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March saw the launch of two Web3 record labels, a free NFT from Grimes and NFT streaming royalties tied to several viral hits. Overall, the crypto market has bounced back with Ethereum now 100% higher than its lows of last year, injecting some optimism back into the crypto economy.
However, it was a weaker month for music NFTs — a common symptom of the NFT market when crypto prices are trending higher as many buyers prefer to hold onto their ETH as it gains value. Volume across the 10 biggest projects netted 381 ETH compared to 1,016 ETH in February. In dollar terms, it’s $697,393 compared to February’s $1.6 million. Based on analysis of sales data from 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases combined with secondary sales volume on OpenSea, here are the 10 biggest-selling music NFTs and collections in March 2023.
1/ Helix Records Genesis PassMonthly trading volume: 137 ETH ($250,710)Primary sales (March): ~91 ETHSecondary sales: 46 ETHDrop date: March 10
Patrick Moxey, founder of PayDay and Ultra Records, has launched a new label with Web3 at its heart. Helix Records sold 3,333 NFT genesis passes in March, granting access to the inner workings of the label. Holders can pitch their music to Helix Records’ A&R team, get access to free tickets and claim a free NFT of Marshall Jefferson’s iconic house classic ‘Move Your Body.’ Moxey aims to onboard the label’s entire roster of dance artists into Web3.
View the collection on OpenSea.
2/ Grimes – Gen-1 AvatarsMonthly trading volume: 60.7 ETH ($111,081)Primary sales (March): 60.7 ETHSecondary sales: N/ADrop date: March 24
To celebrate a performance at Ultra Festival, Grimes dropped a free NFT on Web3 platform Zora in March. The Grimes Gen-1 avatars will unlock quests, exclusive music and other digital experiences. More than 78,000 were minted in a 7-day window. Although the NFTs were free, each edition was subject to a 0.000777 platform fee which generated a total of 60.7 ETH.
View the collection on Zora.
3/ Dreams Never Die – Founders PassMonthly trading volume: 46 ETH ($84,180)Primary sales (March): ~40 ETHSecondary sales: 6 ETHDrop date: March 15
Dreams Never Die is a record label founded by Chad Hillard, credited for discovering Billie Eilish and breaking “Ocean Eyes” through his music blog HillyDilly when the track had less than 1,000 plays on SoundCloud. Fast forward eight years and Hillard’s record label Dreams Never Die has established itself deeply in Web3 culture.
The label was the first to release a debut single as an NFT via their flagship artist Sloe Jack and last month launched a thousand Founders Passes. The NFT gives holders the opportunity to participate in the label as scouts and other roles, as well as get direct feedback on music.
View the collection on OpenSea.
4/ KINGSHIP – Key CardsMonthly trading volume: 37 ETH ($67,710)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 37 ETHDrop date: July 2022
The Bored Ape supergroup launched a new initiative in March called Crowns. Members of the KINGSHIP community can earn Crowns by helping out new members, retweeting social posts, sharing music and engaging in the Discord server. The Crowns can then be redeemed for items in the upcoming KINGSHIP digital store.
View the collection on OpenSea.
5/ Violetta Zironi – Another Life Monthly trading volume: 30 ETH ($54,900)Primary sales (March): N/ASecondary sales: 30 ETHDrop date: Feb. 20
Italian singer-songwriter Violetta Zironi recently launched a new collection, Another Life — an EP encompassing five tracks and 5,500 unique profile picture illustrations. Holders get access to virtual shows, live concerts and the ability to use the songs for their own projects. The project launched in February but continued to generate strong secondary sales through March.
View the collection on OpenSea.
6/ Maddix – Heute NachtMonthly trading volume: $36,990 Primary sales (March): $36,990Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: March 15
Producer Maddix released Heute Nacht in October of last year and it quickly turned into a viral hit, racking up 20 million Spotify streams in five months. In March, the track was released as a collection of 260 NFTs via Royal, offering a percentage of streaming royalties in the hit song. 250 ‘Gold’ tokens give holders 0.0295% of royalties while 10 ‘Diamond’ NFTs offer 0.262% ownership.
