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Young Thug was sentenced to 15 years probation and no prison time after pleading guilty in the long-running criminal case accusing him of leading a violent Atlanta street gang, a stunning end to a legal saga that rocked the music industry.
After days of closed-door negotiations with Fulton County prosecutors, Thug (Jeffery Williams) refused Thursday (Oct. 31) to take a plea deal that would have sent him home immediately. Instead, he opted for a non-negotiated guilty plea, leaving his fate in the hands of Judge Paige Reese Whitaker.
The move paid off: Later on Thursday, Whitaker sentenced Thug to only 15 years probation with no time to be served in prison, meaning that he would be set free on Thursday after more than two years in custody. In doing so, she urged the Grammy-winning rapper to use his platform to set a good example for young people in the future.
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“I know you’re talented, and if you choose to continue to rap, you need to try to use your influence to let kids know that is not the way to go and that there are ways out of poverty besides hooking up with the powerful guy at the end of the street selling drugs,” Whitaker said.
Thug’s guilty plea marks a key turning point in a criminal case that has captivated the music industry for more than two years. Pitting prosecutors in America’s rap capital against one of hip-hop’s biggest stars, the YSL case has raised big questions — about the fairness of the criminal justice system; about violent personas in modern hip-hop; and about prosecutors using rap lyrics as evidence.
Standing before the judge at a tense hearing Thursday, Thug pleaded guilty to several counts, including possession of drugs and firearms, and pleaded no contest to several others, including the core racketeering accusations that alleged he was the leader of a criminal gang.
Without the negotiated plea deal, prosecutors recommended a far harsher sentence than they had offered: a whopping 45 years, with 25 served in prison and 20 years on probation. Thug’s attorney, Brian Steel, then offered an extended rebuttal to the state’s claims and urged leniency. Finally, Thug himself spoke, saying he took “full responsibility for my crimes” and pleading with the judge to see that he has “a good heart.”
“I just hope that you find it in your heart to allow me to go home and be with my family and just do better as a person,” the artist told the judge.
After she handed down her sentence, the judge offered a quick warning to Thug before adjourning for the day: “Good luck to you. And there better be no violations, but if there are any, you’re coming back to see me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Thug said back.
Thursday’s guilty plea came days after the trial was thrown into chaos by botched testimony from a state’s witness, sparking talk of a mistrial. Since then, prosecutors and defendants have struck a slew of deals rather than risk starting over from scratch in the trial, which has already stretched across 10 months of jury selection and 11 months of testimony to become the longest-ever in state history.
Thug, a chart-topping rapper and producer who helped shape the sound of hip-hop in the 2010s, was arrested in May 2022 along with dozens of others. In a sweeping indictment, prosecutors alleged that his “YSL” — nominally a record label standing for “Young Stoner Life” — was also a violent gang called “Young Slime Life” that had wrought “havoc” on the Atlanta area for nearly a decade.
The case, built around Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, claimed that YSL had committed murders, carjackings, drug dealing and many other crimes. And prosecutors alleged that Thug was “King Slime,” operating as a criminal boss amid his rise to fame. “It does not matter what your notoriety is, what your fame is,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said at the time. “We are going to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
Thug strongly denied the accusations and has long maintained his innocence. On the opening day of the trial, his attorney Steel argued that despite a difficult local upbringing, Thug “doesn’t even know most of the people in this indictment” and had no reason to run a criminal organization.
From the start, the YSL case has been beset by delays. Starting in January 2023, it took an unprecedented 10-month process just to pick a jury. After the trial itself got underway in November 2023, prosecutors meandered through a vast list of witnesses that included a stunning 737 names. There was also a jailhouse stabbing of one defendant, as well as a bizarre episode over a secret meeting with a witness that resulted in the presiding judge being removed from the case.
While the slow-moving trial dragged on, Thug sat in jail for more than two years, repeatedly denied release on bond over fears that he might intimidate witnesses.
Though Thug is now going home, the YSL case is not over.
Attorneys for co-defendants Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick and Shannon Stillwell said their clients had refused plea deals on Thursday, meaning they will continue to face trial and move toward an eventual verdict. Kendrick and Stillwell stand accused of carrying out the 2015 murder of rival gang leader Donovan Thomas, a crime that figures prominently in the prosecution’s case.
Boyd Muir, who serves as executive VP/CFO/president of operations at Universal Music Group (UMG), has been promoted to COO, the company announced Thursday (Oct. 31). Muir, who has been the company’s CFO since 2010, will hold the titles of both CFO and COO while UMG undergoes its search for a replacement. “Boyd’s done an outstanding […]
On Sept. 27, indie labels and distributors around the world received a letter from Merlin, the coalition that negotiates their licenses with TikTok and other digital services. “With no warning, TikTok walked away before negotiations even began… they do not want to renew our deal, which expires on October 31st,” Merlin’s letter said.
