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During the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) annual meeting on Wednesday (June 12), the trade organization said it had calculated total U.S. publishing revenue at $6.2 billion in 2023, up 10.74% from the previous year.
The event, held at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, is thought of as a state of the union for the U.S. music publishing business. During the presentation, it’s also common for NMPA president/CEO David Israelite to announce major actions it’s taking against tech companies on behalf of publishers. This year, he targeted Spotify, sending an official complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as letters to the attorneys general of nine states and a list of consumer groups — urging them to stop Spotify’s efforts to bundle music and audiobooks into its premium tiers. It’s the first time the NMPA has involved the FTC in its fight with a tech company.
For publishers and songwriters, Spotify’s decision to include audiobooks in its premium tiers and categorize those tiers as “bundles” — a type of plan that qualifies for a discounted rate on U.S. mechanical royalties given that multiple products are offered under one price tag — means a lower royalty rate for music given that both music and audiobooks must now be paid out from the same royalty pool. In May, the NMPA launched its war with Spotify by sending a cease and desist letter to the streamer for allegedly hosting lyrics, music videos and podcast content that contain their members’ copyrighted musical works without proper licenses.
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In Wednesday’s FTC complaint, the NMPA says Spotify “has deceived consumers by converting millions of its subscribers without their consent from music-only subscriptions into ‘bundled’ audiobook-and-music subscriptions, publicly announcing increased prices for those subscriptions, failing to offer an option for subscribers to revert to a music-only subscription, and thwarting attempts to cancel through dark patterns and confusing website interfaces.” (For more on this, check out Billboard‘s full coverage of the FTC complaint here.)
Aside from Israelite’s big announcement, the event also honored top songwriters for their contributions to the music business — including an opening tribute to songwriter and outgoing NMPA board member Ross Golan. The NMPA also issued awards to Lana Del Rey, this year’s Songwriter Icon recipient, and Savan Kotecha, winner of the Non-Performing Songwriter Icon award. Elsewhere, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was honored with NMPA’s Iconic Song award, featuring a performance of the song by Ingrid Michaelson.
The event additionally featured fireside chats with Robert Kyncl, CEO of Warner Music Group, and Shira Perlmutter, register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
NMPA’s annual meeting comes amidst a busy year in the music publishing business. At the start of 2024, the MLC, which collects and distributes U.S. mechanicals, began its first-ever redesignation process — a routine five-year review of its operations to determine if any changes need to be made to the organization.
The same month, UMG pulled its music catalog from TikTok, including its publishing interests, alleging that the short-form app did not pay the “fair value” of music while also raising concerns regarding AI and artist safety. The NMPA showed its support for UMG regarding the move and even joined the music giant by letting the NMPA’s model license with TikTok, used by a number of indie publishers, lapse at the end of April. (UMG and TikTok eventually made a deal.)
The National Music Publishers’ Association’s (NMPA) war with Spotify continued at its annual meeting held Wednesday (June 12) at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
In an address to the publishing executives in attendance, NMPA CEO/president David Israelite announced that the organization has filed an official complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and sent letters to the attorneys general for nine states as well as consumer trade groups to try to stop Spotify from reclassifying its premium tiers as “bundles” — a classification that allows the streamer to pay a lower mechanical royalty rate in the United States.
The NMPA alleges that Spotify has violated the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (“ROSCA”), section 5 of the FTC Act and various consumer protection laws. Spotify has not returned Billboard’s request for comment.
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As Billboard previously reported, publishers anticipate a $150 million loss in U.S. mechanicals in the first year of the bundling reclassification compared to what publishers would have been paid had it never happened. The decreased payments began in March with no prior warning, according to the NMPA and the Mechanical Licensing Collective (the MLC). Spotify, however, believes it is playing by the book in making the change to how it pays out U.S. mechanical royalties given that it has “bundled” audiobooks in with the other offerings included in the streamer’s premium plans.
“Spotify has declared war on songwriters,” said Israelite at Wednesday’s meeting. “Our response shall be all-encompassing.” Israelite noted that the NMPA (as well as the MLC) has taken multiple actions to stop Spotify’s bundling reclassification already. The organization’s all-out retaliation began with statements made against the company in March, followed in May by a cease and desist letter in which the NMPA threatened to file a lawsuit against Spotify for allegedly using music and lyrics in some of its podcasts and videos without permission. (Spotify called the move a “press stunt” by the NMPA).
“Our letter was not just a warning shot, and the NMPA has never lost a lawsuit. So you’ll want to stay tuned,” Israelite added on Wednesday.
Only days after the NMPA threatened legal action, the MLC filed a lawsuit against Spotify for “improperly” reclassifying its premium tiers as bundles.
The following week, the NMPA sent a letter to the Judiciary Committees in both the U.S. House and Senate asking for an overhaul of the statutory license in section 115 of the Copyright Act, which binds publishers to strict regulations and rules over what they can charge streaming services for U.S. mechanicals.
