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Organizers of the Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, tell Billboard that the controversy surrounding The 1975’s performance at the festival, during which lead singer Matty Healy insulted the government and kissed a bandmate on stage, has left the festival in financial ruin and could limit future concerts in the country for years to come.
The claim is the latest in the fallout from Healy’s protest and the heavy-handed decision by the country’s communications and digital ministry to cancel the remainder of the festival while also banning Healy from playing in the country in the future. Malaysia places very restrictive rules on foreign artists performing in the country, and Healy’s manager “had acknowledged in writing that Matt Healy would adhere to all local guidelines and regulations” prior to his performance Friday, says Wan Alman, whose company, Future Sound Asia, has promoted the festival for more than 10 years. Alman adds that “artists are briefed on the guidelines before the event.”
Alman confirmed that Future Sound Asia is considering pursuing legal action against the band, as the cancellation led to heavy losses for the promoter. The company likely already paid out artist deposits for the entire festival and might soon be required to issue refunds to fans, depending on an outcome of an investigation by the Malaysian government. Festival organizers might be able to make a legal claim against the band, explained Tim Epstein, a leading attorney for independent festivals in North America, depending on the language of the contract between the band and the promoter.
Specifically, Epstein said he would look to see how the contract deals with potential instances of unlawful behavior and what, if any, language dealt with local guidelines and regulations around speech. He said he would also want to confirm where the talent agreement designated that legal disputes be heard; most contracts defer disputes to U.S. courts. Finally, Epstein said the festival’s event cancellation policy could offset any damages, depending on the language in the policy. While government intervention is typically covered under a policy’s “force majeure” language, the Good Vibes Festival’s specific policy might include other provisions that make collecting difficult.
The 1975 incident has cast a negative light on Malaysia — and documents obtained by Billboard show that foreign artists playing in the country must agree to guidelines that include a ban on men wearing shorts on stage, prohibitions on women “wearing clothes that expose the chest area or that are too high above the knees” and strict rules prohibiting “entertaining or mingling with the audience at any time.”
In order to invite foreign artists into the country, promoters must complete the Communication and Digital Ministry’s Application for Filming and Performance by Foreign Artistes — a 40-page document outlining how artists are allowed to dress on stage and what they aren’t allowed to say about the government.
According to Amnesty International, in Malaysia it is illegal to protest the government, dress in drag or possess films or movies deemed to have LGBTQ+ elements. Much of the country’s criminal code is enforced through imprisonment with access to a court hearing, public flogging and, up until last year, the death penalty, which is currently banned under moratorium.
Neither The 1975’s agent, Matt Baum with Primary Talent — which represents the band in Asia — nor its manager, Jamie Osborne, would comment for this article.
An agent familiar with international bookings who did not want to speak on the record tells Billboard that the number of countries run by repressive regimes that host concerts is still relatively small, and it’s typically the promoter’s job to explain the rules to the band booked for a show.
That can be a double-edged sword, the agent explains, noting that the festival promoter “also may not want to be overly open about it for fear of discouraging people from playing.”
In many cases, the promoter does their best to balance the artist’s own right to expression while also being careful not to anger the host government.
“The 1975 shouldn’t have played there if they feel so strongly but I understand how they got to where they are,” the agent said.
Since opening the country to concerts by foreign artists in 2000, the Malaysian government has required visitors to adhere to a fairly restrictive code of conduct. Among other things, it requires modest attire and a ban on “provocative acts” like kissing a member of the opposite sex in front of a live audience.
The rules were updated in March by Malaysia’s communications and digital minister, Fahmi Fadzil, to include bans on cross-dressing on stage and “criticizing any government agency charged with upholding the law.”
Also banned under the guidelines are women’s clothes with “high slits, and clothes that are too tight or figure-hugging,” as well as a general ban on “performing in a wild manner, provocatively and displaying actions that are contrary to the performance code of ethics.” Other no-nos include “performing actions or making utterances that may be deemed as seditious” and “entertaining or mingling with the audience at any time.”
While some LGBTQ+ activists accused Healy of cynically protesting homophobia in the country for attention, others said it’s the government’s heavy-handed decision to cancel the festival over a same-sex kiss that deserves condemnation.
The controversy over LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression in Malaysia won’t likely go away any time soon. Coldplay is set to perform at the country’s Bukit Jalil National Stadium in November for a show promoted by Live Nation, which is also expected to produce a concert for the group Lany in the country in August.
Video game giant Activision is suing a prominent TikTok music critic over a viral audio clip that he created, claiming he is unfairly demanding that some social media users pay him “extortionate” settlements after they re-use the heavily-memed clip.
