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Tencent Music Entertainment Group’s (TME) quarterly net profit surged by more than 50% for the quarter ending in June on the strength of its online music business, sending its stock up 5% in mid-day trading on Wednesday.
Net profit for TME’s second quarter was RMB1.30 billion ($179 million), up 51.6% from second quarter last year, the Chinese company reported on Tuesday. Total revenues rose 5.5% to RMB7.29 billion ($1.01 billion) in the quarter ending June 30, as a more paying subscribers helped the online music business contribute more than half of TME’s earnings for the first time since the company’s launch in 2016.
TME is growing increasingly focused on its music business, and its company promotions which resulted in a record high of 99.4 million paying users this quarter, are paying off, executives say.
“As we continue driving the healthy development of China’s online music industry, we have seen users become increasingly accustomed and willing to pay for copyrighted music, whether for songs they want to listen to or for premium listening features they enjoy,” TME executive chairman Cussion Pang said on Tuesday. “This marks a significant step along TME’s growth trajectory.”
Quarterly revenue from online music services jumped nearly 50% to RMB4.25 billion (US$586 million) on strong music subscription revenue growth and advertising services and contributed more than 58% of the company’s total revenues.
The number of monthly active users for online music fell nearly 5% to 594 million in the second quarter this year from 623 million in the year-ago quarter, but the number of paying online music users rose more than 20% to 99.4 million from 82.7 million a year ago.
Revenues from music subscriptions grew 37% to RMB2.89 billion ($399 million).
TME’s social entertainment business, which it has de-emphasized for the last several quarters in a row, saw mobile monthly active users fall 18% to 136 million from 166 million, while paying social entertainment users also declined 5% to 7.5 from 7.9.
Monthly average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) rose 14% to RMB9.7 ($1.33) for online music, while monthly ARPPU for social entertainment declined 20% to RMB135 ($18.50).
Tencent Music executives said they are in the process of deploying several service enhancement and risk control measures that will promote music-centric live streaming, which they expect to put pressure on TME’s social entertainment services revenues throughout the rest of 2023.
“TME remains confident about delivering year-over-year net profit growth for 2023, driven by the continued strong performance of online music services, laying a much more solid foundation for the company’s healthy and resilient development in the long run,” a spokesperson said.
Smokey Robinson has won a protracted legal battle with a former manager who claimed he was owed nearly $1 million in touring profits from the legendary Motown singer. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Following a three-day trial that saw extended testimony from the star himself, an […]
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In the relentless pursuit of innovation that defines today’s financial landscape, few events stand like Triller’s public listing. As a company at the intersection of AI technology, influencer marketing, combat sports, and entertainment, Triller’s announcement of its filing for a public listing on the NYSE represents a defining moment in investment history. With Cantor Fitzgerald as its bank and Citadel as its market maker, it has attracted leaders in the financial industry to ensure the brand is successful.
Here’s an in-depth look into why Triller’s listing is one of the most exciting of 2023:
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Triller’s AI, initially called Amplify.AI, has redefined user experience. Tailoring content to individual preferences, this innovative tech not only improves user experience but also opens up avenues for monetizable interactions, breaking 750 million every quarter. With comparisons to Open.AI and a valuation north of $23 billion for OpenAi’s similar technology, Triller’s AI machine stands as a significant pillar of growth.
Leveraging influencers has been a transformative element for Triller. Starting with deals with virtually all of the top 100 influencers in the world, Triller followed up by acquiring and building Julius, connecting over 25,000 brands with 2.2 million influencers as one of the largest influencer marketing platforms today.
Julius used by many of the largest companies in the world is effectively an EBAY for influencers and other brands alike. Triller has created a unique ecosystem, allowing it to navigate a crowded market with finesse, and have a very unique offering to brands, influencers and users.
While it may not seem natural, Triller’s journey into combat sports further deepend its offering, user base and connectivity. When Triller put on the Tyson V. Jones pay per view extravaganza, it was considered a very risky move. Many didn’t believe it would work and were quick to dismiss it as a soon to be failed experiment.
Triller, however, seemed to understand that its unique AI, which finds users or customers from its patterns across the various social media networks, connecting them with relevant brands, products or offerings, could also apply to digital products, not just physical.
