Business
Page: 318
The bitter legal battle between Sean “Diddy” Combs and alcohol giant Diageo over their soured tequila venture is going to be paused until at least next spring, an appeals court says.
In a ruling on Tuesday, a panel of judges on New York’s appellate division granted Diageo’s request for a so-called stay of the lawsuit, in which Combs accused the company of racism and failing to adequately support his DeLeon brand of tequila.
Diageo’s attorneys asked for the pause while they try to convince the appeals court to overturn a ruling this summer for Diddy and send the case to private arbitration, which would negate the need for continued litigation. Combs’ attorneys had called Diageo’s request a “desperate attempt to delay judicial scrutiny for its discriminatory conduct.”
Tuesday’s decision means any progress in the underlying case will be paused until at least April, which is when the appeals court said Diageo’s appeal must be ready to be heard.
Following the ruling, Combs’ attorney John Hurston told Billboard: “Once the appellate court considers the actual merits, we are confident that they will reach the same conclusion as two separate judges already: that Diageo can’t avoid a public trial.”
A spokeswoman for Diageo did not immediately return a request for comment.
Combs sued in May, claiming Diageo breached his partnership deal for DeLeon Tequila by failing to properly support the brand. But he also went a lot further than that, leveling accusations of racism and claiming Diageo had treated his product line “worse than others because he is Black.”
“Cloaking itself in the language of diversity and equality is good for Diageo’s business, but it is a lie,” Combs’ lawyers wrote. “While Diageo may conspicuously include images of its Black partners in advertising materials and press releases, its words only provide the illusion of inclusion.”
The case claimed that Diageo had “typecast” his DeLeón Tequila as a “Black brand” that could only be sold to “urban” consumers, harming its sales and leaving it lagging behind competing Diageo brands like Casamigos and Don Julio.
Diageo responded a month later, calling the lawsuit a “bad faith, sham action” filed by a star who had “amassed nearly one billion dollars” from their partnership but now wanted to “extract” billions more.
“These allegations are nothing more than opportunistic attempts to garner press attention and distract the court from the fact that plaintiff’s breach-of-contract claim is entirely without merit,” the company’s attorneys wrote. “Diageo categorically denies these accusations.”
Diageo demanded that the case be sent to private arbitration, citing a provision in Diddy’s partnership contract that they said required such disputes be handled out of court. The company argued that, if Diddy’s “inflammatory rhetoric” about racism was removed, the case was nothing more than a “garden variety” business dispute that must be arbitrated.
But in September, the judge overseeing the case rejected that argument, meaning the case would move forward in state court, with the trial open to the public.
Diageo quickly appealed that ruling, and asked for a stay to prevent the case from moving forward while the appeal played out. Without a pause, the company said it faced “irreparable harm” because it would be forced to “arbitrate and litigate the same issues at the same time.”
After Tuesday’s ruling granting that request, the case will not proceed until the appellate court rules on Diageo’s appeal. Tuesday’s order said the appeal must be “perfected for the April 2024 Term of this Court,” but it’s unclear if that means the case will be decided by then, or merely argued and briefed.
Michael Kushner, Atlantic Records’ executive vp of business & legal affairs/general counsel, will receive the 2024 Entertainment Law Initiative (ELI) Service Award, which is given each year to an attorney who has demonstrated a commitment to advancing and supporting the music community through service.
The award will be presented at the Recording Academy Entertainment Law Initiative event at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024, two days before the 66th annual Grammy Awards. Michelle Jubelirer, Capitol Music Group chair/CEO, will deliver the keynote address.
“Michael’s dedication to the music industry and his service to the Academy’s Entertainment Law Initiative make him an exceptionally deserving recipient of the ELI Service Award,” Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a statement. “We look forward to celebrating his accomplishments at the 26th Annual ELI Grammy Week event, and hosting Michelle — a trailblazing woman in music — as the keynote speaker as we gather with the professionals and students making an impact in entertainment law.”
The recipient of the Service Award is selected each year by ELI’s executive committee.
Peter T. Paterno was the Service Award honoree earlier this year. Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, then newly inaugurated, gave the keynote address.
