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Audius, a blockchain-based streaming platform, launched its music marketplace in beta on Wednesday (Nov. 1), meaning that its user base — which has ranged between 4 and 7 million in recent months — can now send direct payments to their favorite artists.
“We were a marketplace for engagement and attention,” Roneil Rumburg, co-founder/CEO of Audius, tells Billboard. “But talk to any artists — what’s top of mind for them is, ‘How am I going to pay rent next month?’ This feature allows them to make the following they have a financial asset. There’s a structure to monetize via Audius now rather than just building a fan base.”
More than 40 acts, including RAC, Matt Ox and Cheat Codes, will participate in the beta program, which Audius hopes to roll out widely in the first quarter of 2024. Artists can set prices for fans to stream a previously unreleased demo or download stems to participate in a remix competition, for example. And fans can pay artists more than that price if they’re particularly excited about an offering.
“What we heard [from users] is they were looking for a deeper way to engage with artists,” Romburg explains. He likens allowing them to tip extra on top to “the behavior pattern you see from the folks who buy vinyl even though they don’t have a record player at home — they want to support that artist.” (Users are further incentivized to support artists via a matching program: If an act sells access to a track for $1, for example, that act and the purchaser each get 1 $AUDIO tokens, which helps them gain more voting power on the community-run platform.)
Implementing a monetization option has also allowed Audius to build new bridges to the traditional music industry for the first time. “This monetization feature set saw fairly broad buy-in,” Rumburg says. The platform is partnering with DistroKid, allowing a large number of independent acts the option to put their music on Audius, and Beatport, an important hub for the dance music community. In addition, Audius is announcing its first set of label partners, a group that includes EMPIRE, Nettwerk Music, Circus Records and Anjunadeep, among others.
Rumburg cautions that “the way the deals with the labels coming on are structured, it’s not like their whole catalog gets shoved into Audius.”
“Uploading the same music that’s available everywhere else probably wouldn’t work,” he continues. “Where we’ve had the most success is when artists are sharing weird, different things that they probably wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with their broader fan base. Something like sharing early draft versions of future content to get feedback — the most highly engaged part of the fan base loves that s—.”
But under the new deals, Romburg adds, “When content is shared on Audius that’s owned by a label, the payments will flow correctly.”
CTM Outlander has inked a deal with four-time BMI songwriter of the year winner Ross Copperman, including both the acquisition of Copperman’s catalog (via Iris in the Sky with Diamonds) as well as a publishing deal for his future works.
Copperman has had songs recorded by Keith Urban, Tyler Hubbard, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton & Gwen Stefani, Gabby Barrett, Kenny Chesney & P!nk, Dierks Bentley, Brett Young, Darius Rucker and more. CTM will create new opportunities for Copperman through a creative partnership with SMACKSongs. Copperman was previously with Sony Music Publishing.
As part of the arrangement, CTM Outlander also acquires Copperman’s writer share for songs previously published by Plain Jane, including “Love Ain’t” by Eli Young Band, “Happy Anywhere” by Blake Shelton feat. Gwen Stefani, “Get Along” by Kenny Chesney and “Living” by Dierks Bentley.
Copperman said in a statement, “I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to work alongside remarkable individuals like CTM and SMACK in my new team. CTM’s visionary leadership has already brought us exciting opportunities beyond Country, expanding our horizons. I’ve always held immense respect for SMACK, and I eagerly anticipate the promising collaborations and accomplishments that lie ahead.”
André de Raaff, CEO at CTM Outlander, said, “From the first moment we met Ross we felt his energy, passion and drive for music. His goal is set to break new artists and help creative new opportunities with the ones he’s already been working with. We are here to support him in any type of way and see Ross as somebody that is helping to develop the country music genre into a global genre.”