As Combat Sports both crossed into influencer marketing and the core audience was used to paying for it as a product, Triller was able to capitalize on these trends. By using its AI to push digital PPV’s it was able to create what went on to become the most successful Digital PPV event of all time, of its kind. It followed this up with a number of events including the Jake Paul, Ben Askren, The Trillerverz events, setting numerous records, including Verzuz being 8 of the top 10 live Instagram events of all time; and eventually its acquisition of BKFC and FiteTV.
Although Triller presented itself as a pre-revenue company in 2020 it recognized $3.7 million in 2020. Its growth from 2020 to 2021 was approximately a 7x increase, and it has double both from 2021 to 2022 and projects to double again from 2022 to 203 reaching over a projected $100 million+ in 2023. The numbers narrate a tale of unprecedented growth, driven by strategic planning, innovation, and adaptation to market trends.
Triller’s story is a financial odyssey that started as a platform for short music videos. The proposed TikTok ban first catapulted Triller into a global sensation, when it became the only app to ever reach number one app in the app store in 80 countries. Since that time the company has steadily been building its user base which now stands tall with over 500 million registered users and it effectuates more than 750 million interactions per quarter, driven by an understanding of market dynamics and agility.
Triller’s public listing on the NYSE is a momentous occasion that could resonate throughout the financial and tech worlds. In the era of relentless innovation, Triller is leading the way. The Triller story illustrates that when the right components align, not only can 1 + 1 equal more than 2, it can equal more than 10. A lesson for entrepreneurs, investors, and businesses alike, the Triller phenomenon is a masterstroke in financial innovation, and its reverberations may be felt for generations to come.
SoundExchange is suing SiriusXM over allegations that the satellite radio giant has been “gaming the system” in order to withhold more than $150 million in royalties owed to artists.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Virginia federal court, the royalties group claimed that SiriusXM has been using bookmaking trickery – namely, manipulating how it bundles satellite services with web streaming services – as part of a scheme to “grossly underpay the royalties it owes.”
“Through its contrived and improper apportionment, Sirius XM has engineered a windfall for itself and deprived artists of the important compensation to which they are legally entitled and desperately need,” wrote lawyers for SoundExchange in the complaint.
The allegations concern the royalties paid under so-called statutory licenses – government mandates that automatically give certain streaming services the ability to broadcast songs for a set price. Crucially, that system sets different rates for revenue from satellite broadcasts (like SiriusXM’s traditional satellite radio) versus that from so-called webcasting services, which are transmitted through the internet.
In Wednesday’s complaint, SoundExchange says SiriusXM has intentionally bundled the two products together as a single offering in recent years, allowing the company to mix the revenue in order to improperly lower its royalty bill.
“Sirius XM is gaming the system: to grossly underpay the royalties it owes, Sirius XM has unreasonably characterized revenue from its bundled product as ‘webcasting revenue’ that in actuality is “[satellite] revenue’,” SoundExchange wrote. “Sirius XM’s revenue apportionment is beyond the pale, and harms music creators.”
According to SoundExchange, that maneuver has allowed SiriusXM to shortchange artists to the tune of $150 million. The company has also allegedly refused to comply with an indepdent audit that found millions in such shortfalls.
“Sirius XM has not paid its bills,” SoundExchange wrote. “By purporting to comply with the statutory license without paying what it owes under the license, Sirius XM has unjustly enriched itself to the detriment of recording artists and copyright owners upon whose music Sirius XM has built its business.”
A representative for SiriusXM did not immediately return a request for comment.
In a statement, SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe said the group had only resorted to litigation as a last resort. “In recent years we have viewed SiriusXM as a willingly lawful and compliant company that shares our desire for a robust streaming marketplace. But SiriusXM has and continues to wrongfully exploit the rules to significantly underpay the satellite royalties that it owes.”
When Davido released his fourth studio album, Timeless, on March 31, it marked a career peak for the Afrobeats star in the United States: At No. 37, it was his highest-charting album on the Billboard 200. It also debuted at No. 2 on the World Albums chart and placed five songs in the top 20 of the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats chart for a career total of 25 — vaulting him above Wizkid into third place among artists with the most entries on the chart. As of Aug. 3, Timeless has racked up 134.3 million on-demand streams in the United States, already outstripping the total number accumulated by his last album, 2020’s A Better Time.