The ELI event will also celebrate the winner and two runners-up of the Entertainment Law Initiative writing competition, co-sponsored by the American Bar Association (ABA), which challenges students in Juris Doctorate (JD) and Master of Laws (LLM) programs at U.S. law schools to research a pressing legal issue facing the modern music industry and outline a proposed solution in a 3,000-word essay. A $10,000 scholarship is awarded to the author of the winning paper, and a $2,500 scholarship is awarded to two runners-up. The winning paper will be published in the ABA’s journal, Entertainment & Sports Lawyer.
The winner will also receive travel and tickets to Los Angeles to attend the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, MusiCares Person of the Year and the ELI event. The contest is open to JD and LLM candidates at U.S. law schools. Students have until Jan. 3, 2024, to enter the contest. See official rules, detailed prize packages and deadlines at recordingacademy.com/eli.
Individual tickets and a limited number of discounted student tickets to the ELI event will go on sale later this month.
Now that the Hollywood actors’ strike is over, music supervisor Justin Kamps can afford to keep his 3-year-old daughter in daycare. “Things were getting a little bit scary these last couple months,” says Kamps, who picks songs for Bridgerton, Grey’s Anatomy and other hit TV shows. “We were going through the financials and cutting back whatever we can.”
SAG-AFTRA’s 60,000 members voted to approve a deal with studios last Friday, after halting work for nearly four months, following a screenwriters’ strike that lasted from early May to late September — both of which were devastating not just to Hollywood but the $2 billion music-synch industry. “That’s been quite a dark thing,” Stephanie Diaz Matos, head of music supervision for writer-actress Issa Rae‘s music company Raedio, told Billboard in July.
With Hollywood going back to work, TV shows and movies have already resumed sending out briefs to publishers and record labels requesting songs for key dramatic moments and soundtracks. “It’s definitely a relief,” says Alison Dannenberg Frost, vp of film and TV creative for music publisher peermusic. “We saw a slowdown on the creative side and licenses coming in the door. We really just started seeing it affecting our monthly numbers.” The synch business makes up 50% of Spirit Music Group’s publishing revenue, according to Amy Hartman, the company’s senior vp of creative services, film and TV music, who adds, “It’s incredibly important.”
Had the strikes continued much longer, Spirit would have had to consider cutbacks and “do some reevaluating,” Hartman says. “Thankfully, we’re pretty lean and mean, so we weren’t forced to face that question.”
By contrast, music supervisors for films and TV shows are generally freelance contractors and had to scramble to stay afloat financially during the strikes. Laura Webb, a supervisor for Love at First Sight, Monster High and other shows, spent the first month of the strikes on post-production for existing shows, but one of them wound up getting canceled and cut the pay for that job in half. “We have no protections. We were expecting to get that money, and we just lost it,” she says. “The last week has been slower, for sure — the slowest it’s been. But hopefully good timing for things to turn around.”
Webb and her colleagues faced a separate setback over the summer, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled against part-time freelance Netflix music supervisors who’d requested a union certification election in October 2022. After Netflix refused to recognize the union, the supervisors argued they needed collective-bargaining power to improve their financial conditions: “Their responsibilities have expanded, their conditions have deteriorated, and their pay has stagnated,” the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which collaborated with the Netflix employees, declared at the time. But Danielle M. Pierce, the NLRB’s acting regional director, wrote in August that “music supervisors are independent contractors who are not employees of Netflix.”
“We’re regrouping and trying to figure out next steps,” Webb says. “It’s not over, but really a big blow.”
Throughout the strikes, music companies pivoted to an increased focus on pitching for synchs in video games and TV commercials — continuing to take music supervisors to lunch to maintain relationships and help out their struggling freelance colleagues. Peermusic donated $100 grocery-store gift cards to out-of-work members of the Guild of Music Supervisors, a non-profit organization.
Although Spirit’s Hartman is ready for the synch faucet to turn back on and “all the beautiful amount of licensing and briefs to come our way,” peermusic’s Frost expects a lag, possibly extending into early 2024. Movie and show projects are likely to restart at the “script and filming stage,” she says, while synch work generally begins during post-production at the end: “I’m predicting it’s going to be a slow pickup, especially now we’re going into the holidays.”
