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Since unveiling Spatial Audio in June 2021, Apple Music has been pushing labels and artists to rework their music in the immersive format. Now, the platform is offering a financial incentive in the form of increased royalties.
In a letter sent out by Apple Music to its partners on Monday (Jan. 22) and obtained by Billboard, the streamer revealed that beginning with month-end royalty payments in January, music available in Spatial Audio — which is supported by Dolby Atmos — will receive a royalty rate up to 10% higher than content not available in the format.
“Pro-rata shares for Spatial Available plays will be calculated using a factor of 1.1 while Non-Spatial available plays will continue to use a factor of 1,” the letter reads. “This change is not only meant to reward higher quality content, but also to ensure that artists are being compensated for the time and investment they put into mixing in Spatial.”
The letter offers an update on the format’s adoption by artists and users, including a claim that more than 90% of Apple Music listeners have experienced the format and that “plays for music available in Spatial Audio have more than tripled in the last two years.” It additionally states that the number of songs available in the format has increased nearly 5,000% since launch and more than doubled over the last year alone. The company further claims that more than 80% of songs to have charted on the platform’s Global Daily Top 100 in the past year are available in Spatial Audio.
Seemingly to deter bad actors, the letter includes a mention of Apple Music’s “zero-tolerance policy against deceptive or manipulative content,” noting the service has a “quality control process that includes flagging content not delivered in accordance with Apple Music’s Spatial Audio specifications and standards of quality.”
Spatial Audio officially rolled out on June 7, 2021. The format, which provides a surround sound experience in users’ headphones, is offered at no additional cost for Apple Music users, seemingly to speed adoption. As part of this effort, Spatial Audio tracks also enjoy enhanced visibility on the app’s home page, sitting higher than even new music releases. Early adopters of the format included Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, J. Cole and Post Malone.
In a June 2021 interview with Billboard, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vp of internet software and services, conceded that encouraging artists to mix their tracks for Spatial Audio would be a challenge given the time, work and financial investment required.
“This is not a simple ‘take-the-file that you have in stereo, processes through this software application and out comes Dolby Atmos,’” Cue said at the time. “This requires somebody who’s a sound engineer, and the artist to sit back and listen, and really make the right calls and what the right things to do are. It’s a process that takes time, but it’s worth it.”
The leader of the American Federation of Musicians proclaimed that Hollywood labor is “in a new era” as dozens of members of various entertainment unions came to the doorstep of studio labor negotiators in support of the start of his union’s contract negotiations on Monday.
As an early drizzle that morning turned into driving rain, members of the Writers Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and Teamsters Local 399 rallied in front of the Sherman Oaks offices of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers with picket signs, and a few umbrellas, in hand. To AFM‘s chief negotiator and international president Tino Gagliardi, this kind of unity for musicians was unlike anything he’d seen in his time in union leadership. “We’re in a new era, especially in the American labor movement, with regard to everyone coalescing and coming together and collaborating in order to get what we all need in this industry,” Gagliardi told The Hollywood Reporter. “Together we are the product, we are the ones that bring the audiences in, that controls the emotion, if you will.”
The program — which featured music performed by AFM brass musicians and speeches from labor leaders including Teamsters Local 399 secretary-treasurer Lindsay Dougherty, Writers Guild of America West vice president Michele Mulroney and L.A. County Federation of Labor president Yvonne Wheeler — took place hours before the AFM was scheduled to begin negotiations over new Basic Theatrical Motion Picture and Basic Television Motion Picture contracts with the AMPTP in an office just steps away.
The message that speakers drove home was sticking together in the wake of the actors’ and writers’ strikes that shut down much of entertainment for half a year the previous summer and fall. The 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes saw an unusual amount of teamwork occur between entertainment unions, which the AFM is clearly hoping to repeat in their contract talks. “We learned a hard, long lesson last year that we had to be together since day one. That’s going to be the difference going into this fight for the musicians, is that we’re all together in this industry,” Dougherty said in her speech.
The WGA West’s Mulroney addressed the musicians present, saying that her members “never took your support for granted” during the writers’ work stoppage. She added, “The WGA has your back just as you had our backs this past summer.” Though he wasn’t present at Monday’s event, SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland sent a message, delivered by his chief communications officer, that “the heat of the hot labor summer is as strong as ever.”
The AMPTP said in a statement on Monday that it looks forward to “productive” negotiations with the AFM, “with the goal of concluding an agreement that will ensure an active year ahead for the industry and recognize the value that musicians add to motion pictures and television.”
Though the AFM contracts under discussions initially expired in Nov. 2023, the writers’ and actors’ strikes that year prompted both sides to extend the pacts by six months. Top priorities for the musicians’ union in this round of talks include instituting AI protections, amplifying wages and greater streaming residuals.
