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The significance of Washington washed over me as my flight dodged the historic monuments and we descended into DCA. An interesting metaphor for the opportunities and challenges of advocating for music creators’ rights in today’s lightning round race into the future.
I have visited many times over the years to fight for the rights of songwriters on Capitol Hill. This week, songwriter members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) will once again be with me in Washington for “We Write the Songs,” a performance held at the Library of Congress and co-presented by The ASCAP Foundation. Hit songwriters will play for Members of Congress and others and share the stories behind their beloved songs. As songwriters, we are also here to affirm our rights as artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies seek to use our creations.
ASCAP is a unique entity in the music world — we are the only performance-rights organization (PRO) founded and governed by democratically elected music creators and publishers. As a membership organization, we represent nearly a million songwriters, composers, lyricists and music publishers across every genre. We are also the only U.S. PRO that operates on a not-for-profit basis so, unlike others whose profits may go elsewhere to corporate dividends and private equity investors, we put creators first in everything we do.
As the chairman of ASCAP’s board, I have seen our industry go through immense changes. When music moved from records to tapes to CDs to pirated online listening, our members descended upon Washington to ensure the rights of songwriters were respected across new platforms and listening experiences.
Emerging technologies – whether it be streaming or AI – have always presented our industry both challenges and opportunities. But in every instance, we as songwriters are often the first to feel the effects when technology outpaces the law.
During Songwriter Advocacy Day, held the day after We Write the Songs, ASCAP members – the songwriters, composers and publishers that form the soundtrack to our lives – will meet with Members of Congress and urge them to protect creators in the age of AI.
At ASCAP, we have developed six guiding principles for AI and we need Congress to act to uphold them:
Human Creators First, prioritizing rights and compensation for human creativity
Transparency, in identifying AI vs. human-generated works and retaining metadata
Consent, protecting the right for creators to decide whether their work is included in an AI training license
Compensation, making sure creators are paid fairly when their work is used in ANY way by AI, which is best accomplished in a free market, NOT with government-mandated licensing that essentially eliminates consent
Credit, when creators’ works are used in new AI-generated music
Global Consistency, an even playing field that values intellectual property across the global music and data ecosystem
While most songwriters work behind the scenes, our work has enormous value to an industry that generates $170 billion a year for the U.S. economy. But we have long been over-regulated — we are some of the most heavily controlled small business owners in the country. Roughly three-quarters of the average American songwriter’s income is subject to federal government regulations. All the while, big media and tech companies are consistently looking for ways to pay songwriters less by regulating us even more.
ASCAP has embraced new and emerging advances in technology, and we have the capacity and infrastructure to manage it at scale. But it has remained painfully clear that any new technology needs to respect existing copyright law. Music creators are concerned about the threat to their livelihood and 8 out of 10 believe A.I. companies need better regulation. Our mission at ASCAP is to help music creators navigate the future while protecting their rights and livelihoods, and enabling the type of innovation that will move the entire music industry forward.
Just because AI requires a high volume of inputs, that does not mean it cannot be licensed or deserves an exception under the law. Just as we’ve approached the streaming market, we believe the opportunities presented by AI can be realized in the free market. To do so, we need lawmakers to stand with songwriters and not give big tech and AI companies a free ride with government-mandated licenses for AI.
AI is a new challenge, but we are well positioned to meet this challenge as we always have in the face of new technologies. We are ready to help chart the path, and we look forward to sharing those insights — and breaking it down on the dance floor — with the same lawmakers whose partnership and enthusiasm has helped us to fight for the rights of songwriters as new technologies emerge.
ASCAP president and chairman of the board Paul Williams is an Oscar-, Grammy- and Golden Globe-winning composer and lyricist who has written “The Rainbow Connection,” “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and many other hits.