CTM Outlander is a partnership between the innovative and disruptive Dallas, Texas based Outlander Capital led by Les Ware and Mike McKool and the Dutch-based leading independent music entertainment company CTM, led by industry veteran André de Raaff. CTM Outlander previously acquired Shane McAnally‘s catalog earlier this year, in addition to other SMACKSongs works. In 2022, the CTM Outlander acquired catalogs of Natalie Hemby, Michael Tyler and Ben Burgess.
Mike McKool, director of CTM Outlander, said, “When we created CTM Outlander, we had no specific agenda as far as genre was concerned. It was only after meeting and developing relationships with the songwriting community in Nashville, that we decided to place an emphasis on country music. As we continue to invest and grow our portfolio, Ross is another example of the kind of artist we want to be in business with. We couldn’t be more excited to work with him moving forward, while also furthering our relationship with SMACKSongs.”
Robert Carlton, president of SMACKSongs, added, “SMACK is proud to further our partnership with CTM through this deal. Ross has been one of the premier writers and producers in Nashville over the last decade. We’ve been fortunate to share quite a bit of success with him through co-writes, but feel truly honored that he chose to entrust SMACK with this next chapter of his career.”
Kobalt, the digital-focused publishing administration company, has teamed up with investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value to invest more than $700 million into music IP in the next few years. The partnership will see Kobalt managing the creative, sync, licensing, administration and investment services for the copyrights that are purchased.
The deal, which was advised by Goldman Sachs, marks Kobalt’s return to managing investment for outside capital. Previously, Kobalt had two funds it worked with under Kobalt Capital, its investment management arm, both of which were sold in recent years. Kobalt’s first fund contained over 33,000 songs, including songs recorded by Lindsey Buckingham, Steve Winwood, the B52’s, 50 Cent, George Benson, Bonnie McKee, Nelly and Skrillex. It sold to Hipgnosis Songs Fund in late 2020 for a price tag of $323 million or 18.3 times the net publishers share, and it realized a $20 million gain for Kobalt. While it was the biggest sale for Kobalt at the time, the first fund represented less than 30% of Kobalt’s IP holdings at the time.
The second fund, Kobalt Music Royalty Fund II, sold to an investment group comprising of KKR and Dundee Partners the following year for $1.1 billion. To manage the investments of the royalty fund as well as other IP previously acquired by KKR, the partners formed a platform Chord Music Partners, which tapped Kobalt Music Publishing to continue to handle publishing administration for the works. The fund is believed to have included the SONGS publishing catalog, Insieme Music catalog, which it acquired from Glassnote, and the David Hodges catalog.
Since that sale, Kobalt has not worked with outside money for catalog acquisition.
Outside of Kobalt Capital, the publishing administrator, helmed by chief executive Laurent Hubert, has made a number of other major changes in its business. In 2021, it also sold off AWAL, the artist services company and distributor to some of music’s most successful independent talent, and its neighboring rights operations to Sony. In September 2022, following reports of its first-ever profitable year, Kobalt sold a majority stake to Francisco Partners.
“Kobalt is a pioneer in investing in music, increasing the value of copyrights, and creating music as a viable asset class,” says Hubert. “Morgan Stanley Tactical Value’s trust in Kobalt is a testament to our platform and leadership in the music industry. We are proud to form this unique partnership.”
“Morgan Stanley Tactical Value has profound respect for songwriters and the immense value of their art,” said Cameron Smalls, managing director, Morgan Stanley Tactical Value. “We are thrilled to partner with the leading creator-first publisher that is a pioneer in maximizing royalty collections for songwriters and rightsholders. Together with Kobalt’s infrastructure and deep commitment to bettering the music industry, we are excited about our partnership and the opportunities ahead.”
Colombian star Andrés Cepeda has signed a deal with Warner Music México, Billboard can announce today (Nov. 1). With this new alliance, the singer-songwriter of hits like “Desesperado” and “El Mensaje” seeks to continue developing his musical career in the coming years, according to a press release. “I feel very excited to start this new […]
In the TikTok era, homemade remixes of songs — typically single tracks that have been sped up or slowed down, or two tracks mashed together — have become ever more popular. Increasingly, they are driving viral trends on the platform and garnering streams off of it.