In the NMPA’s letter to the FTC, obtained by Billboard, general counsel Danielle Aguirre wrote: “The [NMPA] writes to urge the FTC to address unlawful conduct by Spotify that is harming millions of consumers and the music marketplace… Spotify has deceived consumers by converting millions of its subscribers without their consent from music-only subscriptions into ‘bundled’ audiobook-and-music subscriptions, publicly announcing increased prices for those subscriptions, failing to offer an option for subscribers to revert to a music-only subscription, and thwarting attempts to cancel through dark patterns and confusing website interfaces. This bait-and-switch subscription scheme is “saddling shoppers with recurring payments for products and services they did not intend to purchase or did not want to continue to purchase.”
Aguirre continued, “Indeed, it has all the red flags of problematic negative-option practices that the FTC has consistently warned companies about: (1) Spotify has failed to give consumers all material information about its subscription plans up front; (2) Spotify has billed consumers without their informed consent; and (3) Spotify has made it hard for consumers to cancel.”
Other letters of complaint were also sent to the attorneys general for nine states, including California, New York, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington, D.C. In the NMPA’s letter to both the New York bureau chief of the consumer frauds and protection bureau as well as the state’s assistant attorney general, obtained by Billboard, Aguirre wrote: “We urge your office to investigate and address Spotify’s conduct as well.”
Letters were also sent to consumer groups including the National Consumers’ League, the Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen Consumer Action and the National Consumer Wealth Center in hopes of sparking a class action lawsuit.
The NMPA’s recent moves are being supported by representatives Ted Lieu (D-CA), Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) via a letter sent Wednesday to Shira Perlmutter, register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
In the letter, the three representatives wrote: “As members of the Judiciary Committee, which originated the Music Modernization Act, we want to see the law faithfully implemented and copyright owners protected from harm arising from bad faith exploitation of the compulsory system. Digital service providers should not be permitted to manipulate statutory rates to slash royalties, deeply undercutting copyright protections for songwriters and publishers. A fair system should prevent any big tech company from setting their own price for someone else’s intellectual property, whether the owner wants to sell or not.”
Each year, the NMPA is known for announcing major breaking news at its annual meeting — typically against tech companies that, in its view, are not properly paying for songs. Last year, Israelite announced a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, which is still in progress. In previous years, the NMPA has gone after Twitch, Peloton, Roblox and more.
“We will see what the Federal Court in the Southern District of NY, the United States Congress, the Copyright Office, the Copyright Royalty Board, the FTC, multiple State Attorneys General and consumer advocacy groups have to say,” Israelite told the crowd on Wednesday. “Most importantly, we will see what the songwriters and music publishers who make the product that allows Spotify to exist have to say.”
Billboard’s peer-voted R&B/Hip Hop Power Players’ Choice Award is back for 2024 — and we’re asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across R&B and hip-hop in the past year. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote […]
Jelly Roll is undoubtedly on a hot streak. After toiling on the edges of the industry for nearly a decade, his career has gone supernova over the past year thanks to his singles “Son of a Sinner,” “Need a Favor” and “Save Me,” the latter of which earned him a Grammy nomination. He rolled across the United States on his 44-city Backroad Baptism Tour in 2023, has played a string of festivals this year and is slated to hit a few more this summer, along with hopping on shows with Morgan Wallen and headlining this fall’s Beautifully Broken tour with Warren Zeiders and Alexandra Kay.
But if you look at Jelly’s road history one thing you’ll notice is that his gigs have kept him within the lower 48, a situation he explained while talking to Jon Bon Jovi for Interview Magazine earlier this year. During the chat, the 39-year-old singer born Jason DeFord noted that his felonious past has kept him grounded when it comes to playing gigs overseas.
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“It’s funny, America has finally agreed to let me leave and give me a passport, but some countries won’t let me come because of my felonies,” he told Bon Jovi. “We’re working on that. I think it’s going to work in my favor.” Then, on Howard Stern‘s SiriusXM show Wednesday morning (June 12) after the host asked if Jelly’s past misdeeds are still keeping him grounded, the singer said, “I actually got off the phone with a lawyer yesterday, We are working… it’s getting good, it’s starting to look promising. It didn’t look good even just six months ago, but it’s starting to look really promising.”
Jelly Roll has spoken openly about his past scuffles with the law and his jail time, including dozens of stints behind bars on drug charges going back to when he was 14, as well as an arrest at 16 for aggravated robbery that landed him a year in prison when he was tried as an adult; he had been facing a potential 20-year sentence in the case, though he served just over a year behind bars and seven years of probation. He’s also talked about the time in 2008 when, at 23, he was locked up on drug dealing charges when his daughter Bailee was born. Among the repercussions are an inability, until recently, to secure a passport, as well as an inability to vote, volunteer at most nonprofits or own a firearm.
So what’s still keeping him from getting his first passport stamp? Billboard spoke to several prominent European immigration lawyers to find out what the hang-up is and whether Jelly might be able to rock stages overseas in the near future. (The experts agreed to speak in general terms about immigration laws in their country, but had no first-hand knowledge of Jelly Roll’s case.)