Universal Music Group announced a new wellness app and a partnership with Ariana Huffington‘s Thrive Global on Tuesday during its first-ever Music + Health conference. Held at the One Hotel in West Hollywood, the event featured keynote remarks from Huffington and UMG chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge, plus panels and conversations deep-diving the therapeutic and medical benefits of music.
During the event, UMG said it is working on a forthcoming, music-centric wellness app called Sollos that will deploy “cognitive science and proprietary audio technology to support focus.” As Music Business Worldwide spotted, the label group submitted a trademark application for the brand in late August, however no additional information on the app has been released.
UMG also announced a new partnership with Thrive Global that will see UMG become the exclusive music partner for their Thrive Reset stress management tool. Huffington launched Thrive in 2016 as part of her years-long campaign to stamp out “burnout” and to help companies improve the well-being of workers through science-based actions. The Thrive Reset app uses music and breathing exercises to help users reduce stress in 60-second bursts.
“Universal’s catalog will make Thrive Resets more engaging, personalized and joyful to drive even greater behavior change through our platform, helping people reduce stress and connect each day with what they love about their lives,” said Huffington, who famously installed “sleep pods” — in rooms with names like Napquest — while leading The Huffington Post. “As we learned today from neuroscientists, historians, doctors and entrepreneurs, we’re just getting started with all of the ways we can leverage music, both for preventive health and to augment medical treatment, and I am looking forward to using today’s conference to accelerate this growing movement of music and health.”
On the licensing front, UMG announced it would provide selections from its vast catalog to digital therapeutic company soundBrilliance for use in closed clinical trials. According to the label, these trials will use music, psychology & measurement techniques “to create tools & exercises which empower people to better self-manage the fundamentals of health.”
The day featured a Zoom chat with music producer Rick Rubin on the topics of creativity, music and wellbeing, plus panel discussions featuring Dr. Lisa Miller, Dr. Daniel Levitin, Dr. Assal Habibi, Jaron Lanier and neurosurgeon and scholar Dr. Ali Rezai, as well as a presentation from MedRhythms co-founder and CEO Brian Harris. The day ended with a conversation on mental health between Grainge, Huffington and Selena Gomez.
There were also performances by Republic Records’ artist Chelsea Cutler and Decca Records’ Chad Lawson, plus panel appearances from UMG partners including Apple Fitness +, Endel, Music Care, Universal Production Music, Thrive Reset and a Havas Health panel that looked at music’s power to help end the health equity crisis.
“Throughout my life, I have experienced countless examples of how music can change people’s mood, comfort them in times of emotional crisis, or even help them physically,” Grainge said. “At Universal, I wanted this powerful relationship between music and health to not simply be a series of anecdotal observations, I want it to be a key component of our strategy, so we can really put music to work in ways it has never been used before. As a company, we are fundamentally rooted in the belief that music is a powerful force for good, and now we have the science and technology—with AI and therapeutics and more— to help accelerate these developments. It really is one of the most interesting and exciting new frontiers for music.”
BMI’s October 2022 switch to operating as a for-profit company didn’t cause a big reaction in the music business until a July 2023 Reuters article about the company being put up for sale revealed that it had generated $147 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Then the response was significant – and mostly negative. The fear was that profit would essentially come at the expense of royalty payouts.
Even so, BMI executives and other music business sources familiar with the way private equity funds think about business suggest that songwriters and executives should wait to see how the performance rights organization’s vision, backed by the right strategic partner — such as New Mountain Capital, with which BMI is negotiating — could help them.
BMI has said it is switching models and seeking a buyer in order to respond to a changing market. “We need to continue to invest in our business and explore new avenues for revenue generation,” CEO Mike O’Neill said in an Aug. 18 letter to creators groups that was shared with Billboard, “so we can continue to expand our distribution sources.”
To do that, while delivering the kind of growth a buyer will presumably want, BMI plans to explore new businesses to build a company that can operate at scale, and across national borders, more efficiently than it now does. The idea, according to sources inside and familiar with BMI, is to create a new interdependent royalty-collection ecosystem that will benefit BMI and its potential new owner, as well as its affiliates.