Because Netflix, Disney and other top studios have said they would pull back on new content, the synch business may also begin to flatten after years of growth. Frost predicts a post-strike boom in synchs in early 2024, followed by a longer-term drop-off: “I think it’s going to slow down as streamers adjust to this new world, and they’re picking up less content.” Heather Guibert, a music supervisor working on a documentary about songwriter Diane Warren, adds: “Disney used to make, let’s hypothesize, 100 projects a year; suddenly, that goes down to 50. That’s 50 fewer projects for the music supervisor to work on. It’s rough.”
During the strikes, Amanda Krieg Thomas, a music supervisor for American Horror Story and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, had to slash the hours for the three employees of her company, Yay Team — forcing one of them to quit for another job. She’s hopeful — and “still a little cautious” — that the post-strike era will restore her company to maximum financial health. “What’s the new normal? Is there actually going to be less content, and what does that look like for music supervisors?” she asks. “But everybody’s excited to really get going again.”
Chinese music streaming company Tencent Music Entertainment saw its paying users grow to 103 million in the third quarter, up 20.8% year over year and 3.6% better than the previous quarter, the company announced Tuesday (Nov. 14).
A 42% gain in subscription revenue to 3.2 billion RMB ($438 million) helped online music revenue grow 32.7% to 4.55 billion RMB ($624 million). Not only has Tencent Music Entertainment gained paying customers, but they’re also paying more: Average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) rose 17% to 10.3 RMB ($1.41) in the third quarter.
“We will continue to drive solid growth of our online music business, with subscription revenue driven by the subscription base growth and also ARPPU expansion as well,” said executive chairman Cussion Pang during Tuesday’s earnings call. “Outside of the subscription revenue, we expected the revenues from advertising and new initiatives, such as artist merchandise, to continue to grow healthily.”
Tencent Music Entertainment’s 103 million subscribers is well behind Spotify’s 226 million subscribers, but its subscriber base has grown steadily from 85.3 million and 71.2 million in the third quarters of 2022 and 2021, respectively. Its ARPPU of 10.3 RMB ($1.41) is also far lower than Spotify’s ARPU of 4.34 euros ($4.72), reflecting the relatively higher prices in the North American and European markets where Spotify is strongest. Still, Tencent Music Entertainment’s ARPPU showed strong growth last quarter after dropping from 8.9 RMB ($1.23) in the third quarter of 2021 to 8.8 RMB ($1.21) in the third quarter of 2022.
Tencent Music Entertainment operates the music streaming apps QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo. It also owns WeSing, a social karaoke game. The music-focused company additionally offers podcasts and ventured into audiobooks with its 2021 acquisition of audiobook platform Lazy Audio.
The company touts what it calls a “dual-engine” strategy that improves both the content and the platform’s features and technology. In the third quarter, Tencent Music Entertainment expanded its partnership with K-pop company YG Entertainment to include ticketing, which gave subscribers the ability to purchase BLACKPINK concert tickets. A partnership with another South Korean company, Cube Entertainment, gives Tencent Music Entertainment a 30-day window of exclusivity on new song releases. On the technology side, a new music production tool in the Kugou app allows users to create music in multiple languages. “Through a brief training session, it can effectively and efficiently produce songs in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Korean and Japanese,” said Pang.
Gains from the music side of the company couldn’t make up for steep declines in Tencent Music Entertainment’s social entertainment segment, however. Company-wide revenue declined 10.8% to 6.57 billion RMB ($900 million) due to a 48.8% year-over-year decline in social entertainment revenue and a 16.8% drop in social entertainment mobile monthly average users.
“For the social entertainment services, we will continue to execute our current operational strategy with the backdrop of the macro factors and competition for 2024,” said Pang. “Our primary target is to stabilize the business and better serve our core users.”
Gross margin improved by 3.1 percentage points to 35.7% due to growth of music subscriptions and the company’s use of its own content. “Looking forward [to] Q4, we expect subscription revenue and advertisement revenue will continue to be strong,” said CFO Shirley Hu. “On the cost side, we expect our in-house made content will have a positive impact on gross margin continually and we will continue to increase our operational efficiency and monitor cost items.”