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In a complaint filed Monday in California federal court, Activision accused Anthony Fantano of “misusing” intellectual property laws by threatening to “selectively” sue TikTokers who use “enough slices!” — a popular audio clip that originated with a video Fantano first posted in 2021.
Activision, which says it received such a threat after it used the clip in a promotion for its Crash Bandicoot game franchise, claims that Fantano intentionally made the clip available through TikTok’s audio library — meaning he cannot now sue the hundreds of thousands of users that chose to use it.
“This dispute is a textbook example of how intellectual property law can be misused by individuals to leverage unfair cash payments,” Activision’s lawyers wrote. “Fantano was very happy to receive the benefit of the public use of the Slices Video. It was only after he identified a financial opportunity — namely, receiving unjustified settlement payments — that he suddenly decided that his consent was limited.”
“The law does not permit, and the court should not countenance, such overt gamesmanship,” Activision’s lawyers wrote.
Fantano, a popular internet creator who reviews music on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms, first uploaded the “slices” video in 2021. The clip — showing Fantano getting aggravated as a pizza is cut into increasingly smaller slices before screaming, “It’s enough slices!” — has garnered tens of millions of views. In the two years since, the audio has become internet shorthand for a situation that starts out well but eventually goes too far.
In its lawsuit, Activision says there’s an obvious reason why the clip was used so widely: Fantano “deliberately and knowingly” added the audio to TikTok’s library, making it easily available for millions of other users to incorporate into their own videos. They say he even opted into the “Commercial Sounds” library, which means he agreed his clip could be legally used in promotional videos for brands.
The company says it was surprised, then, when it received a legal threat from Fantano after it used “enough slices” in a TikTok video depicting the creation of custom Crash Bandicoot sneakers. He allegedly told the gaming giant the use of the clip not only used his name-and-likeness rights without permission, but also violated federal trademark laws by suggesting he had endorsed the company’s games.
Activision says it agreed to pull the clip down, but that Fantano demanded the company “eitherimmediately pay him substantial monetary damages or be prepared to defend a lawsuit.” The exact amount of money demanded was not included in the lawsuit, but Activision says Fantano asked for a “six-figure sum” and said that other companies had “paid a similar sum in order to avoid the expense of litigation.”
Rather than doing so, Activision responded by filing Monday’s lawsuit, which is aimed at proving the company and other TikTok users owe Fantano nothing for the use of his clip.
“With Fantano’s approval and encouragement, hundreds of thousands of TikTok users have incorporated the Slices Audio into their own videos over the past two years,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “But now … Fantano has embarked on a scheme whereby he selectively threatens to sue certain users of the Slices Audio unless they pay him extortionate amounts of money for their alleged use.”
Activision is seeking a so-called “declaratory” ruling that Fantano cannot sue TikTok users over the clip, as well as an order forcing him to repay the company’s legal bills.
Fantano did not immediately return a request for comment through his website.
Billboard is introducing a peer-voted award to run alongside its annual Latin Power Players list of the genres’ most influential executives. This new Latin Power Players’ Choice Award will honor the executive in the genre whose peers believe has had the greatest impact across the music business over the past year, from recording and publishing […]
Billboard is introducing a peer-voted award to run alongside its annual Latin Power Players list of the genre’s most influential executives. This new Latin Power Players’ Choice Award will honor the executive in the genre whose peers believe has had the greatest impact across the music business over the past year, from recording and publishing […]
Over the last three years, the Tony Bennett catalog generated an average of almost $2.17 million in global revenue, not including synchronization, while his estimated share of duets albums with Lady Gaga brought in another $1.22 million for a total of about $3.4 million, according to Billboard’s calculations.
Bennett, who died last week at the age of 96, enjoyed a recording career that extended back to 1952, with some 60-plus studio albums, 11 live albums, more than half a dozen collaborative albums and over 30 compilations, almost all of which were released through Columbia Records. His final album, released in September 2021, was Love For Sale, his second of two collaborative albums with Lady Gaga, and was nominated for album of the year at the 64th annual Grammy Awards.
Overall, Bennett’s solo catalog has averaged almost 122,000 album consumption units annually over the last three years, while his collaborations with Gaga have averaged about 88,000 album consumption units during that time period. Besides the greater volume for his solo output, there is also a greater disparity in individual year performances for the Bennett-Gaga catalog, with that catalog’s album consumption unit count jumping from 19,000 units in 2020 to 175,000 units in 2021, thanks to the release of Love For Sale that year, before falling back to nearly 70,000 units in 2022.