First, the good news.
According to the rules about entrance to the 26 European countries that allow unrestricted travel within their borders — collectively known as the Schengen Area, which includes Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden, among others — non-EU nationals can be denied entry if they are considered a “threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the international relations of any EU or Schengen country.”
A prominent Italian immigration lawyer who requested anonymity tells Billboard that once you legally enter a country in the Schengen region, you are free to travel among the countries with a valid passport, as long as you are not listed on INTERPOL’s list of restricted individuals. The region does have a list of serious criminal offenses over the previous decade — or 20 years in the case of terror offenses — that an applicant for entry must report before visiting. The list of barring offenses includes terrorism, human trafficking, child pornography, drug/weapon trafficking, fraud, money laundering, environmental crimes, murder, racketeering, arson and nuclear material trafficking.
Based on that list, Jelly Roll’s priors do not appear to rise to the level that would bar him from visiting the Schengen countries. The attorney noted, however, that those rules are slated to change in 2025 when non-EU nationals who don’t need a visa to travel to the Schengen area — a list that includes U.S. citizens — will have to apply for travel authorization through the ETIAS travel portal for short-term (90-180 day) stays; at present, if you have a valid passport and don’t plan to stay for more than three months a visa is not required to enter the region.
At press time, a spokesperson for Jelly Roll had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on the status of Jelly’s overseas touring plans.
The bad news, according to Matthew James of leading U.K. immigration law firm Bates Wells, is that the United Kingdom has what are called “General Grounds For Refusal” laws that look at whether an individual has previously overstayed their visa in the country as well as a past history of criminality. What gets captured under that rather broad umbrella are mandatory and discretionary grounds for refusal, which James says are somewhat “opaque.”
“If you’ve received a custodial sentence of more than 12 months, that should be a bar to entering the U.K., so there’s absolutely no chance of you coming in if you’ve done 12 months of jail time,” he says, noting that if you’ve done less than 12 months but are a “persistent offender” with multiple drug offenses you can be refused as a “persistent” offender; you can also be refused if the offense has caused serious harm.
However, for artists looking to visit for less than six months to stage a series of performances, there is an added wrinkle that if they’ve received a conviction within 12 months of their visit, their application will also be refused, which should not apply to Jelly Roll since his convictions occurred more than 20 years ago.
The U.K.’s secretary of state could also decide that an individual’s presence in the nation is “not conducive to the public good” because of their character or other reasons, with James pointing to Tyler, the Creator announcing that his lyrical content had gotten him banned from entering the United Kingdom for 3 to 5 years due to his then-violent and misogynistic lyrics. At the time, the Home Office issued a statement reading, “Coming to the U.K. is a privilege, and we expect those who come here to respect our shared values. The Home Secretary has the power to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the U.K. is not conducive to the public good or if their exclusion is justified on public policy grounds.” Tyler has subsequently been invited to the nation with no incident.
Snoop Dogg has talked about how the late Queen Elizabeth II helped him avoid getting booted from England in 1994 when he was facing first- and second-degree murder charges for which he was later acquitted. Ja Rule said he was “devastated” when his planned 2024 U.K. tour was canceled after he was denied entry due to his criminal record on gun possession and tax evasion.
James says that, in general, American visitors — especially those coming for permitted paid engagements — can enter the United Kingdom for what are called “permit-free” festivals, such as Glastonbury, without applying for a visa. In a testament to money talking, he added that the ultimate discretion lies with the secretary of state. “If you are a Snoop Dogg and you are about to sell out Wembley Stadium for three nights and it’s going to make a huge amount of money for the U.K. economy and he’s done loads of great work rehabilitating other people and people learning from his errors and never caused another issue since in 20-plus years,” says James, you could likely talk to someone more senior in the government and get some leeway on the rules, which, he notes, are mainly intended to bar known criminals from living in the country.
That said, those who have committed particularly heinous crimes face a different standard. R. Kelly — who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence on child sex abuse convictions — is unlikely to ever be allowed to perform in the United Kingdom again following his release.
Jelly Roll has talked extensively about the work he’s done talking to youth about his law-breaking days and visiting facilities to share his story, including donating a recording studio to the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center, where he was incarcerated as a teen, in 2023.
James says that given that Jelly Roll’s arrests and incarcerations occurred mostly when he was young, that he’s clearly worked on rehabilitating himself and that he’s on the upswing of his career, it’s always possible that “overarching discretion” could come into play. This allows officials not to apply the rules in the strictest manner, particularly if an artist’s concerts will bring significant revenue to the United Kingdom and the person is not a perceived risk. “They will fly in on their private plane and play their set at Wembley and then leave,” he says. “They would have to show remorse and a redeemed character and the benefits to society they are bringing and the economic advantages they’re bringing.”
Drake’s production company is facing a lawsuit from the apparel brand Members Only for allegedly selling tour merch that infringed the company’s trademarks.
