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Songwriter and producer David Foster has sold a stake of his writer’s share of performance income for all of his songs to Hipgnosis Songs Capital, a partnership of Hipgnosis Song Management and funding from Blackstone.
Throughout his storied career, Foster has earned 47 Grammy nominations (16 of which were wins), three Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song (“I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston for The Bodyguard, “Glory of Love” by Peter Cetera for The Karate Kid, Part II, and “The Prayer” by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli for Quest for Camelot), three Golden Globe nominations (also for “The Prayer” and “Glory of Love” as well as “The Secret of My Success” by Night Ranger for The Secret of My Success) and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Apart from the songs that earned him these accolades, the songwriter has also written songs like “Got To Be Real” by Cheryl Lynn, “After the Love Has Gone” by Earth Wind & Fire, “It’s Falling in Love” by Michael Jackson, “Through the Fire” by Chaka Khan, “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” and “You’re the Inspiration” by Chicago, “St Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion)” by John Parr, “Best of Me” by Cliff Richard, and more tracks from hit-making artists like Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Bryan Adams, Destiny’s Child and Michael Bublé.
In 2011, peermusic purchased a majority stake in Foster’s song catalog. The deal encompassed all of the songwriter’s publishing vehicles — Foster Frees Music, Air Bear Music and One Four Three Music — and his catalog of more than 500 songs. The two had been longtime partners, and the team at peermusic has been administering Foster’s publishing for more than 25 years.
Hipgnosis’ deal with Foster aligns with other recent news from the company, which continues to invest in music IP. This year already, Hipgnosis has also acquired other legendary writers behind the world’s biggest hits, including their purchase of 40 songs from the catalog of Tobias Jesso Jr, this year’s Grammy winner for Songwriter of the Year, and their acquisition of rights from the catalog of TMS, the British writing trio behind “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi. Both deals were announced in February 2023.
Hipgnosis Songs Capital is an investment vehicle established by Hipgnosis in conjunction with Blackstone. In October 2021, the New York-based private equity firm pledged $1 billion to further investment in music IP and holds a majority stake in the venture. HSC is considered separate from Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the London-listed acquirer of music publishing and recording rights. Led by founder and CEO Merck Mercuriadis, the company also includes Hipgnosis Songs Management, which manages Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s catalog.
Mercuriadis says of the deal that “David is recognized globally as one of the greatest songwriters and producers of all time. He is the songwriters’ songwriter and the producers’ producer. David is truly special, and we are delighted to be working with his almost 50 years of incredible songs and to welcome him to the Hipgnosis family.”
Foster adds, “I’m very happy to be joining the Hipgnosis family. I’ve long admired what Merck and his team have built and I trust they will be terrific partners.”
Nir Zicherman, the executive overseeing Spotify’s audiobooks expansion, is leaving the company at the start of October after more than four years as an executive at the audio giant.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Zicherman — currently the the vp and global head of audiobooks at Spotify — said he is departing to return to his “entrepreneurial roots with a new project in the startup space.” Zicherman first joined Spotify in 2019 after the company acquired Anchor, the podcasting platform that Zicherman co-founded with Michael Mignano, as part of Spotify’s podcast product division. He was later tapped to oversee Spotify’s growing audiobooks business, which formally launched last September with an à la carte model but has faced setbacks in user adoption in part due to Apple’s App Store policies around in-app purchases.
“After a total of 9 years working across Spotify and Anchor, I’ve decided that it’s time for the next chapter in my career,” Zicherman, whose last day is Sept. 30, told THR in an email. “I’m extremely proud of the work the team has done, and now that we’ve successfully established a foundation, I’m excited about what’s next for audiobooks at Spotify — but I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and on a personal level, I’m excited to be getting back to the startup world. I felt that now was a good time to begin that transition, as the team at Spotify is set up well for success in our future work.”
As Spotify begins the search for Zicherman’s successor to lead the company’s audiobooks product strategy, Spotify’s vp business affairs, David Kaefer, will continue overseeing the business side of the audiobooks expansion.
Zicherman, whose upcoming departure was first reported by The Verge, is the latest in a string of podcast-adjacent executives at Spotify to leave. In the past year, those exits have included Courtney Holt, a major dealmaker for Spotify’s podcasting expansion; Mignano, the Anchor co-founder who left to become a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners; and Dawn Ostroff, the chief content and ad business officer.