Instead, Merlin explained, TikTok wanted to forge deals with most of the labels and distributors the coalition represented directly, a move that Merlin read as an attempt to “fragment” its membership and “minimize” payments for indie music. (TikTok says it walked away from negotiations with Merlin due to concerns about fraudulent content from certain Merlin members making its way onto the social media app. The company also says it wanted to form closer relationships with Merlin members.)
TikTok and Merlin both declined to comment for this story.
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Since then, 12 different labels and distributors among the thousands represented by Merlin have spoken to Billboard about what they would do when their licenses expire after Halloween. Will the indies walk away, attempting to take a stand against TikTok in solidarity with Merlin? Will they renew their licenses individually? And if they do, how will those deals compare to what Merlin negotiated previously? (Nearly all of the executives who spoke to Billboard for this story requested anonymity, given most of their respective companies have non-disclosure agreements with TikTok.)
At first, one distribution executive said their company was not yet negotiating its own license with TikTok — because this exec said they were still hopeful that Merlin and TikTok might come back to the negotiating table. “We want to make sure there is no possibility with Merlin first,” the executive said. John Carnell, CEO of Phoenix Music International (PMI), had a similar view. In an email to Merlin, obtained by Billboard, Carnell said that while TikTok has approached Phoenix individually, “There is no way we would undermine Merlin’s position.”
Unlike Universal Music Group (UMG), which pulled its entire label and publishing catalog from TikTok earlier this year when its license with the platform expired amid renewal negotiations, antitrust laws prevent Merlin from forcing its members to move off of TikTok. It can’t even ask its members to collectively strike against TikTok, leaving the coalition with little choice but to accept TikTok’s decision.
Carnell ultimately decided PMI would “not be entering a deal with TikTok,” according to his email, but the other executive holdout took a different tack. This week, in a second interview, the executive said their company had decided to sign a direct deal with TikTok after all. “If I still thought that not signing would help Merlin get a new deal, or could help the independent music community, I would try to not sign,” the distribution executive said. “But even when Universal didn’t sign [a licensing deal], [TikTok] didn’t care… We have no choice [but to sign a new licensing agreement] because our artists want to be on TikTok — perhaps too much — but for them, it is very important.”
This is a commonly held sentiment among Merlin members, many of whom say their artists want to be on TikTok, and they need to oblige — or risk losing talent to competitors. In the last week, both UnitedMasters and Ditto announced that they had signed new agreements with TikTok. Steve Stoute, founder and CEO of UnitedMasters, told Billboard, “I believe we struck a fair deal with TikTok for UnitedMasters and our artists, who understand how valuable promotion can be for their reach… Merlin has done a great job representing independent labels across the world, and I am a proud Merlin member.” TikTok says that now the vast majority of Merlin members have signed direct deals with the company.
Multiple members say TikTok offered them new agreements around the time that Billboard broke the news in late September that Merlin’s negotiations with TikTok had collapsed. But not every member received an offer — which tracks, considering TikTok’s claim that fraudulent activity allegedly stemmed from specific members of Merlin. TikTok’s music licenses typically last two years, and most of the new deals offered this October will expire in late 2026.
Three sources say that the compensation terms provided under the new, individual offers from TikTok are not significantly better or worse than what Merlin previously negotiated, but that there have been some key changes. First, TikTok is now paying out music licensors based on views that videos featuring a song receives, rather than “creates” (how many videos are created with a given song in the background).
Specifically, TikTok will calculate market share based on views, and then the payment will be divided up from there. This does not mean TikTok now pays a certain royalty per view. “It makes sense,” says one indie executive. “I don’t know why they didn’t always pay based on views.” Another exec added, “It won’t lead to a major difference in how much we are paid. We are still doing the math, but it seems like there will be about a 4% difference in what we take in from TikTok, give or take.”
“TikTok was always paying us badly, so none of this is a financial problem in the short term,” says the indie label executive who initially wanted to hold out. “They are one of the biggest social media companies in the world, and the smallest revenue earner for a music company.” Another indie label source had a similar feeling. “It’s a promotional avenue more than anything else,” this person said. “I think there’s value in TikTok deals, but it’s, like, 1% of every company’s books. It’s not a big part of anyone’s business. I truly think the royalty conversation wasn’t the deal breaker, but there were other material terms that we wanted.”
One of those key term changes had to do with “ad credits,” which can also be referenced as “marketing credits.” Three sources said that the deals TikTok sent them did not include these credits, which amount to money offered by TikTok that a label can put toward advertisements and marketing on the app. One source says the previous, Merlin-negotiated agreement guaranteed a budget in the millions for ads and marketing on TikTok, with the sum of credits divided among individual members based on their size. Now, at least some labels, particularly the ones with less bargaining power, might not get them at all.
