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SYDNEY, Australia — After posting another year of growth, and record revenue and distributions, APRA AMCOS is doubling-down on its call for a tax-offset to kick-start live music.
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The PRO last month posted “very strong” financials for the full-year 2023, with record gross revenue of A$690.5 million ($453 million), up 12% from the 2022 result, and net distributable revenue paid to songwriter and publisher members, affiliates and rightsholders up 11.4% year-on-year to A$595.2 million ($390 million), also a new benchmark — gains that are “indicative of a post-pandemic recovery.”
Those healthy results came with a gut-punch.
Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the organization found that 1,300-plus live music venues and stages across Australia were lost, or roughly one-third fewer licensed premises where artists can perform medium to smaller gigs.
At the presentation of those annual results at the APRA AMCOS HQ in Sydney, the organization’s CEO Dean Ormston urged the federal government to commit to a live music venue tax offset to act “as a catalyst in jump-starting live music nationally.”
This week, Ormston and APRA AMCOS reiterated those calls.
“For the current wave and the next generation of music creators to develop their skills and become export-ready, we need to provide them with the resources at home and build a sustainable live music ecosystem,” says Ormston.
A live music venue tax offset, he continued, would revitalize the country’s network of small live music venues.
Meanwhile, the music rights management body has confirmed the make-up of its board, following held two annual general meetings held Tuesday (No. 21) in Sydney.On the APRA board, writers Mark Callaghan and Jonathan Zwartz and publishers Jaime Gough (Concord Music Publishing ANZ) and Matthew Capper (Warner Chappell Music Australia) retained their positions. Jenny Morris and Damian Trotter (Sony Music Publishing) were named as chair and deputy chair of the APRA board, respectively.On the AMCOS board, directors Trotter and Heath Johns (BMG) retained their positions. Karen Hamilton (120 Publishing) is a new director appointment to the AMCOS board, while Philip Burn, chairman and CEO of Hal Leonard Australia, stepped down following ten years as a director, and was thanked for his service and expertise.
APRA and AMCOS board directors are elected by their respective memberships through a secure ballot. The process and results of the elections are audited and verified by APRA AMCOS’ independent auditors, KPMG.
Those elections were held in light of the society’s “Year In Review,” which reported a “dramatic” 400% year-on-year gain in license fees for concerts and festivals to A$31.9 million ($20.9 million), an all-time high, while international income from affiliate societies spiked 17.7% to A$70 million ($45 million), a new record.
Despite inflation and the rising cost of living, Aussie and Kiwi music fans flocked to shows. Notable tours included internationals Ed Sheeran, Elton John and Harry Styles, notes APRA AMCOS, plus Grammy-winning Sydney-EDM act RÜFÜS DU SOL, Crowded House, award-winning NZ acts L.A.B., SIX60 and more.
APRA AMCOS represents over 119,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. Click here for its “Year In Review.”
Jamie Foxx has been accused of sexual assault and battery by a young woman who claims the singer and actor groped her at a New York restaurant in 2015.
The complaint was filed in New York court on Wednesday (Nov. 22) by attorney Craig Phemister. In it, the Jane Doe plaintiff claims she met an allegedly intoxicated Foxx at the Catch NYC restaurant rooftop in August 2015 and, along with a friend, asked if he would take photos with them.
The woman claims that after taking photos with Foxx, he made several flirtatious comments before subsequently pulling her to a “secluded area.” There, she claims he rubbed her breasts before sliding his hands into her pants and placing “his fingers on and in” her vagina and anus despite her attempts to step away from him. She says he only stopped after her friend came looking for her, at which point she claims he walked away.
The woman, who says she was 18 at the time, claims that in the aftermath of the alleged assault, she “was injured; was rendered sick, sore, lame and disabled; was caused to undergo medical treatment and advice; was unable to pursue her usual and regular activities; was caused to undergo great conscious pain and suffering, continues to undergo such, and will permanently be affected by the injuries and emotional distress she incurred as a result of the sexual assault, abuse, assault and battery.”