BMI is looking for “a partner who can help us take advantage of new opportunities and provide a new level of investment and technological expertise,” according to a Sept. 5 letter from O’Neill to creators groups published on BMI’s website. New Mountain Capital, which is in an exclusive period to negotiate a deal with the performance rights organization, could be such a partner, executives familiar with the private equity sector suggest, since the firm has a track record of investing in companies to help them achieve significant growth. Since its 1995 launch, New Mountain — which now oversees more than $35 billion in assets and funds — has acquired or founded more than 60 companies, without any going into bankruptcy and without missing an interest payment, according to the company.
In particular, sources familiar with New Mountain Capital point to its investment in Blue Yonder, a software company the private equity firm acquired for $565 million in 2010 and sold to Panasonic in 2021 for an enterprise value of $8.5 billion. The private equity firm, “through continued investment and improvement” helped grow it from a “somewhat sleepy niche company to being the 14th largest software company in the nation,” New Mountain Capital’s CEO Steve Klinsky wrote in the May-June 2022 issue of Harvard Business Review. “We offer the capabilities and access to capital that a large corporate parent would, without forcing companies to become part of a conglomerate culture. At the same time, we bring a fresh, entrepreneurial vision to strategy, talent, R&D, technology, and corporate alliances.”
Still, BMI has not specifically addressed many of the concerns raised by its switch to a for-profit model, which is why songwriters and publishers remain nervous. In fact, on Sept. 18 a letter signed by dozens of lawyers called on BMI to engage in open and honest conversations with affiliates, saying that the PRO owes them the responsibility to respond with “specificity and transparency.”
“I get it that some writers may have legitimate worries because in a vacuum there is not a clear picture of what such a deal could be and how it could be a positive for BMI,” says a veteran music business executive. “But a lot of people with their own interest have been spreading very negative spins with shrill voices that what BMI is doing will be bad for publishers and songwriters.”
In the case of New Mountain Capital, the executive says, they “are nice, smart people” that help businesses add new processes to help them grow substantially and become even more profitable. New Mountain Capital has been studying the music industry for a few years and looked at some substantial deals, sources say, but so far has passed on them until now.
“There is so much negativity out there that doesn’t give this deal the benefit of the doubt,” says another executive. “New Mountain Capital are not corporate raiders; they are intelligent and love the business and want to grow the revenue base so that publishers and writers will be making more money and still make a profit for BMI.”
That’s exactly the kind of approach BMI is looking for, according to executives familiar with its strategy. In its first year as a for-profit business, for example, BMI announced a partnership with the United Arab Emirates company Music Nation to try to establish a public performance licensing and royalty infrastructure there. BMI has also undertaken an “extensive customer service initiative” to enhance the service it provides to affiliates, with plans for an improved online service portal to follow.
The company has said that its move to a for-profit model made these investments possible. But one music publishing executive, who requested anonymity, wonders “why is it easier to invest in systems upgrades as a for-profit entity rather than as a not-for-profit organization?” One answer: The level of investment would impact distributions to affiliates under the previous not-for-profit system.
Publishing executives also believe that growing outside the U.S. will become a priority for BMI. Most of the growth for royalty collections is now coming from the growth of streaming services, and most of that will be international. Over the past decade, some of the European collective management organizations teamed much with publishers to license repertoire for online purposes across Europe, as European law allows. Such a model could also work in other territories, such as Latin America, Asia, or even the Middle East.
Given the opportunity for BMI outside the U.S., another executive wonders if it could be the first organization to try to rollout a global model, with a global membership. And if so, whether that would re-ignite competition to sign writers around the world.
Meanwhile, some executives speculate about whether New Mountain might be frightened off by the antitrust consent decree under which BMI operates, but “they understand deeply what that means,” says a source familiar with the fund, “and that it is baked into the business.”
