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Veteran music industry executive Jessica Rivera has joined multimedia company HOORAE — owned by actress, producer and entrepreneur Issa Rae — as president of its Raedio division. In her new post at Raedio, which is approaching its fifth anniversary, Rivera will supervise the “audio everywhere” division’s various operations including its record label, publishing, music supervision, […]
With SZA’s album SOS leading the way and the market enjoying more growth in streaming royalties, Sony Music’s revenue grew 16.0% to 422.1 billion yen ($2.85 billion at the period’s average exchange rate) in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, the company announced Wednesday (Feb. 14).
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Other top releases for the quarter were Travis Scott’s Utopia, Rod Wave’s Nostalgia, Doja Cat’s Scarlet, Blink-182’s One More Time…, Tate McRae’s Think Later, Harry Styles’ Harry’s House and Fuerza Regida’s Pa Las Baby’s Y Belikeada. A couple holiday classics were amongst Sony’s top albums in the Christmas quarter: Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas and Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector.
Streaming fueled growth in both the recorded music and music publishing segments of the business. Paid subscriptions were a major factor in the first full quarter after Spotify raised prices in roughly 50 markets, including the U.S., in July. Favorable foreign exchange rates accounted for about 24% of the quarter’s 58.4 billion yen ($394.9 million) revenue increase.
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Its double-digit revenue growth was comparable on a percentage basis to other music companies that have released earnings. In the same quarter, Warner Music Group’s revenue grew 17.5% to $1.75 billion and Reservoir Media revenue improved 19% to $35.5 million. Spotify, the largest single source for music royalties globally, grew revenue by 16% to 3.67 billion euros ($4.05 billion).
Sony Music’s margins improved across the board, too. Operating income improved 20.8% to 76.1 billion yen ($514.4 million) and adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization jumped 25.3% to 98.5 billion yen ($666.2 million). Adjusted OIBDA margin improved nearly two percentage points to 23.3% from 21.6% in the prior-year quarter.
The strong quarter led Sony Music to raise its full-year forecasts for the third consecutive quarter. On Wednesday, the company raised the forecasts for both revenue and adjusted OIBDA by 10 billion yen ($68 million) — revenue from 1.56 trillion yen ($10.37 billion at the current exchange rate) to 1.57 trillion yen ($10.43 billion) and adjusted OIBDA from 350 billion yen ($2.33 billion) to 360 million yen ($2.39 billion). When the company released its fiscal second quarter earnings in November, it increased its revenue guidance by 5% to 70 billion yen ($485 million) and adjusted OIBDA by 4%, or 15 billion yen ($104 million). In August, it raised its revenue forecast by 6%.
Both music divisions each posted solid year-over-year gains in the quarter. Recorded music revenues jumped 19.9% to 286.5 billion yen ($1.94 billion). Streaming revenue rose 17.2% to 186.5 billion yen ($1.26 billion) and accounted for about 58% of the segment’s improvement. Physical revenue gained just 1.5% to 31.5 billion yen ($213.2 million). The “other” category — including merchandise, live performances and licensing revenue from synch, public performance and broadcast — jumped 45.9% to 59.7 billion yen ($403.9 million).
Music publishing revenue rose 16.1% to 86.1 billion yen ($582 million). Streaming revenue climbed 22.4% to 50.9 billion yen ($343.9 million) and accounted for 78% of the segment’s year-over-year gain. Publishing’s “other” category grew 8% to 35.2 billion yen ($238.1 million).
Visual media and platform revenue declined 5.1% to 45 billion yen ($304.4 million). The segment includes mobile gaming, software for PCs and game consoles, and software development contracts.
Financial metrics for Sony Music’s fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, 2023:
Revenue of 422.1 billion yen ($2.85 billion), up 16.0% year over year.
Adjusted operating income of 98.5 billion yen ($666.2 million), up 25.3% year over year.
Recorded music of 286.5 billion yen ($1.94 million), up 19.9% year over year.
Music publishing revenue of 86.1 billion yen ($582 million), up 16.1% year over year.
Visual media and platform revenue of 45 billion yen ($304.4 million), down 5.1% year over year.
Oak View Group (OVG), the owner and operator of the 11,000-capacity Acrisure Arena near Palm Springs, Calif., has entered into a partnership agreement to manage, program and seek out new sponsorship opportunities for the historic Palm Springs Plaza Theatre, it was announced Tuesday (Feb. 13). Restoration work on the theater will begin in March 2024, with completion expected in fall 2025.