The case, filed Tuesday (June 12) in New York federal court, claims that Drake’s company (Away From Home Touring Inc.) has been selling t-shirts, including on his recently-wrapped It’s All a Blur Tour, that are emblazoned with the words “Members Only.”
To be clear, the lawsuit doesn’t claim Drake is selling counterfeit Members Only jackets — the iconic 1980s fad the company made famous. Drake’s shirts feature that phrase (written in large script across the front) simply because it’s the name of a track on his 2023 album For All the Dogs.
But in its complaint filed in federal court, the current owner of the Members Only brand (JR Apparel World LLC) says it doesn’t matter why Drake’s company opted to put their name on a shirt — only that he did so.
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“The fact that ‘Members Only’ is a song on Drake’s album ‘For All the Dogs’ does not obviate the likelihood of confusion or give [him] a license to use our client’s ‘Members Only’ marks in such a confusing manner, particularly on or in connection with apparel items,” the company’s lawyers write.
Calling “Members Only” a “famous household name,” the lawsuit claims that Drake’s shirts are going to confuse fans into thinking the real Members Only brand is somehow involved: “Away From Home’s use of ‘Members Only’ … is likely to cause confusion, mistake, and deception among consumers as to the origin of Away From Home’s infringing T-shirts.”
Under U.S. trademark law, the context of how a brand name is used is crucial. Two companies can use the exact same name for different products and peacefully co-exist — think Delta Airlines and Delta Faucet, or Dove soap and Dove chocolate. But when used on the same types of products, a similar name can become trademark infringement.
In Drake’s case, his use of the “Members Only” name as a song title almost certainly would not have infringed JR Apparel World rights — both because they’re different products and because the First Amendment gives added protection to use trademarks in creative works like songs. But by using that same name on apparel, the lawsuit says, the legal calculus has changed.
“Away From Home sold … goods bearing the mark ‘Members Only’ that are identical, overlapping, and/or highly similar to the goods that JR Apparel sells bearing its MEMBERS ONLY Marks,” the company’s attorneys write.
A rep for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment.
When deadmau5 got the masters of four of his biggest albums back from Ultra Records last June, his team had a plan to capitalize on the newly acquired intellectual property.
The first move was the release of a remix of the 2009 deadmau5 and Kaskade classic “I Remember” by current house phenom John Summit. After that dropped last July, the entire deadmau5 catalog saw a 45% streaming bump, the producer’s team reports. Additional remixes from these albums followed, wiht each LP subsequently seeing a 48% to 82% streaming increase. Vinyl reissues of the albums sold 25,000 units.
“All for albums that are over ten years old,” says deadmau5’s longtime manager Dean Wilson.
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With The Circuit Group — the company launched last year by Wilson and his wife/business partner Jessica Wilson along with Brett Fischer, David Gray and Harvey Tadman — the mission is to create this type of increasingly valuable IP for electronic artists at all levels, and in so doing help them create and maintain independence.
Upon launching last October, the company – which brought together members of management companies Seven20 and Ayita — outlined plans to acquire 50% ownership in artists’ IP portfolios and partner with them to build opportunities across verticals while also offering traditional artist management.
Now, The Circuit Group — which has offices in L.A., the United Kingdom and Miami — is expanding as it works to fulfill that mission, announcing seven key hires on Wednesday (June 12). They include James Sutcliffe, who joins as chief strategy officer, bringing years of leadership experience at companies including Ministry of Sound and LIVENow; and Simon Birkumshaw was hired as director of operations of label services, having formerly served in A&R roles at companies including LabelWorx and Defected Records.
Elsewhere, Ian Massoth, who helped launch projects including Chris Lake’s Black Book Records and Fisher’s Catch & Release label and event concept, joins as director of A&R of label services. Shivani Phull is the company’s new CFO advisor, Bianca Price joins as social media manager, Nick Sung is the new director of marketing and Charlie Tadman was hired as director of A&R. Together, the group of new hires have served in roles at companies including PIXELYNX, Spotify, various Insomniac Events properties and a variety of high-profile artist projects.
The company’s artist roster currently features more than 40 acts, including original clients like Chris Lake and Fisher, whose collaborative project, Under Construction, drew 12,000 people to a party on Hollywood Boulevard last October. (Dean Wilson says such events “are all done independently” under The Circuit Group umbrella in conjunction with various partners.)
Recently signed clients include longstanding electronic singer/producer Anabel Englund, ascending electronic act Clonee, and producer and vocalist Aluna, who will work with The Circuit Group to grow the events side of her Noir Fever label. While artists work with the company in varying capacities across publishing, management and development, Jessica Wilson says the focus is “all driven to the IP at the end of the day.”
“It’s finding and building opportunities outside the core business of making a record then putting a pair of headphones on and some USB sticks in and playing to fans,” adds Dean Wilson. “What we’re trying to show with The Circuit Group is that we can help artists grow their business better than anybody else, from the label, to publishing, merchandise business, tech ventures, touring IP and so on.”