Private equity is known for growing profits, not restraining them, but sources familiar with BMI’s thinking say that potential suitors need to understand that the company will prioritize payouts. In fact, a potential deal would not involve an expectation of “insane margins,” says one music industry executive who has worked with private equity. If a sale takes place, said O’Neill in an Aug 19 letter, BMI “would ensure that any partner embraces our mission of prioritizing the interests of songwriters, including their financial success.”
For-profit, for whom?
It’s “easy to assume that if we kept doing business the way we always had, distributions would continue to grow,” O’Neill wrote in his Sept. 5 letter posted on the company’s website. “That is a dangerous assumption to make, because in an evolving industry like ours, you run the risk of settling for a larger slice of a shrinking pie. Our goal is to grow that pie to your benefit.”
So far, in the three quarterly distributions since BMI announced its shift to a for-profit model, combined payouts were 9% greater than the same periods of the previous year. That’s almost as good as the 10.2% increase to $1.471 billion that BMI distributed in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022, when overall revenue grew 15.6% to $1.573 billion, when it was still operating as a non-profit. (BMI is not releasing how much distributions increased for the full year ended June 30, 2023, and it will no longer release any company-wide revenue results, sources say. Instead, it will provide more information to songwriters and publishers to help them measure BMI’s payments in comparison to the past, and in some cases, if songwriters so request, to other PROs.)
Some songwriters and executives argue that, if BMI is sold, affiliates deserve some of the revenue from that sale. But as one industry executive familiar with private equity points out, it’s actually surprising that BMI’s owners – radio and television stations – didn’t sell it a long time ago.
“For over 80 years, you have had owners — all for-profit companies with their own businesses — and yet they didn’t make any profit on BMI,” that executive says. “And I guess it would be unseemly for them to pull dividends out at the same time they are paying licensing fees.” At the same time, he adds, those owners had to watch SESAC and GMR come along and build very profitable businesses.
SESAC, which is considerably smaller than BMI, was sold to the private equity firm Blackstone for about $1 billion in 2017. Ironically, at the end of 2018, one of Blackstone’s investment funds acquired a passive minority equity stake in New Mountain Capital, a fact that U.S. regulators could look at, if New Mountain Capital moves forward with its BMI acquisition.
“The fact is that the broadcasters own BMI; and they are entitled to sell it,” the executive says. “I understand that the music industry likes the status quo, but if you start with the premise that the owners will sell, then you would want them to sell it to someone who is decent and understands the industry. It’s not smart to push [New Mountain Capital] away with a big outcry, because you don’t know who will come along next.”
There is also the potential for BMI to grow into a more modern company in a way that benefits the entire industry, the source says. “Take a year or two and see how things roll forward and how things shake out. If [BMI] songwriters are happy, then they can stay; and if not, then they can look to make a move.”
UBS partnered with Billboard to help increase awareness about the financial resources available to all entertainers.In the first of four episodes, UBS’ Wale Ogunleye sat down with Sherrese Clarke Soares to explore her role within the world of music finance as the founder & CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners. Check out the first episode here […]
TikTok announced new tools to help creators label content that was generated by artificial intelligence. In addition, the company said on Tuesday (Sept. 19) that it plans to “start testing ways to label AI-generated content automatically.”
“AI enables incredible creative opportunities, but can potentially confuse or mislead viewers if they’re not aware content was generated or edited with AI,” the company wrote. “Labeling content helps address this, by making clear to viewers when content is significantly altered or modified by AI technology.”
As AI technology has become better — at generating credible-looking images or mimicking pop stars’ voices, for example — and more popular, regulators have expressed increasing concern about the technology’s potential for mis-use.
In July, President Biden’s administration announced that seven leading AI companies made voluntary commitments “to help move toward safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technology.” One key point: “The companies commit to developing robust technical mechanisms to ensure that users know when content is AI generated, such as a watermarking system. This action enables creativity with AI to flourish but reduces the dangers of fraud and deception.”