For rank-and-file writers and actors who showed up at Monday’s rally, one recurring theme was repaying the AFM for its support during their work stoppages. SAG-AFTRA member Miki Yamashita (Cobra Kai), who is also a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists, explained that during the actors’ strike she organized an opera singers-themed picket at Paramount, which AFM members asked to take part in. “Because of them, we had orchestra players and a pianist to play for us during our picket, and I’ll never forget how much that meant to me, that show of solidarity,” she said. “I promised myself that if they ever needed my presence of my help, that I would rush to help them.”
Carlos Cisco and Eric Robbins, both writers on Star Trek: Discovery and WGA members, worked as lot coordinators at Disney during the writers’ strike. They recalled AFM members providing a morale boost during the work stoppage by occasionally playing music on the picket lines. “The struggles that labor faces in this [industry] are universal, whether it’s the hours, the residual payments as we’ve moved to streaming or the concern about AI coming into various spaces. We have far more in common than separates us,” said Robbins.
The AFM’s negotiations are set to continue through Jan. 31. Though the AMPTP offices don’t often see labor demonstrations, Gagliardi says that as a former president of New York-based AFM Local 802, he staged rallies in front of employer headquarters with some frequency. “I did this on a regular basis,” he said. “It was about bringing everyone together to fight for a common cause, and that’s what we’re doing today.”
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
SiriusXM and Stitcher will not have to face a lawsuit from former Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek accusing them of reneging on a $700,000 podcast deal.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Broadbelt, in a tentative order issued on Friday, dismissed the suit, finding that the audio giant “did not enter into a contract” with the actor since they didn’t finalize the agreement.
Van Der Beek said he reached a deal over email with executives from SiriusXM to host 40 episodes in exchange for a $700,000 minimum guarantee and a 50 percent cut of the net ad revenue. He sued in 2022 after the company walked away from the agreement.
Ruling in favor of SiriusXM on summary judgment, the court concluded that the two sides aren’t bound by an April 2022 document outlining the terms of the deal. It pointed to the first page of the proposal, which states that it’s for “discussion purposes only, is not a binding commitment in any respect, and is not to be interpreted in any respect as a binding commitment to negotiate.”
There was extensive evidence presented to the court referencing the need to sign a definitive, longform agreement contemplated in the initial proposal. Included among them was an email from Stitcher’s Associate Director of Business Development Leah Reis-Dennis, who stated in an April 2022 email “we are ready to call terms officially closed and (finally!) get the longform started.”
Van Der Beek argued that the proposal constitutes a valid, binding contract because Reis-Dennis made various comments indicating that the terms were “closed.”
“However, in those emails, Reis-Dennis also stated that Defendants would be working to begin drafting the longform agreement or request that the longform be drafted,” stated the order, which noted that the actor’s transactional lawyer also discussed having to sign the document to lock down the deal.
Broadbelt also rejected arguments that SiriusXM should be bound by the April 2022 document because the company already started to fulfill some of its terms by beginning the process of hiring a senior producer and requesting Van Der Beek’s payroll information.
In a declaration to the court, Reis-Dennis testified that she requested “loanout info” in order to set up payments to the actor but clarified that she would pay him only “if that agreement was signed.”
The order explained, “Plaintiff has not presented any evidence or argument showing that Reis-Dennis’s request for information to set up payments in the future (1) is inconsistent with the earlier statements that the parties would be bound only upon the execution of a longform agreement, or (2) constitutes an outward manifestation that Defendants intended to be bound by the terms of the April 28 Proposal without such a longform agreement.”
Van Der Beek brought claims relating to breach of contract and sought damages exceeding the $700,000 agreement.
SiriusXM, which was represented by Jordan Susman of Nolan Heimann, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
The Academy of Country Music has added Gil Beverly to its leadership team, as executive vp and chief business officer. Beverly joins the Academy following more than four years with the Tennessee Titans, where he served as the NFL team’s chief marketing and revenue officer.
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In his new role Beverly will supervise and manage the Academy’s business operations and manage all revenue streams, as well as play a key role in shaping the Academy’s growth strategy by identifying and evaluating business opportunities, and will work with the CEO to oversee and manage staff, all while supporting the Academy’s mission of connecting the industry, artists and fans.
During Beverly’s time with the Nashville-based Titans, he helped revitalize the team’s brand through lifestyle marketing and activations in music, art, fashion and fitness, as well as advertising and social media campaigns. Beverly also served as executive project lead for the preliminary stages of the new Titans stadium plan.
Prior to joining the Titans organization, Beverly served as vp of partnership solutions at Learfield Sports in Plano, Texas, after a 13-year stint at ESPN, where he oversaw the go-to-market strategy for multimedia sales and sponsorships for the launch of the College Football Playoff as vp of college sports marketing.