In addition to Zicherman, upcoming executive departures include Max Cutler, the company’s top creator partnerships executive and founder of the Spotify-acquired podcast studio Parcast, who is set to leave in May. In announcing his decision to leave in February, Cutler told staff that he was similarly leaving Spotify to “return to [his] entrepreneurial roots” and launch his own venture, though has not yet shared additional details on that business.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Spotify founder/CEO Daniel Ek is meeting with members of the United States Congress and the Biden administration this week in Washington, D.C., to urge them to pass legislation that would rein in the “stranglehold” companies like Apple have over the competition on their app stores. The executive revealed in a Wednesday (April 19) post on Spotify’s For the Record blog after teasing in a tweet on Sunday that he was headed to the U.S. capital.
The Open App Markets Act — which was introduced in August 2021 and which Ek has previously lobbied for — would bar Apple, Google and other app stores with more than 50 million users from forcing app developers to use their payment systems as a condition of distribution. It would also block app store owners from punishing app developers if they extend deals to customers or offer their app for lower prices elsewhere.
While the bill was advanced by a Senate committee last year, no further action was taken. With this trip, Ek is looking to train a renewed spotlight on the bill, which he hopes will be resurrected for a wider vote by the new Congress.
Apple has lobbied against the bill, arguing that it could lead to consumers loading apps onto their smartphones from places outside of its centralized app store, introducing potential privacy risks.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Ek has argued that Apple and others act as anti-competitive gatekeepers because the terms required for inclusion in their app stores prevent Spotify and others from telling consumers about new products or deal offers.
“Apple prohibits competition by not allowing developers to discuss new products, features, and deals with their own users,” Ek wrote in an editorial posted to Spotify’s blog on Wednesday (April 19). “For instance, Apple promotes deals for Apple Music to Spotify customers, but denies us the same privilege.”
Read Ek’s full editorial on Spotify’s For The Record blog here.
Claire McAuley lands a promotion at Warner Chappell Music (WCM), where she’s named executive vice president, global rights management, a new position.
McAuley’s expanded role reflects the changes in the way rights management is handled at the major music publisher, and should step up payments to writers worldwide.
What was previously seen as “a largely administrative function is now a proactive division seeking to maximize songwriters’ revenue, working with international partners in the global music economy,” reads a statement announcing McAuley’s elevation.
Based in London, McAuley reports to Carianne Marshall, co-chair and COO of WCM. “Claire is an incredibly talented executive who has significantly moved the needle for our songwriters,” Marshall explains. “She’s taken a proactive approach to tapping new revenue streams and is constantly looking for ways to streamline our processes to ensure that our writers are paid what they deserve.” Her “global, long-term approach continues to be exactly what we need as we thoughtfully grow our business.”
Following stints with BMG Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing, the U.K. Music Publishers Association (MPA) and elsewhere, McAuley joined WCM in 2018 as VP, operations. The following year, she promoted to senior VP, global administration.
In that time, McAuley has spearheaded strategic upgrades to WCM’s systems to speed up payments to writers. Also, reads a statement, she’s helped launch platforms designed to recover missing royalties, secure additional revenue for writers in emerging markets, and better track the global use of songwriters’ music across digital music platforms, as well as in film and TV production.
“We’ve made considerable investments in our people and our systems over the past few years, and our songwriters are already noticing the benefits of these changes,” she explains in a statement. “But there’s even more we can do as the music ecosystem continues to evolve.”
Currently, she’s a member of the board of directors of the MPA and the Mechanical Licensing Collective.
WCM came in third (with 15.73% share) among publisher radio airplay rankings, Billboard reports in its Publishers Quarterly for the last quarter of 2022.
For the same period, the WMC came ranked third (with 18.59% share) for publisher Hot 100 rankings.
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: A fake Drake song featuring AI-generated vocals highlights legal uncertainty over artificial intelligence; the rapper Cam’ron becomes the latest music star to face a copyright lawsuit over using a photo of himself; Megan Thee Stallion makes bold new accusations in her long legal battle against her record label; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Fake Drake Debacle & The AI Fight Ahead
A new song featuring AI-generated fake vocals from Drake and The Weeknd went sensationally viral over the weekend, underscoring growing concerns over the impact of artificial intelligence on the music industry and highlighting the legal uncertainties that surround the new technology.