The three sources also said that while the previous contract included a “most favored nations” (MFN) clause, which gives licensors the right to the same terms and benefits as other licensors who enter similar contracts with TikTok, the new agreements did not. One also said their individual agreement included a new clause requiring “know your customer” (KYC) checks — which would require verification of artists’ identities before allowing them to upload songs — something TikTok says is designed to curb bad actors and fraudsters from getting their music on to TikTok. It also serves to place more responsibility on the labels and distributors for the content they deliver. The executive also claimed, however, that the provision’s language is vague and seems difficult to enforce.
Four sources suggested UMG’s previous licensing dispute with TikTok was the catalyst for TikTok to walk away from Merlin. “[UMG] definitely emboldened TikTok,” says one source close to the situation. “They lost that war, and they created a really bad situation for Merlin. Sony and Warner are up next year, too. If I was them, I’d be terrified right now.”
Still, another indie label executive, whose releases run through a Merlin distributor, holds a different view — that, maybe, TikTok is not so important now after all. “We’re sticking with Merlin,” the executive says. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. If this happened a year, two years ago, I’d be freaking out. But these days, TikTok isn’t moving the needle for our artists like it used to.”
While his artists used to “easily get tens of thousands of views on most TikToks without any spend,” he says the social media platform is too “saturated” now, and he’s watched as his artists’ impressions have tanked. He’s not alone. In a recent Billboard story about the modern creator campaign on TikTok, multiple digital marketing sources expressed that it is harder than ever to get a song off the ground on the service. But, as one source put it, “It’s still the best thing we have.”
“But what does not having a deal even mean at this point?” another indie label executive asked. “When these things come down, it just encourages the bootleg use of songs on these platforms. The music will be up, just not properly attributed.” During UMG’s boycott of TikTok earlier this year, it was common to still find Universal songs on the platform, just as bootlegged remixes, not as official audio. Sometimes, to skirt the effects of the boycott, top UMG stars like Olivia Rodrigo would even use these bootlegs to promote their latest releases.
TikTok originally told Merlin members that the deadline to finalize their individual agreements with the service was Oct. 25, but one label executive said they have heard that TikTok has offered extensions to certain members. Three sources believe that smaller Merlin members won’t have room to negotiate past the original boilerplate offer, but the larger players will find more wiggle room. Those who received extensions or finalized deals will not have their music removed from the app today, but TikTok says it has already started removing songs from those members that chose not to strike a deal. The company assures that the vast majority of Merlin members have already cemented their deals.
“I wish it had worked out differently between Merlin and Tiktok,” one Merlin member says. “But if our partnership needs to be direct with ByteDance in order to serve our clients, then you know, that’s the avenue that we have to take. Only time will tell how this all plays out.”
Additional Reporting by Elias Leight
A federal appeals court says Live Nation and Ticketmaster must face a class action claiming they charged “extraordinarily high” prices to thousands of ticket buyers, ruling that the concert giants cannot enforce “opaque and unfair” user agreements to scuttle the lawsuit.
Live Nation claimed fans had waived their right to sue in court when they bought their tickets, arguing they had signed agreements promising to litigate any legal disputes via private arbitration — a common requirement when purchasing event tickets and other services from many companies.
But in a ruling Monday (Oct. 28), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Live Nation’s agreements were “unconscionable and unenforceable” since they would make it “impossible” for fans to fairly pursue claims against the company.
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“Forced to accept terms that can be changed without notice, a plaintiff then must arbitrate under … opaque and unfair rules,” the appeals court wrote. “The rules and the terms are so overly harsh or one-sided as to unequivocally represent a systematic effort to impose arbitration as an inferior forum.”
The ruling described Live Nation’s agreements in scathing terms, calling them “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory to be borderline unintelligible” and “poorly drafted and riddled with typos.” The terms were so confusing, the court said, that Live Nation’s own attorneys “struggled to explain the rules” during a court hearing.
A spokesperson for Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday (Oct. 31).
The ruling came as Live Nation is facing a sweeping antitrust lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking to break up the company over allegations that it illegally maintained a monopoly in the live entertainment industry. That separate action, which could take years to resolve, remains pending.
The class action against Live Nation, filed in 2022, accuses the company of violating antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for concert tickets and engaging in “predatory” behavior. Filed on behalf of “hundreds of thousands if not millions” of ticket buyers, the case claims Live Nation and Ticketmaster abused their dominance to charge “extraordinarily high” prices to consumers.
The lawsuit was something of a sequel to an earlier class action, in which the same legal team (from the law firm Quinn Emanuel) made highly-similar claims against Live Nation. That earlier case was dismissed after a federal judge ruled that such accusations must be handled via private litigation because of agreements that the plaintiffs had signed when they purchased their tickets.
