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The U.S. Department of Justice is planning to sue Live Nation over alleged violations of federal antitrust laws, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
A lawsuit will be filed within weeks that alleges the concert giant leveraged its dominance over the live music industry to undermine competition for ticketing, the Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Few other details about the planned case were revealed.
Live Nation has faced widespread criticism from angry fans and lawmakers since its botched handling of Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour in 2022. Days after the incident, news broke that the DOJ had already been investigating Live Nation for months over potential antitrust violations.
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Representatives for Live Nation and the DOJ did not immediately return requests for comment from Billboard.
Since Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010, the company has long faced criticism that it exerts an unfair dominance over the market for live concerts. The DOJ approved the merger at the time, but imposed a so-called consent decree designed to prevent the company from abusing its position. Those restrictions were set to expire in 2020, but they were extended by five years after the DOJ accused Live Nation of repeatedly violating the decree.
That same criticism resurfaced in late 2022 with the disastrous roll out of tickets to Swift’s tour, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried – and many failed – to buy tickets. Live Nation pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks,” but lawmakers quickly argued that the incident was the result of a market dominated by one company.
“Ticketmaster’s power in the primary ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues.
In December 2022, the New York Times reported that DOJ had already been investigating Live Nation for months before the Swift debacle, including reaching out to venues across the country to ask about the company’s conduct. A year later, Reuters reported that the probe was ongoing, with federal investigators focusing on whether Live Nation imposed anticompetitive agreements on venues.
Last year, Live Nation hired Dan Wall, a veteran competition attorney who previously headed the antitrust practice at the law firm Latham & Watkins, as an executive vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs. In a blog post last month, Wall publicly defended the company against allegations similar to those that could be coming in the DOJ’s lawsuit, arguing that ticket prices were set by artists and driven up by the forces of supply and demand.
“In the ongoing antitrust attacks on Live Nation and Ticketmaster, a constant theme is that their alleged ‘monopolies’ are responsible for high ticket prices,” Wall wrote. “Rhetorically, that’s understandable, because if you want to rile up fans against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, there is no better way than to blame them for something you know fans dislike.”
Cindy James has been promoted to general manager of Virgin Music Group‘s operations in North America, the company announced on Tuesday (April 16). The former executive of the week — and regular entry on Billboard’s Indie Power Players lists — joined the UMG-owned indie music distributor and label services company in 2019 as head of […]
Joseph Oerke has been promoted to executive vice president, Decca Records U.S., the Verve Label Group announced on Tuesday (April 16). “I love classical music,” Oerke said in a statement. “In fact, I moved to New York to study oboe and got my first job in the gift shop at the Metropolitan Opera. I think […]
Global Music Rights (GMR), the boutique U.S. performance rights organization (PRO) that represents Bruce Springsteen, Bruno Mars, Prince, Drake, Pharrell Williams, the John Lennon estate, the Eagles and others, has settled its copyright infringement lawsuit against the Vermont Broadcast Association (VBA) that was filed in January. According to Global Music Rights, which was founded by […]
Online ticket resale platform StubHub is considering going public as soon as this summer if it can secure a valuation of more than $16 billion, according to media reports. The Information first reported on Friday (April 12) that StubHub is aiming for a valuation of $16.5 billion, or the valuation it received in 2021 during […]
SAG-AFTRA, the union representing roughly 160,000 actors, dancers, singers, recording artists and other media professionals, and all three major music companies reached a tentative multiyear agreement last week that includes guardrails for the use of artificial intelligence technology across the industry.
A successor to the SAG-AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Sound Recordings, the new deal received unanimous approval from the guild’s executive committee and, if ratified by member vote, will cover the period beginning Jan. 1, 2021 through Dec. 31, 2026. Participating labels include Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, as well as Disney Music Group.
The AI guidelines require that the use of terms such as “artist,” “singer” and “royalty artist” only refer to actual humans, plus the deal calls for clear consent, minimum compensation and other stipulations prior to the release of a sound recording using a digital replication of a real artist’s voice.
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The tentative contract also includes increased minimums, health and retirement improvements, and an increase in the percentage of streaming revenue to be covered by contributions.
“This agreement ensures that our members are protected,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA national executive director. “SAG-AFTRA stands firm in the belief that while technology can enhance the creative process, the essence of music must always be rooted in genuine human expression and experience. We look forward to working alongside our industry partners to foster an environment where innovation serves to elevate, not diminish, the unique value of each artist’s contribution to our rich cultural tapestry.”
The Record Label Negotiating Committee said, “Together, we’ll chart a successful course forward, embracing new opportunities and facing our common challenges, strengthened by our shared values and commitment to human artistry.”