Also named in the lawsuit are Catch Hospitality Group, which owns the New York restaurant, as well as its co-founder, Mark Birnbaum, whom the woman claims was drinking with Foxx at his table that night. She alleges that Birnbaum, the hospitality group and associated companies “were negligent in the hiring, training, lack of supervision, management, control and retention of their employees,” including several (listed as John/Jane Does 1-10) whom she says were working at the restaurant that night.
The lawsuit additionally claims that Foxx’s co-defendants “had knowledge of [his] propensities for aggressive behavior towards females, the potential for unwanted sexual touching and his bad disposition when consuming excessive alcohol.” The suit adds that restaurant staff were not properly trained “how to observe when a patron such as Foxx has consumed an excessive amount of alcohol and should not be served any more, and in otherwise ensuring the safety of their patrons from unwanted and abusive sexual touching.” It also claims the restaurant did not provide adequate security to protect its guests, thereby making the alleged assault possible.
All defendants are additionally accused of violating New York City’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act — Foxx for the alleged assault and Birnbaum and the companies for allegedly enabling it.
The woman is seeking damages for pain and suffering and economic loss as well as punitive damages.
Representatives for Foxx, Birnbaum and Catch Hospitality Group did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
The case against Foxx is just the latest in a string of sexual misconduct lawsuits filed over the last month against men in the music industry, including industry executives like L.A. Reid and Jimmy Iovine and superstar artists including Axl Rose and Sean “Diddy” Combs (who settled the lawsuit brought by his accuser, former girlfriend and R&B singer Cassie, one day after it was filed). The spike in cases is due to the looming expiration at midnight Thursday (Nov. 23) of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which created a one-year window for alleged survivors to take legal action over years-old accusations that would typically be barred under the statute of limitations.
Interscope Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine is being sued by an unnamed woman for sexual abuse, forcible touching, sexual harassment and retaliation, according to a document filed in New York court Wednesday (Nov. 22). Though the full complaint is not yet available, a summons with notice was filed by the woman’s attorneys, Douglas Wigdor and Meredith […]
Phil Quartararo, the former EMI, Virgin and Warner Bros. record mogul who helped break Paula Abdul, the Spice Girls, Linkin Park and numerous other pop megastars, died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles of cancer. He was 67.
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“I loved helping an artist’s dream come true,” Quartararo told an interviewer in 2021. “I cannot press upon you the satisfaction of doing that.”
Known as “Phil Q,” the gregarious, Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Quartararo was a ubiquitous figure in the record industry, helping to break U2 on pop radio in the mid-’80s as senior vp of promotion at Island Records, engineering the Spice Girls’ marketing plan in the ’90s as CEO/president of Virgin Records America, and working over the years with Madonna, Coldplay, The Smashing Pumpkins, Faith Hill and Green Day. “Phil believed in me like no other,” Paula Abdul said in a statement. “His ceaseless support for me during my time at Virgin was unparalleled. I will miss him.”
In the early 2000s, when Napster, MP3s and digital piracy threatened to destroy the business, Quartararo was one of the executives in Steve Jobs’ office when the late Apple CEO promised to shift the business from $10 CDs to 99-cent downloads. “At the end of the day, 99 cents for a track is better than nothing for a track,” Quartararo would say.
Virgin Records’ founder, Richard Branson, recruited Quartararo to help launch his American label in 1986, and over the years Quartararo rose to president and CEO. In 1997, according to The New York Times, Quartararo helped “turn Virgin into EMI’s crown jewel,” generating most of the parent label’s $5.9 billion in yearly sales.
Quartararo left Virgin that year to become president of Warner Bros. Records, where he worked with Madonna, Linkin Park, Josh Groban, Cher and Wilco, among others. In 2005, he made his way back to EMI, Virgin’s owner, as an executive, helping to shift the label’s focus from physical sales and distribution to marketing and launching Coldplay, Norah Jones, Keith Urban and others.