In Monday’s ruling, the Ninth Circuit said that earlier victory had been both a gift and a curse for Live Nation. Though it had allowed the company to avoid a class-action lawsuit, the ruling raised the troubling prospect of facing thousands of individual arbitration cases all at once.
“Defendants foresaw that if their motion to compel [arbitration] in that case were granted, they would be faced with a large number of parallel individual claims by ticket purchasers,” the appeals court wrote. “In anticipation of such claims, defendants sought to gain in arbitration some of the advantages of class-wide litigation while suffering few of its disadvantages.”
According to the ruling, doing so involved amending its terms of use to require fans to submit to “novel and unusual” procedures for “mass arbitration” offered by a new arbitration company called New Era ADR.
It was this new arbitration agreement that the appeals court declared unenforceable in Monday’s ruling. The court roundly criticized the rules, saying they had placed unfair terms on any consumers who wanted to litigate a dispute with Live Nation. And, citing the company’s market share, the court said fans had almost no choice but to sign the agreement.
“Because Ticketmaster is the exclusive ticket seller for almost all live concerts in large venues, prospective ticket buyers in most instances are faced with a choice,” the court wrote. “They can either use Ticketmaster’s website and accept its terms, or refuse to use the website and be entirely foreclosed from purchasing tickets on the primary market.”
Strong subscription revenue, improved margins and successful new releases by Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Post Malone helped Universal Music Group (UMG) post revenue of 2.87 billion euros ($3.16 billion) in the third quarter, up 4.3% year-over-year (4.9% at constant currency).
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) reached 621 million euros ($683 million), up 8.2% from the prior-year period. The Amsterdam-based company’s adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 21.6% from 21.1% in the prior-year quarter and was helped by cost savings from the organizational redesign announced in February and lower A&R and marketing costs, CFO Boyd Muir said during Thursday’s (Oct. 31) earnings call.
If not for a one-time gain in the prior-year quarter, the revenue growth rate would have been 7.6% and adjusted EBITDA growth would have improved to 10.8%. Last year, Universal Music Publishing Grou (UMPG) recognized the accrual of a catch-up payment from the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) Phonorecords III ruling. That resulted in revenue of 53 million euros ($58 million) and added 11 million euros ($12 million) to UMPG’s adjusted EBITDA.
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UMG had a typically strong quarter of chart-topping new releases. CEO Lucian Grainge noted during the call that Carpenter’s album Short n’ Sweet, released on Aug. 23, went to No. 1 in 15 countries and topped the Billboard 200 albums chart in the U.S. for four non-consecutive weeks. Elsewhere, Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess topped Billboard’s Album Sales Chart in September, while Malone’s latest album, F-1 Trillion, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and also summited the Top Country Albums chart. Island also has a top 10 hit song in the U.K. with Gigi Perez’s “Sailor Song,” which peaked at No. 28 in the U.S.
The recorded music division improved 5.4% to 2.15 billion euros ($2.36 billion) on the strength of a 7.6% improvement in subscription revenue. Other streaming revenue, however, dropped 0.8% (up 0.3% at constant currency) to 354 million euros ($389 million). Physical sales dropped 2% to 288 million euros ($317 million) while licensing revenue jumped 20.4% to 325 million euros ($357 million). Subscription growth was negatively affected by “just over a percentage point” from “ongoing challenges” in the home fitness subscription market and the departure of the record label 10K Projects to Warner Music Group, said Muir. Lower CD sales in Japan were partially offset by strong vinyl sales, he added, especially in the U.S.
Muir affirmed UMG’s previously announced guidance of an 8% to 10% compound annual growth rate for recorded music subscription revenue through 2028. UMG may not always hit that target range in any given quarter, however, and Muir reminded listeners that the fourth quarter marks one year since a Spotify price increase that has helped UMG — and other record labels — experience a surge in year-over-year subscription growth.
UMPG improved 1.8% (2.2.% at constant currency) to 500 million euros ($550 million). Excluding the CRB accrual, publishing revenue was up 22.4% (22.9% at constant currency). Digital revenue grew 0.3% to 295 million euros ($324 million), synchronization royalties jumped 18.5% to 64 million euros ($70 million) and mechanical revenue climbed 12% to 28 million euros ($31 million). Performance royalties fell 4.7% to 101 million euros ($111 million).
UMG’s Bravado merchandise division had revenue of 237 million euros ($261 million), up 4.4% from the prior-year period. The company attributed the growth to stronger direct-to-consumer sales and higher touring merchandise sales. In the U.S., Bravado benefitted from the touring activity of such artists as Slipknot, Imagine Dragons, Nicki Minaj, blink-182 and Malone, according to Muir.