Just how popular? In April, Larry Mills, senior vp of sales at the digital rights tech company Pex, wrote that Pex’s tech found “hundreds of millions of modified audio tracks distributed from July 2021 to March 2023,” which appeared on TikTok, SoundCloud, Audiomack, YouTube, Instagram and more.
On Wednesday (Nov. 1), Mills shared the results of a new Pex analysis — expanded to include streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and Tidal — estimating that “at least 1% of all songs on [streaming platforms] are modified audio.”
“We’re talking more than 1 million unlicensed, manipulated songs that are diverting revenue away from rightsholders this very minute,” Mills wrote, pointing to homemade re-works of tracks by Halsey or One Republic that have amassed millions of plays. “These can generate millions in cumulative revenue for the uploaders instead of the correct rightsholders.”
Labels try to execute a tricky balancing act with user-generated remixes. They usually strike down the most popular unauthorized reworks on streaming services and move to release their own official versions in an attempt to pull those plays in-house. But they also find ways to encourage fan remixing, because it remains an effective form of music marketing at a time when most promotional strategies have proved toothless. “Rights holders understand that this process is inevitable, and it’s one of the best ways to bring new life to tracks,” Meng Ru Kuok, CEO of music technology company BandLab, said to Billboard earlier this year.
Mills argues that the industry needs a better system for tracking user-generated remixes and making sure royalties are going into the right pockets. “While these hyper-speed remixes may make songs go viral,” he wrote in April, “they’re also capable of diverting royalty payments away from rights holders and into the hands of other creators.”
Since Pex sells technology for identifying all this modified audio, it’s not exactly an unbiased party. But it’s notable that streaming services and distributors don’t have the best track record when it comes to keeping unauthorized content of any kind off their platforms.
It hasn’t been unusual to find leaked songs — especially from rappers with impassioned fan bases like Playboi Carti and Lil Uzi Vert — on Spotify, where leaked tracks can often be found climbing the viral chart, or TikTok. An unreleased Pink Pantheress song sampling Michael Jackson’s classic “Off the Wall” is currently hiding in plain sight on Spotify, masquerading as a podcast.
“Historically, streaming services don’t have an economic incentive to actually care about that,” Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira told Billboard earlier this year. “We don’t care whether you listen to the original Drake, fake Drake, or a recording of the rain. We just want you to pay $10.99.” Folgueira called that incentive structure “actually a bad thing for the industry.”
In addition, many of the distribution companies that act as middlemen between artists and labels and the streaming services operate on a volume model — the more content they upload, the more money they make — which means it’s not in their financial interest to look closely at what they send along to streaming services.
However, the drive to improve this system has taken on new urgency this year. Rights holders and streaming services are going back and forth over how streaming payments should work and whether “an Ed Sheeran stream is worth exactly the same as a stream of rain falling on the roof,” as Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl told financial analysts in May. As the industry starts to move to a system where all streams are no longer created equal, it becomes increasingly important to know exactly what’s on these platforms so it can sort different streams into different buckets.
In addition, the advance of artificial intelligence-driven technology has allowed for easily accessible and accurate-sounding voice-cloning, which has alarmed some executives and artists in a way that sped-up remixes have not. “In our conversations with the labels, we heard that some artists are really pissed about this stuff,” says Geraldo Ramos, co-founder/CEO of the music-tech company Moises. “They’re calling their label to say, ‘Hey, it isn’t acceptable, my voice is everywhere.’”
This presents new challenges, but also perhaps means new opportunities for digital fingerprint technology companies, whether that’s stalwarts like Audible Magic or newer players like Pex. “With AI, just think how much the creation of derivative works is going to exponentially grow — how many covers are going to get created, how many remixes are gonna get created,” Audible Magic CEO Kuni Takahashi told Billboard this summer. “The scale of what we’re trying to identify and the pace of change is going to keep getting faster.”