But due to how each catalog performs in the various music formats, the overall dollar volume comes out almost the same for both Bennett’s solo work and his work with Gaga. The Bennett/Gaga albums’ revenue is slightly bigger than Bennett’s solo catalog revenue, coming in at an estimated $2.4 million, vs. his estimated solo revenue of $2.17 million. When split in half, their duets recordings revenue comes out to $1.216 million for each artist.
But the revenue sources for the two catalogs are very different, with physical formats dominating the Bennett/Gaga offering — coming in at $1.75 million in average annual revenue globally, Billboard estimates — vs. Bennett’s solo catalog, with an estimated $450,000 in global revenue from physical formats.
Like most heritage acts, Bennett lags far behind in streaming, averaging 129 million on-demand U.S. streams annually over the past three years, while globally his streams averaged 233.7 million plays. (In other words, U.S. plays comprised 55% of his global streams.) Even though Bennett lags behind most big acts in streaming, that’s more than twice as large as the nearly 60 million average annual streams that the Bennett/Gaga duet albums had. Consequently, Bennett’s solo streams generated an estimated $1.4 million per year vs. the duet albums, which garnered an average of $325,000 in annual revenue over the last three years.
Average annual downloads over the last three years were about the same in terms of revenue, coming in at an estimated $135,000 for the duets albums and $120,000 for Bennett’s solo recordings.
It’s important to note that this article only estimates how much revenue Bennett’s master recordings generate and doesn’t put an amount on his earnings. That’s because there’s no way to know what kind of royalty rate he gets, which could vary wildly. Would it be the 6% paid to artists back in the 1950s and 1960s? The 22% rate most superstars get nowadays on physical product? A higher percentage for digital and streaming? A rate of 50% or higher, since all of his albums have long since recouped? Does Bennett own his Columbia albums like other Sony superstars appear to have negotiated back in the day? And what kind of financial arrangements were made for the recordings with Lady Gaga? All these are questions with answers that remain unclear.
Unlike the revenue estimates in the above story which are derived from annual unit counts, revenue estimates for the Bennett song chart below was derived using 2022’s year-end unit counts for all activity to date since the release of the music recordings, based on format counts generated by the “artist summary” feature in Luminate’s trend reports.
Zena White, COO of Partisan Records; Beggars Group president Nabil Ayers; Hays Rudolph, general counsel and VP of business and legal affairs at Secretly; and Tony Alexander, president and managing director of Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME), are among the fresh faces on the American Assn. of Independent Music (A2IM) board.
White, Ayers, Rudolph, Alexander are newly-elected to the board, which oversees the governance of A2IM, represents the not-for-profit organization’s membership at large, and assists in setting the priorities and direction for the organization.
Also announced today (July 25) is A2IM’s executive committee, led by Heather Johnson, director of label operations at FIXT, who is named as chair. Meanwhile, Victor Zaraya, COO of Concord, is appointed as treasurer, and MIME’s Alexander becomes secretary.
“We are so grateful to have such a talented and dedicated group of individuals willing to serve on the 2023/24 board of directors for A2IM,” comments Dr. Richard James Burgess, president and CEO of A2IM. “Their expertise and passion for independent music will play a vital role in shaping the future of our organization and the industry.”
A2IM represents over 600 independent record labels.
Additionally, the trade body welcomes a raft of advisory board members who will lend their expertise and counsel. They include Kristin Epstein (operations director of Screenwave Media), Steve Kline (president/COO of Better Noise Music), Jennifer Newman Sharpe (general counsel and head of business & legal affairs of Exceleration Music), Elliott Peters (senior VP, global business at Empire), Jason Peterson (CEO of Cinq Music/GoDigital Media Group) and Reed Watson (co-owner of Single Lock Records).
“With these new executive committee and advisory board members, we are confident in our ability to advocate for the needs and interests of independent record labels,” adds Burgess. “I am honored to work alongside this exceptional team to support and celebrate the power of independent music.”
Headquartered in New York City, A2IM exists to support and strengthen the independent recorded music sector, and celebrates the scene by organizing the annual A2IM Libera Awards.