Thirty years ago, when Megadeth was the first musical artist ever to participate in a “chat room” on its “website” on the “Internet,” an anonymous troll posted a single word over and over, to the point of driving Dave Mustaine crazy. “I looked at it like, ‘How do I get rid of this thing?’” the metal band’s frontman and guitarist tells Billboard. “I still, to this day, don’t know who the guy was. There was no one else, so this guy saw that as an opportunity.”
What was the word?
“S—,” Mustaine recalls.
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Such were the travails of the virtual city of Megadeth, Arizona, in October 1994. As envisioned by Robin Bechtel — then sales director for Megadeth’s label, Capitol Records — Megadeth, Arizona, based on the location of the band’s new studio in Phoenix, was the concept for the first-ever artist website. In addition to the chat room, called the Megadiner, the site featured an art-and-digital-postcard repository, Vic’s Cactus Hut and Souvenir Shop, a newspaper titled Horrorscopes and links to videos and online-radio tracks. It was designed to promote Megadeth’s album Youthanasia, but its legacy ultimately became to “onboard people onto the World Wide Web,” according to Bechtel, today an angel investor in Uber, Everlane and others, “which is wild to think about.”
Megadeth
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Bechtel, a digital music pioneer who later worked at Warner, first envisioned the Megadeth concept while touring a multimedia studio in Los Angeles and learning about the use of Macromedia software in videos and websites. She signed up for the dial-up service CompuServe and set up a modem at her apartment. At Capitol, she wrote a proposal for the Megadeth website and requested a $30,000 budget. Her boss, Lou Mann, senior vp of sales and field marketing, agreed, even if other Capitol employees had no idea what she was talking about. Earlier that year, Tim Berners-Lee had invented the World Wide Web, and it was catching on among tech insiders and early adopters, but the idea would take years to spread to music fans — and record executives.
“I wrote a proposal. It’s hysterical — it’s me trying to explain what a website would be,” Bechtel recalls. “We had a Megadeth record coming out. I was invited to the meeting. Nobody knew what the Internet was. Everyone was focused on who was going to shoot the album cover, and would the cover make the poster and would the cover and poster be in the record stores.”
It was the first time among many, during Bechtel’s label career, that she would be told the Internet was a fad.
Megadeth
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“She made a big presentation about it, and there were maybe 10 people in the room. Nine of the people didn’t even understand what she was talking about: ‘What is this fake city?’” recalls Mann, now CEO of StageIt, which broadcasts live performances online. “There were a lot of traditionalists in our industry. You play it on the radio, you get it in the stores. But this was a new way of marketing. It was tough. They were dubious and it affected other things.”
Mann believes the industry skepticism of Megadeth, Arizona, represented a broader overall skepticism of new technology threatening music’s business model, largely built on marketing and selling CDs. This attitude, within labels, lingered through the late ’90s. For example, Capitol released a Duran Duran single online, and old-school record retailers did not react kindly. Later, when Napster popped up and threatened the business model of selling CDs in stores, piracy-fearing label execs neglected an opportunity to create a new business model. “It was a whole industry education that was taking place,” Mann recalls. “Nobody wanted it, because it challenged the protocol. On the other hand, that was the beauty of it.”
Megadeth
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Megadeth, Arizona, launched with grey backgrounds and Times Roman typefaces — “That’s how limited it was back then,” Bechtel says. And while the website may not have moved the needle on Youthanasia sales, it generated copious attention in newspapers and magazines. “Once Megadeth got involved, it took off,” she adds. “The band was always in there logging into the Megadiner. They saw it, I think, as modern-day tape-trading. They totally got it.”
Soon other artists were demanding websites, too. Mustaine heard KISS‘ Gene Simmons had said, “I want a website just like Mustaine’s,” and contacted the band’s manager to confirm the rumor. An hour later, he received a call from Simmons himself. “There was nothing like this before,” Mustaine says. “It’s such an unfathomable concept: There was no Internet back then.”
Mustaine, who is once again planning to release a new Megadeth album, today is the focal point of an official website, megadeth.com, which contains standard features like tour dates, videos, T-shirt-selling web stores and band-member biographies. Plus social media, of course. But he retains a fondness for the denizens of Megadeth, Arizona, “If you go to Megadeth concerts and find somebody that was a member of the Megadiner,” he says, “that’s real street cred.”
Megadeth
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The infamous 2016 surveillance video showing Sean “Diddy” Combs assaulting his former girlfriend wasn’t illegally leaked to the media by prosecutors, government attorneys argue in a new filing that accuses the rapper’s lawyers of trying to “suppress a damning piece of evidence.”
In a motion filed late Wednesday, federal prosecutors responded to leaking accusations made by Combs’ lawyers earlier this month. They say it was impossible that they had leaked the video of Combs striking Cassie Venture to CNN because they didn’t even have it at the time it was published in May.
The government says Diddy’s attorneys know that, but that they’re using the leak accusations as a way to prevent jurors from seeing Combs “brutally physically assaulting a victim” — a crucial piece of evidence.
