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SoundCloud announced the roll out of a number of new AI partnerships on Tuesday (Nov. 19), underscoring its intent to integrate emerging technology into the platform — as long as it is used ethically.
Now, SoundCloud users will have access to six new assistive AI tools, including Tuney, Tuttii, Beatz, TwoShot, Starmony and ACE Studio. The company is also using Audible Magic and Pex to ensure that these new AI integrations are backed up by strong content identification tools that provide rights holders with proper credit and compensation.
These new partners join a list of existing AI integrations — Fadr, Soundful and Voice-Swap — SoundCloud has already worked into its platform. Now, any artist can use these tools and then easily share them to SoundCloud through a built-in “Upload to SoundCloud” option within each tool. Songs uploaded directly to SoundCloud will be automatically tagged to show the tool used (i.e. “Made with Tuney”) and artists can edit their newly uploaded tracks directly from their SoundCloud profile page.
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Additionally, SoundCloud has signed on to AI For Music’s “Principles for Music Creation with AI,” which was founded by Roland and Universal Music Group. Its principles include five points, like “we believe that human-created works must be respected and protected,” and “we believe music is central to humanity.”
SoundCloud Next Pro creators can access exclusive discounts and free trials for its nine partnered tools through SoundCloud for Artists.
“SoundCloud is paving the way for a future where AI unlocks creative potential and makes music creation accessible to millions, while upholding responsible and ethical practices,” said Eliah Seton, CEO of SoundCloud. “We’re proud to be the platform that supports creators at every level, fuels experimentation and empowers fandom.”
Learn more about the partnerships below:
Tuney: SoundCloud users can now use Tuney’s AI-powered tools to reinterpret original songs they have posted to SoundCloud (including private ones) without having to know the complexities of using a digital audio workstation (DAW). Using the new “Upload to SoundCloud” button, users can then share their creations quickly and easily back to the platform. Tuney’s Beat Swap feature is among the tools available to SoundCloud users, which can generate new remixes of a song by using a vocal stem and filling in the rest of the blanks.
In a statement provided to Billboard, Tuney CEO/co-founder Antony Demekhin said of the collaboration: “At a time when the major music companies are fighting tech platforms that illegally train on copyrighted works, we see this integration as paving the path for the ethical application of generative tech where rightsholders, artists and fans all benefit from innovation.”
Tuttii: SoundCloud fans can now use this AI-powered app to remix and mash up songs to share on social media with greater ease than using a DAW.
AlBeatz: SoundCloud users can now generate and customize professional-grade beats to work off of in their own original creations.
TwoShot: Created to help music producers kick start their creativity, TwoShot now offers SoundCloud users its massive sample library of AI generated sounds. The company also offers an AI co-producer tool, called Aiva, who can talk through musical ideas with users and help users search through TwoShot’s library.
Starmony: Tailored for singers and rappers, Starmony will now let SoundCloud users upload a vocal they’ve composed, and then the platform will provide professional-sounding production to fill in the instrumental elements of the song.
ACE Studio: With ACE Studio’s platform, musicians using SoundCloud can create their own AI voice models for use in the studio. For one, musicians can convert a melody, written out in MIDI, and convert it into a realistic sounding voice. This can also allow users to generate AI choirs of voices and edit vocals generated by Suno.
Australian ticketing company Ticketek was offline Monday (Nov. 18), causing a major outage across the platform while drawing concerns from fans of bands like Twenty One Pilots that the outage could affect upcoming shows this week.
On social media, ticket holders for a Twenty One Pilots concert at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday (Nov. 19) are increasingly voicing their concerns that the ticketing company won’t be back online in time for the show. Officials with Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust, which manages the arena, did not respond to questions from Billboard.
@Ticketek_AU @LiveNationAU when will the ticketek app and website be working again? i have a twenty one pilots show tomorrow and can’t access my tickets and i need to add them to my apple wallet!— val (@kilIersqueen) November 18, 2024
@Ticketek_AU website and app are still down. I want to buy presale tix for @KasabianHQ at @Enmore_Theatre How can I make the purchase if the site is down?— Mick Gee (@boomshanka1976) November 18, 2024
On Monday, visitors to Ticketek’s main web page discovered a message reading, “The Ticketek website is currently undergoing maintenance. We apologize that the update is taking longer than anticipated.”