“Gil Beverly is a proven leader who has ushered in new levels of success for numerous category-leading organizations, and we can’t wait to tap his exceptional expertise, passion, and drive at the Academy of Country Music to help us continue to innovate, grow, and succeed, particularly as we look ahead to our landmark 60th anniversary awards show celebration in 2025,” Damon Whiteside, CEO of the Academy of Country Music, said in a statement. “In his role, he will play an integral part in shaping the future of the Academy from financial, strategic, and organizational standpoints, and Gil exemplifies all the traits that power the ACM to reach new heights and support our industry. On behalf of our Board of Directors and Officers, as well as our Members and staff, I couldn’t be more excited to welcome him to team ACM!”
“I am extremely honored and excited to join Damon Whiteside and his team at the Academy of Country Music,” Beverly added. “The Academy has proven to be a visionary organization through its premium content and events and groundbreaking partnerships with Amazon and the Dallas Cowboys, among others. I believe the organization is poised for significant growth and will continue to be a powerful leader in the music industry in the future.”
Universal Music Group (UMG) shares almost hit an all-time high on Friday, reaching 27.47 euros ($29.98) before closing at 27.22 euros ($29.21), a 1% increase for the week. That was close to the peak of 27.96 euros ($30.52) reached on Nov. 12, 2021, less than two months after the company was spun off from Vivendi, and marked a new 52-week high. The 1% gain followed a 6.9% improvement last week as investors reacted to news that the company expects to lay off staff in the first quarter.
If French music company Believe is taken private, as has been reported, shareholders would expect a premium over the recent share price. That would explain why the company’s share price rose 13.5% to 10.18 euros ($11.11) this week — more than offsetting the 10.5% decline Believe shares experienced last week after news broke of the potential takeover. According to a Reuters report, Believe co-founder/CEO Denis Ladegaillerie and U.S. investment firm TCV have floated the idea to private equity firms.
The S&P 500 rose 1.2% to close at a record high of 4,839.81 on Friday, surpassing the previous peak set two years ago. The Nasdaq didn’t set a record but fared even better, climbing 2.3% to 15,310.97. Stocks in other countries didn’t match the gains in U.S. markets. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 dropped 2.1% to 7,461.93. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index fell 2.1% to 2,472.74. China’s Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index sank 1.7% to 2,832.28.
Music stocks were slightly off last week’s record high despite Believe’s double-digit gain and the majority of music stocks finishing the week in positive territory. The 20-company Billboard Global Music Index fell 0.4% to 1,559.48 this week, down slightly from last week’s all-time high of 1,566.45. Twelve of the 20 stocks had gains this week. Other than Believe’s takeover-related jump, the best-performing music stocks had only low, single-digit gains. MSG Entertainment rose 4.1% to 33.48 and SiriusXM improved 4% to $5.42.
The index’s most valuable companies improved slightly: In addition to UMG’s 1% gain, Spotify improved 0.8% to $204.71 and Live Nation climbed 0.6% to $91.18. Those gains were overshadowed by losses by radio giant iHeartMedia, which fell 1.7% to $2.25, and three Asian companies: HYBE, SM Entertainment and Tencent Music Entertainment.
The index’s biggest losers were K-pop companies HYBE and SM Entertainment, which fell 10.9% and 10.3%, respectively. HYBE has been on a roller coaster in January, jumping 9.6% from Dec. 28 to Jan. 11 before falling 14.1% over the next six trading days. SM Entertainment jumped 20.5% from the end of December to Jan. 11 but has only dropped 3.4% from its high point. Another big mover this week was Chinese music streamer Tencent Music Entertainment, which dropped 9.5% to $8.51.
There was good news for all companies on Friday when the closely watched University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment jumped 13% in January, its highest level since July 2021. Over the last two months, consumer sentiment has risen 29% and Americans’ expectations for future inflation dropped to 2.9%. Consumer sentiment is now 60% above the all-time low from June 2022 but remains 7% below the historical average.
Music companies will soon announce earnings results for the quarter ended Dec. 31. The first companies out of the gate are SiriusXM on Feb. 1 and Spotify on Feb. 6.
Few stories have captivated the past couple of months like that of Tyla, the young South African singer whose single, “Water,” emerged as a sultry blend of Afrobeats and R&B and exploded across the globe. The song first debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in October — her first appearance on the chart — and quickly took off from there. It almost immediately reached the top of the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart — where it has spent 14 weeks at No. 1 — and climbed all the way to No. 7 on the Hot 100, where it has spent the past two weeks. It has also been sitting comfortably at No. 1 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay for eight weeks.