7/ David Guetta, Martin Garrix, Romy Dya, Jamie Scott – So Far AwayMonthly trading volume: $30,781Primary sales (March): $28,000Secondary sales: 1.52 ETH ($2,781)Drop date: March 28
With 352 million streams, So Far Away dropped as a collection of 200 NFTs in March, each offering 0.01% ownership in the track. The NFT was released via Anotherblock which unlocks streaming royalties in major hits, usually via a producer or songwriter’s share rather than the lead artist. In this case, the NFT is released through featured artist Romy Dya.
8/ Reo Cragun – SpentMonthly trading volume: 15.6 ETH ($28,548)Primary sales (March): ~7.5 ETHSecondary sales: 7.9 ETHDrop date: March 28
Rapper and producer Reo Cragun has been at the forefront of independent Web3 music for the last 18 months, previously appearing in this chart for his EP Criteria with Daniel Allan in December. Cragun returned in March with a new single “Spent.”
The track was the first to use a new drop format on Web3 music platform sound.xyz called Sound Swap. The mechanism begins with a familiar 24-hour mint period where fans can buy as many editions of the song as they want for 0.005 ETH (~$7). However, when the 24 hour period ends, the price rises steadily for each additional purchase.
If there is sufficient demand and the price rises, existing collectors can instantly sell at the current price — an innovative upgrade from trying to trade or sell NFTs on a secondary market like OpenSea. The track generated 1,500 mints in the first 24 hours and an additional 350 mints using the Sound Swap mechanism.
View the collection on OpenSea.
9/ Illenium – Phoenix Family Founders PassMonthly trading volume: $28,000Primary sales (March): $28,000Secondary sales: N/ADrop date: March 29
DJ and producer Illenium launched a Web3 fan club in March called The Phantom Family, powered by tech platform Medallion. Once inside, fans could mint the Phoenix Family Founders Pass for $25 each, giving them access to a digital jersey, fast-track access to merchandise and exclusive content. Illenium sold 1,132 in a two-day window.
View the collection on OpenSea.
10/ Wes Ghost – SleepwalkingMonthly trading volume: 12.6 ETH ($23,058)Primary sales (March): 10.7 ETHSecondary sales: 1.9 ETHDrop date: March 16
Wes Ghost exploded onto the Web3 music scene in March with a debut single “Sleepwalking” — a pop-punk electronic crossover anthem. Using an NFT character from the “Kid Called Beast” NFT collection to front the project, Wes Ghost sold 2,351 editions of the track by tapping into dozens of different NFT communities through giveaways and cross-collaboration.
View the collection on OpenSea.
Methodology: The chart was compiled using data from primary music NFT sales across 19 different NFT platforms, independent releases and combined with secondary volume data from OpenSea. Data was captured between March 1 – March 31, 2023. Conversion rates from crypto to US dollars were calculated on March 31.
Disclaimer: the author owns NFTs from Reo Cragun and Dreams Never Die, however, the above list is based purely on sales data.
In May 2022, the German Music Industry Association (BVMI) set its sights on “curbing streaming manipulation and streaming fraud.” These issues are “a central concern” for the music business, the organization wrote in a confidential document reviewed by Billboard, due to their “distortion of the chart ranking and/or influencing of royalty payments.” As a result, BVMI issued a call for proposals to “establish a ‘Fraud Detection System.’ ”
Related discussions have been taking place around the music industry recently. In January, the French government published what appears to be the first-ever national analysis of streaming fraud. In the United States, the outline of a fraud-mitigation proposal is circulating among several distributors, publishers and streaming platforms, while the annual Music Biz conference in Nashville in May will feature not one but three panels on the topic.
Why all the sudden attention on this issue? The Centre National de la Musique (CNM), an organization that operates under France’s Ministry of Culture, found that 1% to 3% of streams in the country were fraudulent in 2021. If those numbers were to hold true for the worldwide music market — which IFPI valued at $17.5 billion in 2022 — that would mean approximately $175 million to $525 million of streaming royalties are being hijacked globally.