After leaving EMI in 2005, Quartararo became an entrepreneur and consultant, working with music-distribution startups, streaming services and talent managers and managed acts such as Japanese composer Yoshiki and metal band X Japan. He also ran Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation Records from 2016-2019. “Phil approached everything with a kind heart and a light spirit and sense of humor,” says Taylor Jones, a co-owner of music-focused multimedia company The Hello Group, where Quartararo was president and chairman. “He was incredibly stress-resistant. His values have been instilled in the very core and ethos of our company.”
Adds Evan Lamberg, president of Universal Music Publishing North America: “Phil Q was arguably the ‘’Mayor of Goodwill’ in our industry for decades. There is no one that he touched that was not better for having known him.”
In 2013, Quartararo told Billboard he didn’t miss major labels, but “I miss dealing with the artists. I miss sharing with young people, teaching them the music business. That’s the part I loved the most. I don’t miss the big company, per se. Because the big company is cumbersome and unfortunately can’t move as quickly as the consumer or artists need to move. It’s not as nimble as it used to be.”
Live Nation officials are at an impasse with a powerful Senate subcommittee over demands that the concert promoter hand over confidential emails, contracts and memos detailing sensitive information about artist compensation.
Attorneys for Live Nation say they have already turned over more than 10,000 documents to investigators working for Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, or PSI, which Blumenthal chairs. Live Nation in-house counsel Dan Wall wrote on Live Nation’s corporate blog on Tuesday (Nov. 21) that the company is willing to hand over more sensitive documents if the PSI agrees to confidentiality protections to ensure the information is kept out of the public domain.
So far, Blumenthal has refused to agree to any restrictions requested by Live Nation and issued a subpoena for the confidential documents on Nov. 16. Live Nation officials plan to challenge the subpoena in court and are preparing for a lengthy legal battle to protect the confidentiality of its artist contracts if the two sides can’t reach an agreement.
“It is only in a subpoena enforcement action [before a federal judge] that Live Nation can assert its rights to protect the confidentiality of this information,” Wall wrote in the blog post.
Live Nation’s insistence on “confidentiality protections” is fairly routine, most legal experts agree, especially when it comes to court proceedings or investigations by government agencies. It’s also common practice for congressional investigators to agree to confidentiality rules while collecting evidence for congressional inquiries, but there’s no legal recourse if a member of Congress or staff discloses confidential information to the public.
News on Monday (Nov. 20) that Live Nation was being investigated by the powerful Department of Homeland Security and PSI surprised many music industry insiders. Created by President Harry Truman in 1941 to investigate wasteful defense spending after World War II, the PSI’s focus for much of its existence has been on matters of national security, including Korean War atrocities, the American Mafia’s influence on major labor unions and the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Under Blumenthal’s leadership, the PSI has shifted its focus to consumer-oriented investigations, like the proposed merger of the PGA and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league, equity within Medicare Advantage and sexual abuse in federal women’s prisons.
Blumenthal has also long been a critic of Live Nation and its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster, calling for the two companies to be split apart during a high-profile Senate hearing in January. According to a Nov. 16 letter from Blumenthal to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, the PSI officially began investigating Live Nation in March, in part for what Blumenthal calls “failure to combat artificially inflated demand fueled by bots in multiple, high-profile incidents, which resulted in consumers being charged exorbitant ticket prices.”
That description is the only public hint of what PSI is focusing on in its Live Nation investigation and doesn’t seem particularly damning of the concert promotion company. While bots, often operated by scalpers, do inflate demand for tickets — especially during high-profile onsales — and can lead to exorbitant ticket prices, it’s almost always Ticketmaster’s competitors in the secondary market who stand the most to gain.
Before Live Nation hands over any documents that contain “highly sensitive client information about artists, venues and others with whom we deal,” Wall wrote in the blog post, the company wants “binding confidentiality protections to prevent its misuse.”
Live Nation’s request might prove more difficult than the company’s leadership realizes, says Andrew Olmem, attorney and partner at Mayer Brown, which specializes in defending clients targeted by major investigations and congressional inquiries.