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The cause of the outage is unknown, although a memo circulating online that appears to have been issued by a venue using Ticketek claims the company had voluntarily taken its network offline to “investigate some unusual cyber activity and, as a precautionary measure, the Ticketek Australia and New Zealand Websites and Apps have been temporarily offline today.”
The note adds, “Ticketek are working to reinstate access as soon as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused. Ticketek are working hard to reinstate the site in the coming few hours.”
Ticketek’s pages in the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia remained operational during Monday’s outage.
Billboard reached out to representatives from Ticketek but did not receive a response.
Ticketek is one of the largest ticketing companies in Australia and falls under the umbrella of Australian promoter Paul Dainty‘s company TEG, which today is majority-owned by Silver Lake and was recapitalized in February in a deal with KKR Credit Markets and the Singapore government-owned investment firm Temasek. TEG’s portfolio also includes TEG Sport, TEG Experiences, TEG Dainty, SXSW Sydney, Qudos Bank Arena, Softix, TicketCharge, TicketWorld and Ovation.
An unnamed “celebrity” has filed a civil extortion lawsuit against Tony Buzbee, a Texas attorney who reps more than 100 of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ alleged abuse victims — claiming the lawyer is threatening to file a lawsuit containing “wildly false horrific allegations” if the anonymous bigwig doesn’t pay up.
In a lawsuit filed Monday (Nov. 18) in Los Angeles, lawyers for a “high-profile” public figure identified only as “John Doe” claim that Buzbee is “shamelessly attempting to extort exorbitant sums from him” by threatening to “unleash entirely fabricated and malicious allegations of sexual assault.”
“This is textbook extortion,” writes the celebrity’s attorneys, who hail from the prominent law firm Quinn Emanuel. “Buzbee pretends to be speaking truth to power, but that is far from the truth.”
Buzbee allegedly contacted the man earlier this month with “vile” false claims: That he had “raped multiple minors, both male and female, who had been drugged at parties hosted by Combs.” If the celebrity did not agree to a “confidential mediation,” Buzbee allegedly warned he would “take a different course.”
“Plaintiff presently faces a gun to his head,” the lawsuit reads. “Either repeatedly pay an exorbitant sum of money … or else face the threat of an untold number of civil suits and financial and personal ruin.”
In a statement to Billboard on Monday, Buzbee said he and his firm “won’t allow the powerful and their high-dollar lawyers intimidate or silence sexual survivors” and warned that a lawsuit against the unnamed plaintiff was looming.
“It is obvious that the frivolous lawsuit filed against my firm is an aggressive attempt to intimidate or silence me and ultimately my clients,” Buzbee wrote. “That effort is a gross miscalculation. I am a US Marine. I won’t be silenced or intimidated. Neither will my clients. Since our professional efforts at resolution obviously have failed, we will instead disclose the demand letters we sent at the time we filed suit.”
Combs has faced a flood of abuse accusations over the past year, starting with civil lawsuits and followed by a bombshell federal indictment in September, in which prosecutors allege he ran a sprawling criminal operation for years aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.”
Weeks after the indictment, Buzbee joined the fray by holding a press conference in which he claimed to represent 120 individuals who had been victimized by Combs and threatened a flood of litigation. He has since filed more than a dozen such lawsuits, all on behalf of unnamed Doe plaintiffs.
At the time, Buzbee explicitly warned that he would name others: “We will expose the enablers who enabled this conduct behind closed doors.” And later, in an interview with TMZ, he said several such celebrities had settled on private terms to remain anonymous.
In Monday’s complaint, the unnamed celebrity said those efforts represented a “shakedown” and a “cynical extortion scheme” — one in which Buzbee “capitalizes on the bravery of those victims who came forward” against Combs to win unearned settlements from “innocent celebrities, politicians, and business people.”
“Defendants devised a scheme to obtain payments through the use of coercive threats from anyone with any ties to Combs — no matter how remote,” lawyers for the unnamed plaintiff write. “Defendants claim to be investigating the facts, but the reality is they are finding deep pockets and trying to smear all of them with the same brush.”
The unusual episode — a mysterious celebrity plaintiff claiming they’re being extorted with baseless abuse allegations — echoes a similar incident last month involving Garth Brooks. In that case, Brooks filed an anonymous lawsuit as “John Doe” seeking a federal court order to block the publication of the allegations. But the accuser eventually filed their abuse lawsuit against Brooks in a separate court weeks later.