In Nigeria, where Davido grew up and made his name, Timeless‘ success was nothing short of monumental. The album debuted at No. 1 on the country’s TurnTable Charts with 50.4 million on-demand streams in Nigeria in its first week of release — more than the rest of the 49 albums that comprised TurnTable’s Official Top 50 Albums chart that week combined — and remained there for 10 straight weeks and in the top five for 17 weeks. It also set a record when eight of the album’s tracks debuted in the top 10 of TurnTable’s Official Nigeria Top 100 chart, including each of the top four slots. At the midyear mark, it was the biggest album in Nigeria in 2023 with 185.6 million streams despite being released at the end of March, while the rest of the top 10 albums of the year to date had been released prior to 2023.
The success of Timeless was not just a huge moment for Davido but a massive achievement for his Nigerian management company, The Plug. Founded in August 2016 by music executives Asa Asika and Bizzle Osikoya (with live events and branding executive Tobi Mohammed coming on as a third partner in 2022), The Plug started out with the goal of managing producers, DJs and songwriters and has since grown into a full-fledged music company that incorporates management, distribution, publishing, live events, booking and a branding agency (it also represents some of the biggest Nigerian athletes on the planet). The company’s management roster extends beyond Davido (who, as of June 2022, The Plug co-manages outside Africa with LVRN) to include artists like Ckay (whose “Love Nwantiti” was the first-ever No. 1 on the Billboard Afrobeats Chart upon its launch in March 2022), Victony, Bella Shmurda, King Promise, Focalistic, Boj and the super-producer Sarz. The Plug’s live events division created and produces the largest music event in Nigeria, the Mainland Block Party, while its branding division — under Mohammed’s TopBoy moniker — regularly executes campaigns for the likes of Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Pepsi, MTV and more.
“Our goal is to be the biggest independent management and distribution company from Africa,” says Osikoya. “We need to get to a level where we’re not just only working with the people in music and sports alone, but people in fashion, in film. And that means us scaling to the next level of, when anybody is looking to come to Africa or partner with anyone in Africa, The Plug is the only one they think about.”
The story of The Plug begins, in part, with Davido. The Atlanta-born, Lagos, Nigeria-raised Afrobeats superstar began his career in the early 2010s with Asika as his manager, before the two parted ways for several years as Asika focused on his StarGaze Entertainment company. At the same time, Osokoya had his own company, B Entertainment, and was also working with the esteemed Nigerian record label Mavin Records, founded by legendary Nigerian entrepreneur and artist Don Jazzy. When Asika and Osokoya happened to meet up in New York, the idea came to return to Nigeria and join forces as The Plug.
Asika and Osikoyo initially set out to help those producers, songwriters and DJs who largely worked behind the scenes and began to build the company slowly, starting with DJ Obi. But by November, Davido came around asking to work with Asika again — “and the rest was history,” as Osikoyo puts it.
But at that point, that history still had to be created — and Davido and The Plug immediately embarked on one of the most successful single years for an Afrobeats artist at the time. That came off the back of four huge singles, including “If” — named Song of the Year at the 2018 Headies Awards, Nigeria’s biggest music awards show — and “Fall,” which became the first Nigerian song to reach 100 million views on YouTube. Davido would go on to win Best African Act at Britain’s 2017 MOBO Awards, Best African Act at the 2017 MTV EMAs and Best African Act at the 2018 BET Awards.
“We came up with this whole campaign that everyone called Back To Basics, where we approached his career like he was starting out fresh, like a brand new artist,” Asika says. “Everyone always references 2017 as a benchmark; it was probably the biggest year an artist has had on the African continent, ever.”
Around the same time, Mohammed, through his agency TopBoy, was formulating the idea for the Mainland Block Party, which he conceived as a monthly festival for those who lived on the mainland in Lagos. (Lagos, the partners explain, is divided into the mainland and the island, with the latter more of a cultural and event hub and the former more akin to the outer boroughs of New York City.) “When I moved back to Nigeria, I realized there was a social gap between the mainland and the Island,” Mohammed says. “But loads of cool people lived there. So I was like, we should start something here and we’re going to try to make sure it’s cool.”