“This agreement between the City, the Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation, and the Oak View Group is an economic game-changer,” said Scott Stiles, city manager of Palm Springs, in a statement. “The restoration of the historic Plaza Theatre is a major milestone in the Downtown Revitalization Plan and will bring the world’s best artists and culture to our revitalized downtown.”
John Bolton, senior vp of Oak View Group, added, “All of us at Oak View Group are thrilled to partner with the Plaza Theatre Foundation and its dedicated group of Board of Directors. We look forward to bringing the full breadth and scope of OVG to the table to make this City of Palm Springs asset shine and become a huge community and cultural asset in downtown Palm Springs.”
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Last year, OVG committed to donating $1 million to help fund the restoration of the Plaza Theatre and has agreed to waive all management fees, said Kevin J. Corcoran, vp of the Plaza Theatre Foundation, adding, “We have been impressed with the launch of the Acrisure Arena and the programming, sponsorship, and management expertise they have brought to the very successful first year of operation.”
The agreement provides the City of Palm Springs with a total of 21 days annually to offer public programming at the discretion of the city council. This programming would include the annual state of the city address, cultural and civic programs, and more.
“Oak View Group is internationally admired for their management of significant sporting, convention, arts, and entertainment venues,” said Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation president J.R. Roberts. “We are delighted to have this strong community partner further commit to working with us to provide the expertise that this theatre needs to be a successful economic force in Palm Springs. We are especially thrilled to be working with Palm Springs resident and Oak View Group senior vice president John Bolton on this exciting collaboration. We are delighted that John has agreed to join our hard-working board of directors.”
Content ideas for the theater include concerts, chamber orchestra performances, film festivals, community meetings, conventions, cabaret performances, lectures, music festivals, ideas festivals, children’s programming, charity and fundraising events, and other theater performances and events. OVG will pursue corporate sponsorship to further support the Theatre.
The Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation is continuing to raise funds to fully restore the venue, having raised $16 million of its $26 million goal to cover construction costs and contingencies along with startup expenses. The funds will help restore the building to its original state and update it to meet access, technology and equity needs. There are several naming opportunities still available, including a special theater naming option for a single $10 million donor.
Russell Simmons has been sued by a former Def Jam video producer over claims of rape and sexual assault that took place in the 1990s.
Billboard obtained the complaint filed to New York Federal Court on Tuesday (Feb. 12), which was filed under “Jane Doe” to protect the victim’s identity. She detailed the “devastating” experiences with the music mogul that led to her career being “derailed.”
Doe alleged that she was raped in the late ’90s by Simmons at his Manhattan apartment when she visited him at his residence to receive approval for a video.
While in his bedroom, she claimed that Simmons pinned her down with a “wrestling” move and proceeded to rape her despite her repeatedly professing her desire for him to stop his unwanted sexual advances.
Ms. Doe tried to continue her executive job at Def Jam but she suffered alleged panic attacks and developed an eating disorder and eventually moved across the country to California seeking new opportunities in 1997.
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She left three jobs throughout the two-year period following the alleged sexual assault at the hands of Simmons in part due to her crippling anxiety.
“As detailed in the complaint, our client was sexually assaulted and harassed by her boss, Russell Simmons, while pursuing her professional ambitions as an executive at Def Jam,” Doe’s attorney Kenya Davis relayed in a statement.
“She was proud of her contributions to the burgeoning musical genre of hip hop, but her hard work and her career in music was disrupted and derailed by Mr. Simmons, a rich and powerful celebrity whose wealth and influence allowed his abusive behavior to go unchallenged for decades. Now a successful writer and producer in the entertainment industry, Jane Doe’s traumatic experiences with Simmons echo those of so many other women who he has preyed upon for decades.”
Over the years, Jane Doe had encounters with Russell Simmons in various social settings and even ran into him at a yoga studio in Los Angeles circa March 2023. While they didn’t speak much in previous encounters, she asked if it was OK to practice next to him when he allegedly replied in a whisper, “Of course. What, do you think I’m gonna try and f— you?”
With the “lookback window” of New York’s Adult Survivors Act reopening, Jane Doe had the opportunity to file the federal lawsuit with the state where otherwise the statute of limitations would have expired. She’s suing Simmons for sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment.