The music publishing industry has long been a battlefield, with independent publishers often struggling against the overwhelming dominance of the majors. Companies like Warner Chappell, Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group control vast resources and have significant influence due to their connections with their major record label counterparts, making it difficult for indies to compete.
Despite these challenges, independent publishers continue to embody the spirit of creativity and resilience, navigating the obstacles with unparalleled determination in the face of industry issues including licensing and financial disadvantages, increasing competition and costs, fewer income streams, and more that threaten to push us out of business. Recently, these obstacles have intensified, demanding a more assertive and determined approach from indie publishers. As we progress through 2024 and look ahead to 2025, the reasons for our frustration are pressing and undeniable.
Over the past few months, the gap between indie and major publishers has widened due to systemic problems and recent controversies. TikTok’s licensing deals, heavily influenced by agreements with major record labels and publishers, have sidelined indie publishers, affecting our ability to monetize our catalogs effectively on a platform that has become critical for music discovery. TikTok’s role in propelling songs and artists to the top of the charts and securing lucrative synch deals makes this marginalization particularly troubling. Indie publishers find themselves at a disadvantage, forced to either accept less favorable deal terms or risk losing out on the opportunity to reach these audiences and, in turn, straining our label relationships.
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Similarly, the recent Spotify bundling controversy highlights the stark inequalities between major and independent publishers. By adjusting its service offerings to lower mechanical royalty rates, Spotify has given a significant advantage to major publishers. While all publishers are aligned in fighting Spotify’s move, major publishers, with their extensive financial reserves, can more easily absorb the impact of reduced royalties. Additionally, integration with their record label arms allows their parent companies to negotiate recording royalty deals that help offset losses on the publishing side. Independent publishers, however, operate with much tighter margins and lack the diversified revenue streams of their larger counterparts. For us, every penny matters. A reduced mechanical rate isn’t just a cut; it’s a threat to our very existence.
Beyond these specific cases, the challenges of 2024, including rising operating costs and intense competition in catalog acquisitions, have placed a heavier burden on indie publishers. The surge in catalog acquisitions by major publishers, driven by their financial power and access to capital, has driven up prices, making it increasingly difficult for indies to compete. This trend not only inflates catalog values to potentially unsustainable levels but also concentrates power in the hands of a few dominant players, stifling diversity in the market. Additionally, the rising costs of daily operations, from licensing negotiations to administrative expenses, are squeezing indie publishers even further, forcing some to consider selling their businesses, merging or even closing down.
Despite these challenges, there are still reasons for indie publishers to be optimistic. The Luminate 2024 Midyear Report shows that indie artists’ market share has grown by an average of 1.76%, with the most significant increase in the 500M+ on-demand audio streams category, increasing 2.7% over 2023 to 9.9%. Additionally, 62.1% of artists with 1 million to 10 million U.S. on-demand audio streams have independent distribution. These two examples out of many showcase the continued impact and growing influence of indie creators in the digital space. Advances in technology, especially AI tools, are providing new opportunities for music production, metadata refinement and distribution, leveling the playing field for indie artists and creators. Organizations like the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) and the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) continue to advocate for and support indies, ensuring we have the tools and knowledge needed to navigate the industry. Additionally, the rise in synch opportunities and revenue following 2023’s entertainment labor disputes offer indie publishers a growing source of income in a segment of the industry that, fortunately, remains a free market.
The path forward for indie publishers is clear: We must unite and use our challenges to motivate change. By channeling our collective frustration, we can fight for fairer treatment and greater solidarity in the industry. Far from being destructive, our anger can be a powerful force, driving indies to recognize our strength, advocate fiercely for our rights, and reshape the industry. We can create a more just environment for our songwriters, ensuring they are fairly compensated and contributing to a more balanced music industry. The time for complacency is over; it’s time for indies to take action and secure our future, and the future of the songwriters who depend on us.
Marc Caruso is the co-founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based independent music publisher Angry Mob Music, with successful operations in publishing, music rights management and music production. Throughout his more than 20-year career in music as an entrepreneur, composer, producer and Emmy-nominated music editor, Marc has been at the forefront of music publishing and master rights administration for film and TV and has continually been a champion for musician and songwriters’ rights.
Republic has announced the promotion of Kevin Lipson to the newly created position of chief revenue officer, effective immediately, as touted by president and COO Jim Roppo.