“Without any factual basis, the leak motion seeks to suppress highly probative evidence … by claiming that it was grand jury material leaked by government agents,” prosecutors write. “But, as the defendant is fully aware, the video was not in the Government’s possession at the time of CNN’s publication and the Government has never, at any point, obtained the video through grand jury process.”
Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, was once one of the most powerful men in the music industry. But last month, he was indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking over what the government says was a sprawling criminal operation aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” If convicted on all the charges, he faces potential life prison sentence.
Wednesday’s new filing came three weeks after Combs’ attorneys demanded an investigation into the alleged leaks, claiming they had “led to damaging, highly prejudicial pre-trial publicity that can only taint the jury pool and deprive Mr. Combs of his right to a fair trial.”
Diddy’s attorneys pointed specifically to the Cassie video, which showed Combs striking his then-girlfriend in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 and made headlines when CNN released it in May.
“The videotape was leaked to CNN for one reason alone: to mortally wound the reputation and the prospect of Sean Combs successfully defending himself against these allegations,” Agnifilo wrote. “Rather than using the videotape as trial evidence, alongside other evidence that gives it context and meaning, the agents misused it in the most prejudicial and damaging way possible.”
Wednesday’s filing from prosecutors also addressed Diddy’s recent demand that the government reveal the names of his alleged sexual abuse victims. In a motion earlier this month, his lawyers arguing he cannot fairly defend himself without knowing their identities.
In the response, the government argued that such disclosures “poses serious risks” to the safety of the victims, citing Diddy’s “significant history of violence and obstruction” that resulted in him being denied release on bail last month.
“Due to the defendant’s history, the Government has serious concerns about victim safety and the possibly of witness tampering if a list of victim names were provided to the defendant,” prosecutors wrote.
French music streaming company Deezer’s revenue increased 11.0% (13.0% at constant currency) to 134.0 million euros ($147.3 million) in the third quarter, the company announced Wednesday.
That was slightly slower than the 15% growth rate in the second quarter and first quarter but ahead of the 7.4% revenue growth the company posted in calendar 2023.
Partnerships accounted for most of the quarter’s improvement by growing 21% to 41.5 million euros ($45.6 million). Deezer powers music streaming services for such companies as Germany’s RTL and Argentinian e-commerce company Mercado Libre. Through partnerships, Deezer offers its branded service to the likes of DAZN, a sports streaming platform, and Mexican mobile carrier WIM, whose customers get a 20% discount on Deezer Premium.
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Subscriber growth was helped by the conversion of “the first cohort of MeLi+ subscribers from trial accounts to premium accounts with higher margins,” said CEO Alexis Lanternier during Thursday’s earnings call. Also, Lanternier added, the Mercado Libre partnership, which provides 12-month trials, has produced results “higher than our initial expectations.”
Revenue from France was 78.5 million ($86.3 million) and 58.6% of total revenue, down from 59.4% in the prior-year period. The rest of the world generated revenue of 55.5 million euros ($61 million). The “other” category was 6.7 million euros ($7.4 million), up 63.8%, in part due to new verticals such as its wellness app, Zen.
The growth in France and contraction in the rest of the world is part of the plan, said CFO Carl de Place. “The strategy has been to improve the profitability and moving to positive profitability for Deezer, which has made us be more selective in the way we invest, in terms of marketing and making sure we invest in markets where we can see that the return on the investment is positive for for this. So that’s the reason why we are growing in France and over the rest of the world has been declining.”
Direct subscribers represent the majority of Deezer’s business but grew at a slower 4% to 85.8 million euros ($94.3 million). The number of direct subscribers rose 4.1% to 9.9 million; 5.2 million of them came from Deezer’s home market of France while the rest of the world produced 1.8 million subscribers, down from 2.0 million in the prior-year period. Deezer’s subscriber base took a hit because the company removed 400,000 “inactive family accounts,” but the company explained that the move had no impact on revenue and benefitted gross margin.
Despite the positive momentum in the quarter, the company chose to maintain its guidance from the previous quarter. Deezer forecasts 10% revenue growth in 2024 and expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to improve to a loss of 10 million euros ($10.9 million) and plans to have positive free cash flow.
Deezer was among the first music streaming platforms to raise prices in 2022 and did so again in 2023. There will be “potential for price increases” as Deezer continues to “upgrade the experience to add value to the user,” said de Place.
Following the release of third-quarter earnings after the market’s close on Wednesday, Deezer’s share price was practically unchanged, falling just 0.4% to 1.345 euros ($1.46) on Thursday. Year to date, Deezer’s stock price has fallen 36% from 2.095 euros ($2.27) per share.