Just like the zombies, vampires and ghouls that inspired him, Bobby “Boris” Pickett rises from the dead every October to haunt the radio, streaming services, TV commercials and the hundreds of products named after his 1962 smash “Monster Mash.”
“Every single year my entire life, I get to hear my grandfather’s voice for a month,” says Pickett’s grandson, Jordan Huus, 34. “And he’s not crooning or loudly singing. I get to hear his speaking voice.”
Although more recent spooky hits challenge “Monster Mash” for dominance every October, Pickett’s weird Boris Karloff imitation remains an immortal Halloween anthem. During the past four Halloweens combined, the track received more than streamed 15.4 million on demand streams; during the same period, Michael Jackson‘s “Thriller” scored 16.7 million, Ray Parker Jr.‘s “Ghostbusters” 12.8 million and Andrew Gold‘s “Spooky, Scary Skeletons” 8.85 million, according to Luminate.
Billboard estimates “Monster Mash,” which was released in 1962, has generated nearly $350,000 in average annual revenue globally over the last three years from the master recording, not including whatever synch revenue it enjoys from commercial and film/TV use, nor licensing revenue from the various compilation albums the song has appeared on; and about $500,000 in annual global publishing revenue, including cover versions and synchronization. In all, combined revenue for the song could easily hit $1 million each year, Billboard estimates.
“We had a great year last year with ‘Monster Mash,’” says Rell Lafargue, president/CEO of Reservoir, which owns Pickett’s publishing share and scored a “nice, healthy six-figure synch” for a 2021 General Mills cereal commercial relaunching Franken Berry, Boo Berry and Count Chocula. “We probably have 15 to 20 licensing requests on the line as we speak. Every year, people gear up for Christmas and other holidays, but the ‘Monster Mash’ is always there.”
Since its release on the late producer Gary Paxton‘s independent label, Garpax, “Monster Mash” has navigated a complicated path through the music business. Its two songwriters are Pickett and a friend, Leonard Capizzi, who sang doo-wop together on the beach in Los Angeles before cooking up the novelty song. After Paxton failed to sell the single to a bigger label, he gave it to radio DJs, who turned it into a hit; afterward, London Records agreed to distribute, and Stuart Hersh, Pickett’s longtime manager, says the company retained ownership of the master — now controlled through major label Universal Music Group’s Decca U.K. subsidiary.
As for publishing, Capizzi, who died in 1988, retained his share, and, as Pickett said in a 1995 interview, “his widow and child are getting all of his royalties.” Paxton, the “Monster Mash” producer, took over Pickett’s publishing and made a deal with publisher Acoustic Music, which changed hands to several other companies before Reservoir acquired it in 2014. Huus doesn’t know all the specifics, but his mother, Pickett’s daughter Nancy Huus, received publishing royalties until her death in February 2023, leaving her widower to control the family share.
“My mother left those to my father, who will in turn leave those as a split to my sister and I,” Huus says.
After its original 1962 release, various indie labels reissued “Monster Mash,” including Parrot Records 11 years later, when the song returned to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 10. By the ’90s, according to Hersh, Pickett had participated in a K-Tel compilation remake that included backup Tennessee vocalists who pronounced the chorus “monster may-ash.” Pickett called this version “Monster Mish.”
Says Hersh: “Mish-mosh aside, I said to Bobby, ‘Why don’t I produce a new version for us that’ll be our master, and I’ll try to cut it as close to the first one as possible?’” Hersh brought in 1950s drums and created the track-opening creaky door with an actual creaky door, as opposed to the original effect, a nail slowly pulled out of a surface.