Shares of Tencent Music Entertainment rose 3.1% to $7.66 on Tuesday. That was slightly better than the gains most stocks posted following a report that inflation was flat in October and up 3.2% from the previous year. The news sparked hope amongst investors that the Federal Reserve would stop hiking interest rates to help tame inflation. The Nasdaq composite gained 2.4% and the S&P 500 gained 1.9%.
Tencent Music Entertainment third-quarter financial and user metrics:
Total revenue of 6.57 billion RMB ($900 million), down 10.8% year over year.
Music subscription revenue of 3.19 billion RMB ($438 million), up 42% year over year.
Social entertainment revenue of 2.02 billion ($276 million), down 48% year over year.
Net profit of 1.26 billion RMB ($173 million), up 15.6% year over year.
Monthly active users (online music) of 594 million, down 4.2% year over year.
Mobile monthly active users (social entertainment) of 129 million, down 16.8% year over year.
Paying users, online music of 103 million, up 20.8% year over year.
Paying users, social entertainment of 7.8 million, up 5.4% year over year.
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: An Atlanta judge rules that Young Thug’s rap lyrics can be used as evidence in his upcoming gang trial; two new sexual assault cases are filed against powerful music executives; R. Kelly sues the federal prison system for allegedly leaking private info to a gossip blogger; and more.
THE BIG STORY: Rap Lyrics Headed To Trial
After years of reporting on “rap on trial” — the controversial use of lyrics as criminal evidence against the artist who wrote them — it was remarkable to watch last week as prosecutors from America’s rap capital battled with defense attorneys for one of hip-hop’s biggest stars over that very subject in open court.
Is Atlanta’s district attorney “targeting the right to free speech” by using Young Thug’s lyrics in the upcoming gang trial? Or are prosecutors merely pointing out glaring admissions of criminal activity that “just happen to come in the form of lyrics”?
In the end, as they often do when it comes to lyrics, the judge sided with prosecutors: “They’re not prosecuting your clients because of the songs they wrote,” said Judge Ural Glanville, speaking to Thug’s lawyer Brian Steel during the hearing. “They’re using the songs to prove other things your clients may have been involved in. I don’t think it’s an attack on free speech.”
For a full recap of the hours-long hearing, go read our full story here. And look out for our upcoming coverage on the YSL trial, which is set to start Nov. 27.
THE OTHER BIG STORY: More Music #MeToo
The music industry saw two new lawsuits last week alleging sexual abuse by powerful men, continuing a wave of such cases filed over the past year.
The first, filed Wednesday (Nov. 8) in New York state court, accused former Recording Academy president/CEO Neil Portnow of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2018. Those are the same allegations that were partially aired four years ago in an explosive discrimination complaint filed by Deborah Dugan, who briefly replaced Portnow as Academy boss after he stepped down in August 2019.
The second lawsuit, filed later that same day in New York federal court, accused legendary industry exec Antonio “L.A.” Reid of sexually assaulting A&R executive Drew Dixon and then derailing her once-promising career when she refused his further advances. Those claims, too, were already public to some extent: Dixon previously accused Reid of harassment in a 2017 article for The New York Times as well as a subsequent documentary.
Over the past year, such accusations have become troublingly common.
Two women are suing Atlantic Records over abuse allegations against late co-founder Ahmet Ertegun; country star Jimmie Allen is facing two sexual assault lawsuits; Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter has been sued by three different women who claim he sexually assaulted them as minors in the 2000s; Kenny MacPherson, the CEO of Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s publishing unit, is facing a lawsuit claiming he subjected an employee at a previous company to an “onslaught of unwanted sexual advances”; a woman is suing singer Jason Derulo for allegedly harassing her and then dropping her from a deal with his Atlantic imprint after she rebuffed him; and Kobalt Music Group is facing claims that it enabled former exec Sam Taylor as he leveraged his position of power to demand sex from a songwriter.
Other top stories this week…
R. KELLY SUES FEDS OVER LEAKS – The disgraced R&B singer filed a lawsuit against the federal Bureau of Prisons over allegations that someone at the agency leaked private information about him — including recordings of private phone calls with his girlfriend and lawyers — to social media personality Tasha K, who then shared them with millions of followers. Before you ask: Yes, that’s the same YouTube gossip host that Cardi B successfully sued for defamation last year after Tasha K posted false stories about drug use, STDs and prostitution by the superstar rapper.