The track, “Heart On My Sleeve,” featured voices that were uncannily similar to those of the two superstars — a trick the anonymous creator says was accomplished by using artificial intelligence. By Monday evening, the track had been mostly pulled from the internet, but not before racking up hundreds of thousands of spins on streaming platforms and millions of views on social media.
As evidenced by the speedy removal, artists and labels already have pretty good legal tools to police something as blatant as “Heart On My Sleeve.” Experts say the song potentially violates the rights of publicity of the two stars by mimicking their voices, and that it also possibly used an unauthorized sample of Metro Boomin’s producer tag.
But the incident came just days after news broke that Universal Music Group had asked streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music to stop AI companies from accessing the label’s copyrighted songs to “train” their machines, and that issue poses far bigger questions — about the extent that AI can be legally used to create new music that isn’t a clear copycat of specific superstars — with fewer clear answers.
For a full breakdown of all this week’s developments, including expert commentary on the issue, go read our entire story here.
THE OTHER BIG STORY: Cam’ron Copyright Conundrum
Back in 2003, a photographer snapped a shot of the rapper Cam’ron at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Show in New York, where he wore a pink fur coat and hat while holding a matching flip phone. Pink would go on to become a signature color for the rapper, who released a bright pink collab sneaker with Reebok in 2016; GQ later ran an entire article called “Cam’ron Is Very Particular When It Comes to the Color Pink,” underneath the same 2003 image of his “iconic pink mink coat.”
Now, twenty years later, that image has become something of a problem for Cam.
In a lawsuit filed last week, the photographer who snapped it claimed that the rapper had slapped the image on a huge range of commercial products sold by his Dipset Couture brand, ranging from t-shirts to shower curtains to decorative pillows to socks — all without getting any kind of license from her.
These kinds of cases happen a surprising amount. Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber and a slew of other stars have also been sued in recent years after they re-used photos of themselves snapped by someone else. That’s because the copyright to such a photo is owned by the photographer, not the person featured in it.
But the lawsuit against Cam’ron is potentially more serious than those earlier cases. To understand why, go read our full story, complete with all the legal documents filed in the case.
Other top stories this week…
LIVE NATION WINS FESTIVAL CASE – A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit claiming Live Nation was “stringing along” a country singer when the company considered — but ultimately passed on — her proposal for an all-female country music festival in Chicago. “An expression of interest in participating in a project is not a promise to do so,” the court said.
NICK CARTER FACING NEW ABUSE LAWSUIT – Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter was hit with another sexual abuse lawsuit, this time from Melissa Schuman — a former member of teen-pop group Dream who has long claimed the singer assaulted her.
MEGAN’S NEW ATTACK – Megan Thee Stallion hurled bold new accusations at her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, claiming the company’s leaders are trying to make themselves “judgment-proof” by draining 1501’s bank accounts.
REMEMBER NFTS? – Lil Yachty reached a settlement with a non-fungible token (NFT) seller called Opulous over allegations that the company used his name and likeness without permission to raise over $6.5 million in venture capital funds.
ORCHESTRA SHOWDOWN IN PHILLY – Citing “unlawful, anticompetitive and predatory conduct,” the Philly Pops accused the Philadelphia Orchestra of violating federal antitrust laws by abusing its control over local concert venues and ticketing services to try to crush its smaller rival.
A song featuring AI-generated fake vocals from Drake and The Weeknd might be a scary moment for artists and labels whose livelihoods feel threatened, but does it violate the law? It’s a complicated question.
The song “Heart on My Sleeve,” which also featured Metro Boomin’s distinctive producer tag, racked up hundreds of thousands of spins on streaming services before it was pulled down on Monday evening, powered to viral status by uncannily similar vocals over a catchy instrumental track. Millions more have viewed shorter snippets of the song that the anonymous creator posted to TikTok.
It’s unclear whether only the soundalike vocals were created with AI tools – a common trick used for years in internet parody videos and deepfakes – or if the entire song was created solely by a machine based purely on a prompt to create a Drake track, a more novel and potentially disruptive development.
For an industry already on edge about the sudden growth of artificial intelligence, the appearance of a song that convincingly replicated the work product of two of music’s biggest stars and one of its top producers and won over likely millions of listeners has set off serious alarm bells.