The first edition of the Mainland Block Party occurred in April 2018, at a burger spot called, fittingly, Burg. (Mohammed calls it “the coolest burger restaurant on the mainland.”) The first edition drew 150 people; the second, 300 people including Osikoya, who began to promote it on social media and brought it to Asika’s attention. Largely through word of mouth, it soon grew to 800 people — at which point Burg kicked the festival out — then to 4,000 and, by December 2018, 8,500 attendees, who came out to see largely rising local Afrobeats artists — “no serious headliner, just vibes,” as Mohammed puts it. At that point, he, Asika and Osikoya decided to expand the festival’s footprint, and today there are Block Party festivals in seven cities in Nigeria and Ghana — including both mainland and island editions in Lagos — with the flagship event held every December. It’s since become the biggest festival in Nigeria by annual footfall, and last December it hosted 20,000 people with Ghanaian star Black Sherif headlining.
Black Sherif performs at Mainland Block Party in Lagos in 2022.
Courtesy of The Plug
“I’m not going to lie and say I envisioned this growth; everybody who starts something great would hope that it becomes something great, but you can never tell how deep it goes,” Mohammed says. “We’ve gone from Mainland Block Party to creating a global festival now that we’re calling The World Is a Block, which is speaking to the fact that one of the messages of the Mainland Block Party is also the inclusiveness of it. A place where you don’t need to go to the club and get a bottle, you can have 10 dollars and come dance and have fun.”
In 2022, The Plug and TopBoy officially merged, bringing the Block Party and TopBoy’s agency under The Plug, and officially making Mohammed The Plug’s third partner. In the interim, The Plug has been focused on growth and expansion, building out its artist management roster while adding several new verticals to its offerings, including publishing; distribution, under head of music David Edogame; and sports, under head of Plug Sports Lanre Vigo. (The partners make a point to note that The Plug is not a label and doesn’t represent its artists in more than one area; a management client does not go through the company’s distribution network, for example.) It distributes artists such as Zlatan, Fave and Qing Madi, as well as the catalogs of Davido and Mayorkun prior to their respective deals with Sony. This December, the partners expect some 24,000 people at the Block Party in Lagos before expanding to the United States and the United Kingdom.
Notably, The Plug is indispensable to the inner workings of the Nigerian music industry, which operates differently than the music business in the rest of the world due to the particular intricacies of the market, which include its lack of structure and local allegiances. (Artists like Burna Boy and Davido, who have global major label deals, handle their operations in Africa separately.)
“With the success we’ve been able to attain, we’ve been able to build relationships with people who have been in these positions, who we can ask about some of the opportunities that have come our way,” Asika says. “It’s been a lot of learning on the job, being our own biggest critics of ourselves, to the point where we have to sit down with ourselves sometimes and be honest, like, ‘Are we doing this wrong? Are we wasting our time?’”
Now, the goal is further expansion — not necessarily in services, but in reach. Osikoya specifically mentions opening offices across the African continent as a goal within the next three years, while the growth of Afrobeats generally around the world has meant that new partnerships, like the one with LVRN for Davido, are possibly on the horizon, as well as new initiatives for their artists across the board.
And several of their current artists have landed big hits of late — Victony has risen to the biggest heights of his career in the past year on the strength of his massive single “Soweto,” while King Promise’s “Terminator” reaches an all-time high on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart this week, and Ckay’s “Love Nwantiti” remains in the top 10 after 73 weeks. The possibilities are right in front of them now — and their influence is beginning to extend beyond what they can do for their clients into the next generation of the business itself.
“Now, we have more and more people whose parents have seen the success of people in the industry and are allowing their kids to be able to go to university to study things related to the music business,” Osikoya says. “Before, most parents just wanted you to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer. Now, people are coming back to Nigeria saying, ‘I studied the music business, I want to work at a label, I want to work at a distribution company, a marketing company, a PR firm.’ These things are helping develop the industry better.”
Amazon Prime members will still get a discount on Amazon Music — but starting today, they’ll have to pay a little more.
According to the Amazon Music website, effective Tuesday (Aug. 15), the company will raise the price of its premium, on-demand music subscription product from $8.99 to $9.99 per month, or $89 to $99 per year, for individual subscribers.
In addition, the price of the Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan, which allows up to six family members per account, will increase from $15.99 to $16.99 per month, or $159 to $169 per year. In both instances, existing customers will pay the new price on their automatic monthly renewal starting Sept. 19. The higher prices will allow Amazon Music “[to] help us bring even more content and features,” its website says.