Deezer’s third quarter financial metrics:
Revenue: up 11% to 134 million euros ($147.3 million)
Total subscribers: up 4.1% to 9.9 million
Direct subscribers: down 1.4% to 5.2 million
Partnership subscribers: up 11% to 4.7 million
Direct subscriber average revenue per user (ARPU): up 5.8% to 5.40 euros ($5.90)
Partnership subscriber ARPU: down 4.7% to 2.80 euros ($3.10)
While attending the University of Madison-Wisconsin as a journalism and marketing major from 2003-2006, Rick Stoner fondly remembers roaming the aisles of Strictly Discs — the Monroe Street record store he acquired from longtime owners Ron and Angie Roloff last fall — just as the world was on the cusp of the digital music explosion.
“Strictly Discs is where I bought CDs before I had an iPod,” Stoner says. “That’s another way of saying that I’m 40 years old.”
Buying the beloved local business, which Ron opened in 1988 as a single-level, 800-square-foot shop (he later expanded it by converting the store’s 1,700-square-foot basement level into a retail space) was a full circle moment for Stoner — albeit not one he actively sought out. “I was not looking for a record store,” he says. “I was looking for a business at a certain price point. And the fact that I saw this listing was a very happy coincidence.”
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The relatively quick five-month acquisition process concluded exactly one year ago, on Halloween 2023. And in January, after serving in advisory roles for three months during the handoff, the Roloffs fully exited the business (which was a subject of Billboard‘s “In a Pandemic” series from 2020 to 2021) to officially embark on their retirement, leaving Stoner to pilot the future of a store that has been a part of Madison’s cultural heart for 36 years. It’s a legacy he doesn’t take lightly, and, to foster a sense of continuity, he felt it was important to keep as many of the store’s existing staffers on board as possible.
Record Store Day 2024 at Strictly Discs in Madison, Wis.
Courtesy of Strictly Discs
“Retaining the team has been really my number one priority,” Stoner says. “Maintaining the business, maintaining the customers — to me, all those things are achievable if you’re retaining the brain trust and knowledge and vibe that comes with the team that has been there for a long time.” The store’s entire staff stayed on after the acquisition, including longtime employees Evan Woodward — who now serves as GM and runs the shop on a day-to-day basis — and Mark Chaney, who fills the role of assistant GM. “Everyone’s worked together really well,” Stoner adds. “I think they appreciate maybe a different approach to things, a little more structure, and I certainly appreciate the knowledge of music that they bring.”
Stoner’s 18-year background as a high-level advertising executive focused on management and new business development at companies including Brado, Derse, BBN and Bader Rutter makes him well-equipped to expand into new areas and supercharge what the store was already doing well. One of the first changes under his purview was instituting a new inventory management system that would be capable of handling the shop’s roughly 500,000 used vinyl records in addition to new product (he chose a system that was originally designed for grocery stores).
Another major item on Stoner’s to-do list was already in motion prior to his acquisition of the business: the conversion of 1,000 square feet of the 5,000 square foot Strictly Discs warehouse in neighboring Cambridge, Wis., into a second retail location, which officially opened Oct. 19 on a Wednesday-Sunday schedule (a grand opening is slated for sometime in November after the store’s permanent exterior sign is installed). “We have plenty of customers that aren’t in downtown Madison, and it takes them a while to drive downtown through traffic, find parking,” he says of opening the new storefront. “Now those people will be able to come here. And I also think we’ll be serving a rural customer that maybe just isn’t exposed to the cultural curiosities that come with a record store.”
Stoner is currently looking at creative strategies to build interest and excitement in the new location, including giving customers access to the music lover’s paradise contained in the back 4,000 square feet of the building, which boasts the majority of the business’ used product. Though Stoner has yet to settle on what that would look like, some ideas include quarterly bin-picking days and a “buy a crate and fill the crate” promotion.
Opening day at Strictly Discs’ new retail location in Cambridge, Wis.
Courtesy of Strictly Discs
Strictly Discs’ mountain of used product is one of the business’ key strengths. Beginning in 2010, Ron Roloff focused his energies on acquiring large private music collections in Wisconsin and beyond, leading the store to become known as the home of a treasure trove of hard-to-find records in all different genres. “I think what sets us apart is the volume and quality of more niche genres: jazz, classical,” says Stoner. “We have an extensive soundtrack collection that, before buying the business, I never could have imagined or guessed how well that does for us.”
Those used records are key to another major initiative Stoner has in mind: creating a subscription model that would allow customers to choose a certain number of new or used records per month — which would require integrating the store’s website with the Shopify platform — and either pick up their chosen product in-store or have it delivered to their homes. The idea was partially inspired by similar plans offered by the likes of Vinyl Moon and Vinyl Me, Please — though, as Stoner points out, those companies don’t allow customers the kind of choice Strictly Discs can offer. “If you’re paying $50 or $100 a month, especially if you live in a rural area, the record store is coming to you,” he says. “And I don’t see a lot of shops doing that.”