Convincing Pickett to use his higher-pitched voice from the 1962 version, Hersh re-released the track, Taylor Swift-style, and landed synch deals such as the 2005 John Cusack movie Must Love Dogs and a line of musical Hallmark greeting cards for Halloween. “I said to Bobby, ‘We’ve got to make this thing sound perfect and give it to independent films, and give people a chance, and it’ll be your master,’” Hersh recalls. After Pickett died in 2007, Nancy Huus gave the rights to the re-recorded 1993 master to Hersh, who still manages Pickett’s career, attending seasonal conventions and linking to streams and downloads of the reissue on themonstermash.com. “Our [version of the track] is the one with the black-and-white photo of Bobby over the gravestone,” Hersh says.
Hersh has no idea, however, who owns the name “Monster Mash” as it pertains to product titles. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists 60 active and abandoned applications carrying that name, including General Mills (for its Monster Mash cereal), Friendly Ice Cream (Monster Mash sundaes) and a Hong Kong company called Longshore Ltd. (for board games). “It was never trademarked back then, and I really don’t know who did it this time,” Hersh says. “I would think it’s been used so many times, at this point, it’s just like a regular phrase.”
Jordan Huus was 8 when his late mother, who was adopted, met Pickett, her biological father, for the first time. Since then, Huus recalls a family fascination with Halloween that lives on in his own household. “Oh, man, if you have like an hour or two, I could point out each decoration,” Huus says, describing his mother’s hand-crafted Halloween wreaths, plus posters and records honoring Bobby “Boris” Pickett. “Of course, we have to bring out the ‘Monster Mash’ stuff.”
Ed Christman contributed to this story.
LONDON — Currently languishing near the bottom of the fourth tier of English football, Forest Green Rovers don’t have the global profile, colossal riches or superstar players of the world’s top teams. But despite their small stature, the Rovers enjoy one major bragging right: they’re the first European soccer club to be sponsored by Rock & Roll Hall of Famers the Grateful Dead.
“For us, it’s a perfect match,” says the California band’s archivist and legacy manager, David Lemieux. “Forest Green Rovers is a team that really follows Grateful Dead values, which is to say that we’re both conscious of the world around us and we want to make sure that we leave it a better place than when we arrived.”
Grateful Dead’s decades-long promotion of environmental causes is well-known throughout the music business, but Forest Green Rovers’ eco credentials are equally impressive.
Based in the small town of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, just over 100 miles outside London, Forest Green Rovers Football Club has been recognized by both the United Nations and football’s international governing body, FIFA, as “the world’s greenest football club.” The team and its owner, Dale Vince, have won praise for pioneering sustainable practices like using renewable energy to power its 5,000-capacity ground, transporting players in an electric bus and serving vegan food to players, staff and fans.
Forest Green Rovers Chairman Dale Vince at a Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Oct. 8, 2023.
OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images
The idea to partner Grateful Dead with Forest Green first landed on Lemieux’s desk 18 months ago when it was presented to him by the retail and licensing team at Warner Music Group’s services division WMX, which looks after the group’s merchandising rights outside of touring and online. (Grateful Dead’s music catalog is handled by WMG’s Rhino Records, which also runs the band’s Dead.net website, while Warner Chappell Music represents the act’s publishing interests globally, in conjunction with the Grateful Dead’s company, Ice Nine).
At the time of WMX’s pitch, Lemieux wasn’t familiar with Forest Green Rovers, which has spent much of its 134-year history competing outside the top level, with its best-ever finish coming in the 2021/22 season when the club was crowned champions of League Two (they were relegated 12 months later). But after researching the club and its energy industrialist owner, he says it was a natural fit for the two organizations to team up on a clothing merch deal that sees Grateful Dead’s iconic green skull logo featured on a range of Forest Green co-branded sporting wear, t-shirts and hoodies, produced by U.K. sustainable clothing business I Dress Myself.
“We love to partner with cool people, cool companies and cool organizations who are trying to make a positive difference,” says Lemieux, a self-confessed “hippy Deadhead” who has worked for the legendary California-formed group for 25 years and been a follower of English football since the late 1990s, when he studied in the United Kingdom and would regularly attend matches.