LINKIN PARK LITIGATION – The band was hit with a lawsuit over the anniversary re-release of its smash hit 2000 debut album Hybrid Theory, filed by a bassist who says he performed on rare and unreleased recordings that were featured as part of the deluxe box set but has “never been paid a penny.”
OFFSET ASSAULT ACCUSATION – The Migos rapper (real name Kiari Kendrell Cephus) was sued by a security guard who claims he was assaulted two years ago by Offset and YRN Murk after he turned them away from ComplexCon, a cultural festival hosted by Buzzfeed’s Complex Networks.
Under Spotify’s new royalties model, the platform will financially penalize labels or distributors when it finds that more than 90% of streams on a song are fraudulent, charging 10 euros per offending track, according to several music distribution executives.
The service’s current remedies will also remain in effect — removing fake streams from the system so they don’t impact payouts or charts, pulling the track off editorial playlists, and possibly striking them from the platform altogether. The fees racked up by labels or distributors will be charged against future royalties.
Like the rest of Spotify’s new model, which also affects how the lowest-streaming acts and non-music noise tracks earn royalties, the new fraud rule will impact music’s steadily growing “long tail” of tracks that don’t get played much. In this case, it’s simple math: Big artists trying to boost their numbers are unlikely to hit that 90% threshold for fraudulent streams since they already have an established audience that will listen to them. Any act with a fair number of legitimate streams would need a huge amount of fraud to trigger a penalty.
This means companies that have built hands-off, high-volume distribution businesses with small margins, charging a small fee per upload — the three biggest are DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby — likely have the most to lose under the new rules. They have huge batches of new music uploading daily, and that means it’s hard to know who is doing the uploading.
Even so, Tunecore welcomed news of Spotify’s change. “In order to effectively prevent bad actors from diluting the royalty pool for real artists with real fans, all companies need to be a part of the solution,” says Andreea Gleeson, the company’s CEO. “We also have been engaged in a deep dialogue with all our DSP partners, including Spotify, to actively deploy anti-fraud measures that encourage content providers to make the proper investments to actually fight fraud. We are fully aligned with the measures that Spotify is implementing.” (Tunecore’s parent company, Believe, has a history of publicly supporting Spotify initiatives, including Discovery Mode, which is unanimously opposed by the major labels.)
“It’s a positive incremental step to take, but it’s incremental — you could see a service doing something much more drastic,” adds another senior executive. “It sends a good signal to the marketplace about intentions.”
On the other hand, DistroKid founder Philip Kaplan voiced his objection to the penalty system on a recent call with the Music Fraud Alliance, according to two sources who were also on the line. (Both DistroKid and Tunecore are members of the coalition.)
One of those executives described the gist of Kaplan’s comments: “We can’t determine if a new client is going to hire a marketing service that’s going to bot streams until they’ve done it. It’s like you can’t determine if your neighbor is going to commit a crime.” And the entity best able to monitor for fraudulent activity is Spotify itself. In this line of thinking, then, Spotify would be penalizing distributors for something that they didn’t do, can’t predict, and can’t spot as quickly as the streamer itself.
Kaplan declined to comment. Spotify also declined to comment.
There is little public data on the prevalence of fraud and where it tends to occur. The most comprehensive study that’s widely available was carried out recently by the Centre national de la musique (CNM), a French government organization, which found that “more than 80% of the fraud” detected by Deezer and Spotify in France in 2021 was “at the long tail level.”
These acts are unlikely to be associated with a major record company, as the big labels focus primarily on the top releases: Odds are that many of the tracks involved in the fraud are there purely for that purpose — a bad actor uploads white noise or junk audio expressly to pump up plays with bots and attempt to extract royalties from the streaming ecosystem.
Assuming that the 80% rule — or some semblance of it — holds more broadly across countries and streaming services, Spotify’s new penalty system functions as “a direct shot at distributors that are just way overpopulating platforms with a lot of nonsense,” says another music executive with experience fighting fraud. In this view, Spotify is pushing distributors to look more closely at what it is they are distributing.
“Being penalized should create an environment where the distributors will invest more to make sure that their business is cleaner,” says Ty Baisden, who manages Brent Faiyaz, among others.
It remains notoriously hard to determine where streaming manipulation actually comes from.