Russell Simmons has been named the perpetrator in other sexual assault-related lawsuits in recent years. Since 2017’s allegations, multiple women have come forward recounting similar experiences with the Def Jam Records co-founder. He has maintained his innocence and claims to have passed “nine lie detector tests.”
iHeartMedia received $101.4 million from the sale of BMI, in which it held a minority stake, to New Mountain Capital, the company announced Monday (Feb. 12) through an SEC filing. The sale was finalized on Feb. 8. iHeartMedia had previously announced on Nov. 27 that it expected to receive approximately $100 million from the sale, […]
Roddy Ricch has defeated a copyright lawsuit that claimed the rapper stole key elements of his chart-topping 2019 song “The Box” from a decades-old soul song, with a judge ruling “no reasonable jury” would find the two songs similar.
Songwriter Greg Perry sued Ricch (real name Roderick Wayne Jr.) and Atlantic Records in 2022, claiming the hit track (which spent a whopping 11 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100) had been ripped off from Perry’s 1975 “Come On Down” — an oft-sampled song in the hip-hop world.
But in a decision Monday (Feb. 12), Judge Analisa Torres ruled that the two songs were clearly very different: “No reasonable jury could find that the works are substantially similar,” the judge wrote, noting “significant dissimilarities” between the “aesthetic appeal” of each track.
While Perry’s track is a “soul song that contains a melodic tune” and is performed with acoustic instruments, Judge Torres said, Roddy’s track is “a hip-hop song delivered in a monotone rap” created primarily with a synthesizer. The tempo of the older song is “significantly faster” than that of “The Box,” the judge added, and the overall “feel” of the two songs is also clearly distinct.
“[‘Come On Down’] is a sentimental song about ‘love and heartbreak,’ while ‘The Box’ is a braggadocious song about ‘amassing wealth, sleeping with multiple women, and being more skilled than other rappers’,” the judge wrote.
Perry’s lawyers filed the case back in December 2022, claiming an average music fan would be able to hear the “strikingly similar” aspects of the two tracks simply by listening to them, but that more thorough investigation by music experts has more conclusively proven the theft.
“Comparative analysis of the beat, lyrics, hook, rhythmic structure, metrical placement, and narrative context by a musicology expert demonstrates clearly and convincingly that ‘The Box’ is an unauthorized duplication and infringement of certain elements of ‘Come On Down,’” the suit read.
“Come On Down” is a popular sample in hip-hop — featured in both Young Jeezy’s 2008 “Wordplay” and Yo Gotti’s 2016 “I Remember.” Perry’s lawyers said both of those songs had been fully cleared and licensed by giving him a songwriting credit and an ownership stake.
“Other [artists] in the rap world that have chosen to copy elements of ‘Come On Down’ have done so legally and correctly,” Perry’s lawyers wrote. “Defendants chose not to license the musical composition from plaintiffs and instead chose to intentionally infringe upon the copyright.”
But in Monday’s decision, Judge Torres said there was no need for Ricch to secure such a license because his song did not infringe Perry’s tune. She said that the central alleged similarity — a so-called “ascending minor scale played by violin” that Perry claimed was repeated 24 times in Ricch’s song — was “expressed differently” in the two works. Other important elements of Perry’s work, like a so-called tremolando, are “notably absent” from “The Box,” she added.
“The musical composition … differs from ‘The Box in each of the components where plaintiff claims similarity,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that defendants copied any protectable portion of the musical composition.”
With her ruling, Judge Torres dismissed Perry’s case permanently, ending the lawsuit entirely. Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday.
Spurred by Kip Moore‘s massive touring success in Cape Town and Pretoria last year, South Africa is set to launch what organizers are calling one of the largest country music festivals outside of the United States.
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Kip Moore and Zac Brown Band will headline the Cape Town Country Festival on Oct. 26-27 at Cape Town’s 60,000-capacity DHL Stadium, which has previously hosted concerts from stars like U2, Foo Fighters, Mariah Carey, Rhianna and Justin Bieber.
“I absolutely love Africa and try to visit every year,” Zac Brown said in a statement. “We’re so excited that we get to perform at South Africa’s first-ever country music festival in October.”