Voluntary commitments are, of course, voluntary, which is likely why TikTok also announced that it will “begin testing an ‘AI-generated’ label that we eventually plan to apply automatically to content that we detect was edited or created with AI.” Tools to determine whether an image has been crafted by AI already exist, and some are better than others. In June, The New York Times tested five programs, finding that the “services are advancing rapidly, but at times fall short.”
The challenge is that as detection technology improves, so does the tech for evading detection. Cynthia Rudin, a computer science and engineering professor at Duke University, told the paper that “every time somebody builds a better generator, people build better discriminators, and then people use the better discriminator to build a better generator. The generators are designed to be able to fool a detector.”
Similar detection efforts are being discussed in the music industry as it debates how to weigh AI-generated songs relative to tracks that incorporate human input.
“You have technologies out there in the market today that can detect an AI-generated track with 99.9% accuracy, versus a human-created track,” Believe co-founder and CEO Denis Ladegaillerie said in April. “We need to finalize the testing, we need to deploy,” he added, “but these technologies exist.”
The streaming service Deezer laid out its own plan to “develop tools to detect AI-generated content” in June. “From an economic point of view, what matters most is [regulating] the things that really go viral, and usually those are the AI-generated songs that use fake voices or copied voices without approval,” Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira told Billboard this summer.
Moises, another AI-technology company, dove into the fray as well, announcing its own set of new tools on Aug. 1. “There’s definitely a lot of chatter” about this, Matt Henninger, Moises’ vp of sales and business development told Billboard. “There’s a lot of testing of different products.”
Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence.
The fallout from allegations of sexual assault against comedian Russell Brand continued to pile up on Monday (Sept. 18), when YouTube said that it had suspended the monetization of Brand’s account “following serious allegations against the creator,” according to the Associated Press. The move means that Brand, 48, will no longer make money from the site — where his feed has 6.6 million subscribers — in the wake of a four women accusing the stand-up-turned-social-influencer of rape, sexual assault and abuse.
In addition to losing out on money from the ads that run alongside his YouTube videos, the AP reported that one-time employer the BBC had removed some of Brand’s material from its streaming archive as a number of organizations distanced themselves from the polarizing performer, who has denied the allegations and has not been charged with any criminal offenses to date.
Brand was a host/presenter for BBC from 2006-2008 and some of the incidents he’s accused of happened during that time period, leading the BBC to say it is “urgently looking into the issues raised” by a bombshell investigative documentary published jointly last week by The Sunday Times, The Times of London and Channel 4’s Dispatches program.
In a statement, Brand denied the allegations from the unnamed women and said that all of his relationships have been consensual. “Amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute,” he said in the statement. “These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies and, as I have written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.”
The investigation included claims from one woman who alleged she’d been raped by Brand in Los Angeles in 2012, while three others accused Brand of sexual assault ,including one who said the alleged assault occurred during a relationship with him when she was 16. One of the women also said he had been physically and emotionally abusive; the allegations date from 2006-2013, with the London Metropolitan Police saying that since the allegations were publicly aired they’ve received a report of another alleged sexual assault from 2003.
Brand also suggested in his statement that the reports were part of a coordinated attack designed to discredit him because of his divisive views, which he has aired on YT in such clips as “What REALLY Started the Hawaii Fires?” and “Covid Tsar Admits Lockdowns Were NEVER About Science.” Brand has been criticized for expressing skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines and interviewing contentious podcasters, including Joe Rogan and fired Fox News commenter Tucker Carlson as part of his recent shift from routines aimed at dissecting religion, social inequity and political hypocrisy toward bits seemingly aimed at a conservative American audience.
Though Brand performed in London on Saturday, the final three dates of his current “Bipolarisation” tour has been postponed according to the promoter, even as Brand has been dropped by his talent agency and publisher, Bluebird, over the past week. NBC News also reported that Brand’s literary talent agency, Tavistock Wood, had dropped him following the Times report, which claimed that one of Brand’s accusers had made allegations to the agency in 2020 and received a “very aggressive” response from Brand’s legal team.