A2IM’s current board of directors:
A2IM’s current board of directors:Tony Alexander – MIME (Made In Memphis Entertainment)Nabil Ayers – Beggars GroupMariah Czap – Yep Roc Music GroupDee Diaz – Reach RecordsWilson Fuller – Merge RecordsMary Jurey – Blue ÉlanHeather Johnson – FiXTTony Kiewel – Sub PopHays Rudolph – SecretlyVictor Zaraya – ConcordZena White – Partisan
Advisory board members:Kristin Epstein – Screenwave MediaSteve Kline – Better Noise MusicJennifer Newman Sharpe – Exceleration MusicElliott Peters – EmpireJason Peterson – Cinq Music/GoDigital Media GroupReed Watson – Single Lock Records.
Beatport on Tuesday (July 25) announced its second annual Diversity + Parity Fund, with which the company will award $150,000 to initiatives that expand diversity and equality in dance music. The fund will award two kinds of grants: one that awards amounts between $3,000 to $15,000 to smaller organizations consisting of one to three staff […]
Spotify reported its revenues rose 11% for the second quarter as surging monthly active users and growth in premium subscribers tamped down costs from staff cuts in the previous three months. The company’s total revenue €3.2 billion ($3.53 billion) was up 11% from the year ago quarter, or up 14% in constant currency, a measure […]
Jessica Simpson’s company is suing the owner of a small online apparel retailer called “Jessica’s Everything Shop,” claiming the woman rejected a settlement that would have allowed both Jessicas to “live and let live” and instead tried to win a cash payout.
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In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for the singer’s With You LLC say Simpson and her apparel collection have “always coexisted” with other women named Jessica — specifically name-dropping Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel and many other famous women with that name.
But Simpson’s lawyers say that Jessica Tirado and her “Everything Shop” have been improperly trying to secure their own exclusive trademark on “Jessica” without a surname — a step they say would cause “consumer confusion” and allow Tirado to unfairly sue Simpson over her longstanding use of the name.
When they reached out to resolve the problem without litigation, Simpson’s lawyers say they were met with an unreasonable demand for a “monetary payment to Ms. Tirado.”
“[With You] has a policy that it does not make any such payments, inasmuch as doing so invites ‘troll plaintiff’s attorneys’ to file claims against WY, believing that WY will, in each instance, pay monies,” Simpsons lawyers wrote in their Thursday (July 20) lawsuit.
Tirado’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday. A lawyer for With You LLC (a holding that owns Simpson’s trademarks and other intellectual property) also did not return a request for comment.
Simpson, 43, initially launched The Jessica Simpson Collection in 2005 with a partnership with shoe designer Vince Camuto, eventually growing into a company with a reported $1 billion in revenue by 2014. In 2021, after part-owner Sequential Brands Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Simpson spent $65 million to win back complete control of the brand.
Tirado’s website, meanwhile, currently hosts a store featuring “create your own” t-shirts with custom designs. One features an image of from the film Hocus Pocus with the text “Turns Out I’m 100% That Witch;” another features an image of Santa Claus with the text “Bitch Better Have My Cookies.”
In last week’s lawsuit, Simpson’s lawyers say they first flagged Tirado after she applied in 2021 at the federal trademark office to register the full name of her brand — “Jessica’s Everything Shop *JES*” — as a trademark for an online apparel store. But they say they tried, at first, to hash things out peacefully.
“Before taking any action with respect to Ms. Tirado’s trademark application, WY sought to work out a ‘live and let live’ … arrangement that would allow Ms. Tirado to proceed with her exploitation of her name ‘Jessica Tirado’ in a way that would never impede WY’s activities,” the lawyers for Simpson’s company write.
After such talks were unsuccessful, Simpson’s company filed a formal opposition at the trademark office, asking the agency to deny the application. In a copy of that filing obtained by Billboard, lawyers for Simpson’s company warned that consumers were likely to confuse the two “Jessica” trademarks.
In last week’s lawsuit, Simpson’s lawyers said that a lawyer for Tirado then responded to that opposition filing with a demand of his own.
“Ultimately, Ms. Tirado engaged legal counsel to represent her in the opposition, who responded and indicated that Ms. Tirado was willing to settle the matter with WY, but only if WY was willing to make a monetary payment,” Simpson’s lawyers wrote. “When Ms. Tirado’s counsel made clear that the matter would not settle absent a payment, and he began to run up legal costs … WY was left with no alternative but to protect its position by filing this lawsuit.”
Thursday’s lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages, as well as an injunction forcing Tirado to “phase out” her use of the “Jessica’s Everything Shop” name over the course of three months.
Executives from the Sphere Entertainment Co. — the entity behind the forthcoming new event space opening soon in Las Vegas — have unveiled its new Sphere Immersive Sound system, created in tandem with Berlin-based audio company Holoplot. The system will appear this fall as a key production component of the company’s new Sphere venue in Las Vegas, which opens Sept. 29 with its 25-date U2 residency.