The lineup also highlights American musicians including Darius Rucker, Brothers Osborne, Cam, James Johnston, Morgan Wade and Craig Morgan, as well as 10 local South African artists including Ricus Nel, Riaan Benade, Demi-Lee Moore, Juan Boucher, Appel, Ruhan du Toit, Brendan Peyper, Ivan Roux, West and Cheree. Additionally, Roan Ash, who moved to Nashville in 2022, will return to his hometown for the inaugural festival.
Wimpie van der Sandt of Heroes Events, who is also a DJ at BOK Radio, is producing the Cape Town Country Festival, with Red Light Management’s Gaines Sturdivant, one of Moore’s managers, serving as an executive consultant.
Moore’s headlining slot on the festival follows his successful trio of shows in Cape Town and Pretoria in 2023, where Moore sold 44,000 tickets. Van der Sandt was also instrumental in bringing those shows to South Africa.
The origins of Moore’s involvement with the festival and in building his audience in South Africa reach back to 2020 when Van der Sandt was introduced to Moore’s second studio album, 2015’s Wild Ones. Van der Sandt put Moore’s song “Heart’s Desire” on the radio during primetime hours.
“He said it caught like wildfire and people started calling and emailing trying to figure out who it was,” Moore tells Billboard via phone. “Then he did a deep dive into all my records and started playing lots of album cuts that I’ve always wanted to be singles, like ‘That Was Us’ and ‘The Bull.’ We had hits over there that we never even played live, like ‘Hey Old Lover’ and ‘Tennessee Boy.’ So when we played in South Africa, it was unlike anything I’d ever felt from a crowd. It was magical. And it was all from this one guy taking a chance and spinning my records.”
“The idea [for Cape Town Country Festival] was born from the success we had with Kip. We knew the synergy between South African music and country music — that wasn’t a surprise,” Van der Sandt tells Billboard. “When we saw the success we had with Kip, we knew we had a market. In South Africa, on our radio stations, they are used to Don Williams and Kenny Rogers, older country music. There’s not a lot of radio stations that play country music. We sort of introduced them to the new country and it took off. There were a lot of people that were skeptical about it, and didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Moore adds, “The beauty of what Wimpie did is that he doesn’t have any gatekeepers he has to get through. If he decides he likes something, he’ll roll the dice, take a chance and play it. He’s a true music lover. He’s a prime example that radio can still lead the way — they don’t have to just find out what’s streaming and follow it.”
Moore worked with Van der Sandt and Sturdivant on imagining the lineup. “I brought up Brothers Osborne — because I felt like if people were responding to what I’m doing, they’ll respond to Brothers Osborne. Darius Rucker has played in South Africa before. I said I loved the rawness in Morgan Wade’s voice,” Moore says, noting their previous collaboration, “If I Was Your Lover,” and imagining that they might perform the song together during the festival. “We’re super excited about shining a light on South African artists.”
The festival further evolves Moore’s touring success in the area as well as the vital scene of both country music fans and artists in South Africa. In 2023, Apple Music launched the country music competition series My Kind of Country, which highlighted international competitors. Nearly half of the competitors — including the competition’s eventual winner — hailed from South Africa. Moore says that he and his fest co-organizers are “super excited about shining a light on South African artists.”
Van der Sandt tells Billboard that they have a three-year agreement with the venue, with aims toward making the festival an annual event, on the scale of country music festivals such as Europe’s C2C: Country 2 Country festival and the Tamworth Country Music Festival in New South Wales, Australia.
Tickets for the event go on sale Feb. 16 at ctcfest.net, and will include special payment plans, allowing attendees to purchase tickets and pay over three, six or eight months.
For years, ASCAP and BMI were seen as the Coke and Pepsi of the performing rights management business — two giant entities with complicated formulas that seemed the same from a distance but quite different if you examined them closer. The November agreement to sell BMI to a group of investors led by New Mountain Capital, which was completed Feb. 8., has changed that — and the songwriters for whom they compete have already seen it in the marketing. BMI is making the case that a for-profit model will let it invest more aggressively in technology, among other things, while ASCAP pointed out on social media that “private equity never wrote an iconic love song.” The Pepsi Challenge seems quaint by comparison.
There were always differences between the two — ASCAP is governed by members, BMI was owned by its licensees; ASCAP charged a onetime $50 fee to join, while BMI was free, though that changed and now ASCAP is free to join and BMI charges $75. And although it’s hard to know for certain, this could end up being more of an evolution than a revolution: Nonprofits invest in technology and operations all the time, although it can be tricky, and the music business wasn’t exactly unsullied by greed before the days of private equity.