Amazon Prime costs an additional $14.99 per month and provides free order delivery, access to the Prime Video and Amazon Music streaming services and discounts on products and services, among other benefits.
Amazon last raised the price of Amazon Music Unlimited for Prime members in May 2022, increasing it from $7.99 to $8.99 per month or $79 to $89 per year. With the latest price increase, Prime members still receive a discount equal to $1 a month or $10 annually for Amazon Music Unlimited. The prices for non-Prime subscribers were raised in February to $10.99 per month.
Music streaming subscription prices went mostly untouched for years before increasing at all major services in the last year. In October 2022, Apple raised its prices for Apple Music by $1 per month for individual subscribers, from $9.99 to $10.99 in the United States; and $2 per month for the family plan, from $14.99 to $16.99 per month. At the same time, it also increased the prices of Apple TV+ and Apple One, a bundle that includes Apple Music.
In July, YouTube hiked prices for YouTube Music, while Spotify raised the price of its individual subscription plan from $9.99 to $10.99 in the United States later in the month.
Oak View Group (OVG) has appointed Ade Patton as CFO, effective immediately, the global venue development, advisory and investment company announced on Tuesday (Aug. 15). In his new role, Patton will direct and oversee the global financial and accounting activities of the firm. He lives in Denver and will report to OVG chairman/CEO Tim Leiweke. […]
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: Record labels sue the Internet Archive over a project to digitize old records; Dua Lipa loses a bid to dismiss one of the “Levitating” copyright lawsuits; a federal judge questions the fairness of Live Nation’s arbitration agreements with ticket buyers; and much more.
Want to get The Legal Beat newsletter in your email inbox every Tuesday? Subscribe here for free.
THE BIG STORY: Historical Preservation or Blatant Infringement?
Like almost anything implicating copyright law, the Great 78 Project is something of a Rorschach test.
To the Internet Archive, it’s a project of “preservation, research and discovery,” aimed at creating a “digital reference collection of underrepresented artists and genres.” Digitizing hundreds of thousands of old 78rpm records is a much-needed effort to “ensure the survival of these cultural materials for future generations to study and enjoy.”
But according to a new lawsuit filed last week by Universal Music, Sony Music and Concord, the Great 78 is nothing more than “blatant” copyright infringement under a “smokescreen” of preservation.
“The Great 78 website is a massive, unauthorized, digital record store of recordings,” lawyers for the music companies wrote in the massive lawsuit this week, which claims the Internet Archive infringed more than 2,700 songs and potentially owes as much as $412 million in damages.
“Although Internet Archive describes the Great 78 Project’s goal as ‘the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records,’ the Great 78 Project is actually an illegal effort to willfully defy copyright law on an astonishing scale,” the labels wrote.
At issue in the case are so-called pre-1972 songs — a category of music that was, when the Great 78 Project launched in 2006, not covered by federal sound recording copyrights. But in 2018, federal lawmakers extended such protection to the old records as part of the Music Modernization Act.
While the new law contained carveouts that allowed “non-commercial” uses of certain old records, the labels say the Internet Archive simply “ignored the new law and plowed forward as if the Music Modernization Act had never been enacted.”
For more, go read our full breakdown of the lawsuit, including access to the actual legal complaint filed against the Internet Archive.
Other top stories…
10 YEARS FOR TORY LANEZ – The rapper was sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot, capping off three years of legal drama over the violent 2020 incident. The sentence was much harsher than the penalty sought by Lanez’s lawyers (just probation) but less than the 13 years that prosecutors had requested.
DUA LIPA CAN’T BEAT DISCO CASE – A federal judge ruled that Dua Lipa must face a copyright lawsuit accusing her of copying “Levitating” from a 1979 disco song, refusing the star’s early bid to end the case. Though she ruled that Lipa’s accusers had failed to show that the pop star had ever heard the song she was accused of copying, the judge said they had shown “just enough” to proceed on their claim that the song was so “strikingly similar” that it constitutes infringement.