“The ability to create a new work this realistic and specific is disconcerting, and could pose a range of threats and challenges to rightsowners, musicians, and the businesses that invest in them,” says Jonathan Faber, the founder of Luminary Group and an attorney who specializes in protecting the likeness rights of famous individuals. “I say that without attempting to get into even thornier problems, which likely also exist as this technology demonstrates what it may be capable of.”
“Heart On My Sleeve” was quickly pulled down, disappearing from most streaming services by Monday evening. Representatives for Drake, The Weeknd and Spotify all declined to comment when asked about the song on Monday. And while the artists’ label, Universal Music Group, issued a strongly worded statement condemning “infringing content created with generative AI,” a spokesperson would not say whether the company had sent formal takedown requests over the song.
A rep for YouTube said on Tuesday that the platform “removed the video in question after receiving a valid takedown notice,” noting that the track was removed because it used a copyrighted music sample.
Highlighted by the debacle is a monumental legal question for the music industry that will likely be at the center of legal battles for years to come: To what extent do AI-generated songs violate the law? Though “Heart on My Sleeve” was removed relatively quickly, it’s a more complicated question than it might seem.
For starters, the song appears to be an original composition that doesn’t directly copy any of Drake or the Weeknd’s songs, meaning that it could be hard to make a claim that it infringes their copyrights, like when an artist uses elements of someone else’s song without permission. While Metro Boomin’s tag may have been illegally sampled, that element likely won’t exist in future fake songs.
By mimicking their voices, however, the track represents a clearer potential violation of Drake and Weeknd’s so-called right of publicity – the legal right to control how your individual identity is commercially exploited by others. Such rights are more typically invoked when someone’s name or visual likeness is stolen, but they can extend to someone’s voice if it’s particularly well-known – think Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones.
“The right of publicity provides recourse for rights owners who would otherwise be very vulnerable to technology like this,” Faber said. “It fits here because a song is convincingly identifiable as Drake and the Weeknd.”
Whether a right of publicity lawsuit is legally viable against this kind of voice mimicry might be tested in court soon, albeit in a case dealing with decidedly more old school tech.
Back in January, Rick Astley sued Yung Gravy over the rapper’s breakout 2022 hit that heavily borrowed from the singer’s iconic “Never Gonna Give You Up.” While Yung Gravy had licensed the underlying composition, Astley claimed Yung Gravy violated his right of publicity when he hired a singer who mimicked his distinctive voice.
That case has key differences from the situation with “Heart on My Sleeve,” like the allegation that Gravy falsely suggested to his listeners that Astley had actually endorsed his song. In the case of “Heart on My Sleeve,” the anonymous creator Ghostwriter omitted any reference to Drake and The Weeknd on streaming platforms; on TikTok, he directly stated that he, and not the two superstars, had created his song using AI.
But for Richard Busch of the law firm King & Ballow, a veteran music industry litigator who brought the lawsuit on behalf of Astley, the right of publicity and its protections for likeness still provides the most useful tool for artists and labels confronted with such a scenario in the future.
“If you are creating a song that sounds identical to, let’s say, Rihanna, regardless of what you say people are going to believe that it was Rihanna. I think there’s no way to get around that,” Busch said. “The strongest claim here would be the use of likeness.”
But do AI companies themselves break the law when they create programs that can so effectively mimic Drake and The Weeknd’s voices? That would seem to be the far larger looming crisis, and one without the same kind of relatively clear legal answers.
The fight ahead will likely be over how AI platforms are “trained” – the process whereby machines “learn” to spit out new creations by ingesting millions of existing works. From the point of view of many in the music industry, if that process is accomplished by feeding a platform copyrighted songs — in this case, presumably, recordings by Drake and The Weeknd — then those platforms and their owners are infringing copyrights on a mass scale.
In UMG’s statement Monday, the label said clearly that it believes such training to be a “violation of copyright law,” and the company previously warned that it “will not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists.” The RIAA has said the same, blasting AI companies for making “unauthorized copies of our members works” to train their machines.
While the training issue is legally novel and unresolved, it could be answered in court soon. A group of visual artists has filed a class action over the use of their copyrighted images to train AI platforms, and Getty Images has filed a similar case against AI companies that allegedly “scraped” its database for training materials.