The Wilsons say it’s especially crucial for artists to identify such business opportunities given how low, and volatile, streaming rates are.
“Even if they’re in a current deal or not, all of these artists want to get involved in building their own indie brand,” says Jessica Wilson. “They don’t want to be a so-and-so label artist. They want to be synonymous with their own label, and we’ve put the right people in the right places to help artists build their own brands, make their own output and do it as they want to do it.”
Below, Dean and Jessica Wilson talk to Billboard about expanding the company, creating independence for artists and electronic music’s growing value in the marketplace.
So an emerging artist signs with the company, then what happens?
Dean: It’s building a plan. In dance, you can be making records at home, then all the sudden one of them starts to get traction and suddenly they’ve got an agent and shows and are making real money.
We’ve all been there in this company, and we all made the decisions that, at that point, we were told to make, which was that you signed to a record label, got an agent and signed publishing. Those label and publishing deals paid you some money, so you’re selling your rights at that point. No one’s thinking 10 or 15 years down the road. They’re thinking, “I’m broke right now, so I need to do these deals.” And the manager, who’s also often a friend of the artist, is broke too, so he or she is happy to do the deals.
That’s not bad. We’ve all done those deals. What we want to impart is our knowledge of, “You don’t need to do those without the right infrastructure and the right team. You can do all of that and hang on and control your rights.”
How?
Dean: The first step is sitting down and planning with each artist what they want to do and showing them how we did things for [a variety] of artists. Each artist has a different brand and a slightly different mindset and might not want to do something a certain way. It’s about how far down the road you can look and work your way back from. That’s hard to do without a team infrastructure and people who’ve been there before who can help and advise, because otherwise you’re going to continue doing those short-term things that you have to do to pay the bills.
Jessica: We’re geared up and ready to go. We have a distribution deal we’ve put in place. We’ve got a beautiful backend for rights that is going to make it easy for every label to plug into and automatically get everything uploaded… The excitement for us right now is that we’ve hired all of these key people to actually make it work. You’ve got deadmau5 bringing in great talent, you’ve got Chris [Lake] bringing in great talent. You’ve got people attracted to Fisher and Cloonee. All these people want to come and work with us, and we’re giving them a direct output line to go and do this themselves instead of helping to rely on a major.
How fundamental has deadmau5’s career as an independent artist been as a model for what you’re doing with The Circuit Group?
Dean: We’ve learned from the stuff that hasn’t worked more so than the stuff that did. He was the first electronic act to ever do a 360 deal when he was with EMI/Virgin. It was a complete and utter f—ing disaster. I put this beautiful business plan together and showed it to them, and within the first couple of months I’d gone, “Oh my god. They don’t get it.”
I remember talking to the chairwoman at the time and saying, “If we own the business together and we owned an ice cream shop and were 50/50 partners, and I had six people working full time and you had no one working full time, do you think that would be an equal partnership that would work?” She said no, and I said, “Well that’s how you’re behaving. You’ve done a deal for all the rights, but all you talk about is when the next record is coming.” It was that dawn of that moment of “Okay, we’ve got to work out how to do this independently.”
In terms of intellectual property, are there opportunities that are unique to electronic music?
Dean: In electronic music we’re really lucky because we do remixes and stem packs and remix competitions. And you can move quickly because it’s not like pop or country where there’s 20 writers on a record. And [The Circuit Group] can do all of these things because we’re in control of it all.
So you can jumpstart pre-existing material with strategic moments like John Summit’s “I Remember” remix?
Dean: It’s exactly that. That’s the opportunity in dance. We’re still a baby genre when it comes to real business. Yes, dance has been around since the early ‘90s, but it wasn’t a real business. It’s really only been 10 or 15 years that it’s been a multibillion-dollar business.
So now you have all this material that’s now 15 or 20 years old. Look at how many “Sandstorm” remixes you’ve heard. It’s still as big now as it was when it first came out, maybe even bigger. Those classic dance records just keep getting remade and resampled, and they live on forever and actually keep making more money. So, you’re creating more value and more IP on top of the original. The material has two value streams that we in the dance world can really only do at the speed that we do it, because of the way it’s made.
How do you see The Circuit Group continuing to grow?
Dean: It’s important to make it clear that we’re not trying to grow a massive management company, we’re trying to grow a business that is IP-centric and that supplies all the services as a flywheel around it. We don’t want 100 acts. We’re not trying to build Red Light. We want to get it right with the people we’re invested in and who we can see growing into the next Chris Lake or the next Fisher.
Jessica: Or the next Aluna. And to reiterate what Dean said, scaling management is not an easy task and not something we want to do in that regard. We are laser-focused on IP and on building those brands.
Around the time that ChatGPT was first released to the public, Alex Bestall, CEO of Rightsify, a music production library, discovered that he was sitting on a new, lucrative business opportunity. “I realized all the songs and all the metadata we have around the songs had a lot of value for AI,” he says. “It was a pretty quick and easy choice for us to license our library out.”
Hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of songs or other musical content are needed to train a competitive AI model to generate music. Though a number of AI companies believe they don’t need to pay for the music that their models train on, citing “fair use,” others have taken a more musician-friendly approach by paying artists and rights holders when using their music to train AI models.
On the surface, the AI industry seems like a perfect new customer for music production libraries — affordable, pre-cleared catalogs of songs in a variety of styles. Historically, production music has been popular among advertisers, social media creators, podcasters and low-budget film and TV producers who need music to soundtrack their creations but lack the time or money to license big-name hits, which often have multiple rights holders and hefty fees. As use cases for production music have grown, so has that sector of the publishing business. As of 2022, MIDiA Research says production music is worth about $1 billion across recorded music and publishing combined.
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While many artists’ rights advocates consider licensing songs to be the “ethical” way to train an AI music model, it still poses a legitimate threat to the existing music business: “Once the [licensing transaction] is made, that model is going to end up totally competing with you for the same customers,” says Antony Demekin, CEO of Tuney, an AI music company that makes songs intended for social media creators and podcasters. “Over time this could degrade your whole business if you’re not careful about the deal you make.”
No standard contract exists for the licensing of production music for AI training. Despite the long-term risks, Bestall says he has licensed his back catalog to multiple AI companies. (Non-disclosure agreements prevent him from revealing which ones.) “Usually we license our back catalog and then we have an ongoing commitment to deliver a certain amount of music over the next two or three years of the agreement,” he says.
In the short term, these new deals between music production libraries and AI companies have actually created jobs for more human musicians. Given his new customers’ desire for more music during their deal terms, Bestall now has 24 full-time musicians — and almost 100 contractors — employed to make more music and grow Rightsify’s library, which already has over 1 million copyrights.
Lee Johnson, CEO and founder of production library Audiosparx, says AI has also allowed him to grow his business. Audiosparx is best known for licensing its catalog to train Stability AI’s Stable Audio model beginning in 2023, and Johnson says he received permission from the musicians represented in his catalog before he agreed to license their music to the AI company. Audiosparx acts as the licensor for production musicians, but unlike Bestall’s library, it does not acquire the songs in its catalog outright. “We took the deal to our artist community and about 90% of the artists opted into it,” he says. “About 10% decided to stay out of it. It was encouraging to see that much uptake because a lot of people are very passionately against [AI]. … We just felt it made more sense to have a seat on the train and ride the train to the future, rather than getting run over by [it].”
Bestall and Johnson say that, so far, partnering with AI companies has not yet affected their other business. Bestall, however, remains sober about the changes that may occur in the next few years. “I know it’s a threat to our existing business lines, but a huge opportunity for the future,” he says. “I think if people are too married to the exact business model of the past, they may struggle.” Johnson, who has pivoted Audiosparx’s business multiple times over its 20-year existence, expresses a similar view about being open to change.
Not everyone agrees. “I think this is short-term money for a long-term loss,” says Henry Phipps, an emerging film composer who previously held a full-time job writing songs for a production library. After surveying the future of AI music, he left his post to try working for an AI music start-up. Now, he’s back writing for libraries and working toward his dream of being a film/TV composer. (Phipps spoke to Billboard under the condition that his former employers’ names would be kept private.) “But you can’t blame anyone for taking the opportunity to include their music in these datasets because you’d be missing out on a short-term paycheck, and everyone else would go ahead,” he says. “It’s kind of futile to try to stop the tide. Someone will always take the deal.”
To Phipps, the way production music is made is already similar to the way AI music is prompted. “I get a brief, which feels like a prompt,” he says. “Recently, one of those prompts was for reality TV with a bunch of adjectives, and then my job is to return a piece of music. It already feels like machine work in a way.”
While “very few people aspire to be production library composers long-term,” Phipps explains, “it is a way into [the music business] — to survive, eat and pay rent and work towards projects that are more creatively fulfilling.” Phipps says working at an AI music start-up made him “more nervous” for his future opportunities as a composer for film and TV. As he sees it, AI music could augment, but not entirely replace, the compositions of blockbuster film scorers — but it might “cut off the bottom rungs of the ladder” by decreasing opportunities for young upstarts like him.
Ed Newton-Rex, former vp of audio for Stability AI and founder of non-profit Fairly Trained, which certifies AI music companies that properly license their training data, advises that “if a library wants to take a deal like this, the terms should be very well thought through.”
Particular areas of concern Newton-Rex identifies include making sure that once a deal term ends, the AI model that used it will be retired or re-trained without the library’s material. “There’s no current way to just untrain a model, but you can add clauses to control what happens after the license is over,” he says. Newton-Rex also advises libraries to be careful about licensing their data to an “open-source model” — a move he calls “totally irreversible” because it makes the model available for public use.
Still, Newton-Rex admits there is “absolutely” still risk ahead. “Musicians making production music are hugely at risk,” he says. “Ultimately, generative AI is faster, cheaper and the quality is already very good.”