In this role, Lipson will lead revenue strategies for artists across Republic Records, Mercury Records, Def Jam Recordings and Island Records through the Republic Corps. Collective. He’ll oversee teams involved in streaming, e-commerce, data, retail, gaming, sports marketing, media planning and catalog initiatives, while also driving innovation campaigns to boost audience and revenue growth.
The New York-based Lipson is a 28-year veteran of Universal Music Group, having held senior management roles at Republic, Island, Def Jam and Universal Music Group Distribution in both LA and New York. His tenure at Republic — most recently as evp of global commerce and digital strategy — has seen the label earn titles such as Billboard 200 Label of the Year and Billboard Hot 100 Label of the Year, and achieve the industry’s ten biggest streaming weeks of all time.
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His team has delivered successful albums for artists like The Weeknd, Metro Boomin and Morgan Wallen, among others. In mid-2022, Lipson’s marketing rollout strategies for Post Malone’s Twelve Carat Toothache album earned him a hat-tip as Billboard‘s executive of the week.
The expanded role, but not title, for Lipson — encompassing revenue strategy at the label group — was initially announced in March as part of the formation of the East Coast-based Republic Corps, designed to compliment UMG’s Interscope Capitol Labels Group out west.
Roppo praised Lipson as a “tenacious” and innovative, adding, “with a fresh perspective, he’s constantly looking for unconventional ways to break new artists and maximize global repertoire revenue for our roster of superstars.”
Lipson thanked Republic’s leadership for their backing and emphasized the collaborative nature of the team. “They support their people here first—which inspires everybody to compete at the highest level while breaking historic industry records,” he noted. “Our team is involved in many different facets of the label, which is inspiring to all. It’s not exclusive to marketing, sales, and data; it’s all-encompassing. Even with all of the incredible success, we’re constantly trying to evolve and better ourselves while staying humble.”
Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs are firing back at allegations that he’s obstructing his sex trafficking case from behind bars, claiming prosecutors improperly searched his cell and violated his right to attorney-client privilege.
Days after the government claimed Combs was seeking to “subvert the integrity” of the case by contacting witnesses, his lawyers said it was the prosecution that had made serious missteps – including by seizing “notes to his lawyers” about potential trial strategies.
“This search and seizure are in violation of Mr. Combs’ [constitutional] rights,” writes Diddy’s lead attorney Marc Agnifilo. “The targeted seizure of a pre-trial detainee’s work product and privileged materials – created in preparation for trial – is outrageous government conduct amounting to a substantive due process violation.”
In the filing, Diddy’s attorneys ask Judge Arun Subramanian to hold an immediate hearing to investigate the search and seizures, saying they want to ask key questions about how the process unfolded.
“Who authorized a search of Mr. Combs’ sleeping area, personal effects and paperwork?” Agnifilo writes. “Who made the decision to not tell Mr. Combs’ counsel that the U.S. Attorney was in possession of his notes, including ‘possibly privileged materials’ until after the government put them in a filing to keep him incarcerated?”
Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, was once one of the most powerful men in the music industry. But in September, he was indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking over what they say was a sprawling criminal operation aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” If convicted on all the charges, he faces a potential sentence of life in prison.
On Friday, prosecutors leveled serious new allegations. Responding to Combs’ latest effort to be released on bail, they said such an action would still pose a grave risk of obstruction of justice; in the process, they accused Diddy of trying to reach out to witnesses, leak favorable materials, and orchestrate “social media campaigns” to influence public opinion and taint the jury pool.
“Defendant has continued to engage in a relentless course of obstructive conduct designed to subvert the integrity of these proceedings,” the prosecution wrote in the filing.
In the filing, prosecutors noted that some of their evidence came in the form of notes recovered from Diddy’s cell during what they called “a pre-planned nationwide sweep of BOP facilities.” The sweep turned up “possibly privileged materials,” but prosecutors said the evidence had been screened by a so-called filter team to avoid any improper material.
Attorney–client privilege exists to protect the right of an accused person to secure an effective defense from their lawyers. It’s designed to allow a defendant to be honest with their legal team, without needing to worry that such material might later be used against them.
In Monday’s response, Combs’ lawyers said some of the materials taken from his cell were “absolutely privileged” and should not have been handed over to the government lawyers who are barred from seeing them. They included “privileged notes to his lawyers concerning defense witnesses and defense strategies.”