“Russell Brand categorically and vehemently denied the allegation made in 2020, but we now believe we were horribly misled by him,” the agency said in a statement. “TW has terminated all professional ties to Brand.” NBC also reported that the U.K. women’s charity for women in recovery, Trevi Women, had cut ties with Brand after the doc aired.
“We have ended our association with Russell Brand and the Stay Free Foundation,” the charity said in a statement, referring to Brand’s charity that supports people recovering from addiction.
One Brand’s former co-stars, Kristen Bell, appeared to have issued a warning about the comedian in a 2010 interview with the Scottish Daily Record, in which she said, “He didn’t try to mess with me on the set or get in my pants. He knew I would lop his nuts off.” Bell appeared with Brand in the 2008 comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which she breaks up with boyfriend Peter (Jason Segel) and begins a relationship with narcissistic, sex-addicted rocker Aldous Snow (Brand) during a trip to Hawaii.
In another interview with the Daily Mail that same year, Bell — who did not respond to the new reports of Brand’s alleged actions — said, “I made it really clear from the beginning that I would sock him in the balls if he tried anything. So he was intimidated. Noting that she “loved” working with Brand, Bell added that she was possibly “the only woman in the world who would shout that from the rooftops.”
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.
Concord has acquired the publishing catalog of Mojo Music & Media, a catalog that includes over 30,000 works. Founded in 2018 by Mark Fried, Peter Shane and Alan Wallis, Mojo Music & Media’s holdings include portions of songs recorded by REO Speedwagon, KISS, Cheap Trick, Duran Duran, Earth Wind & Fire and more.
The acquisition comes just after Concord announced that it made a recommended bid to buy Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Limited.
Since its founding, Mojo Music & Media has grown quickly, competing with more established competitors for evergreen catalogs. In 2019, the company partnered with Crestline Investors, Inc. to fund further acquisitions. Soon, it had bought more than 40 catalogs.
Catalogs in the Mojo Music & Media portfolio include: HoriPro Entertainment (REO Speedwagon, Kiss, Jerry Reed), Emerald Forest (Sophie B. Hawkins, Brownstone, Lita Ford), Rick Nielson (Cheap Trick), Warren Cuccurullo (Missing Persons, Duran Duran), Bob Morrison (“Lookin’ For Love”), Sharon Vaughn (“My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”), Larry Gatlin (“All The Gold In California”), D.L. Byron (“Shadows Of The Night”), Jeffrey Cohen (“Freeway Of Love”), Earth Wind & Fire’s Al McKay (“September,” “Best Of My Love”), English Beat and General Public’s Dave Wakeling (“Save It For Later,” “Tenderness”), Jordan Reynolds (writer of Dan + Shay hits “Tequila,” “Speechless,” and “10,000 Hours”), Jacknife Lee (Taylor Swift, Snow Patrol, and Kodaline) and the estates of Johnny Burke (“Misty”), Bernie Wayne (“Blue Velvet”) and Johnny Russell (“Act Naturally”).
My nearly 30-year adventure in music publishing has always been about surrounding myself with the greatest songwriters, getting them paid, keeping them inspired, and elevating the power of their songs in pop culture so they vibrate forever,” says Mark Fried, Mojo’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Concord has been on the same mission since its founding, and my partners and I feel like we’ve come full circle working with [Concord’s Chief Business Development Officer] Steve Salm, whom I’ve known and respected since his first days in the business, and other old friends at Concord to bring our catalogs together. I feel a deep responsibility to the artists, songs, and legacies we represent and I’m excited to see them continue to prosper in the hands of such capable and passionate caretakers.”