Just in case, Bestall is covering his bases by launching his own AI model, Hydra II, to generate royalty-free background music for cafes, hotel lobbies and other public spaces, should his customers ever prefer AI music to his current repertoire of background library music. Still, he feels his library will always be essential: “We’re not too concerned about the possibility of AI companies saying they don’t need production music anymore. Human data is so valuable for AI.”
Just hours after convicted “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli was sued over claims that he illegally copied and distributed Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, a federal judge has ordered him to appear in court and to immediately stop “causing further damage.”
In a ruling late Tuesday, Judge Pamela Chen issued a temporary restraining order against the disgraced pharma executive, siding with arguments from PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the album in 2021 after Shkreli was forced to forfeit it as part of his criminal case.
“Plaintiff will suffer immediate and irreparable injury—namely, erosion of the Album’s uniqueness as an original work of art,” the judge wrote. She also ordered Shkreli to appear in court later this month and said she might force him to turn over digital records and account for any ill-gotten profits.
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And Judge Chen explicitly threatened Shkreli with criminal penalties if he flouts her order: “Defendant is warned that any act by him in violation of any of the terms of this order, after actual notice of this order to defendant, may be considered and prosecuted as contempt of this court.”
The quick restraining order came less than a day after PleasrDAO sued Shkreli over the leak of the album, accusing him of violating both their purchase agreement and the federal forfeiture order that required him to hand it over. They also accused him of violating federal trade secrets law, which protect valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
“The album was supposed to constitute the sole existing copy of the record, music, data and files, and packaging,” the group’s attorneys wrote earlier on Tuesday. “It now appears, however, that Shkreli improperly retained copies of the data and files at the time of the forfeiture and has released and/or intends to release them to the public.”
In an X post on Tuesday, Shkreli said: “these super nerds are suing me 🤣🤣🤣🤣 the least crypto ethos, whitest, least culturally relevant dorks good luck!” In later posts, he called the lawsuit “frivolous” and also re-shared an X post in which another user suggested the lawsuit would fail: “Even if they win, doesn’t Shkreli just anonymously leak the album online out of spite?”
Shkreli did not immediately return a request for additional comment.
Wu-Tang’s legendary Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. Though the group intended the bizarre trappings as a protest against the commodification of music, Shaolin later became the ultimate commodity. In 2015, Shkreli – already infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction in 2015 for $2 million.
The deal came with an unusual stipulation: that the album could not be duplicated or otherwise released to the general public in any form until 2103, or 88 years after the initial purchase. According to court documents, the deal did permit for the album to be played for private listening events in “spaces not customarily used as venues for large musical concerts.”
In 2017, Shkreli was found guilty on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. After he was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to repay $7.4 million, the federal judge overseeing the case ordered him to hand over Shaolin to help pay the restitution.
PleasrDAO says it bought the album from federal prosecutors in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for $750,000. Last month, the group said it would hold private listening events at an Australian museum, where fans would be able to “experience” certain songs from the album.
But in Tuesday’s lawsuit, PleasrDAO said that Shkreli had unlawfully retained copies of Wu-Tang’s music, and had recently begun threatening to release them to the public.
In April posts on X, he allegedly said “LOL i have the mp3s you moron” and “i can just upload the mp3s if you want?” In May, he allegedly posted an image of a PleasrDAO webpage in which the group said the album would not be available until 2103 and said “look out for a torrent im sick of this shit” – a reference to a method of internet filesharing. On Sunday (June 9), the group says he “played music from the album publicly” over the internet to nearly 5000 listeners.
In their filings, the group argued that the release of the album would cause “incalculable monetary loss,” since the value of the album was based on the “uniqueness” of the single copy: The Album’s potential resale value and the profits that PleasrDAO may earn from playing or exhibiting the music will diminish as the data and files become more widely available.”
In her restraining order later on Tuesday, Judge Chen seemed swayed by those arguments. Saying that PleasrDAO would likely “succeed on the merits” of its case against Shkreli, she ruled that he was immediately barred from “using, disseminating, streaming, or selling any interests in the Album” or “in any way causing further damage to Plaintiff respecting the Album.”Judge Chen also ordered Shkreli to appear in court on June 25 to explain why she should not issue a more robust injunction. Such an order, the judge said, would require Shkreli to account for any copies he retained, who he distributed them to, and what profits he gained from doing so, and would allow for the seizure of any remaining copies of the album that he might still be holding.
Rauw Alejandro, in the midst of touring and releasing new music, has assembled a new core management and business team, Billboard has learned.
Leadership includes his longtime attorney and business manager José Juan Torres and his longtime personal manager Matías Solaris.
In addition, sources confirm Alejandro has brought in Jorge “Pepo” Ferradas, founder of and CEO of FPM Entertainment, to head overall strategy of his career moving forward.
Rauw Alejandro was previously managed by Eric Duars, who signed him in 2017 and with whom he split last year.