“This is a matter of grave concern that, most respectfully, must be addressed immediately,” Agnifilo writes. “Because the U.S. Attorney, and it seems the trial prosecutors, are currently in possession of privileged materials we request a full evidentiary hearing as soon as the Court can accommodate us.”
Sound Royalties has been a resource for the music industry for 10 years, advancing money to artists, songwriters, producers and other entities against their royalty income streams. And if there is one message that the company consistently emphasizes, it’s that Sound Royalties doesn’t use clients’ music rights as collateral, so it can never secure ownership of those rights.
In Sound Royalties’ parlance, instead of loans, the company primarily provides advances, and recipients of those funds are collectively referred to as “creatives.”
Sound Royalties also makes clear that it doesn’t charge interest; instead, advances come with fixed fees expressed in dollars. The company also doesn’t charge late fees, and a client’s credit rating doesn’t factor into any deals because the advance is repaid from one or more of a client’s income streams.
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Contrary to standard music industry practice, Sound Royalties doesn’t require 100% recoupment from the income streams until the advance is fully paid off.
Depending on the deal, the company may only take some of the royalties of an assigned income stream from one of the creative’s music companies — labels, distributors, publishers or collection rights organizations, which are collectively known as “payors,” according to Sound Royalties — and it will pass through the remainder of income to the client.
Since 2021, Sound Royalties has been owned by GoDigital Media Group and the investment firm MEP Capital.
Alex Heiche, with a background in software for high tech and in special finance firms, founded the company in 2014. As he explains, Sound Royalties is not “a label, publisher or distributor. We don’t replace them; we work in concert with them.
“So when creatives come to us, we provide the financing, but they stay with these excellent companies that they’ve chosen to work with,” he says. “And we’re not taking a percentage of future income. The advance is a fixed dollar amount for a fixed period of time. We’re obsessed with transparency.”
Company executives also emphasize their pursuit of a relationship-based business.
“Part of Alex’s original vision is we really try hard to create relationships,” says Sound Royalties president Michael Bizenov, who joined the company in 2018 after a career in consumer banking and mortgages. “We’re not here just to do transactions. They are important to us, yes, because it’s a way to grow a business. But we want to do it in a very healthy way.”
That’s also why in times of industry turmoil, like during the pandemic, Sound Royalties set up funding pools for cost-free advances to creatives in need.
Also, the company believes in helping creatives beyond financing deals.
“We [meet] with all levels of creative people, including those who may be starting their career,” Bizenov says. “So we’re very committed to doing financial-literacy seminars. We also are talking to the most sophisticated creatives and their business teams and helping them meet their financial goals.”
Clients of Sound Royalties include (clockwise from top left) Tank, DJ Khaled, Rich Robinson, Alejandra Guzmán, Brent Faiyaz, Sonia Leigh and Dylan LeBlanc.
Illustration by Andrei Cojocaru
In the beginning, how did industry companies react to the advances you were proposing?
Alex Heiche: Sound Royalties was launched with the vision to provide artist-friendly funding using creative-friendly funding solutions. So initially, we did advances from [income streams from performing rights organizations] ASCAP and BMI, and then we slowly evolved from there, adding SESAC, and then we started adding publisher, label and distributor transactions. In 2018, we did our first international transaction with PRS [for Music].
Michael Bizenov: Today, we’ve expanded to working in 18 countries and on three continents with over 160 payors around the globe that are sending payments to us to service their clients, and we’re onboarding new [payors] every month.
Did music companies first see you as adversarial to their relationships with their artists and songwriters?
Heiche: Payors see that we’re not taking their clients. We’re not getting in the way of their business. We don’t do distribution, nor publishing; we’re not a label or a collection society. We stay in our lane, providing financing. We’re there to facilitate something and ease the process, so we have good relationships on the payor side and on the creative side.
What’s the source of your funding?
Bizenov: We have bank lines [of credit]. Since early last year, we have more than doubled our access to bank financing. We also self-fund some things out of our profits. And we have access to two additional lines of private capital if we need it.
Did you have bank lines when you started out?
Heiche: No, it started off with funding [from] the balance sheet and growing from there. We pioneered this type of financing and advances. So it took time to build a track record to be able to walk banks through it.
What kind of income streams do you like to focus on when making advances?
Heiche: Creatives are earning a lot of different income streams, and we work with most of them. As the industry continues to evolve, we expanded beyond sound recording and composition [income] and started doing YouTube [income] financing for advances.