BMI and ASCAP collect and distribute more money than any other rights organizations in the world, though. So any changes in the way BMI operates — let alone whatever changes ASCAP makes in response — will reverberate through the entire competitive ecosystem to their less regulated U.S. rivals SESAC and GMR (which invite only the songwriters they want to join); to performing rights societies around the world; and ultimately to everyone who writes, owns or publishes songs.
New Mountain Capital wants a return on its investment, so BMI will need to make a profit — plus grow. Some of this will presumably come from higher-margin new businesses, including international venture — think cooperations or partnerships with societies in India, Africa or the Middle East. (BMI and ASCAP are subject to consent decrees that limit what other businesses they could get into in the U.S.) There’s already some competition in some of those places from European organizations, though.
Presumably, some of the profit is going to have to come from BMI’s traditional U.S. performing rights operations — and that won’t be easy, according to about a dozen rights organization and music publishing executives I spoke with for this column. (None has any inside knowledge about BMI’s plans.) Essentially, BMI will need to hold back enough of the money it collects to both cover its operating costs and make a profit on top of that, while paying its songwriters and publishers more than they can get from its rivals.
BMI has said a bit about how it plans to do that. In an Oct. 12 letter to “BMI affiliates and industry partners,” CEO Mike O’Neil said that for the next three years, BMI’s goal would be to retain 15% of its licensing revenue, as opposed to “around 10%,” although it would take a higher margin on “incremental growth we create for the company,” including acquisitions and new services. To make sure that additional 5% doesn’t come at the expense of songwriter and publisher royalties, BMI will need to negotiate deals that are significantly better than ASCAP’s on a consistent basis.
The only way to do that is to have the most in-demand repertoire from top songwriters like Taylor Swift, probably BMI’s biggest songwriter— and getting and retaining it may require offering better terms to top writers. That would almost presumably involve attractive advances (which all four U.S. performing rights organizations sometimes offer) and some form of bonus structure for top performers (which ASCAP and BMI offer, although their methodology differs). BMI said that advances have always been part of its strategy and it has no plans to change its general approach to this or its bonus structure, or its distribution policies. But what if BMI’s rivals also offer higher advances and better bonuses? If getting the best deal terms means having the best repertoire, they have every reason to do so.
The question is how those writers will be rewarded for the leverage they provide, and if Swift’s popularity helps her fellow songwriters, it’s only fair that she should benefit. But this can also create a temptation to pay out even more to the most successful writers — to give a bit more to Peter and a bit less to Paul and Mary. It’s good for everyone — until at some point it starts to feel unfair. And everyone who writes songs or manages those who do is either deeply concerned about this issue or simply eager to make sure they end up on the right side of it. Competition is all well and good, and it will be interesting to see which creators look for better deals and which stick with their current rights organization. (It can be harder than it should be to switch in some cases, which will be the subject of another column.) Ultimately, though, all these creators may find themselves fighting for bigger slices of the same pie.
An advantage of being an aspiring artist in 2023, rather than 1983 or even 2003, is having near-instant access to millions of pre-made instrumentals — a club-wrecking drill track or soothing South African amapiano beat is just a few clicks away. For many acts today, the first step in the songwriting process is scouring sites like BeatStars, Soundee or YouTube for the right piece of music. “I just go on YouTube and look up ‘indie-pop-type beat’ or ‘R&B Daniel Caesar-type beat,’ ” Island Records artist Diego Gonzalez told Billboard last year. “I scroll through those until I find one I really like. Then I download it and start humming melodies.”
This approach has led to breakout singles and major-label deals for Muni Long, ThxSoMch, dv4d, Tai Verdes, Wisp and more. The affordability of the online beat economy, where an instrumental might cost as little as $2.99, makes it extremely convenient for young artists. But the casual nature of the business arrangements can come back to haunt them.
Acts typically license the instrumentals they want for cheap rather than buying them outright (which can cost significantly more). What they may not understand, however, is the agreements they accept to access these beats typically grant them limited rights by capping the number of streams a song can earn and allowing other acts to license the same piece of music. If a song built on a leased instrumental becomes a hit, the artist then has to circle back and try to buy out that beat. They have essentially built a highly desirable house on real estate they don’t own.