It’s a true breakout story for the artist, who also saw “Water” land a Grammy nomination in the brand-new category of best African music performance at the upcoming awards this February — not to mention a testament to the work of her management and her team at Epic Records, where she signed in 2021. The song began picking up organically, got a lift off a TikTok challenge and catapulted onto radio, picking up remixes from Travis Scott and Marshmello along the way. And the song’s success so far earns Epic Records president Ezekiel Lewis the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Lewis breaks down how “Water” erupted onto the global stage, the multiple genre influences that went into its final version and how the singer can build on the song’s success leading into her debut album, which is due out in the next few months. “From the beginning of the record-making process, we made it a point to find the best chemistry between creatives from different backgrounds to reflect the worldly influences you hear in the song,” Lewis says. “That is a key factor in enabling it to appeal to audiences not only in the U.S. but across the globe.”
This week, Tyla’s “Water” spent its second week at No. 7 on the Hot 100, its 14th week at No. 1 on U.S. Afrobeats Songs and was certified platinum by the RIAA. What key decision(s) did you make to help make that happen?
The story starts with the creation of the song. I feel like a big part of our job is to curate an environment that creates an opportunity for magic to happen. Consider the fact that the four key writers of the song had never worked together as a collective before Tyla. From the beginning of the record-making process, we made it a point to find the best chemistry between creatives from different backgrounds to reflect the worldly influences you hear in the song. That is a key factor in enabling it to appeal to audiences, not only in the U.S. but across the globe.
“Water” blends an Afrobeats/Amapiano drum pattern with more traditional R&B elements, combining a number of different styles. Why do you think it was able to break through in such a big way?
The song not only has elements of Afrobeats but also more specifically Amapiano which is integral to the music culture of South Africa. While the wider Afrobeats influence is obvious, the use of the log drum by Sammy Soso is key to tying in that specific South African element. Then moving on to the top line, the lyric and melody, R&B and pop dominate in terms of influence there. We really hit a sweet spot in terms of multiple influences coming together seamlessly. There’s something for everyone.
The song has also done very well at radio, with eight straight weeks at No. 1 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay. What was the strategy there and how has it paid off?
Once we accomplished a strong Shazam, digital and streaming story, the stage was set for radio to follow through. The audience talked back loudly and let us know it wanted to hear more and more of the record. The song’s gains at playlists across multiple genres gave us a strong sense that radio would be able to replicate that success, and that we could have a chart topper across multiple formats. Once all of the indicators pointed upward, we went for it, and thankfully we were correct in doing so.
The song was also boosted relatively early on with remixes from Travis Scott and Marshmello. How have remixes fit into your strategy, and what has been the payoff?
When thinking about remixing the song, we did not want to significantly compromise the implicit nature of the track by doing something simply to gain more audience. Authenticity is sometimes hard to articulate, but you know it once you press play and begin to listen. Travis came to the table organically, as a fan of the song, and wanted to join. We knew immediately that it would make sense creatively and would only add to the prominence of the track. Travis is a preeminent curator himself, so the vote of confidence was welcomed. His involvement gave listeners a different take on a song that they had already embraced.
Similarly, and maybe less obvious, was Marshmello, who also was a fan of the song and asked if he could do a remix. Once we heard how he re-imagined the track, we were excited to have him join us. His version has definitely given the track wings in the dance space and helped to take it further with additional streaming in that world. All of this cross-pollination has helped the track ascend the Billboard Hot 100.
So far, music from African artists has mostly broken through singles in the U.S. How do you plan to keep Tyla’s momentum going through to releasing a full album?
We will continue to build on Tyla’s momentum by keeping African culture at the center of what we do musically and creatively overall. There is a sonic consistency that listeners will hear across this first project and we expect this to go over well with the new fan base that she has developed. There is already a nearly completely sold-out tour scheduled in both Europe and the U.S. Also, her new track, “Truth Or Dare,” is showing early signs of greatness as we build daily and sits in the top five of both the U.S. and U.K. Afrobeats charts.
The song also earned a Grammy nomination in the first-ever best African music performance category. What do you see as the future of African music in the U.S. moving forward, both from a musical perspective and an industry perspective?
The sky is the limit for African music in the U.S., as I foresee continued cross-pollination to move it forward. It has proven its potential to top charts in urban, pop, and even in the dance space. It simply cannot be ignored and the Recording Academy has made an intelligent and timely decision. I could not be more excited for the future. Everyone wants a piece of the action.
Last week, Luminate put out its 2023 year-end report. While the data company, which tabulates Billboard‘s charts and provides data for the film and TV industries, usually puts out a separate Canadian report, this year’s was instead a report on the global music industry as a whole.
Billboard Canada asked Luminate if it could supply any more data on who and what was hot in Canada in 2023, and they dug in for four more exclusive lists.
When it comes to vinyl sales, Taylor Swift, unsurprisingly, takes up the top three spots and four of the top 10.