We are now even in entertainment production financing. We do tour financing. We even offer bridge financing for creatives looking for a very short-term solution as they’re maybe selling a catalog.
Do you put together custom deals for each client or offer a menu with options?
Heiche: The beauty of our model is it’s a bespoke, white glove customer service. Every creative and every company entity that comes to us for financing gets to speak with a live person that understands what their needs are and develops options for them to review.
You don’t require documentation like tax returns or W2 forms with an application. How else are your advances different from a bank loan?
Heiche: The advance is based strictly on their royalties and projections of those royalties. We provide a one-page summary sheet so they can see the fixed cost in a fixed dollar amount for a fixed period of time. If it takes longer, there are no late fees or penalties. The same if payment comes in sooner.
What are the minimum income streams and maximum advances that you work with?
Heiche: We try to help as much of the industry as we can, and that’s why the bar is as low as it is. Right now, the baseline for both is $5,000 per year per royalty stream. But we go over $10 million for advances.
You’ve said that building relationships is an important part of the Sound Royalties business plan. How does that help grow your business?
Bizenov: A big part of our business comes from referrals, and that’s something that we work hard on. “Customer service” is a mantra in our company because it’s the right thing to do and it also grows the business.
We love the referrals that we get from the managers, business managers, attorneys and companies that are out there. It’s very flattering to us and very reinforcing.
In making advances, how do you calculate risk?
Bizenov: There are probably about 12 or 14 inputs that go into our [analysis]. It’s the things that you would imagine: What is the depth of the catalog? Is 85% of the income coming from two songs — [which] is pretty risky — or is it something that’s more spread out? Is [a work] evergreen and out there for a lot of years so you can trace the performance, or is it something that’s relatively fresh? Based on that, we then come up with a risk analysis and a price.
Does your recoupment come from all streams, or do you choose to be paid back from one or two streams? And do you take 100% recoupment or only a portion?
Heiche: We can focus on specific streams that make the most sense and help a client achieve what they’re trying to accomplish [in terms of cash flow]. Does the client want to pay us back in one year or five years? If it’s five years, for example, we may take less of their income stream per year, or it’s one year we may take more. Either way, the rest [of the income] we pass through to the creative.
What is the average type of advance deal in terms of timeline and recoupment?
Bizenov: We’d rather see somebody do [deals] more conservatively and make sure they get a chance to get their cash flow. That is why we have a very high return rate of customers who come back to us for more than one deal.
As for deal terms, the average is three to five years. We can go longer and we can go shorter, but that’s where the median would lie.
What is the value of advances that Sound Royalties made last year?
Heiche: As a private company, there are some limitations on some data that we can give out.
Can you talk about growth?
Bizenov: Our monthly volume is growing by 50%. We’re pretty proud of our level of growth.
You have also alerted artists and the industry about royalties that weren’t paid to them. How does that play into your business model?
Heiche: When a creative comes through our door, our royalty specialists say, “OK, so you’re a songwriter. Who do you collect your writer’s share from? Who does your publishing or administration?” We just start to have that conversation.
And quite often we find that creatives aren’t collecting on all the income streams that they should be, so then we point them in the right direction. We’re constantly working with creatives ensuring that they understand the various income streams that they’re entitled to receive.
Bizenov: There are nuances. It’s fractionalized, for lack of a better term, because the incomes come from all different directions. So it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks sometimes.
You have said that providing clients with transparency is very important. How else do you show this?
Bizenov: The day before the funding is scheduled to take place, we have a separate department that gets on the phone with the end user and walks through the mechanics of the deal. That team is trained so that if they sense hesitation or lack of understanding, they stop the process to make sure that the creative understands every aspect of how it works, what’s coming, what’s owed.
Our biggest nightmare isn’t not getting a deal; it’s somebody out there saying, “Hey, [Sound Royalties] didn’t tell me everything.”
Are you saying your reputation is more important than doing deals?
Heiche: We’ve developed a reputation through the years of being the good guys, and that’s from things like this independent compliance department having a call with the creative walking through everything to ensure that there’s transparency. If people have great things to say about us, that’s because of our transparency.
This story appears in the Nov. 16, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Taylor Lindsey has been named as Chairman and CEO, Sony Music Nashville (SMN), beginning January 2025. She replaces Randy Goodman, who announced in September he would be retiring at the end of the year after running the company since 2015.