That’s when negotiations can become fraught and even lead to litigation, according to entertainment attorneys. “When we come on board and a song is starting to go, the first question is always: ‘Do you have paperwork with whoever did this track?’” says Todd Rubenstein, founder of Todd Rubenstein Law. “Licenses don’t give you exclusive rights, so there’s an opportunity for people to come back and leverage you when a record explodes.”
A producer may also be reluctant to assign exclusive rights to an instrumental they’ve already licensed hundreds of times. “If a song is going viral and a record company wants to enter into an agreement, the value of the track is impacted by the fact that you don’t have original materials and the beat exists elsewhere,” explains Leon Morabia, a partner at Mark Music & Media Law.
“These things happen all the time,” says David Fritz, co-founder of law firm Boyarski Fritz. “A baby act is doing well, and then they get a producer saying, ‘You’re over the streaming threshold on this track and we didn’t work out a deal; you have to take the song down’ ” — just at the point where artists and their teams need to slam the pedal to the metal by pouring money into marketing.
Not surprisingly, many producers like these nonexclusive agreements. “The leasing system allows the producer to be at the [negotiating] table if that beat turns into something bigger,” BeatStars president of music and publishing Greg Mateo says.
The music industry is “skewed toward artists and labels having the power,” adds Tiffany Almy, an entertainment attorney. “Producers are part of this, too,” she continues, “and [the licensing economy] gives them a voice, a platform and, potentially, a way to have more opportunities going forward.”
Fritz says the risks involved with beat-licensing deals are one of the reasons he co-founded Creative Intell, a subscription-based educational platform that dissects music contracts, among other business topics, across 18 different courses. Steven Ship, who co-founded the company with Fritz, says they hope to “revolutionize the way dealmaking is conducted in the business.” The first step toward that goal, he adds, is education “so people can understand what they’re signing and how to protect themselves.”
Creative Intell relies on animated modules to take users through beat-licensing agreements paragraph by paragraph, focusing in particular on BeatStars. (Fritz says his company is in negotiations with several music distributors, including Vydia, UnitedMasters and ONErpm, to make Creative Intell available to their clients.) The courses warn artists to look out for streaming limits and clauses that let the beat-makers end a lease at their sole discretion. Creative Intell also offers users an alternative licensing agreement that Fritz and Ship say is more artist-friendly.
The platform advises acts to be especially wary of “beat trolls” — people with mercenary motives who target viral songs built on licensed beats and try to acquire the underlying instrumental. If the trolls succeed in this effort, they own a piece of the artist’s most important track and acquire substantial power to influence — and extract money from — any subsequent label negotiations, Rubenstein says.
If a song explodes “and you don’t have perfect title to all your work, then you’re going to be a target for people, guaranteed,” adds Nicolas Tevez, founder of Tevez Law.
Mateo says he’s aware that the licensing system can create issues and has personally helped some artist lawyers get contentious deals done. BeatStars also has started to provide some major labels, including Atlantic Records and Island Records, with an assortment of instrumentals where terms of use have been agreed upon ahead of time. That way, if an act likes a beat and it turns into a hit, there aren’t any additional complications. “The last thing we want is for a placement to die,” Mateo says.
Despite the potential pitfalls of beat marketplaces, they remain popular with artists and serve as a lifeline for some beat-makers.
Even if producers secure prominent placement on a major-label album — a dream scenario — their future is hardly secure; they might not see any money for more than a year. But in online beat marketplaces, producers can earn a good living through a steady stream of leasing transactions. “A bunch of my clients are crushing it on BeatStars, making $100,000 a year,” says Adam Freedman, an entertainment attorney.
Still, for unsigned artists, learning the ins and outs of the licensing agreements remains paramount. While Ship from Creative Intell and Mateo from BeatStars have conflicting ideas about the best way to draft a beat license, both agree that there needs to be more education about how these deals work.
“Read through the terms and conditions,” says Jason Berger, a partner at Lewis Brisbois. “There’s nothing worse than you not understanding how something is going to play out based on an agreement you’ve already entered.”
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Snoop Dogg sues Post and Walmart for allegedly sabotaging his brand of breakfast cereal, Taylor Swift threatens to sue a college student for tracking her private jet; Kanye West is accused of illegal sampling by Ozzy Osbourne and the estate of Donna Summer; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Snoop Says Post & Walmart Were Cereal Killers
If you had “Snoop Dogg,” “cereal” and “lawsuit” on your 2024 bingo card, congrats.