“It’s a different vision, a different perspective,” Alejandro told Billboard last week about his new team during the Governors Ball music festival, where he was performing. “What we did together was great,” he said about working with Duars, and added: “I have a great team right now. I’m 31 years old, a grown ass man. I feel really happy at this moment of my life. I feel in control of my whole career. I know what I want to do. I have my notes. I learned. It’s just part of growing.”
Ferradas is Camilo and wife Evaluna’s longtime manager, and also co-manages Rels B along with Fede Lauria of Dale Play. Prior to launching FPM, Ferradas’ management experience includes managing Colombian star Shakira in all Spanish-speaking markets as well as overseeing her deal with Live Nation. Ferradas later helped found and develop GTS, Universal’s tour and management company, and was president of music at Univision.
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In the crowded world of reggaetón acts who came up in the mid-to-late 2010s, Rauw Alejandro (born Raul Alejandro Ocasio Ruiz) stands out as an artist who also performs dazzling choreography and experiments with genres like dance. That mix has continued to yield hits; to date, Alejandro has placed 53 songs on Billboard’s Hot Latin songs chart, including 11 top 10s, among them “Santa,” with Rvssian & Ayra Starr, which peaked at No. 8 in May. Thanks to his combined touring, streaming and sales numbers, Alejandro ended 2023 at No. 6 on Billboard’s year-end Top Latin Artists chart.
Alejandro is currently signed to Sony Music U.S. Latin.
Connecting to listeners, not making money or signing to a major label, is the most important aspect of success for a musician, according to a new report titled “Sustainability from Chaos” by MIDiA Research and Amuse, a distribution and artist services company. Even if they reach only a small number of people, 89% of all creators surveyed and 94% of full-time professionals believe that success is defined by moving people with music.
Money matters, too, but relatively few artists say they strive to be superstars. Just 17% of creators and 21% of full-time musicians said being famous is critical to success, while 21% of both groups said signing to a record label is a sign of success. Still, 83% of full-time musicians — and 63% of all creators — defined success as making a career out of music.
The report is based on a survey of 450 artists conducted in April 2024 for MIDiA Research’s Creator Survey.
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It’s an important time to consider how artists define success. Artists have a wealth of options for releasing and financing their music. And there are far more independent artists than artists who have signed traditional record deals. MIDiA estimates that 95% of artists are “artist direct,” meaning they work with a distributor or artist services platform. Only 1% of artists are signed to a major label; the remainder are signed to indie labels.
The vastness of the independent artist market, and their desire for control over their careers, explains why companies are investing heavily in distribution and artist services. Universal Music Group has Virgin Music Group. Sony Music Entertainment has AWAL. Warner Music Group was interested in — but did not acquire — Believe, owner of TuneCore. Distributors such as STEM, UnitedMasters, Ditto and Symphonic have collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funding in recent years.
For these service providers to succeed, they must provide artists with deeper, more meaningful connections with fans. According to MIDiA Research, the old definitions of success are being replaced by newer metrics of success such as community membership (such as Discord and WhatApp groups), sold-out shows and merchandise sales. According to the report, this approach “emphasizes building long-lasting relationships over merely accumulating views and followers.”
In the past, mainstream success was measured by chart position, radio play, awards and cover stories. Those achievements would give an artist a good chance at a sustainable career in music. But in the streaming era, those signals of mainstream success have been replaced by what the report called “misleading” metrics such as listens and follows. Chart position and radio play aren’t seen as meaningful indicators, according to the report, although they have marketing value.
Most full-time, professional artists want to work with a distributor with label services or a self-serve platform with tools that support artists to release their albums and tracks. In fact, these artists would rather work with a distributor (31%) than sign to an indie label (20%) and are nearly as interested in taking a do-it-yourself route (17%) or using a self-serve, online platform with artist tools (16%). Only 10% prefer using a management company to run their businesses, and only 6% prefer to sign with a major label.
Considering all creators — including both professional and part-time artists — a self-serve online platform is the preferred way to release albums and tracks (28%), followed by an indie label (25%), a distributor with label services (20%) and the do-it-yourself route (13%). A major label is preferred by just 7% of all creators. Management companies were the least preferred partner (6%).
Artists surveyed feel that breaking through the noise (54%) is the biggest challenge they face. Not having enough time to create (40%) and not having financial resources (35%) were the second- and third-biggest challenges cited by artists. That “noise” refers to the massive amount of music released every day online. In 2023, there was an average of 103,500 tracks uploaded daily to digital platforms, up 10.8% from 93,400 per day in 2022, according to Luminate’s Year-End Report 2023. Major labels accounted for just 3.9% of those tracks — as measured by new ISRC numbers — compared to 96.1% for the rest of the industry.
Building a sustainable career is made more difficult by the challenges of touring. Skyrocketing costs mean that live music is no longer the best way for artists to make money — but it’s still a goal for many artists and a path to financial comfort. In the report, MIDiA Research recommends that artist services companies provide stipends or salaries for new signings as well as tour support typically offered by record labels: “All artist services companies,” it writes, “need to take a longer-term view on artist relationships.”