Additionally, Ken Robold, has been named president and chief operating officer of Sony Music Nashville.
Lindsey will oversee Sony Music Nashville, as well as leading Christian music company Provident Entertainment. She will remain based in Nashville and report to Rob Stringer, chairman of Sony Music Group.
“I’m very grateful to step into this role,” Lindsey said in a statement. “Along with Ken and the incredible SMN team, we are committed to fostering collaboration with our artists, creators and fans, and will create a vibrant community that not only honors our rich heritage in storytelling but also redefines the sound of country music for generations.”
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Lindsey has been head of A&R for SMN since 2021, most recently serving as vp. She has worked closely with Sony artists including Old Dominion, Luke Combs, Megan Moroney, Maren Morris and Mitchell Tenpenny, among others.
“I am very excited that we can promote a creative talent from within the company to this top position,” Stringer said in a statement. “I have witnessed Taylor become an all-round executive from an A&R background and she is ideally suited to plot the future for our Nashville team in a chapter where country music is clearly evolving and thriving as a key musical genre. I am also so pleased that simultaneously to Taylor’s appointment Ken will be in an important wider role helping her build a new era for Sony Music Nashville.”
Prior to joining SMN in 2013, Lindsey, who has been featured on Billboard’s Women in Music and Country Power Players lists, worked in A&R at BMG Music Publishing, where she represented Grammy-award winning songwriters such as Hillary Lindsey and Tony Lane.
Robold, who has also been on Billboard‘s Country Power Players list, joined SMN in 2015 as executive vp and COO. Previously, he was president of Zac Brown’s Southern Ground Artists and spent 22 years at Universal Music Group.
The news means that all three major labels in Nashville are headed or co-headed by women: Cindy Mabe is chair/CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville and Cris Lacy is co-chair/co-president of Warner Music Nashville alongside Gregg Nadel. It also means that all the heads of the three Nashville majors have changed hands over the past two years., with Lacy and then Ben Kline replacing chairman/CEO John Esposito at Warner at the end of 2022, while UMGN chairman/CEO Mike Dungan left his post in 2023, with Mabe officially taking over April 1, 2023.
SXSW London has shared details about the ticket sale for 2025’s upcoming inaugural event in the U.K. Taking place in east London’s Shoreditch neighborhood from Jun. 2-7, the upcoming event will be the first time that SXSW has taken place in Europe, in addition to its home in Austin, Texas, and expansion into Sydney, Australia.
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Passes for the entire event across the Conferences, Music and Screen Festivals will be available to purchase, as well as for individual separate programming strands. Tickets will go on sale on Nov. 21 and a 25% discount will be applied to those who purchase a pass from the general sale before Dec. 19. With the exclusive price offer, prices range from £488 for the individual programme strand passes, to £975 for platinum passes. For further ticket information, head to the SXSW London website.
SXSW London has also announced additional details about the venue partners throughout Shoreditch. These include Truman Brewery, Village Underground, Rich Mix, Shoreditch Town Hall, Shoreditch Church, Christ Church Spitalfields, Dream Factory (Chance St & Rivington St), Kachette, Bike Shed Moto Co, Shoreditch Studios / Over the Road, and Protein Studios.
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Billboard has been confirmed as the event’s first official partner, and will host a night of music during the festival with a globally-renowned artist performing at the event. The show will also be ticketed to the general public.
Mike Van, president of Billboard said, “We’re thrilled to partner with SXSW London for the inaugural 2025 event. This collaboration underscores our shared commitment to supporting and celebrating the global music community. Billboard will bring a night of live music celebrating world class artists, both established and on the rise, and will offer fans a truly unique experience within the festival.”
The festival will partner with local charities and community groups to provide 500 complimentary passes to ensure “the rich diversity” of the city is represented throughout the events and programming.
“We’re thrilled to share how many incredible venues are working with us already for SXSW London’s Shoreditch takeover next June,” said Katy Arnander, director of programming for SXSW London. “Shoreditch is renowned as a vibrant centre for creativity and technological innovation, as well as for its diversity, energetic youth culture, global cuisine and nightlife. We’re excited to be working closely with local stakeholders to ensure the festival creates a positive impact for the community it will take place in.”
