are included, then the average multiple in 2024 was 14.2 times NLS versus 15.2 times NLS in 2023.
Looking at multiples over time, Shot Tower says that the peak year for average music publishing multiples was 2021, when 19.4 times, including iconic transactions, was the average multiple; while the peak year for recorded music transitions was 2022, when the average multiple for deals including iconic catalogs was 16.3 times. NLS generally trails NPS, but overall, the window between the two multiples is narrowing slightly.
In most years between 2014 and 2022, the multiple spread between music publishing and recorded music catalogs was bigger by a factor of 4 in favor of NPS. For example, in 2014, NPS averaged a 12.5 times multiple while NLS averaged an 8.5 times multiple. But in the last two years, that window has narrowed to a factor of three, with last year’s NPS coming in at 16.1 versus NLS at 13.0; while in 2023, NPS averaged a 16.7 times multiple while NLS averaged a 13.8 times multiple.
Shot Tower attributes the valuation gap between recorded music and music publishing to a number of factors. For one, marketing costs to exploit recorded music are much higher. Music publishing also has more diversified income streams than recorded music. Additionally, music publishing growth slightly exceeds recorded music growth, according to Shot Tower’s analysis.
Looking forward, Shot Tower says it expects music publishing valuation multiples to decline slightly to about a 15.1 times multiple in 2028 from 2024’s 16.1 times average multiple, while it expects recorded music average multiples for valuations will decline to an average of a 12 times multiple from 2024’s average of a 13 times multiple.
One of the reasons Shot Tower thinks institutional investors will remain interested in investing in music assets is because of the increasingly popular use of asset-backed securitization (ABS) to finance deals due to “stable royalty income streams.” According to Shot Tower’s analysis, a buyer using asset-backed securitization can pay about 10% higher than a bank-financed buyer while achieving the same equity return. ABS deals also allow for a greater ratio of debt to equity (up to 65% leverage) than deals financed using bank financing (55% leverage).
Consequently, “this represents a meaningful offset to rising interest rates,” the report notes.
Latin music continued its extraordinary rise in the U.S. in 2024, hitting a record-breaking $1.4 billion in revenue, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Adjusted for inflation, this milestone represents an 18% increase over the genre’s previous peak in 2005 and marks the third consecutive year surpassing $1 billion.
Streaming remained the lifeblood of Latin music’s success, accounting for a staggering 98% of total revenue in 2024. Paid subscription services contributed more than two-thirds of those earnings, growing 6% year-over-year to $967 million. Meanwhile, ad-supported on-demand streaming platforms like YouTube, Vevo and the free tier of Spotify amassed $354 million, nearly 25% of the genre’s total value — an outsized share compared to the overall market’s 10% in this area, according to the annual report.
“I’m heartened by the continued explosive popularity of Latin music across the U.S. as artists and labels forge new ways to connect with fans,” says Rafael Fernandez Jr., RIAA’s svp of state public policy & Latin music, in a press release. “With streaming delivering 98% of Latin revenues, we can see how the Latin music community’s embrace of innovation lets traditional stars and new generations reach fans like never before — breaking language and access barriers to more boldly shape America’s music future every year.”
Trending on Billboard
Powering this dominance is a lineup of global superstars driving engagement across platforms. According to Billboard’s year-end Top Latin Artists chart of 2024, Bad Bunny claimed the No. 1 spot for a sixth consecutive year. Meanwhile, Fuerza Regida surged to second place following a string of album and EP releases that resonated with fans across the U.S. Karol G held her own as the only female in the top 10, at No. 4, while Peso Pluma came in at No. 3 — artists who are blazing new trails and cementing Latin music’s cultural and commercial growth.
Courtesy Photo
While streaming dominates, physical formats also experienced a surprising resurgence, with revenues up 35% from 2022. Despite still accounting for only 1% of overall U.S. Latin music income, this trend indicates opportunities to cater to collectors and superfans through vinyl and other tangible releases.
“There are still more opportunities to push the bounds of innovation, engaging superfans, expanding paid streaming and introducing vinyl nostalgia to this specific market,” adds Matthew Bass, RIAA’s vp of research and gold & platinum operations, in a press release. “After nearly a decade rising and rising again, Latin music keeps surging across the US and is only getting started!”
According to IFPI’s recent Global Music Report, Latin America has experienced a 15-year growth streak, becoming one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. For the first time, Mexico has entered the top 10 global music markets, overtaking Australia for the No. 10 spot. Meanwhile, Brazil holds steady at No. 9, making 2024 the first year that two Latin American countries have appeared in IFPI’s top 10 rankings, which are based on recorded music revenue.
Courtesy Photo