A new law in Tennessee aimed at protecting artists from AI-powered voice mimicry has won widespread acclaim from the music industry, but some legal experts are worried such laws might be an “overreaction” that could have unintended consequences.
Less than a year after a fake Drake song created using new artificial intelligence tools took the music world by storm, Tennessee lawmakers enacted first-in-the-nation legislation last month aimed at preventing exactly that scenario — the use of a person’s voice without their permission. The ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security) does that by expanding the state’s protections against the unauthorized use of a person’s likeness, known as publicity rights.
The passage of the new law was hailed across the music business. Mitch Glazier of the Recording Industry Association of America called it an “incredible result.” Harvey Mason Jr. of the Recording Academy described it as a “groundbreaking achievement.” David Israelite of the National Music Publishers’ Association called it “an important step forward.” Any musical artist who has had their voice used without permission likely shares those sentiments.
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But legal experts are more divided. Jennifer Rothman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the country’s top experts on publicity rights, rang alarm bells last week at a panel discussion in Nashville, warning that Tennessee’s new statute had not been necessary and had been “rushed” into law.
“We don’t want a momentary overreaction to lead to the passage of laws that would make things worse, which is currently what is happening,” Rothman told her fellow panel members and the audience. “The ELVIS Act has a number of significant concerns that are raised, particularly with the broad sweep of liability and restrictions on speech.”
In an effort to combat AI voice cloning, the ELVIS Act makes a number of key changes to the law. Most directly, it expands the state’s existing publicity rights protections to explicitly include someone’s voice as part of their likeness. But the new law also expands the law in ways that have received less attention, including adding a broader definition of who can be sued and for what.
According to Joseph Fishman, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who has been closely tracking the legislation, that broader wording “sweeps in innocuous behavior that no one seriously thinks is a problem that needs solving” — potentially including tribute bands, interpolations, or even just sharing a photo that a celebrity didn’t authorize.
“The range of acts that trigger liability is vast,” Fishman tells Billboard. “All the press around this law is focused on deepfakes and digital replicas — and those would indeed be covered — but the law as written goes so much further.”
Here’s why: Historically, publicity rights in the U.S. have been mostly limited to commercial contexts — like advertisements that use a celebrity’s likeness to make it appear they’re endorsing a product. The singer Bette Midler once famously sued the Ford Motor Co. over a series of commercials featuring vocals by a Midler impersonator.
The new law effectively gets rid of that commercial limitation; under the ELVIS Act, anyone who knowingly “makes available” someone’s likeness without authorization can face a lawsuit. It also broadly defines protected voices as any sound that’s “readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual.”
Those are great changes if you’re a musical artist trying to sue over a song that’s using a fake version of your voice, since the old conception of publicity rights likely wouldn’t apply to that scenario. But Fishman says they have serious potential for collateral damage beyond their intended target.
“There’s nothing that would limit it to AI outputs, nothing that would limit it to deceptive uses,” Fishman said. “The lead singer in an Elvis tribute band who sings convincingly like The King certainly seems to fall under the definition. So do Elvis impersonators.”
In an “even more extreme” hypothetical, Fishman imagined an “unflattering” photo of Elvis that he knew the Presley estate didn’t like. “The law seems to say I’d be liable if I sent that photo to a friend. After all, I’m transmitting his likeness, knowing that the rightsholder hasn’t authorized the use. Stop and think about that for a moment.”
The ELVIS Act does contain exemptions aimed at protecting free speech, including those that allow for the legal use of someone’s likeness in news coverage, criticism, scholarship, parody and other “fair use” contexts. It also expressly allows for “audiovisual works” that contain “a representation of the individual as the individual’s self” — a provision likely aimed at allowing Hollywood to keep making biopics and other films about real people without getting sued in Tennessee.
But confusingly, the law says those exemptions only apply “to the extent such use is protected by the First Amendment.” That wording, according to Rothman, means those exemptions essentially “don’t exist” unless and until a court rules that a specific alleged activity is a form of protected free speech, a costly extra step that will mostly benefit those who want to be in court. “This specific law creates great work for lawyers,” Rothman said. “So much work for lawyers.”
Those lawyers are going to be filing real lawsuits against real people — some of whom are the scary, voice-cloning bad actors that the music industry wants to crack down on, but also some of whom are likely just regular people doing things that used to be legal.
“The law could absolutely lead to lots of lawsuits,” Fishman says. “There’s plenty of room here for people to test how far the statute can go, whether because they object to how they’re being depicted or because they see an opportunity for an extra licensing stream.”
Though it only applies to Tennessee, the importance of the ELVIS Act is magnified because it is the first of likely many such legislative efforts aimed at addressing AI mimicry. At least five other states are currently considering amending their publicity rights laws to address the growing problem, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also weighing federal legislation that would create a national likeness statute for the first time.