Courtesy of Warner Music and Forrest Green Rovers.
Financial terms of the deal with Forest Green have not been disclosed, although Lemieux describes it as “not a huge money-maker for anyone.” (The most expensive clothing item on sale in the Forest Green online store is a “Grateful Dead Lightning Hoodie” featuring the green skull motif that costs around $75.00.)
For custodians of Grateful Dead — which officially disbanded in 1995 following the death of guitarist and songwriter Jerry Garcia but has continued to tour in various incarnations, most recently as Dead & Company, featuring original members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart — the tie-up with Forest Green is the latest in a vast and ever-growing line of merch and licensing deals helping keep the Grateful Dead brand alive.
At present, the band has deals with more than 100 merch partners and more than 750 products on sale in over 50 territories, spanning everything from water bottles to cosmic mushroom foraging tools to camping equipment to Grateful Dead-branded skis and snowboards, as well as an extensive range of t-shirts and clothing.
Historically, the bulk of those merch deals have been with companies in North America, Grateful Dead’s biggest market for touring and record sales. But Lemieux says he’s now seeing an increasing number of licensing offers come in from Japan, England, South America and other international territories.
“Brand awareness is growing and it’s growing fast in the international markets,” says Lemieux. He credits Warner Music’s licensing teams in New York and England for working hard to find “best in class” partners.
“At the heart of everything Grateful Dead do is sustainability, so when we work on projects for them, whether it’s a multi-million-dollar deal or a small project, they need to know about its sustainable nature,” says WMX licensing and record retail account director Alex Mitchell, who oversaw the merch deal with Forest Green Rovers.
Courtesy of Warner Music and Forrest Green Rovers.
Mitchell says the season-long partnership with the club (with an option to renew next year) is one of several licensing deals WMX are working on to “make the Grateful Dead story better known” in the United Kingdom and Europe beyond “just being a cool band t-shirt.”
Sports and music brand tie-ups are, of course, nothing new, and Grateful Dead has struck similar deals in the past (the band famously sponsored Lithuania’s cash-strapped 1992 Olympic basketball team and more recently held one-off brand partnerships with various baseball, basketball and ice hockey clubs in North America). But Forest Green marks its first real foray into the world’s most popular sport.
The deal comes at a time when soccer’s profile in the United States continues to climb, especially among young Americans, fueled by the arrival of global superstars like Lionel Messi to Major League Soccer and the crossover success of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso and the hit FX series Welcome To Wrexham, which documents the fortunes of Wrexham A.F.C (who play in the same league as Forest Green) and its Hollywood actor owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Bandcamp United, the Bandcamp employees union, accused Songtradr of unfair labor practices in a filing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Sunday (Oct. 29). Epic Games announced that it was selling Bandcamp to Songtradr at the end of September. Subsequently, more than half of the Bandcamp staff was laid off, including all eight […]
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: Lizzo fights back against sexual harassment allegations with the help of a famous lawyer and a creative legal argument; a federal court issues an early ruling in an important copyright lawsuit over artificial intelligence; Kobalt is hit with a lawsuit alleging misconduct by one of the company’s former executives; and much more.
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THE BIG STORY: Lizzo Hits Back With … Free Speech?
Three months after Lizzo and her touring company were accused of subjecting three of her backup dancers to sexual harassment, religious and racial discrimination and weight-shaming, her lawyers filed their first substantive response – and they didn’t hold back.
“Salacious and specious lawsuit.” “They have an axe to grind.” “A pattern of gross misconduct and failure to perform their job up to par.” “Fabricated sob story.” “Plaintiffs are not victims.” “They are opportunists.”
“Plaintiffs had it all and they blew it,” Lizzo’s lawyers wrote. “Instead of taking any accountability for their own actions, plaintiffs filed this lawsuit against defendants out of spite and in pursuit of media attention, public sympathy and a quick payday with minimal effort.”