Some think that’s on the low end. The streaming service Deezer has said that 7% of streams on the platform are fraudulent — and that’s just what it identifies. BeatDapp, a Vancouver-based company that builds fraud detection software for labels, distributors and streaming services all over the world, estimates that around 10% of global streams are fraudulent; while some of this activity is caught, that could mean that over $1 billion in royalties ends up in the wrong pockets.
“Nobody’s immune” to streaming fraud, says Christine Barnum, chief revenue officer at the distributor CD Baby. “So people are finally having the realization, ‘Yeah, this is a problem.’ ”
“It’s just very common,” adds one indie-label head who has “definitely bought” streams. “People are really worried about optics — ‘I need to have at least a million streams on a song,’ whatever the bar is that they’re trying to hit to make it look a certain way. There’s so much pressure.”
“Streaming fraud” is a rangy term that can encompass a variety of behaviors. These include uploading an unauthorized remix of a viral single, boosting play counts by streaming music through a hacked Spotify account or creating a bot network to drive streams to a pop hit (for chart purposes) or a white noise recording (for royalties). (CNM’s study found that 80% of fraud was detected in streaming’s “long tail,” meaning it had little to do with the charts.)
The unifying thread across these activities: They can siphon money from the royalty pool. For most streaming services, dollars from ads and subscriptions are lumped together and then distributed to rights holders according to their share of total plays. “If the demand for certain titles is increased due to streaming manipulation,” BVMI’s document explains, “other rights holders automatically receive lower royalty payments.”
Or, as Barnum puts it, fraud is “ruining it for the genuine artists who deserve to be accurately compensated for their listens. That’s being diluted.”
Some fraud is similar to old-fashioned music piracy, like uploading an unsanctioned version of an artist’s work to Spotify — or even just a duplicate under an alternate name — and claiming royalties from the resulting streams. With both piracy and fraud, “artists and anyone that makes their living from music have the potential to suffer real economic loss,” says Morgan Hayduk, co-founder/CEO of BeatDapp.
But while piracy in the file-trading and CD-burning era of the 2000s stemmed from “consumer demand for lower costs and more choice,” streaming fraud is “primarily driven by the profit motivations of nonconsumer enterprises seeking to extract revenue from the digital music industry,” Hayduk continues. “They leverage the same tools used for other types of online fraud, like stolen account credentials and bots. This isn’t a consumer-led phenomenon — it’s a reflection of the ease with which digital platforms can be manipulated for specific commercial gain.”
Sure enough, CNM’s report lamented that “fraud seems to be getting easier and easier to commit.” “In the beginning, fraud came mostly from unknown artists trying to get visibility, increased promotion or maybe a record or distribution contract,” says Ludovic Pouilly, senior vp of institutional and music industry relations at Deezer. “Right now, streaming fraud is more sophisticated and increasingly harder to detect, and we can see activity for the music of artists on all levels.” Meaning both that bad actors are diverting streams from major artists and it’s no longer simply unknown artists using bots to get visibility.
Currently, most efforts to combat fraud take place within individual organizations — whether that’s a streaming service or a distributor — which try to detect suspicious activity before it can affect payouts. In addition, IFPI has had some success taking legal action against streaming fraud sites in Germany and Brazil.
But fraud persists, which might be why there’s a growing realization that if the music industry really wants to prevent hundreds of millions of dollars from slipping out a side door, it may need a more comprehensive, cooperative approach. That said, there’s no consensus yet on what that might look like. In a statement to Billboard, BVMI said, “We are currently working on a tool to find artificial streams,” calling it a “work in progress.”
Louis Posen, founder of Hopeless Records, is an advocate for third-party oversight. “Currently, security is on a [digital service provider] by DSP level,” he says. “I think we need a monitoring, prevention, detection, mitigation and enforcement system at the level of the financial industry — both a third-party company that can monitor all the services as well as a department at each service with full resources.”
A senior executive at a major label doesn’t agree. “I’d really like to believe it’s not necessary, because it adds cost to the ecosystem,” the executive says. “Between the DSPs, the labels and the distribution side of our business, there are ways to solve this: having strong technology and technology controls, having strong rules and policies [around fraud] and adding consequences when you violate those.”