“We are delighted to have supported Mojo through their successful ramp up and aggregation of their catalogue. All aspects of our involvement with Mark and team have been outstanding. It is a great example of our desire to use our capital to build valuable asset platforms,” said Michael Guy, chief investment iofficer of Crestline Europe.
Steve Salm, Concord’s chief business development officer, remarked, “Mark Fried is a true original who’s repeatedly seen the value in songs and catalogs well before market trends, always putting songwriters first. Over the last several decades, he’s built two premier independent catalogs with Mojo here and Spirit Music prior, winning the trust of some of the most legendary songwriters and artists. With Mojo, Mark, Pete, and Alan have assembled a stellar collection of incredible hits spanning genres, eras, and territories. The Mojo catalog is a perfect fit with Concord’s catalogs, and we’re honored by the trust they’ve now put in us.”
Concord was represented by Ritholz Levy Fields LLP (Adam Ritholz, Cody Brown, John Brill, Gillian Sloane, Amanda Inglesh, and Jason Barth), and by DLA Piper, Rob Sherman. Shot Tower Capital acted as exclusive financial advisor to Mojo. Mojo was represented by Reed Smith LLP as legal counsel.
Warner Music has hired Disney veteran Bryan Castellani as the label group’s next executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective Oct. 16. Based in New York, Castellani will report to WMG’s CEO, Robert Kyncl.
Castellani has nearly 30 years at The Walt Disney Company under his belt, most recently serving as CFO for Disney Entertainment & ESPN. Prior to that, he held such roles as evp of finance for Disney Media, where he oversaw its distribution, ad sales and networks businesses, and previously he was evp and CFO of ESPN proper and he also spent time in the C-suite at Disney Japan. He started at the company in 1995 as a financial analyst, following a stint at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C.
“Bryan has wide-ranging experience helping one of the world’s most impactful creative enterprises build long-term value and unlock new global possibilities,” said Kyncl. “A dynamic, operational CFO, he’ll be an excellent addition to our executive leadership team, as we grow the WMG of the future for the benefit of our artists, songwriters, investors, employees, and partners.”
Castellani will succeed longtime CFO Eric Levin, who announced his retirement in mid-March after nearly a decade at the company. He’ll officially retire in January. Levin joined WMG in 2014, overseeing the company’s global financial operations at a time when piracy and streaming were overhauling the fortunes of companies across the music industry. Notably, he saw WMG through its 2020 initial public offering and managed through the leadership transition from Stephen Cooper to Kyncl.
Kyncl noted that Levin departs “with our deepest respect for his many contributions during an extraordinary period of growth that included WMG’s global expansion, numerous major acquisitions, and a successful IPO.”
Castellani said: “I’m delighted to be joining WMG at such an exciting and pivotal time for the company and the music industry. Music is a powerful global force, unconstrained by any specific model or format, and has significant business upside. Robert’s vision for differentiating WMG is inspiring, and I’m looking forward to working with the leadership and finance teams to take the company to the next level in a rapidly evolving landscape.”
Independent musicians will have more power to negotiate with artificial intelligence developers over “fairer rates and terms for the use of their music” if a newly introduced version of the Protect Working Musicians Act passes the U.S. House, according to Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.).
“AI threatens the creator — finding the person or entity that has co-opted your work and turned it into something else and then going after them is so onerous,” Ross, who sponsored the revised act and sits on the House Judiciary Committee, says in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. “That’s one of the reasons for this bill — to allow people to do this collaboratively. We need to do this sooner than later. We’re seeing this threat every single day.”
The Protect Working Musicians Act, which Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) introduced in October 2021 a few months before he left Congress, would allow indie artists to collectively bargain for royalty rates with streaming giants such as Spotify and Apple Music. As it stands, the major labels that own most worldwide master recordings have enormous negotiating power to set rates; the act would “give the smaller independent more of a voice,” says Jen Jacobsen, executive director of the Artist Rights Alliance, which worked with Ross on revising the bill.