Executives involved with the project, including Jim Dolan (executive chairman/CEO, Madison Square Garden Corp. and Sphere Entertainment Co.), David Dibble (CEO, MSG Ventures) and Roman Sick (CEO, Holoplot), demonstrated the audio system on site in Las Vegas for a small group of reporters on Thursday (July 20).
“I don’t care if you’ve seen U2 100 times,” Dolan remarked before an associate pressed play on recordings including the Irish band’s recent reimagining of its 1984 classic “Pride (In The Name Of Love).” “You’ve never seen and experienced this.”
For the Sphere team, Sphere Immersive Sound is the cornerstone — along with its 160,000-square-foot LED display plane, which remained off during Thursday’s demonstration — of its new 20,000-capacity venue, located near the Las Vegas Strip next to The Venetian. And, somewhat surprisingly, Sphere partnered with Holoplot for the project, rather than a more established player in the pro audio space.
According to Dibble, Sphere executives learned of the German company, founded in 2011, through its work outside of live entertainment: In December 2016, the startup deployed its patented 3D Audio-Beamforming technology in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, Germany’s largest train station, to send multiple messages at the same frequency simultaneously to different parts of the facility.
Applied in a concert venue, this technology can ensure that listeners, regardless of location, hear identical mixes at identical volumes. Holoplot’s technology also harnesses algorithmic machine learning and environmental data collected in real-time by sensors throughout Sphere to further refine and standardize the sound ultimately heard by attendees.
HOLOPLOT
Sphere developed Sphere Immersive Sound to perfect audio for the venue’s specific acoustic space. “You’ll notice very few right angles here,” said Dibble, noting that for Sphere’s intimate, amphitheater-style seating, the company read from “the playbook from the ancient Greeks.” The seating format is key to Sphere’s appeal, but also created a monumental challenge. “How can we tackle acoustics in arguably the biggest nightmare seating format in live entertainment?” Dibble recalled the team wondering at the outset of the project.
That starts with approximately 1,600 permanently installed audio modules and 167,000 individually amplified speaker drivers, comprising hundreds of Holoplot’s X1 Matrix arrays, spread behind Sphere’s sprawling LED screen. As its name suggests, the X1 Matrix arrays combine the functionalities of vertical and horizontal line arrays, allowing users more control over where sound goes in a venue.
Like much of the Sphere project, audio design wasn’t conceived in a vacuum; an inevitable challenge of placing so much high-end audio equipment behind a state-of-the-art screen was ensuring the sounds produced wouldn’t distort visuals as they passed through the LED to listeners. The team wanted to “make the LED screen acoustically invisible,” Sick explained, hence the high number of small drivers spread across the screen’s large area, each producing a relatively small amount of audio to avoid disrupting Sphere’s video components.
That type of engineering trickery extends to the venue itself, including the seemingly-unremarkable black material covering every seat, which Dibble said has “the same audio-reflective value as human skin.” Acoustically, Sphere’s seats behave similarly regardless of whether they’re occupied by a body, which is further guaranteed by their perforated undersides.
For artists like U2, Sphere’s audio capabilities are nothing short of revelatory.
“The beauty of Sphere is not only the groundbreaking technology that will make it so unique, with the world’s most advanced audio system integrated into a structure which is designed with sound quality as a priority; it’s also the possibilities around immersive experiences in real and imaginary landscapes,” The Edge said in a statement. “In short, it’s a canvas of an unparalleled scale and image resolution, and a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
And according to Dibble, Sphere’s tools are also “intuitive, straightforward and, dare I say, easy.” The executive touted the notion of a “show on a stick,” where artists playing Sphere could effectively give the facility’s staff a thumb drive with specifics for their concerts and be up and running within minutes; sound engineers will even be able to bring in their own boards to interface with the system. It’s “not a heavy lift,” Dibble added.
But Sphere Immersive Audio’s richly detailed output also isn’t for the faint of heart. “Some artists will find it daunting,” Dolan said. “If you sing the wrong note, everyone’s gonna hear it.”
HOLOPLOT
While Sphere Immersive Audio has been customized and scaled for the Las Vegas venue, some artists have already used a version of the technology while performing at another venue in MSG’s portfolio, New York’s 2,600-capacity Beacon Theatre, which introduced it in August 2022 during a pair of solo concerts by Phish frontman Trey Anastasio.
Dibble expects MSG to implement the technology across its portfolio of venues, including its namesake arena — though, he concluded, “Let’s get this open first.”