While the major labels either declined to speak about this issue on the record or did not respond to requests for comment, the senior executive notes that “we have concern over any level of fraud that happens in any of the platforms.” In 2019, the majors were among those that signed a code of conduct condemning streaming fraud, though the document was not legally binding, so it’s hard to tell the extent of its impact.
The disagreement about the best ways to combat fraud were evident in the CNM report. The study was hamstrung by several streaming services — Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon — declining to share information about fraud on their platforms, seemingly content to handle the issue internally. Those three platforms are estimated to account for a little over 35% of global streaming subscriptions; CNM was forced to perform its analysis without a complete view of the French streaming market.
Barnum maintains that “a global problem is going to take a global solution.” For now, she’s at least heartened by the fact that more people are willing to acknowledge streaming fraud’s existence: “I’m no longer a weirdo on the corner saying, ‘I think there’s a problem.’ ”
As the music industry becomes increasingly conscious of — and vocal about — the challenges of the streaming model, fraudulent streams have become a source of growing frustration. “Every penny that goes to a fraudulent stream is a penny that doesn’t go to a legitimate stream,” says Richard Burgess, president and CEO of the American Association of Independent Music. “Fraudulently increased stream counts can affect recording budgets, licensing deals, catalog valuations and can result in the misallocation of marketing budgets.”
The French government, which recently published the results of a months-long, country-wide investigation into streaming fraud, portrayed understanding the impacts of this activity as an imperative. “The stakes are high in our country as well as in the rest of the world: the development of music services, which can be free and financed by advertising, or paid through subscriptions, as individual or family plans, constitutes a tremendous opportunity for the music sector, after years of a long crisis,” the report asserted. “…Such growth whets the appetites and stimulates the creativity of those who seek to abuse the system.”
“The multiplication of fake streams, that is to say the processes allowing [bad actors] to artificially boost play counts or views to generate an income, is nothing short of theft,” the report continued.
The French study, conducted without data from YouTube, Apple Music, or Amazon Music, found that 1% to 3% of plays were fraudulent, while also noting somberly that “the reality of fake streams goes beyond what is detected.” BeatDapp, a Vancouver-based company that creates fraud detection software for labels, publishers, distributors and streaming services, believes the global level of fraud is higher. “In 2020, estimates were 3 to 10% of all streaming activity was fraud,” the company wrote in 2022. “Today, we confidently say it’s at least 10%, and more in some regions. That equals ~$2B in potentially misallocated streaming revenues this year, and will be ~$7.5B by 2030 if left unchecked.”
So what forms does streaming fraud take? According to Burgess, the practice “covers a multitude of techniques used to increase stream counts or impressions by other than legitimate means.”
Here are three of the most common:
Bots
Discussion of streaming fraud often turns quickly to bots, which Burgess defines as “automated software that can be used to generate views, streams or interactions.” To detect bot activity and prevent it from affecting royalty payouts, companies build models that trawl streaming data and look for listening patterns that appear anomalous: BeatDapp likes to discuss an example of finding tens of thousands of accounts all streaming the same 63 songs.
“If I’m trying to push numbers up, I’m going to do it across streaming services in a subtle fashion this way,” BeatDapp co-CEO Andrew Batey says. “Spread it across a lot of accounts and multiple platforms, and you can drive a significant number of plays with no one looking.”
Click Farms
Streaming services are looking for suspicious play patterns that don’t reflect human behavior. Fraudsters are aware of this, so they try to camouflage their activity in ways that appear human. One method is to get actual humans to press Play through what are known as “click farms.”
Eric Drott, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin who has written about streaming fraud, describes these as “enterprises concentrating low-paid, precarious workers who are engaged to perform the sort of rote, repetitive tasks that keep the flows of digital capitalism moving: creating social media accounts, moderating content for platforms, clicking online ads, liking or rating items and, of course, generating plays on streaming services.” Accounts that stream music 24 hours a day or stem from a smartphone that never moves or dips below 100% power could be evidence of click-farm activity.