“Any documents provided to Congress are always vulnerable to public disclosure,” Olmem explains, noting that Congressional members and their staffers enjoy broad protections against criminal and civil liability under the U.S. Constitution’s speech and debate clause.
It is common for attorneys of clients targeted by Congressional inquiries to negotiate terms of documents’ use with investigators requesting the information, Olmem says. Many investigators, he adds, care deeply about reputational trust, knowing that violating confidentiality agreements with targets could make future targets less willing to voluntarily cooperate with document requests and significantly slow down investigations.
“But even if you secure such an agreement, members of Congress and their staffs can’t be liable for releasing confidential documents as part of their official legislative duties, such as submitting (the documents) into the congressional record or reading them on the House or Senate floors for the purpose of informing a legislative debate,” Olmem continues. “There are many circumstances in which members and their staff are incentivized to leak and do leak information for political purposes without consequences.”
While Google usually takes a 15% cut of customer payments for app subscriptions in its Play Store on Android devices, Spotify obtained a deal that allowed it to pay a drastically reduced commission, according to The Verge.
The details of the business arrangement were divulged by Google head of global partnerships Don Harrison on Monday (Nov. 20) in testimony during the Epic Games vs. Google trial: Spotify paid no commission if users bought subscriptions through Spotify, and 4% if users selected Google as their payment processor.
Harrison said in court that Spotify landed this “bespoke” agreement because “if we don’t have Spotify working properly across Play services and core services, people will not buy Android phones.” His testimony also indicated that the deal entailed a $50 million investment by both Google and Spotify in a “success fund.”
In a statement to The Verge, a Google spokesperson said that “a small number of developers that invest more directly in Android and Play may have different service fees as part of a broader partnership that includes substantial financial investments and product integrations across different form factors. These key investment partnerships allow us to bring more users to Android and Play by continuously improving the experience for all users and create new opportunities for all developers.”
A rep for Spotify did not respond to Billboard’s request for comment.
Epic Games, which is known for furnishing the world with the popular game Fortnite, has been battling Google since way back in 2020 over the 30% fee the search giant charges app developers for purchases made on its Play Store on Android devices. Epic tried to circumvent Google’s system by putting its own payment system into the Fortnite app and charging a reduced price; Google hit back by yanking Fortnite off the Play Store.
Epic then sued Google. “Google… is using its size to do evil upon competitors, innovators, customers and users in a slew of markets it has grown to monopolize,” Epic wrote in its complaint. The New York Times reported that Epic’s CEO, Tim Sweeney, said in court on Monday (Nov. 20) that Google “exercises de facto control over the availability of apps on Android.”
Wilson White, a Google vp of public policy, told reporters earlier this month that “Epic wants all the benefits of Android and Google Play without having to pay for them,” according to The New York Times. “The lawsuit [from Epic] would upend a business model that has lowered prices and increased choices,” White argued.
Google had tried to avoid revealing the nature of its relationship with Spotify in court, The Verge reported earlier this month. “Disclosure of the Spotify deal would be very, very detrimental for the negotiation we’d be having with… other parties,” Google attorney Glenn Pomerantz told the judge overseeing the case.
Hall & Oates are locked in a mysterious lawsuit against each other, with Daryl Hall already winning a restraining order against musical partner John Oates.
The case, filed by Hall on Nov. 16 in Nashville court, concerns either a “contract” or “debt,” but little else is known about the case because it was filed under seal — a maneuver used when court documents contain sensitive information.
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The day after Hall headed to court, the judge overseeing the case issued a temporary restraining order against Oates, but there are no details about what the injunction bans the singer from doing. The lawsuit also names Oates’ wife, Aimee, in her role as a trustee of her husband’s investment trust.
The case was first reported Monday (Nov. 20) by Philadelphia magazine. Billboard confirmed its existence by reviewing court records in the Davidson County Chancery Court. An attorney for Hall, and reps for both singers, did not return requests for comment on Wednesday.