“Distributors might say it’s the [fault of the] labels,” Ludovic Pouilly, senior vp of institutional and music industry relations at Deezer, told Billboard earlier this year. “The labels might say it’s the management. And artists themselves might tell you it’s the competition who’s trying to negatively impact their reputation.”
On top of that, there are also plenty of third-party marketing companies that artists hire thinking they’re implementing legitimate streaming campaigns, but are actually just paying bot-farms to generate plays instead. This makes any attempt to assign responsibility for streaming fraud on a large scale fraught. “How are you going to hold a label or distributor responsible for something that they can’t control at all?” asks an independent label founder.
To that end, several distribution executives said they would try to shift any fraud-related penalties they incur on to whoever uploaded the music that was tied to fake streams. “Our plan is to pass on the fee to the accounts and the releases where it occurred to the best of our ability,” says one distribution executive.
This offers its own challenges. If a fraudster already has money running through the distributors’ system due to previous streaming activity, or a legitimate bank account on file, the distributor might be able to claw back the penalty money it now owes Spotify when it learns of fraud. But if the fraudster recently signed up to the distributor, that might not be so easy.
The biggest takeaway from Spotify’s new policy may be that it demonstrates how much the conversation around fraud has shifted in less than a year. In 2022, no one would talk about it; in 2023, everyone is suddenly eager to tackle the problem — and to broadcast their efforts in a public manner.
“Nobody’s immune” to streaming fraud, Christine Barnum, chief revenue officer at the distributor CD Baby, told Billboard in April. “So people are finally having the realization, ‘Yeah, this is a problem.’”
YouTube will introduce the ability for labels and others music rights holders “to request the removal of AI-generated music content that mimics an artist’s unique singing or rapping voice,” according to a blog post published on Tuesday (Nov. 14).
Access to the request system will initially be limited: “These removal requests will be available to labels or distributors who represent artists participating in YouTube’s early AI music experiments.” However, the blog, written by vice presidents of of product management Jennifer Flannery O’Connor and Emily Moxley, noted that YouTube will “continue to expand access to additional labels and distributors over the coming months.”
This marks the latest step by YouTube to try to assuage music industry fears about new AI-powered technologies — and also position itself as a leader in the space.
In August, YouTube published its “principles for partnering with the music industry on AI technology.” Chief among them: “it must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate,” wrote CEO Neil Mohan.
YouTube also partnered with a slew of artists from Universal Music Group on an “AI music incubator.” “Artists must play a central role in helping to shape the future of this technology,” the Colombian star Juanes said in a statement at the time. “I’m looking forward to working with Google and YouTube… to assure that AI develops responsibly as a tool to empower artists.”
In September, at the annual Made on YouTube event, the company announced a new suite of AI-powered video and audio tools for creators. Creators can type in an idea for a backdrop, for example, and a new feature dubbed “Dream Screen” will generate it for them. Similarly, AI can assist creators in finding the right songs for their videos.
In addition to giving labels the ability to request the takedown of unauthorized imitations, YouTube promised on Tuesday to roll out enhanced labels so that viewers know they are interacting with content that “is synthetic”: “We’ll require creators to disclose when they’ve created altered or synthetic content that is realistic, including using AI tools.”
TikTok announced a similar feature in September. Of course, self disclosure has its limits — especially as it is already reported that many creators experiment with AI without admitting it.
According to YouTube, “creators who consistently choose not to disclose this information may be subject to content removal, suspension from the YouTube Partner Program, or other penalties.”
Warner Music has announced plans to use AI technology to recreate the voice and image of legendary French artist, Edith Piaf, in an upcoming full-length animated film. Titled EDITH, the upcoming project is developed by production company Seriously Happy and Warner Music Entertainment in partnership with the Piaf’s estate.
EDITH is set to be a 90-minute film, chronicling the life and career of the famous singer as she traveled between Paris and New York. The voice clone of Piaf will narrate the story, revealing new details about her life never before known.
The AI models used to aid EDITH’s storytelling were trained on hundreds of voice clips and images of the late French singer-songwriter to, as a press release puts it, “further enhance the authenticity and emotional impact of her story.” The story will also feature recordings of her songs “La Vie En Rose” and “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” which are part of the Warner Music catalog.