Top 10 Vinyl Sales
Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version) – 43,000
Taylor Swift – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) – 18,000
Taylor Swift – Midnights – 18,000
Olivia Rodrigo – Guts – 8,000
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon – 8,000
Lana Del Rey – Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd – 7,000
Taylor Swift – Red (Taylor’s Version) – 6,000
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours – 6,000
Arctic Monkeys – Am – 5,000
Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds – 5,000
Swift also takes the top spot for CD sales, but there are also two somewhat surprising Canadian albums represented: Neo-Romance from Quebecois pianist Alexandra Stréliski and A Boire Deboutte from francophone Acadian roots act Salebarbes.
Top 10 CD Sales
Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version) – 30,000
Metallica – 72 Seasons – 17,000
Alexandra Stréliski – Neo-Romance – 16,000
Taylor Swift – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) – 13,000
Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds – 11,000
Taylor Swift – Lover – 10,000
Salebarbes – A Boire Deboutte – 10,000
Taylor Swift – Midnights – 10,000
P!nk – Trustfall – 8,000
Ed Sheeran – – 8,000
Head here for the top 10 on-demand streams for two of Canada’s most popular and rising genres: country and R&B/hip-hop. – Richard Trapunski & David Farrell
CIMA Calls On Government To Keep Its Canada Music Fund Promise
CIMA, the Canadian Independent Music Association, has launched a campaign calling on the public to contact Liberal representatives about the Canada Music Fund. Following a direct appeal to the government last fall, CIMA has turned towards the public in hopes of putting pressure on the government to make good on their campaign promise to increase the fund by $50 million.
The organization has set up a letter campaign that allows supporters to contact the government with a plea to increase the Canada Music Fund, which supports the operations of granting bodies FACTOR and Musicaction. According to CIMA, FACTOR invested $21 million in the Canadian music industry in 2022 alone and has supported 6,500 artists in the last five years.
FACTOR receives part of its funding from private radio broadcasters, but those contributions have been decreasing, with CIMA estimating they could be as low as $2 million in 2024. The Canada Music Fund is currently $25 million annually, and CIMA says that a $50 million increase is needed just to maintain current programming, while many music associations are calling for a $60 million increase. The Liberal government promised a $50 million increase in 2021 to help the Canada Music Fund keep up with demand and the rising costs of releasing and touring music.
CIMA president Andrew Cash spoke to the House Finance Committee on Nov. 14 about the increase and said that if the government fails to follow through, “companies will close, those that don’t will shed staff and release fewer artists, and this will result in fewer shows across the country, harming an already precarious live music sector, affecting local economies, and reducing revenues to government.”
FACTOR provides major financial support for artists looking to export their music internationally, with showcasing and touring grants that help artists travel to key industry events abroad, as well as support for marketing and sound recording.
“If the government does not make good even on their $50 million promise to our sector, FACTOR’s budget could be cut in half over the next couple of years,” states CIMA’s new public campaign. – Rosie Long Decter
Amazon Music Canada Announces Breakthrough Artists to Watch 2024
Amazon Music Canada has announced the six Canadian rising stars included in its Breakthrough Artists to Watch 2024. Throughout the year, these six musicians will include support from Amazon Music Canada, including year-long promotion, exclusive music, playlist placement, editorial and tailored developmental support for each artist’s career ambitions.
This year’s selections include inaugural Billboard Canada Punjabi Wave cover star Jonita Gandhi, francophone rapper Fredz, small-town Ontario country singer Owen Riegling, former breakout star of Canadian singing competition The Launch Jamie Fine, Ottawa singer-songwriter Anaïs Cardot and Victoria, British Columbia-based funk/R&B artist Diamond Cafe (who also just signed a major label deal with Warner Music Canada).
“The focus of Artist to Watch is to help artists who are bubbling up in Canada find ways to grow their audiences and connect with new fans across the country and globally,” John Murphy, head of music, Canada, at Amazon Music, tells Billboard Canada. “We’re looking forward to working closely with this year’s group of diverse, promising artists and helping even more fans discover them and their music.”
One of the goals of the program is to spread regional artists internationally, adds Murphy. Amazon Music launched its first Canadian edition of the initiative last year, and Murphy says it more than doubled the total fans of each artist throughout 2023. Madeline Merlo launched an original track on the streaming service called “You’ll Think of Me,” and more than 50% of its streams have come from outside of Canada.
All six of the artists selected have big plans for 2024, including new music, concerts and some other dreams. To let them speak for themselves, Billboard Canada asked each musician about their year ahead.
Read all of those interviews here. – Richard Trapunski
Weverse seems to fly under most of the music industry’s radar despite its strategic importance to its owner, HYBE, the K-pop juggernaut that has successfully leveraged BTS’s success to build an increasingly global, technologically advanced music company.