At last week’s roundtable, Rothman said those efforts were misguided. She said that laws already on the books — including federal trademark law, existing publicity rights laws, and numerous other statutes and torts — already provide avenues to stop voice cloning and deepfakes. And she warned that the proposed federal bills posed even more serious problems, like allowing someone to sign away their likeness rights in perpetuity.
For other legal experts critical of the ELVIS Act, including Harvard University law professor Rebecca Tushnet, the hope is that any subsequent legislation, whether at the state or federal level, can be more directly tailored to the actual AI-fueled deceptions they’re supposed to address.
“Any new laws need to be far more targeted at specific harms,” says Tushnet, who has written extensively about the intersection of intellectual property and free speech. “Right now, this statute and other proposals are dramatically overbroad, and threaten legitimate creative conduct.”
Warner Chappell Music has entered an agreement to administer Electronic Arts‘ music library. One of the world’s largest gaming companies, Electronic Arts is home to titles like The Sims, Medal of Honor, Madden NFL, Apex Legends and more. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news EA Worldwide executive and […]
Gustavo Lopez has launched a new “full service” multimedia entertainment company, Globalatino Music Partners, Billboard can announce. The venture will offer label services, artist management, publishing, distribution and touring, according to a press release.
Globalatino launches with in-house new record label, ReLo-Co Music, in association with Alejandro Reglero (previously Saban Music Latin‘s executive vp/GM), GUAU Talent Connect, a division in the company that will specialize in brand partnerships, led by Augusto Mendoza, and Strat-Viz, which will oversee strategic marketing and content creation with Rodolfo Rodriguez at the head of that division.
Lopez has also entered partnerships with TuStreams and Warner Music Latina for distribution and marketing strategies for selected artists. And he acquired a “majority” stake in Cigol Music, the label home to Colombian hitmaker Blessd.
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“Over the years, I’ve been privileged to work with some of the most important artists in Latin music, enjoying tremendous success in diverse genres from reggaetón to música mexicana. Everything I’ve learned has now come together at Globalatino,” Lopez said in a statement. “Most recently working alongside entertainment visionary, Haim Saban, added to my lifelong commitment to artist development. At Globalatino we’re 100% dedicated to superserving our artists.”
The announcement comes three months after Virgin Music Group acquired Saban Music Latin’s catalog. For five years, Lopez served as the company’s CEO since Saban Music Group launched in 2019 by entertainment mogul Haim Saban, and later oversaw the creation of Saban Music Latin in 2022.
Prior to joining Saban, Lopez was the longtime GM and executive vp of Universal Music Latin, where he launched Latin urban label Machete Music, home to artists like Wisin & Yandel and Don Omar, and also ran Universal Music Latin Entertainment’s regional Mexican labels, Fonovisa and Disa. After leaving Universal in 2017, he launched indie music company Talento Uno, which was acquired by Saban.
About Globalatino, Lopez added, “We have the executive team, the expertise, the relationships, and the funding to help artists accomplish their dreams.”
Victoria Oakley is the new CEO of IFPI.Oakley will join the international labels trade association this June from global strategic communications and advocacy consultancy Portland, where she currently serves as CEO.
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The incoming chief executive has deep, international experience, having logged almost two decades in the British Diplomatic Service, with roles in London, Paris, Brussels, Washington D.C. and the Eastern Caribbean, where she was High Commissioner until 2016.
Later, she spent three years at Portland then joined Google as global public policy director. Oakley returned to Portland in 2022 in the role as CEO, leading a 300-strong team of strategic communications and public affairs professionals across London, Doha, Singapore, Nairobi, Paris, Berlin and Brussels.In her new leadership role, Oakley will coordinate with the Federation’s national group network as it continues its work in promoting and advocating for the value of recorded music and the rights of its 8,000 record company members, including the three major labels.
“I’m pleased that Vikki is joining the IFPI during this dynamic time for the music industry,” comments Sir Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO, Universal Music Group. “Vikki brings the right skills and experience to help the global industry tackle important issues and opportunities collaboratively and with a fresh vision. We look forward to working with her.”
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Oakley, adds Robert Kyncl, CEO, Warner Music Group, “is a great choice to help lead the global campaign for the rights of artists and those who back them, and I’m excited she’s bringing her expertise and experience to IFPI.”
Says Rob Stringer, chairman, Sony Music Group: “Her decades of expertise combined with strong relationships around the world, will help us ensure music is recognized for the value it deserves and artists are always put first.”Oakley succeeds Frances Moore, who retired in December 2023 after leading the trade body since 2010.