Broadus Foods, a company owned by Snoop and Master P, filed a lawsuit last week accusing food giant Post of sabotaging the rollout of the company’s Snoop Cereal brand. As you might expect, the complaint had some rhetorical flair — leveling charges of “underhanded dealing” and “diabolical actions.”
The case claims that Post signed a deal to produce and distribute the brand, but then secretly “ensured that Snoop Cereal would not be available to consumers.” The rappers claim the move was payback after Snoop (Calvin Broadus) and Master P (Percy Miller) refused to sell their company to Post.
“Essentially, because Snoop Dogg and Master refused to sell Snoop Cereal in totality, Post entered a false arrangement where they could choke Broadus Foods out of the market, thereby preventing Snoop Cereal from being sold or produced by any competitor,” lawyers for Snoop’s company wrote.
The case – filed by prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump — also named Walmart as a defendant, claiming that the retail giant played a key role in “the most egregious example” of Post’s alleged wrongdoing.
For more information, go read our full story on the lawsuit, including access to the actual docs filed in the case.
CALLING ALL MUSIC LAWYERS! For the first time, Billboard is expanding its peer-voted Power Players’ Choice Award to cover music’s top lawyers, and we’re asking industry members from all sectors to honor the attorney they believe had the most impact across the business in the past year. Voting is now open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member per round.
Other top stories…
TAYLOR SWIFT PLANE TRACKER – Days before her big Super Bowl appearance, news broke that Taylor’s lawyers had threatened to sue a Florida college student named Jack Sweeney who runs social media accounts that track celebrity private jets, including Swift’s. In their cease-and-desist letter, her lawyers called Sweeney’s posts “stalking and harassing behavior” and warned that they “have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies” if he did not stop posting the locations of Swift’s private jet. What might those remedies actually be? It wasn’t specified.
SWIFT STALKER WON’T STAND TRIAL – Whether or not it’s illegal to track her plane, Taylor’s lawyers have good reason to be concerned about stalkers. On Friday, a man criminally charged for lurking outside the star’s Manhattan apartment was declared mentally unfit for trial, meaning his case will be dismissed and he will be transferred to a mental health facility until doctors clear him to be released.
KANYE SAMPLES SNAFU – Both rocker Ozzy Osbourne and the estate of legendary singer Donna Summer publicly accused Kanye West of using their songs without permission on his new album, even after they had specifically rejected his requests for licenses. Calling West an “antisemite,” Ozzy took to social media to blast the rapper: “I want no association with this man!” The Summer estate, meanwhile, claimed the embattled rapper had committed “copyright infringement” by seemingly interpolating her song. In an interview with Billboard’s Robert Levine, Ozzy’s wife and manager Sharon Osbourne explained the backstory: “We get so many requests for these songs, and when we saw that request, we just said no way.”
PANDORA SUED BY MLC – The Mechanical Licensing Collective – the group created by Congress in 2018 to collect royalties – filed a lawsuit against Pandora, alleging that the internet radio platform has been failing to adequately pay and report its monthly royalties. The case could dive into tricky questions about whether or not Pandora’s free ad-supported service is an “interactive” platform like Spotify, or more similar to a “noninteractive” radio broadcast – a key distinction under the law.
TIKTOK DISCRIMINATION CASE – With the social media giant currently at the center of a high-profile showdown with Universal Music Group, the company was hit with a gender discrimination lawsuit from a top female executive named Katie Ellen Puris, who says she was fired because TikTok’s upper leadership required “docility and meekness” from women.
CABO WABO IN COURT – Sammy Hagar‘s company demanded that a federal judge shut down an allegedly unauthorized Hollywood location of his Cabo Wabo Cantina, claiming that a former franchisee had effectively gone rogue and was damaging the rock star’s reputation.
KANYE CLASS ACTION – Adidas AG asked a federal judge to dismiss a class action that claims the company violated securities laws by failing to sufficiently warn investors about Ye’s offensive behavior and the risk it posed to the company’s share price. “This lawsuit is a misguided attempt to transform the dramatic and unfortunate end of the commercial partnership between Adidas and Ye… into a claim for securities fraud,” the company’s lawyers wrote.