The social media company’s 10 million monthly active users — 90% of which come from outside South Korea — are few by some standards. TikTok, Instagram and Facebook boast more than 1 billion apiece. But it’s the home turf for artists with some of the most loyal fanbases on the planet. And HYBE is leveraging those acts’ popularity to build a must-visit destination for fans of K-pop and, eventually, other genres, too.
When Jimin, a member of BTS, performed a solo show at Lollapalooza in 2023, it was livestreamed on Weverse. When Jung Kook, another BTS member, hosted an at-home livestream in February, Weverse drew 16 million real-time views. When HYBE group ENHYPEN performed a showcase for its Dark Blood EP, it brought 2.4 million real-time views to the platform.
Artists use Weverse to host live chats with fans to promote new albums and its e-commerce platform to sell merchandise. Last year, Weverse Shop sold over 18 million branded light sticks from K-pop group Seventeen, a handheld device used at the band’s concerts that carries a $64 price tag in the United States.
All of this feels like it’s just the beginning. As K-pop surges in popularity globally, Weverse’s traffic is on the rise. Last year, its average user spent 250 minutes on the platform and visited 10.2 days per month, up from 171 minutes and 9.2 days in 2022. Traffic was up 47% in Africa and 25% in the Middle East. It now has 117 artist communities, including 13 SM Entertainment artists — including Super Junior, Riize and NCT Wish — who joined in September. And as Weverse president Joon Choi explained in an interview with Billboard, the company’s next target is the United States.
Do artists bring their fans to Weverse, or do they tap into the passionate user base you have?
That happens in both ways. Existing Weverse users contributed a lot to the new community of the SM Entertainment artists. But, at the same time, we could clearly see the new user registration spike right after SM artists joined Weverse. So, we’re very happy with this kind of migration. It happened with no hassle.
What about adding artists from the United States to Weverse? Many artists under the HYBE umbrella could be potentially added to the platform to reach new fans.
That’s still in discussion. I think we can come up with more exciting news in the near future.
Weverse has an office in Los Angeles [in Santa Monica]. What are you doing to build Weverse and build the brand in the United States?
The first thing is we are aggressively hiring people who would serve the basic functions including commerce functions, as well as artist support. In terms of raising and improving market awareness, I think that’s something we will be more aggressively working on in 2024. So, as we gain the momentum from new artists and North American artists joining and creating communities on Weverse in America, we will aggressively work on raising the market awareness this year.
Fandom is a word that has become more commonplace as K-pop has grown more popular. I think it’s also a tough word to define properly. How do you define fandom?
I think there are multiple segments — or I would say cohorts — among users of our services. Starting from light listeners, and then we would have more active listeners, we would probably consider them being monthly subscribers to Spotify or Apple, they will be probably the more active listener. And then on top of that there must be a cohort that is more engaged. And those will be probably concertgoers or those people who actively purchase albums of these particular artists. From that particular cohort or user segment, we will probably call them fans. As their engagement level goes up, and they become more active in their fan activities, they will be considered the most dedicated or enthusiastic fans. When you think about any business, you think about the framework of the user acquisition funnel from the very top to the bottom. When it goes to the very bottom, the core of the users, there are users or fans who are ready to purchase whatever the artist is offering. So, from the very bottom to the top, Weverse climbs up to the light users.
What specifically does Weverse do to help serve artists’ superfans better than other social platforms or a streaming platform like Spotify?
Before Weverse, the superfan experience was scattered here and there. You buy merch here, you go to the concert, and you get together in some places. Those experiences were all scattered around. But I think Weverse was the first service to get everything together in the best, [most] convenient way. Number two would be global. To go global, we really value the importance of translation. So, we provide real-time translation in 15 languages.
How does how does Weverse make money? Is it advertising? Is it taking a percentage of sales?
When it comes to advertising, we don’t have it yet, but we are working on it. So, we’re going to launch our advertising service this year. And before that, basically we get a revenue share from album sales, merch sales or any kind of digital value provided to the fans.
I’ve noticed a lot of merchandise for sale. How do you fulfill those orders? Do you have partners in different countries to help?
When it comes to a commerce system, we built everything in-house except for the fulfillment side. Obviously, we have international fulfillment partners. We have warehouses in Korea, Japan and the U.S. — in Carson, south of L.A. So, we get orders from more than 200 countries around the world. We ship everywhere.
You sell CDs, correct, and digital downloads?
Correct.
Do fans in Korea still buy CDs and download albums and tracks in high numbers?
They do both, obviously. Physical albums still do very high volume. And on top of that, Weverse also tries to provide digital/physical experiences together. That’s the reason why we launched Weverse Album last year, which is basically an album without a CD. The album comes with the QR code, then users can download the original high-quality music source and enjoy within Weverse.