TWITTER FIRES BACK AT PUBLISHERS – Twitter filed its first real response to a lawsuit from music publishers alleging widespread copyright infringement on the platform, arguing that it cannot be held liable for the actions of its users. The case claims that Twitter infringed over 1,700 different songs from writers like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, but in a motion to dismiss the case, lawyers for the Elon Musk-owned site (now rebranded to X) said the company itself was not on the hook for illegal posts by its users.
The 1975 KISS FALLOUT CONTINUES – The organizers of a Malaysian music festival are seeking 12.3 million ringgit ($2.7 million) in losses from British band The 1975 after lead singer Matty Healy’s on-stage protest of the country’s anti-gay laws prompted authorities to shut down the festival.
NO ARBITRATION FOR LIVE NATION – A federal judge ruled against Live Nation in an antitrust lawsuit over allegations of inflated ticket prices, declaring that the case should proceed as a federal class action rather than via private arbitration. Concertgoers opt into that out-of-court process when they buy tickets, but the judge ruled that the arbitration process posed a “serious risk of being fundamentally unfair” to consumers: “Because Defendants are often in effect the only ticketing game in town, would-be concertgoers are forced to accept Defendants’ [arbitration agreement] in full, or else forego the opportunity to attend events altogether.”
A former associate of Kanye West and R. Kelly is listed among the 18 names in the 41-count indictment against former President Donald Trump that was unsealed in Fulton County, Ga., Monday night (Aug. 14). Trevian C. Kutti is facing three charges under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law — a statute typically associated with organized crime — wherein prosecutors claim the former president and his compatriots ran a “criminal enterprise” to keep Trump in the White House after his 2020 presidential election loss.
Kutti was associated with West for a period of time following his own failed 2020 presidential run, according to a source formerly close to West’s team.
Previously, Kutti worked with disgraced singer R. Kelly as his publicist until 2018, according to a 2020 Chicago Sun-Times article covering her work as a lobbyist to legalize marijuana in Illinois. Kelly is currently serving a 20-year sentence in Chicago after convictions on child pornography and enticement of a minor charges.
Kutti, whose unverified Instagram bio lists her as a “solutionist… equal opportunity capitalist… media manipulator,” is facing charges of conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings and influencing witnesses. She did not respond to Billboard‘s request for comment on the charges at press time.
The latest indictment against Trump includes 41 criminal charges against 18 Trump associates alleging acts aimed at trying to reverse his election loss, including Trump famously calling Georgia’s Republican secretary of state in a bid to have him “find” enough votes to help him win the pivotal state, as well as harassing an election worker with false claims of fraud and trying to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the state’s citizens and appoint their own slate of pro-Trump electors. In one of the most shocking claims, the indictment says the Trump team allegedly attempted to gain access to voting machines in a rural county in order to steal data from the voting machine company.
Reuters reported that Kutti’s online biography from 2021 identified her as a member of the “Young Black Leadership Council under President Trump,” while also claiming that beginning in Sept. 2018 she was “secured as a publicist to Kanye West” and served as his “director of operations.” In Dec. 2021 a spokesperson for West said that Kutti was not “associated” with the rapper at the time she is accused of pressuring a Georgia election worker to confess to false allegations of committing voter fraud.
A spokesperson for Ye could not be reached for comment at press time.
Trump is facing 13 charges in the case, which contains the most potential legal jeopardy for the twice-impeached MAGA real estate mogul who was indicted in March in a New York case tied to hush payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. He was indicted again in June by a federal grand jury in Miami in his classified documents case and earlier this month by special counsel Jack Smith in a federal probe into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
While Kutti is not well-known, some more familiar names were in the Fulton County indictment, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump lawyer (and the mastermind of the bogus elector scheme) John Eastman, another Trump attorney, Sidney Powell, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“I believe that the charges that were filed on me are for a lack of better words baloney,” Kutti reportedly said in a text to the Wall Street Journal. “I completely stand by what I said to the election worker that I was simply a crisis manager.”
Forbes reported on Tuesday that leading up to the 2020 election, Kutti worked as a campaign manager for QAnon conspiracy supporter Angela Stanton King, who lost an election for the congressional seat of late civil rights icon John Lewis.
Kutti also made headlines as the person who Reuters said was caught on video trying to convince frightened Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman — whom Trump had attacked in public and who later faced death threats — to confess to Trump’s false voter fraud allegations by saying that if she didn’t she would be hauled off to jail.