The story will be told through a mix of animation and archival footage of the singer’s life, including clips of her stage and tv performances, interviews and personal archives. EDITH is the brain child of Julie Veille, who previously created other French-language music biographies like Stevie Wonder: Visionnaire et prophète, Diana Ross, suprême diva, Sting, l’électron libre. The screenplay was written by Veille and Gilles Marliac and will be developed alongside Warner Music Entertainment President, Charlie Cohen. The proof of concept has been created, and the team will soon partner with a studio to develop it into a full-length film.
This is not the first time AI voice clones have been used to aid in the storytelling of a film. Perhaps the most cited example of this was Roadrunner (2021), a documentary about the life of chef and TV host Anthony Bourdain, who passed away in 2018. AI was used to bring back Bourdain’s voice for about 45 seconds. During that time, a deepfaked Bourdain spoke a letter he wrote during his life aloud to the audience.
Visual AI and other forms of CGI have also been employed in movies in recent years to resurrect the likenesses of deceased icons, including Carrie Fisher, Harold Ramis and Paul Walker. Even James Dean, who died in 1955 after starring in only three films, is currently being recreated using AI for an upcoming film titled Back to Eden.
The EDITH project is likely just the start of estates using AI voice or likeness recreation to rejuvenate the relevance of deceased artists and grow the value of older music catalogs. Already, HYBE-owned AI voice synthesis company Supertone remade the voice of late South Korean folk artist Kim Kwang-seok, and Tencent’s Lingyin Engine made headlines for developing “synthetic voices in memory of legendary artists,” like Teresa Teng and Anita Mui.
Veille says, “It has been the greatest privilege to work alongside Edith’s Estate to help bring her story into the 21st century. When creating the film we kept asking ourselves, ‘if Edith were still with us, what messages would she want to convey to the younger generations?’ Her story is one of incredible resilience, of overcoming struggles, and defying social norms to achieve greatness – and one that is as relevant now as it was then. Our goal is to utilize the latest advancements in animation and technology to bring the timeless story to audiences of all ages.”
Catherine Glavas and Christie Laume, executors of Edith Piaf’s estate, add, “It’s been a special and touching experience to be able to hear Edith’s voice once again – the technology has made it feel like we were back in the room with her. The animation is beautiful and through this film we’ll be able to show the real side of Edith – her joyful personality, her humor and her unwavering spirit.”
Alain Veille, CEO of Warner Music France, says, “Edith is one of France’s greatest ever artists and she is still a source of so much pride to the French people. It is such a delicate balancing act when combining new technology with heritage artists, and it was imperative to us that we worked closely with Edith’s estate and handled this project with the utmost respect. Her story is one that deserves to be told, and through this film we’ll be able to connect with a whole new audience and inspire a new generation of fans.”
TikTok launched a new feature on Tuesday (Nov. 14) that allows users to easily save music they find on the platform to Spotify, Amazon Music or Apple Music for future listening. This will presumably reduce friction between the apps, helping translate interest on TikTok into streaming activity at a time when the music industry has been concerned that the relationship is weakening.
“TikTok is already the world’s most powerful platform for music discovery and promotion, which helps artists connect with our global community to drive engagement with their music,” Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music business development, said in a statement. The new feature “takes this process a step further, creating a direct link between discovery on TikTok and consumption on a music streaming service, making it easier than ever for music fans to enjoy the full length song on the music streaming service of their choice, thereby generating even greater value for artists and rights holders.”
This “Add to Music App” will be available to users in the United States and the United Kingdom. TikTok started testing the integration earlier this year with Apple Music.
When TikTok initially came to prominence more than four years ago, virality on the app often appeared directly correlated with a jump in streams. But that link appeared to weaken as the app ballooned in popularity. The top 10 TikTok tracks in the United States were streamed far less in 2022 than they were in 2021, according to data from Luminate. And the top 10 songs on the app in 2021 were streamed far less than they were in 2020.
“For a while it was like, ‘All you gotta do is get a song going on TikTok, and it’s outta here!’” a major label executive told Billboard last year. But “it’s not a guarantee anymore” that a song will become a hit, the executive said.