What’s more popular in Korea, CDs or vinyl?
CDs. Vinyl is not as popular as in the U.S.
You launched Weverse by Fans, which allows users to customize merchandise. Can you tell me how many artists are using that and what the early results have been?
Currently, Weverse by Fans is in the beta phase. As of now, we have eight Korean artists who are using the Weverse by Fans: TOMORROW X TOGETHER, ENHYPEN, Le Sserafim, NewJeans, BOYNEXTDOOR, XIA, Hwang Min Hyun and Baekho.
Weverse does live streaming, whether it’s live performance or chats with artists. How important is that to Weverse?
Weverse Live is highly important to us. Weverse Live offers many different layers that I would say are different types of livestreaming. With the first one, we might have some special arrangement celebrating or marking an album’s release or album showcase. So, Weverse Live can be used for that. And there can be more instant or casual livestreaming, using the Weverse Live as well. The Lollapalooza performance that BTS member Jimin did last year, that was on Weverse Live as well. Weverse Live offers many different types of livestreaming starting from very large-scale concert streaming to a very casual or instant livestreaming done by individual artists.
I would like to add the three reasons why Weverse Live is of great value and importance to Weverse. First, after we release the service, Weverse Live, the users’ duration [of visit] and also their likelihood of revisiting Weverse have all gone up. So, the retention rate has significantly improved thanks to Weverse Live. And the second reason is that users are very satisfied with the quality of livestreaming services that we offer. They often give us feedback that compared to other major livestreaming services they are highly satisfied with the quality of livestreams that we provide. And the third reason is that Weverse Live has been integrated with live commerce, Weverse Commerce. When an artist or a label decides to do so, we can also turn on Weverse Commerce. That has really helped boost sales.
What might somebody sell with Weverse Commerce? A new album release?
Yes, our albums have been the most frequently sold items using the live commerce feature. Artists and labels prefer selling albums. That was the main item that was sold on live commerce. But, as I mentioned earlier, artists want to add the Weverse by Fans feature as part of the live commerce. So that’s something that we’re working on right now.
Since HYBE owns Weverse, it also owns a lot of data about its fans. How does HYBE leverage that data for either insights or marketing?
As you know, HYBE is a multi-label system. Underneath the multi-label system, each label is actively leveraging the fandom data coming from each community. However, what you need to understand is that within Weverse, there are many artists that are not HYBE artists, right? So, each label is working like a silo — they have access and they leverage the data only within their own community. So that’s what I want to clarify first.
As you know, Weverse is a platform and the neutrality of data and our service’s neutrality has been emphasized from the very beginning. From the early days of Weverse, that was something that we always have emphasized. Maybe because we have emphasized that importance, more than 90% of artists that have joined Weverse are not HYBE artists.
Could you give me insight into the size of the company, where your employees are, where you have offices? How could you describe the size of your footprint?
When we first started Weverse, we started with 50 to 60 people. But as I mentioned earlier, we went through a very compact, rapid growth within the last three or four years. So now we have about 370 people in Korea. So, in total around the world in three headquarters in Pangyo [South Korea], here where I am in Tokyo and Santa Monica, we have a total of about 450 employees. More than half of them are engineering people. I think it’s very hard to find any music company that has this many engineering people in-house. So, I think that was the biggest challenge we’ve been going through and also it has been very successful so far.
Do you expect to grow in 2024?
Yes. I’m very sure. Because, I mean, it has been [an] investment in advance because Weverse has massive traffic and a global scale. That requires a lot of work under the hood, way more than the surface features you can see from the web or app. There are a lot of things underneath that. So, it has been a very heavy lift, and that requires a lot of technological investment and investment.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
When Morgan Hayduk and Andrew Batey founded Beatdapp — a company which helps streaming services, labels, and distributors detect streaming fraud — at the end of 2018, they faced a major obstacle: The music industry was reluctant to acknowledge that streaming fraud was a problem.
“It used to be verboten to speak publicly about [it],” Hayduk told Billboard last year. “It was all behind closed doors. But I don’t think you can fix a problem until you accept its existence.”
The climate has changed dramatically recently. Last year, Universal Music Group began calling for changes to the streaming model, arguing that fraud and things like white noise and rain sounds were scooping up royalty income that should be going to actual artists. And Beatdapp announced on Friday (Jan. 19) that it’s entering into a strategic collaboration with UMG as well as partnering with SoundExchange (which collects performance royalties from digital radio stations and broadcast companies like SiriusXM) and the streaming service Napster.
“We’re at a point now where there’s a consensus that we have to address the problem” of streaming fraud, says Michael Nash, chief digital officer and executive vice president for Universal Music Group. “Beatdapp have really focused on understanding the problem and working with a number of different platforms to provide a very clear perspective about the scope of the problem. Providing that kind of leadership, driven by data analysis, has been really important.”