Count 30 of the indictment says that Kutti and two others, “unlawfully conspired to solicit, request, and importune Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker, to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense of False Statements and Writings, O.C.G.A. § 16-10-20, by knowingly and willfully making a false statement and representation concerning events at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia.” It also claims that Kutti “traveled to Fulton County, Georgia, and placed a telephone call to Ruby Freeman while in Fulton County, Georgia, which were overt acts to effect the object of the conspiracy, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.”
Count 31 alleges that around Jan. 4, 2021, the trio, “knowingly and unlawfully engaged in misleading conduct toward Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County, Georgia, election worker, by stating that she needed protection and by purporting to offer her help, with intent to influence her testimony in an official proceeding in Fulton County, Georgia, concerning events at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.”
While Trump continues to be the Republican presidential front-runner by a wide margin despite his multiple layers of legal jeopardy, CNN noted that Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ case is insulated from any potential Trump meddling if he is re-elected in 2024 because he would be unable to pardon himself or any of his allies on the state charges or dismiss Fulton County prosecutors who brought the charges.
In a predictable pattern, Trump described his latest indictment as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” while labeling DA Willis as “racist and corrupt.” Giuliani, who famously used RICO statutes to combat organized crime in New York, called the charges “an affront to democracy.”
Twitter has filed its first formal response to a lawsuit from music publishers alleging widespread copyright infringement on the platform, arguing that it cannot be held liable for the actions of its users.
The filing came two months after dozens of music publishers sued the Elon Musk-owned site, claiming its users had infringed over 1,700 different songs from writers like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé — a claim that, if proven, could put the social media giant on the hook for $255 million in damages.
In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed Monday, lawyers for Twitter (now re-branded to X) argued that the company itself was not on the hook for illegal posts by its users. Among other things, they cited the Supreme Court’s high-profile 2005 ruling on the filing sharing service Grokster, which said that digital services cannot be sued unless they take active steps to encourage infringement by users.
“In this case, plaintiffs do not allege that X encouraged, induced, or took affirmative steps with the intent to foster the infringement of plaintiffs’ works,” wrote the company’s lawyers, hailing from the law firm Quinn Emanuel. “To the contrary, X’s anti-infringement policies and practices … belie any reasonable assumption that X has induced its users to infringe any copyrights.”
The case against Twitter was organized by the National Music Publishers’ Association, which has long argued that the site is the last major social media service refusing to license music. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat have all allegedly entered into such deals with publishers, providing a library of licensed music for users to legally add to their posts.
“Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service,” said NMPA president/CEO David Israelite when the case was filed in June. “Twitter knows full well that music is leaked, launched and streamed by billions of people every day on its platform.”
But in Monday’s response, Twitter’s lawyers argued that even if such licensing deals were the NMPA’s preferred outcome, they are not legally required to avoid a copyright lawsuit – and that the failure to secure one was irrelevant to the infringement case against it.
“The allegation … is just another way of saying that X could do more to address the unauthorized use of music on the site by purchasing licenses from Plaintiffs on behalf of X’s users,” Twitter’s attorneys wrote. “Whether X sought music licenses for users or elected not to do so has no bearing on this inquiry; it is not evidence of an intent to encourage infringement.”
Notably, this week’s filing from Twitter did not delve into the thorny issue of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal law that limits how websites like Twitter can be sued over copyright infringement by their users.
The DMCA provides sites like Twitter with immunity — a “safe harbor” — from litigation over material uploaded by their users, so long as they promptly remove infringing content and ban repeated violators from the platform. The publishers’ lawsuit goes to great lengths to argue that Twitter failed to do either of those things, meaning the site has legally forfeited the DMCA’s protections.
Twitter heavily refutes that point and, though they did not do so on Monday, its lawyers will undoubtedly invoke the DMCA’s protections at a later stage of the case if their current motion is denied.
The case against Twitter was filed by Concord, Universal Music Publishing Group, peermusic, ABKCO Music, Anthem Entertainment, Big Machine Music, BMG Rights Management, Hipgnosis Songs Group, Kobalt Music Publishing America, Mayimba Music, Reservoir Media Management, Sony Music Publishing, Spirit Music Group, The Royalty Network, Ultra Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music and Wixen Music Publishing.
A rep for NMPA did not immediately return a request for comment on Twitter’s new filing.