And after this week’s incident over “Heart on My Sleeve,” a similar lawsuit against AI platforms filed by artists or music companies gets more likely by the day.
A Fugees rapper on trial in a multimillion-dollar campaign finance and foreign influence case was trying to reinvent himself as he entered the political arena, not break any laws, defense attorneys said Monday (April 17).
Prakazrel “Pras” Michel became a best-selling, Grammy-winning artist with the 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees, but in the years after its breakup was looking for his next chapter, attorney David Kenner said as he began making the defense case.
Michel surrounded himself with people to help with his transition to politics and eventually entered the orbit of a wealthy Malaysian “playboy” but didn’t engage in “James Bond … cloak and dagger stuff,” he said.
“There was no agreement to do anything in an unlawful way,” Kenner said.
Michel is charged in political conspiracies under two different U.S. presidents. Federal prosecutors say he funneled money from the fugitive Malaysian financer through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. He’s also accused of trying to squelch an investigation into the businessman and persuade then-President Donald Trump’s administration to return to China a “vocal critic of the government.”
The Justice Department says Michel conspired with Low Taek Jho, usually known as Jho Low. The fugitive financier is accused of masterminding a money laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered billions from the Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB. Low has maintained his innocence.
Looted money paid for jewelry and luxury art and helped finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio testified that Low had appeared to him to be a legitimate businessman and had mentioned wanting to donate to Obama’s campaign.
When Michel first met Low at a nightclub in 2006, the businessman “appeared and acted as though he had unlimited amounts of money,” Kenner said. Michel would later make money himself through his association with Low, but “making money, even if you consider it greedy, is not a crime.”
Prosecutors, on the other hand, say Low directed millions to Michel, who funneled the money to straw donors to give to the Obama reelection campaign in 2012. He later tried to lean on the donors to keep them from talking to investigators, prosecutors said.
In 2017, prosecutors say, the Grammy-winning rapper worked with a Republican “fixer” to try and shut down a U.S. investigation into Low and embezzlement from the Malaysian fund. He’s also accused of pushing the Trump administration to send a Chinese person who had fled to the U.S. back to China.
The defense says he tried to set up a meeting on that issue, but no one ever told him he should have registered as a foreign agent before doing so, Kenner said.
“What he was trying to do was go through the proper channels,” he said.
HYBE announced Monday (Sept. 17) that a dozen solo artists and music groups on the SM Entertainment roster will join its global fan community platform, Weverse, in September. Those artists, who have not yet been named, will move to Weverse from SM’s own fan community platform, Kwangya Club.
In addition to connecting with fans via services including Weverse Live, the 12 SM artists will also be featured on the e-commerce platform Weverse Shop, where fans can buy albums and official merchandise.
The Weverse deal derives from a platform partnership struck between HYBE, SM and Kakao Entertainment in March after HYBE fell short of its mission to purchase a controlling stake in SM. HYBE, home to K-pop superstars BTS, was blocked in its efforts by rival bidder Kakao, a South Korean tech company that owns Monsta X‘s label Starship Entertainment and Korean music streaming platform Melon. The battle ended when HYBE agreed to sell its entire SM stake to Kakao; days later, it sold 1.66 million SM shares to Kakao for 248.8 billion won ($191.8 million), amounting to 44% of its total shares in the company and increasing the stake of Kakao Corp. and its subsidiary, Kakao Entertainment, to nearly 40%. HYBE retains an 8.8% stake in SM.
Later in March, SM appointed Jang Cheol-hyuk as the company’s new CEO, succeeding outgoing CEO Lee Sung-soo, and named a new board as the company vowed to improve corporate governance and its production system, which had fallen behind rivals like HYBE in recent years and led to investor scrutiny.
Weverse claims approximately 65 million subscribers across 245 countries and regions globally.
National Association of Broadcasters president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt spoke out on the potential dangers of Artificial Intelligence on Monday at the NAB Show in Las Vegas. “This is an area where NAB will absolutely be active,” he asserted of AI, which is one of the buzziest topics this week at the annual convention. “It is just amazing how quickly the relevance of AI to our entire economy — but specifically, since we’re in this room, the broadcast industry — has gone from amorphous concept to real.”
LeGeyt warned of several concerns that he has for local broadcasters, the first being issues surrounding “big tech” taking broadcast content and not fairly compensating broadcasters for its use. “We have been fighting for legislation to put some guardrails on it,” LeGeyt said. “AI has the potential to put that on overdrive. We need to ensure that our stations, our content creators are going to be fairly compensated.”