In October, SXSW London announced that it would begin the process of accepting session proposals from the public across the various programming strands. The festival says that “thousands of session proposals have already been submitted from over 50 countries across the world.” The submission portal will remain open until Nov. 29 at the festival’s website.
Back in April 2021, it was announced that SXSW had signed a “lifeline” deal with P-MRC, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and MRC, making P-MRC a stakeholder and long-term partner with the Austin festival. P-MRC is the parent company of Billboard.
Spotify is on such a hot streak that the streaming company nearly reached a $100 billion market capitalization this week. After the company’s third-quarter earnings showed cost-cutting has led to record profitability, shares peaked at a new all-time high of $489.69 on Thursday (Nov. 14), briefly putting its market capitalization above $98 billion. However, the stock fell on Friday (Nov. 15) to a final closing price of $458.32, valuing the company at $92.04 billion. While the stock was still up 14.5%, that marked a bit of a letdown from its previous high.
During the height of the pandemic, Spotify benefitted from a rush into streaming stocks as consumers spent more time with audio and visual media. Investors were also attracted to its push into podcasts, which provided an opportunity to improve upon the margins of its core music service. But investors eventually grew tired of Spotify’s growth-over-profitability mantra, sending the company’s share price from $387 in February 2021 to under $70 in November 2021. But a focus on cost-cutting and expansion into audiobooks helped bring investors back; Spotify shares gained 138% in 2023 and have already increased 144% in 2024.
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After delivering solid results and showing investors a pathway to greater profitability, Guggenheim increased its price target for Spotify to $500 from $420 and raised its estimate for 2025 operating profit to 2.5 billion euros ($2.63 billion) from 2.1 billion euros ($2.21 billion). Analysts cited management’s confidence in usage growth and ability to raise prices and further improve margins. Morgan Stanley raised Spotify to $460 from $430, also citing the company’s ability to further raise prices and management’s “commitment to financial discipline and driving profitability.” At JPMorgan, analysts upped Spotify to $530 from $425 for the aforementioned reasons, in addition to the stock’s coming inclusion in the MSCI World Index on Nov. 25.
A bevy of analysts also increased their price targets for Live Nation following the company’s earnings report on Monday (Nov. 11), which showed that the promoter achieved a record adjusted operating income in the third quarter. Among them: Rosenblatt Securities ($146 from $123), Goldman Sachs ($148 from $132), Benchmark ($145 from $108), Evercore ISI ($150 from $110), Oppenheimer ($155 from $120) and Wolfe Research ($152 from $125). Live Nation shares finished the week at $129.00, up 4.9%, and reached a new intraday high of $130.83 on Friday.
Spotify’s big gain was the primary reason the Billboard Global Music Index grew 5.8% to 2,162.50 despite just six of its 20 stocks finishing the week in positive territory. The float-adjusted, unweighted index measures the aggregate market values of the 20 member companies; Spotify is the most valuable company on the index and is more than twice as valuable as the next company, Universal Music Group (UMG). The week’s other five gainers are among the index’s largest companies: Live Nation, CTS Eventim, JYP Entertainment, HYBE and SM Entertainment all have market capitalizations exceeding $1 billion.
Stock markets hit a post-election hangover this week that stalled the gains seen after Donald Trump won the presidential election on Nov. 5. In the United States, the Nasdaq fell 3.1% and the S&P 500 dropped 2.1%. The United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 lost just 0.1%. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index fell 5.6%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index lost 3.5%.
Despite the KOSPI’s decline, K-pop stocks — which have recovered ground in the second half of the year and now have a collective year-to-date deficit of 20.2% — were up across the board. JYP Entertainment gained 8.2%, HYBE improved 3.2%, SM Entertainment added 2.8% and YG Entertainment rose 2.7%.
On the live front, Sphere Entertainment Co. fell 8.6% after its latest earnings showed a slowdown in revenue at its Sphere division, with Macquarie lowering the company’s price target to $45 from $47. And at MSG Entertainment (MSGE), shares dropped 6.8% to $40.00 after Bernstein reduced its MSGE price target to $44 from $45 earlier in the week.
Over at radio, Cumulus Media fell 19.3% to $0.71 after it reportedly conducted layoffs at stations in Central Pennsylvania, Indianapolis, Detroit and San Francisco as part of broader job cuts ahead of the holiday season — all on the heels of recent layoffs at competitor iHeartRadio. Elsewhere music streamer LiveOne dropped 12.4% to $0.78 this week.
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