Some sounds appear to thrive on TikTok but never catch fire on streaming services, where they actually generate money for the music industry. Labels will surely be excited if the “Add to Music App” helps strengthen the connection between TikTok activity and clicks on Spotify.
In the past, Spotify and TikTok have sometimes seemed at odds, competing for user attention and influence over the music industry. During the former’s Stream On event in March, for example, Gustav Soderstrom, Spotify’s co-president, took a subtle jab that seemed aimed at TikTok: “Discoveries on Spotify, unlike many other platforms, give creators so much more than just a fleeting moment of viral fame,” he said.
This sentiment was echoed at the same event by Sulinna Ong, Spotify’s global head of editorial, who noted that “there’s a disconnect between where music is being teased and where music is actually being streamed. The most powerful time to reach fans is when they’ve chosen to engage with music, like when they open up Spotify.”
But despite past poking and prodding, the two platforms now appear happy to work together. “We want to create less work to get to the audio you love,” Sten Garmark, Spotify’s global head of consumer experience, said in a statement. “That means being everywhere our users are and creating seamless ways to save songs to Spotify to enjoy when and how they choose to listen.”
Karolina Joynathsing, the director of business development for Amazon Music, used similar language in her own statement. “Some of the best parts of being a music lover are those serendipitous moments when you discover a new song or artist that you connect with instantly,” Joynathsing said. “At Amazon Music, we’re looking to make it easier to convert those moments into enduring fandom,” leading to the adoption of the Add to Music app.
TikTok plans to roll out the new feature in additional markets in the coming months.
In a stunning wrinkle in the fevered battle between Kakao Corp. and HYBE for a controlling stake in K-pop company SM Entertainment, Kakao’s chief investment officer was indicted Monday (Nov. 13) for allegedly manipulating the stock price to ward off HYBE’s rival bid.
Bae Jae-hyun, Kakao’s chief investment officer, will face a trial for violating South Korea’s Capital Markets Act, according to reports. He allegedly inflated the price of SM Entertainment shares by purchasing 240 billion won ($181.3 million) of shares while HYBE, home of K-pop group BTS, was attempting to buy a large stake in the company. Prosecutors also charged Kakao using a provision in the law that allows both a company and its employees to be punished.
The scheme to manipulate SM Entertainment’s share price stemmed from a heated competition between Kakao and HYBE to become the largest shareholder in SM Entertainment — home to such K-pop acts as NCT Dream and Red Velvet — to help rebuild the company after it terminated a production contract with its founder, Lee Soo-man. In February, HYBE acquired a 14.8% stake in the K-pop giant from Lee and attempted to acquire an additional 25% stake through a tender offer at 120,000 won ($92.36) per share. HYBE’s bid was too low, however, and the tender offer gave HYBE less than 1% of outstanding shares.
Bae allegedly acquired SM Entertainment shares to drive up the price above HYBE’s tender offer price, thus thwarting its efforts to obtain a larger stake. On March 6, Kakeo and Kakao Entertainment followed with a tender offer of 150,000 won ($115.46) per share — 25% above HYBE’s tender offer price — and ended up acquiring an additional 25% stake, bringing its ownership of SM Entertainment to 40%. HYBE abandoned its bid to control SM Entertainment on March 13 and announced on March 28 that it would sell nearly half of its stake in SM Entertainment to Kakao for 248.8 billion won ($191.8 million).
Kakao is a South Korean tech conglomerate that owns the country’s dominant chap app, KakaoTalk, and a popular taxi-hailing app, Kakao Mobility, among other products. A subsidiary, Kakao Entertainment, owns Starship Entertainment, home to such K-pop groups as Monsta X, as well as South Korea streaming app Melon. In August, Kakao Entertainment and SM Entertainment revealed their plans to create a North American joint venture by the end of 2023.
The investigation into stock manipulation started soon after Kakao and Kakao Entertainment beat out HYBE for the SM Entertainment stake. South Korean officials raided the offices of Kakao and Kakao Entertainment on April 6 and SM Entertainment’s headquarters on April 18. Bae was arrested for suspected stock manipulation on Oct. 19 before being indicted on Monday. Other executives were suspected of working with Bae to inflate SM Entertainment’s share price, according to a Reuters article at the time of his arrest, but to date no one else has been charged.