With a goal of launching some iteration of the subscription model during this year’s holiday shopping season, Stoner and his employees are currently focused on what he calls “the Herculean effort” of cataloging the store’s warehouse inventory. Stoner aims to initially target customers within Wisconsin but outside of Dane County (where Madison is located), drawing interest through targeted ads online and via the store’s email newsletter. “I think my main concern about it is that it doesn’t cannibalize our store,” he says. “So my hope is someone could subscribe to that, pick up things in store, they would get a discount in store for being a member, and it would allow us some growth and customer loyalty.”
Stacks of used vinyl at the Strictly Discs warehouse in Cambridge, Wis.
Courtesy of Strictly Discs
The focus on getting the subscription plans off the ground ties in with Stoner’s overarching goal of beefing up Strictly Disc’s e-commerce efforts. On that front, the Roloffs were already ahead of the game, with a sales mix of 70% in-store and 30% online (within that, the mix is 90% vinyl and 10% CDs; while 65% of vinyl sales are new product.) “I’ve learned that that’s pretty atypical,” he says. I think [we have] the highest online [sales percentage], at least of record stores in our coalition [the Coalition of Independent Music Stores].” And in the long term, he’s looking to flip those stats on their head: “I want that 70-30 to look like 20-80 without hampering the growth of the store,” adds Stoner, who’s hoping to triple the store’s business through online sales.
The plans don’t end there. In addition to supersizing the store’s Record Store Day activities — this year, the store closed down part of Monroe Street with the city’s permission and threw a block party for the event — he’s looking to launch pop-up record shops at music festivals and other events outside of Madison to extend the physical store’s geographic reach.
For all of his ambitious plans, the store’s longtime customers probably won’t notice much of a difference. Like Ron, Stoner is currently intent on keeping Strictly Discs a pure music shop, steering clear of merch sales and other non-music items — which would be difficult to institute in any event, he says, given the shop’s relatively small footprint — and keeping intact what people loved about it in the first place.
“[In] our main record shop in Madison … almost nothing has changed, and that’s been intentional,” Stoner says. “It’ll be a staple of the community for the next 36 years, just like it has been the last 36 years.”
More in this series:Twist & Shout in Denver, Colo.Grimey’s in Nashville, Tenn.Home Rule in Washington, D.C.Sweat Records in Miami, Fla.
SiriusXM reported a 4% decline in revenue and a nearly $3 billion net loss last quarter after it completed a financial maneuver that was aimed at simplifying its publicly traded stock, the company reported on Thursday.
The $2.96 billion quarterly net loss stemmed from a $3.36 billion non-cash impairment charge, a type of accounting expense the means an asset’s value on the company’s balance sheet was written down. When SiriusXM merged with Liberty Media’s tracking stock in September, Liberty Media valued the company’s goodwill based on a sustained lower stock price.
The charge does not impact on SiriusXM’s cash flow. However, lower subscriber revenue and softer-than-projected advertising revenue in the second half of this year caused the company to trim its 2024 revenue goal to $8.675 billion from $8.75 billion targeted earlier in the year.
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SiriusXM’s stock price was down 3.27% at $26.50 as of 11:20 a.m. in New York.
The company reported total third quarter revenue fell 4% to $2.17 billion, and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and assets (EBITDA) fell 7% to $693 million, representing a 32% margin, compared to the year-ago quarter.
Tom Barry, SiriusXM’s chief financial officer, described seeing green shoots from the company’s investments in its subscription business and content, including 14,000 more net self-pay subscribers and a 6% increase in podcast advertising revenue.
“We are focused on executing our long-term strategy of strengthening our subscription business, enhancing our advertising offerings, and optimizing costs as we reinvest in the business,” Barry said in a statement.
The growth in self-pay subscribers due to lower churn reversed the contraction the company saw in the third quarter last year when it lost 96,000 subscribers. SiriusXM’s average revenue per user fell $0.53 to $15.16 due to a “higher proportion of subscribers on self-pay promotional and streaming-only plans,” the company said.
Known for its in-car satellite radio subscriptions, SiriusXM launched a new in-car subscription priced at $9.99 for just SiriusXM’s music channels. The company reported seeing podcast and on-demand listeners increasing on the app it rolled out last year.
The company invests heavily in its content. In the third quarter, SiriusXM signed an exclusive deal with “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper and launched shows with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Gen Z political commentator Dylan Douglas, and the beloved former football coaches Jimbo Fisher and Bill Belichick.
Revenue from the company’s Pandora and off-platform business segment slipped 1% to $544 million as Pandora Plus and Pandora Premium’s self-pay subscriber-based declined by 76,000 to 5.9 million. The company said the decline stemmed from fewer trial starts and churn after the price of certain plans was hiked.