He added that he worries for journalists. “We’re already under attack for any slip-up we might have with regard to misreporting on a story. Well, you’re gonna have to do a heck of a lot more diligence to ensure that whatever you are reporting on is real, fact-based information and not just some AI bot that happens to look like Joe Biden.” Finally, he warned of images and likenesses being misappropriated where AI is involved.
“I want to wave the caution flag on some of these areas,” he said. “I think this could be really damaging for local broadcast.”
During his talk, he also outlines was he sees as potential opportunities. “My own view is there are some real potentially hyperlocal benefits to AI,” he said, citing as examples translation services and the ability to speed up research at “resource-constrained local stations.” He asserted, “Investigative journalism is never going to be replaced by AI. Our role at local community events, philanthropic work, is never going to be replaced by AI. But to the degree that we can leverage AI to do some of the things that are time-consuming and take away your ability to be boots on the ground doing the things that only you can do well, I think that’s a positive.”
Also addressed during the session was the voluntary rollout of the next generation of digital television, known as ATSC 3.0, which may include capabilities such as free, live broadcasting to mobile devices. A change of this magnitude has a lot of moving parts and has a long way to go before its potential can be realized.
At NAB, FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel was on hand to announce the Future of Television Initiative, which she described as a public-private partnership among stakeholders to support a transition to ATSC 3.0. “With over 60 percent of Americans already in range of a Next Gen TV signal, we are excited to work closely with all stakeholders, including the FCC, to bring Next Gen TV and all of its benefits to all viewers,” said LeGeyt.
During his session, LeGeyt also addressed “fierce competition for the dashboard” as part of a discussion of connected cars. “It’s not enough for any one [broadcaster] to innovate. If we are all not rowing in the same direction as an industry, … we are going to lose this arms race,” he warned.
Citing competition from the likes of Spotify, he contends that the local content offered by broadcasters gives them a “competitive advantage.”
The NAB Show runs through Wednesday.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Universal Music Group Nashville (UMGN) has promoted Lori Christian and Rob Femia to executive vp of marketing and executive vp of business & legal affairs, respectively. The label group includes Capitol Records Nashville, EMI Records Nashville and MCA Nashville.
In her new role, Christian will oversee UMGN’s artist development, brands and sponsorship, as well as creative services, international marketing and media marketing departments for the label group’s artist roster. Christian was elevated from senior vp of marketing, a role she was tapped for in 2020 after leading the publicity department at UMGN following the 2012 merger of EMI and UMG.
Femia has more than 15 years of experience practicing entertainment law and joined UMGN in 2013 as head of business and legal affairs; he was promoted to senior vp in 2018. He will now lead the company’s business affairs department.
“Lori’s understanding of storytelling and weaving our artists’ narratives into framing their stories has been a critical element of UMGN’s success,” said UMGN chair/CEO Cindy Mabe in a statement. “Artist development is such a defining feature that separates our artists, especially in a world where everyone is looking for immediate gratification. Having Lori in this leadership role to help drive the key tenants of artist development across all of UMGN is going to change our artist growth strategy. I am so excited to see how Lori leads and guides a new era in artist marketing across UMGN.”
Mabe added of Femia, “It’s an honor to expand Rob’s leadership abilities beyond his vast business and legal knowledge. Rob has had a front seat in dealmaking for a while but as we expand the new goals of UMGN, Rob is helping to write and build the next era of the country music business. With the industry changing so rapidly, Rob is an essential partner to our future as Universal Music Group Nashville and his alignment and guidance of our staff and artists is critical to our success. It’s an honor to watch Rob shine and lead our company and I am thrilled to have him join our executive team.”
The promotions are part of an ongoing restructuring at the company following Mabe’s official ascent to the UMGN chairman/CEO role on April 1 following former chairman/CEO Mike Dungan‘s retirement. Earlier this month, senior A&R executives Stephanie Wright and Brian Wright, along with senior promotion executive Royce Risser, exited the company. Meanwhile, UMGN recently added to its artist roster, welcoming Brad Paisley into the fold.
Additionally, former UMGN executives Katie Dean and Rachel Fontenot recently teamed up to form a new label, Leo33.