Since teaming up as a pair of Philadelphia singers in 1972, Hall & Oates have hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 a whopping six times, first with “Rich Girl” in 1977 and then with “Kiss On My List,” “Private Eyes,” “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” “Maneater” and “Out of Touch.” The pair have 10 more top 10 hits on the chart, as well as four albums that reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200.
As explained by Philadelphia, the duo have already broken up and reunited several times, sometimes going years without playing together. But they recently founded the HoagieNation Festival in Philadelphia and headlined the event in 2017, 2018 and 2021.
With details of the recent lawsuit under seal, speculation about the dispute swirled on Wednesday. TMZ pointed to a quote from Hall on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast last year in which he said: “You think John Oates is my partner? … He’s my business partner. He’s not my creative partner.” Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that the pair had “played only a handful of dates in 2022” and none in 2023.
Last year, Hall told the Los Angeles Times that it can be “very annoying” to operate as a musical duo. “Everything you do is juxtaposed against another person. Try doing that sometime. I don’t want to use the word ‘emasculating,’ because that’s male, but it takes away your individuality.”
Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose was hit with a lawsuit Wednesday over allegations that he sexually assaulted a Penthouse model in 1989.
In a complaint filed Wednesday in New York court, attorneys for Sheila Kennedy claim that Rose “used his fame, status, and power as a celebrity and performer in the music industry to gain access to manipulate, control, and violently sexually assault” her.
The alleged attack – in a New York City hotel room in February 1989 — has caused her to suffer “severe emotional, physical, financial and psychological distress” ever since, Kennedy’s lawyers say.
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“Kennedy has experienced symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder whenever she hears Rose’s name or the music of Guns N’ Roses,” her attorneys wrote. “Other sexual encounters have drawn her right back to the night that Rose had assaulted her.”
A rep for Rose did not immediately return a request for comment.
The case against Rose is the latest in a string of sexual misconduct lawsuits filed over the last month against men in the music industry, including industry executives like L.A. Reid and superstar artists like Sean “Diddy” Combs. The spike in cases is due to the looming expiration on Thursday of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which created a one-year window for alleged survivors to take legal action over years-old accusations that would typically be barred under the statute of limitations.
In her complaint against Rose, Kennedy makes graphic allegations of sexual assault.
After first meeting the rock star at a nightclub, Kennedy says Rose invited her back to a party at his hotel room, along with his friend David Andrew “Riki” Rachtman and another model. After providing his guests with “cocaine, champagne, and alcohol,” the lawsuit claims Rose then “pushed Kennedy against the wall and kissed her.”
“Kennedy found Rose attractive and did not mind this encounter,” her lawyers write. “She was open to sleeping with him if things progressed and if they continued to find each other attractive.”
But Kennedy says the night then got darker – first when she witnesses Rose having “painful” sex with the other model, then when she thought he was encouraging group sex. After she exited the room, she claims Rose stormed into a rage, dragged her back into the room, through her onto the bed, and bound her hands.
“Rose then sexually assaulted Kennedy,” Kennedy’s lawyers write. “Rose forcibly penetrating Kennedy’s anus with his penis. Rose made no attempt to ask for or check that Kennedy was consenting. He treated her like property used solely for his sexual pleasure. He did not use a condom.”
Faced with the ongoing attack, Kennedy’s lawyers say she “felt she had no escape or exit and was compelled to acquiesce” to the assault. “She understood that the safest thing to do was to lie in bed and wait for Rose to finish assaulting her.”
Read Kennedy’s full lawsuit here:
When Dierks Bentley’s band is looking for something to keep it occupied during long bus rides, the group has, at times, turned to artificial intelligence apps, asking them to create album reviews or cover art for the group’s alter ego, The Hot Country Knights.
“So far,” guitarist Charlie Worsham says, “AI does not completely understand The Hot Country Knights.”