Ross picked up the bill when Deutch announced he would not return to the House, then held hearings with indie artists in her district, which includes Raleigh. Since then, Ross says, “The AI issue has become even more important.” The revised act would allow artists to behave like plaintiffs in a class-action suit, she adds, “fighting for their rights” with a central attorney.
“Our work is being scraped and ingested and exploited without us even knowing,” Jacobsen says. “Adding the AI platforms seemed like a relevant and important thing to do.”
Writers and artists have warned for months that AI could transform their ideas into new works with no way to get paid for the usage. In April, “Heart On My Sleeve,” an AI-created song that mimics the voices of Drake and The Weeknd, landed millions of TikTok, Spotify and YouTube plays. At the time, Sting told the BBC: “The building blocks of music belong to us, to human beings. That’s going to be a battle we all have to fight in a couple of years: defending our human capital against AI.”
“Musicians are really worried about this — not just the big-name ones, but small artists, too. Small ones, especially,” Jorgensen says. “The most important thing for this bill is that small, independent artists and record labels need to be recognized and have each others’ backs.”
It’s unclear when the House might vote on the revised bill — or if it would pass. “As you can see in Congress, lots of bills aren’t passing — like the budget!” Ross says. “But this has been a very bipartisan issue in the judiciary committee. It’s the perfect time to bring these issues up.”
Travis Scott was questioned for several hours on Monday (Sept. 18) in a civil deposition he gave in connection with hundreds of lawsuits that were filed against him and others over the deaths and injuries at the 2021 Astroworld festival. Scott was questioned in Houston during a deposition that lasted around eight hours, two people with knowledge about the litigation said.
Lawyers and others connected to the civil lawsuits are under a gag order, preventing them from saying little beyond what happens during court hearings.
“Travis Scott’s deposition is typical legal procedure. What is not typical is how the media continues to focus on him despite being cleared of any wrongdoing by extensive government investigations, including by the Houston Police Department,” Ted Anastasiou, a spokesperson for Scott, said in a statement. “Travis is fully cooperating with the legal process while still remaining committed to his tour in support of his record-breaking album, Utopia, and his charitable efforts to support at-risk communities.”
Following an investigation by Houston Police, no charges were filed against Scott after a grand jury in June declined to indict him and five other people on any criminal counts related to the deadly concert. Police Chief Troy Finner declined to say what the overall conclusion of his agency’s investigation was.
In July, the police department made public its nearly 1,300-page investigative report in which festival workers highlighted problems and warned of possible deadly consequences.
According to a summary in the investigative report of a police interview conducted two days after the concert, Scott told investigators that although he did see one person near the stage getting medical attention, overall the crowd seemed to be enjoying the show and he did not see any signs of serious problems.
This was the first time Scott was questioned by attorneys for those who have filed lawsuits since a crowd surge at his Nov. 5, 2021, concert in Houston killed 10 festivalgoers. Those killed, who ranged in age from 9 to 27, died from compression asphyxia, which an expert likened to being crushed by a car.
Similar crushes have happened all over the world, from a soccer stadium in England to the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia to Halloween festivities in the South Korean capital. Most people who who die in crowd surges suffocate.
Scott’s deposition comes as a judge earlier this year scheduled the first trial from the lawsuits for May 6, 2024. That first trial would take place nearly 2.5 years since the deadly concert. Documents filed in court in April listed more than 1,500 active cases, many of which were filed against Scott and Live Nation, the concert promoter.
Of these, 992 were cases with physical injuries and 313 were cases of “emotional distress, pain, suffering and mental anguish.” Orthopedic surgeries have been completed in 17 of these cases, with other surgeries recommended in another 21.
Some of the lawsuits have since been settled, including those filed by the families of three of the people killed during the concert.
Scott’s deposition on Monday took place on the same day that hip-hop artist Drake, who performed several songs with Scott during the Astroworld concert, was performing in Houston. Drake was also sued in connection with the deadly concert.