That’s not exactly dry legalese, but it’s par-for-the-course in a lawsuit that has already featured its fair share of blunt language from the other side. And it’s hardly surprising given that it came from Martin Singer – an infamously tough celebrity lawyer once described by the Los Angeles Times as “Hollywood’s favorite legal hit man.”
While Singer’s quotes made the headlines, it was his legal argument that caught my attention.
Rather than a normal motion to dismiss the case, Lizzo’s motion cited California’s so-called anti-SLAPP statute — a special type of law enacted in states around the country that makes it easier to end meritless lawsuits that threaten free speech (known as “strategic lawsuits against public participation”). Anti-SLAPP laws allow for such cases to be tossed out more quickly, and they sometimes require a plaintiff to repay the legal bills incurred by a defendant.
Anti-SLAPP motions are filed every day, but it’s pretty unusual to see one aimed at dismissing a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed by former employees against their employer. They’re more common in precisely the opposite scenario: filed by an individual who claims that they’re being unfairly sued by a powerful person to silence accusations of abuse or other wrongdoing.
But in Friday’s motion, Singer and Lizzo’s other lawyers argued that California’s anti-SLAPP law could also apply to the current case because of the creative nature of the work in question. They called the case “a brazen attempt to silence defendants’ creative voices and weaponize their creative expression against them.”
Will that argument hold up in court? Stay tuned…
Go read the full story about Lizzo’s defense, including access to the actual legal documents filed in court.
Other top stories this week…
RULING IN AI COPYRIGHT CASE – A federal judge issued an early-stage ruling in a copyright class action filed by artists against artificial intelligence (AI) firm Stability AI — one of several important lawsuits filed against AI companies over how they use copyrighted content. Though he criticized the case and dismissed many of its claims, the judge allowed it to move toward trial on its central, all-important question: Whether it’s illegal to train AI models by using copyrighted content.
HALLOWEEN SPECIAL – To celebrate today’s spooky holiday, Billboard turned back the clock all the way to 1988, when the studio behind “A Nightmare on Elm Street” sued Will Smith over a Fresh Prince song and music video that made repeated references to Freddy Kreuger. To get the complete bizarre history of the case, go read our story here.
KOBALT FACES CASE OVER EX-EXEC – A female songwriter filed a lawsuit against Kobalt Music Group and former company executive Sam Taylor over allegations that he leveraged his position of power to demand sex from her – and that the company “ignored” and “gaslit” women who complained about him. The case came a year after Billboard’s Elias Leight first reported those allegations. Taylor did not return a request for comment; Kobalt has called the allegations against the company baseless, saying its employees never “condoned or aided any alleged wrongdoing.”
MF DOOM ESTATE BATTLE – The widow of late hip-hop legend MF Doom filed a lawsuit claiming the rapper’s former collaborator Egon stole dozens of the rapper’s notebooks that were used to write down many of his beloved songs. The case claims that Egon took possession of the files as Doom spent a decade in his native England due to visa issues, where he remained until his death in 2020. Egon’s lawyers called the allegations “frivolous and untrue.”
DJ ENVY FRAUD SCANDAL UPDATE – Cesar Pina, a celebrity house-flipper who was charged earlier this month with running a “Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme,” said publicly last week that New York City radio host DJ Envy had “nothing to do” with the real estate deals in question. Critics have argued that Envy, who hosts the popular hip-hop radio show The Breakfast Club, played a key role in Pina’s alleged fraud by promoting him on the air.
UTOPIA SUED AGAIN OVER FAILED DEAL – Utopia Music was hit with another lawsuit over an aborted $26.5 million deal to buy a U.S. music technology company called SourceAudio, this time over allegations that the company violated a $400,000 settlement that aimed to end the dispute. The allegations came after a year of repeated layoffs and restructuring at the Swiss-based music tech company.