Hayduk defines streaming fraud as the leveraging of “bots, stolen accounts or manipulated platform features” to steal streaming income. The practice “hurts everyone who makes a living in the music industry and, left unchecked, creates this promotional race to the bottom where everyone believes they have to cheat to succeed,” he told Billboard last year.
“In an industry where it’s already hard to make something and then promote something and then get paid,” Batey added, “you should at least get paid correctly.”
As Beatdapp widens its network of partners, it gets access to more streaming data — the company was analyzing 2.2 trillion streams in 2023, up from hundreds of billions in 2022 — which in turn allows the company to improve its understanding of how fraudsters manipulate the streaming ecosystem and get better at identifying suspicious listening patterns.
“Napster provides Beatdapp with a daily feed of all usage on Napster’s services, and Beatdapp then uses its detection filters to identify likely stream manipulation activity based on certain (high) confidence levels,” explains Matthew Eccles, the streamer’s svp and general counsel. “Napster will then ensure that the streams identified by Beatdapp are removed from royalty reports for all licensors so that the market share calculations for all labels are not affected.”
Napster’s view is that it is helpful to engage a third party to detect stream manipulation because “it eliminates potential questions of bias when the results come back,” Eccles continues. “Third parties can help achieve consistency across the industry in relation to what is and what is not considered to be streaming fraud.”
Beatdapp also announced on Friday that it had raised an additional $17 million, money that will go towards hiring new data scientists and senior leadership and expanding into Europe and Asia.
“With the volume [of music on streaming services] jumping the shark over value — more than 150 million tracks and more than 100,000 uploaded every day — this has created a lot of issues,” Nash notes. “That level of volume has created a context for a lot of bad actor activity.”
Tackling these issues is complicated, but cracking down on fraud is “the least controversial item on the agenda,” Nash adds. “There aren’t a lot of advocates for fraud.”
Notorious B.I.G.’s estate has reached a settlement with the widow of late hip hop photographer Chi Modu, resolving long-running litigation over other merch bearing Modu’s famed image of the late rapper standing in front of the World Trade Center.
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Biggie’s estate sued in 2019, claiming Modu had illegally authorized the use of his 1996 photograph of the rapper (real name Christopher Wallace) on commercial products like skateboards and shower curtains. In 2022, a judge ruled that such merch likely violated the rapper’s likeness rights.
Terms of the settlement, first disclosed in a court filing on Thursday, were not made public. But the estate’s attorney, Staci Jennifer Trager of the law firm Nixon Peabody, said she and her client were “satisfied to bring this high-profile matter to an end.”
“Pictures of Christopher cannot be commercially exploited without a license from our client,” Trager said. “The settlement agreement is a testament to the dedication of our client as well as our team members in staying the course over several years.”
An attorney for Modu’s widow (the photographer himself passed away in 2021) did not immediately return a request for comment.
A longtime photographer for The Source, Modu captured images of some of hip-hop’s biggest names, including Tupac Shakur, Mary J. Blige, Mobb Deep and LL Cool J. In a 1996 cover shoot for the magazine, he snapped several images of Biggie standing in front of the Twin Towers – a year before the rapper was shot and killed, and five years before the towers were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.
In a 2011 interview, Modu said the shoot was partly inspired by the lyric in Biggie’s “Juicy,” in which he references the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center with the line “‘blow up like the World Trade.’”
“When the idea came to me to represent Notorious B.I.G as the King of New York, I thought what better setting than to have two of the quintessential New York City buildings in the background,” Modu said at the time. “This image remains fresh and can help to further immortalize these icons in the hearts and minds of a generation.”
But in 2019, Biggie’s estate took Modu to court over the image. In their complaint, they argued that he had moved beyond merely selling his image – and that he was instead trying to profit by exploiting the rapper’s likeness “in complete disregard for BIG’s rights.” The estate claimed that Modu had improperly licensed the image for use on snowboards, skateboards, shower curtains, NFTs and other goods.
“Unfortunately, when an artist’s work has touched people so significantly, there are often usurpers that want to capitalize on that connection,” the rapper’s lawyers wrote. “A strong brand attracts parasites that attempt to create profits through no work of their own.”
In June 2022, the federal judge overseeing the case granted a preliminary injunction to the estate. The judge was careful to rule that the photographer’s estate could continue to sell physical and digital reprints of his image, but that other merchandise likely violated Biggie’s likeness rights.
“Plaintiff’s use of Wallace’s image to promote and sell such merchandise constitutes an exploitation of his likeness on an unrelated product for that purpose, which extends beyond control of the artistic work itself,” the judge wrote at the time.
Since that ruling, the estate’s case against Modu’s estate and others had been moving toward a trial, with proceedings set to kick off next month.