By the same token, Music Row doesn’t completely understand AI, but the developing technology is here, inspiring tech heads and early adaptors to experiment with it, using it to get a feel, for example, for how Bentley’s voice might fit a new song or to kick-start a verse that has the writer stumped. But it has also inspired a palpable amount of fear among artists anticipating their voices will be misused and among musicians who feel they’ll be completely replaced.
“As a songwriter, I see the benefit that you don’t have to shell out a ton of money for a demo singer,” one attendee said during the Q&A section of an ASCAP panel about AI on Nov. 7. “But also, as a demo singer, I’m like, ‘Oh, shit, I’m out of a job.’”
That particular panel, moderated by songwriter-producer Chris DeStefano (“At the End of a Bar,” “That’s My Kind of Night”), was one of three AI presentations that ASCAP hosted at Nashville’s Twelve Thirty Club the morning after the ASCAP Country Music Awards, hoping to educate Music City about the burgeoning technology. The event addressed the creative possibilities ahead, the evolving legal discussion around AI and the ethical questions that it raises. (ASCAP has endorsed six principles for AI frameworks here).
The best-known examples of AI’s entry into music have revolved around the use of public figures’ voices in novel ways. Hip-hop artist Drake, in one prominent instance, had his voice re-created in a cover of “Bubbly,” originated by Colbie Caillat, who released her first country album, Along the Way, on Sept. 22.
“Definitely bizarre,” Caillat said during CMA Week activities. “I don’t think it’s good. I think it makes it all too easy.”
But ASCAP panelists outlined numerous ways AI can be employed for positive uses without misappropriating someone’s voice. DeStefano uses AI program Isotope, which learned his mixing tendencies, to elevate his tracks to “another level.” Independent hip-hop artist Curtiss King has used AI to handle tasks outside of his wheelhouse that he can’t afford to outsource, such as graphic design or developing video ideas for social media. Singer-songwriter Anna Vaus instructed AI to create a 30-day social media campaign for her song “Halloween on Christmas Eve” and has used it to adjust her bio or press releases — “stuff,” she says, “that is not what sets my soul on fire.” It allows her more time, she said, for “sitting in my room and sharing my human experiences.”
All of this forward motion is happening faster in some other genres than it is in country, and the abuses — the unauthorized use of Drake’s voice or Tom Cruise’s image — have entertainment lawyers and the Copyright Office playing catch-up. Those examples test the application of the fair use doctrine in copyright law, which allows creators to play with existing copyrights. But as Sheppard Mullin partner Dan Schnapp pointed out during the ASCAP legal panel, fair use requires the new piece to be a transformative product that does not damage the market for the original work. When Drake’s voice is being applied without his consent to a song he has never recorded and he is not receiving a royalty, that arguably affects his marketability.
The Copyright Office has declined to offer copyright protection for AI creations, though works that are formed through a combination of human and artificial efforts complicate the rule. U.S. Copyright Office deputy general counsel Emily Chapuis pointed to a comic book composed by a human author who engaged AI for the drawings. Copyright was granted to the text, but not the illustrations.
The legal community is also sorting through rights to privacy and so-called “moral rights,” the originator’s ability to control how a copyright is used.
“You can’t wait for the law to catch up to the tech,” Schnapp said during the legal panel. “It never has and never will. And now, this is the most disruptive technology that’s hit the creative industry, generally, in our lifetime. And it’s growing exponentially.”
Which has some creators uneasy. Carolyn Dawn Johnson asked from the audience if composers should stop using their phones during writing appointments because ads can track typed and spoken activity, thus opening the possibility that AI begins to draw on content that has never been included in copyrighted material. The question was not fully answered.
But elsewhere, Nashville musicians are beginning to use AI in multiple ways. Restless Road has had AI apply harmonies to songwriter demos to see if a song might fit its sound. Elvie Shane, toying with a chatbot, developed an idea that he turned into a song about the meth epidemic, “Appalachian Alchemy.” Chase Matthew’s producer put a version of his voice on a song to convince him to record it. Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin, who co-wrote Sugarland’s “Stuck Like Glue,” has asked AI to suggest second verses on songs he was writing — the verses are usually pedestrian, but he has found “one nugget” that helped finish a piece.