Back in April 1988, when DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince released “A Nightmare on My Street,” the song was an immediate hit. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 was set for release a few months later, and the song – which made obvious allusions to Freddy Krueger from beginning to end – eventually climbed to No. 15 on the Hot 100.
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“Now I have a story that I’d like to tell/ About this guy you all know him, he had me scared as hell!” rapped the Fresh Prince, who later became better known by his real name, Will Smith. “He comes to me at night after I crawl into bed/ He’s burnt up like a weenie and his name is Fred!”
Just one problem: New Line Cinema, the owners of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, had already commissioned their own officially licensed Freddy Krueger rap track (“Are You Ready for Freddy”) by the Fat Boys – and, more importantly, they had specifically rejected DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s version.
Like a formulaic horror movie, you know what happens next. In July 1988, New Line took Smith, Jazzy Jeff (Jeff Townes) and Jive Records to federal court, arguing that “My Street” infringed their copyrights and trademarks to the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise. New Line also demanded an immediate injunction to stop MTV from airing the song’s soon-to-be released music video, which featured a look-alike Krueger and many other references to the movies.
What’s the origin story of this legal monster? According to legal filings from the case, New Line started thinking about commissioning a licensed hip hop theme song for “Elm Street 4″ nearly a year before the movie was released. Eventually, they settled on The Fat Boys, a pioneering rap trio who had released their breakout Crushin’ earlier that year. In March 1988, the group released “Are You Ready for Freddy” on their third studio album, Coming Back Hard Again.
But behind the scenes, an executive at Jive had been doing his best to convince New Line to use a theme song by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince instead of the Fat Boys. According to legal filings, Smith and Townes recorded “My Street” in late 1987, and then Jive sent a copy of the track to the movie studio for consideration. Negotiations dragged on for months, but never culminated in a licensing deal.
In April, Jive released the song anyway, including it on DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s album “He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper.” The song told the story of the duo encountering the same haunting scenario as the movies, where Krueger kills people in real life by murdering his vicitms in their dreams
“It wasn’t a dream, man, this guy was for real,” Smith rapped. “I said, ‘Freddy, uh, pal, there’s been an awful mistake here’”
According to legal filings, as the August premiere of the movie got closer, Jive continued to get New Line to try to “change its mind” about licensing the song for the movie, including suggesting that MTV was interested in doing a music video for “My Street.” But the studio ultimately reached an official agreement with the Hot Boys to make their own licensed video for their song.
In July, New Line sent a cease-and-desist to Jive and owner Zomba Music, warning that the Fresh Prince song amounted to copyright infringement and demanding that the record be pulled from store shelves. Weeks later, New Line headed to court, accusing the Jive, Zomba, and the duo of a wide range of legal wrongdoing. Then in August, they went into overdrive after learning that Zomba had produced a music video for “My Street” and were planning to release it on MTV, demanding a preliminary injunction to block the video’s premiere.
In late August, a federal judge sided decisively with New Line. He ruled that the planned music video likely infringed the studio’s copyrights, citing the overwhelming similarities between them. And he rejected their argument that the video amounted to a legal “fair use,” saying it was instead simply an unauthorized competitor that was unfairly free-riding on New Line’s “massive promotional campaign.”
“The video exists solely as an vehicle to promote Zomba’s song,” the judge wrote, issuing the injunction banning the release of the video. “Thus, Zomba stands to profit financially by using Freddy without making the usual licensing arrangements, which in fact were made by the Fat Boys before they produced their video.”
Unlike the best horror franchises, there was no sequel to this legal fight. The case could have continued on to more litigation over the ultimate merits of the case, but after New Line won the injunction, the lawsuit quickly ended on a confidential settlement. The video was never released, and albums featured a sticker disclosing that the song was not affiliated with the movie.
But don’t forget, the killer is never quite dead: A version of “A Nightmare On My Street” is currently available on YouTube, where it now has 2.8 million views.