The skeptics have legitimate points, but skeptics also protested electronic instruments, drum machines, CDs, file sharing and programmed tracks. The industry has inevitably adapted to those technologies. And while AI is scary, early adopters seem to think it’s making them more productive and more creative.
“It’s always one step behind,” noted King. “It can make predictions based upon the habits that I’ve had, but there’s so many interactions that I have because I’m a creative and I get creative about where I’m going next … If anything, AI has given me like a kick in the butt to be more creative than I’ve ever been before.”
Songwriter Kevin Kadish (“Whiskey Glasses,” “Soul”) put the negatives of AI into a bigger-picture perspective.
“I’m more worried about it for like people’s safety and all the scams that happen on the phone,” he said on the ASCAP red carpet. “Music is the least of our worries with AI.”
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The ousted leader of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is returning to the company that fired him late last week, culminating a days-long power struggle that shocked the tech industry and brought attention to the conflicts around how to safely build artificial intelligence.
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San Francisco-based OpenAI said in a statement late Tuesday: “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board.”
The board, which replaces the one that fired Altman on Friday, will be led by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, who also chaired Twitter’s board before its takeover by Elon Musk last year. The other members will be former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
OpenAI’s previous board of directors, which included D’Angelo, had refused to give specific reasons for why it fired Altman, leading to a weekend of internal conflict at the company and growing outside pressure from the startup’s investors.
The chaos also accentuated the differences between Altman — who’s become the face of generative AI’s rapid commercialization since ChatGPT’s arrival a year ago — and members of the company’s board who have expressed deep reservations about the safety risks posed by AI as it gets more advanced.
Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has rights to its current technology, quickly moved to hire Altman on Monday, as well as another co-founder and former president, Greg Brockman, who had quit in protest after Altman’s removal. That emboldened a threatened exodus of nearly all of the startup’s 770 employees who signed a letter calling for the board’s resignation and Altman’s return.
One of the four board members who participated in Altman’s ouster, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, later expressed regret and joined the call for the board’s resignation.
Microsoft in recent days had pledged to welcome all employees who wanted to follow Altman and Brockman to a new AI research unit at the software giant. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also made clear in a series of interviews Monday that he was still open to the possibility of Altman returning to OpenAI, so long as the startup’s governance problems are solved.
“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadella posted on X late Tuesday. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”
In his own post, Altman said that “with the new board and (with) Satya’s support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with (Microsoft).”
Co-founded by Altman as a nonprofit with a mission to safely build so-called artificial general intelligence that outperforms humans and benefits humanity, OpenAI later became a for-profit business but one still run by its nonprofit board of directors. It’s not clear yet if the board’s structure will change with its newly appointed members.
“We are collaborating to figure out the details,” OpenAI posted on X. “Thank you so much for your patience through this.”
Nadella said Brockman, who was OpenAI’s board chairman until Altman’s firing, will also have a key role to play in ensuring the group “continues to thrive and build on its mission.”
Hours earlier, Brockman returned to social media as if it were business as usual, touting a feature called ChatGPT Voice that was rolling out to users.
“Give it a try — totally changes the ChatGPT experience,” Brockman wrote, flagging a post from OpenAI’s main X account that featured a demonstration of the technology and playfully winking at recent turmoil.
“It’s been a long night for the team and we’re hungry. How many 16-inch pizzas should I order for 778 people,” the person asks, using the number of people who work at OpenAI. ChatGPT’s synthetic voice responded by recommending around 195 pizzas, ensuring everyone gets three slices.
As for OpenAI’s short-lived interim CEO Emmett Shear, the second interim CEO in the days since Altman’s ouster, he posted on X that he was “deeply pleased by this result, after (tilde)72 very intense hours of work.”
“Coming into OpenAI, I wasn’t sure what the right path would be,” wrote Shear, the former head of Twitch. “This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved. I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”