Imposters
A third prominent form of fraud identified by Burgess involves impersonating creators by uploading a version of their song to streaming services and illegally collecting creators’ legitimate royalties. This is a common problem faced by artists who are having a moment on TikTok, for example: Imposters post a version of the TikTok hit on streaming services under a slightly different name, aiming to divert some streams (and hopefully royalties) their way.
“It happens to every single viral artist,” says one manager who shepherded a viral act to a major-label deal last year. There are many distribution companies out there, and managers say that some of them have lax oversight of what’s being uploaded to the DSPs through their platforms. This means artists and their teams have to keep close watch on streaming platforms and issue takedowns when they find imposter versions.
Two former Universal Music Group Nashville senior executives, Rachel Fontenot and Katie Dean, are launching the Nashville-based independent label Leo33, Billboard can reveal.
Dean spent the last 18 years at UMG Nashville, most recently serving as senior vp of promotion for MCA Records Nashville. Fontenot most recently served as vp of marketing and artist development at UMG Nashville, a role she held since 2020.
Leo33’s team also includes Daniel Lee, former president of artist development company Altadena (which Lee co-founded with the late songwriter/producer busbee), as well as former Downtown Music Nashville senior creative director Natalie Osborne.
“I worked at a major for half of my adult life and I loved every minute of it,” Dean tells Billboard. “But in the digital age you have the ability for artists to go directly to the consumer. With the majors having to do the volume [of music] that they have to do, you lose a bit of the development process and at some point, it becomes more air traffic control than actual individual focus. This is an artist development-focused label.”
Leo33 will reveal artist signings in the coming months. The label’s signings will include commercial country artists, Dean says, but will also allow for a broader palette of sounds.
“Some of the artists we sign will be very radio-driven; others will not,” Dean says. “I love radio. You can’t beat the recognition that radio delivers, but that’s not necessarily every artist’s goal. I love that challenge of, in addition to radio responsibilities, finding new ways to reach artists’ goals. Our strategies will be agile.”
“The genre lines are blurred, especially when you are playing in these other musical spaces outside of commercial country radio,” Fontenot says. “It’s wonderful because it expands the format…I feel like we are in a sort of renaissance time in terms of making music that moves you without having to assign a specific genre. It’s exciting and challenging.”
Pictured: Daniel Lee, Natalie Osborne, Katie Dean and Rachel Fontenot
Robby Klein
Leo33 will house A&R, marketing, streaming and promotion services.
“We have many of the same resources of a major label, but the focus on agility of an independent label,” Dean adds. “We are all marketing and artist development people at our core.”
Backing for the new label comes from Firebird Music and Red Light Ventures.
“We are happy to be associated with both companies,” Fontenot says. “They have successful track records and provide the resources we need, while allowing us to be autonomous and independent.”
Leo33 takes its name from the constellation Leo.
“When you talk about being courageous, agile, and the lions forming a pride to protect, that’s what we want to do for our artists,” Fontenot tells Billboard, adding that “33” is a nod to the long-playing vinyl format, as well as company’s vision of looking at an entire body of work in terms of how the label treats artists.
“We are treating this very much as a holistic experience for the artist,” Dean says. “There’s also this nod to the nostalgic, but also to the future.”
Leo33’s offices will open later this year in Nashville’s Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood. The label plans to slowly add staff as they scale up their roster.
“We both have an entrepreneurial spirit, and I feel like that will be the face of the future, just based on how the business has evolved,” Fontenot says. “We are all going to wear a lot of hats and all work to promote our artists in various ways, with the idea that the collective work is going to be unstoppable.”
Courtesy of Leo33
The Recording Academy is using the power of music for good.
On Wednesday (April 5), the organization announced a new partnership with several United Nations Human Rights-supported global initiatives on a campaign that will engage major artists to use their talents and platform to galvanize support for UN human rights goals, including advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, gender equality, women’s empowerment, climate justice and a broad range of other human rights issues.
The first activation under the initiative is the Right Here, Right Now Mini Global Climate Concert Series, which will see popular arena acts performing in small concert venues around the world while highlighting climate issues including floods, droughts, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, food insecurity, clean water, ocean acidity, deforestation, mental health and more. The series is set to kick off April 13 at the Boulder Theater in Colorado with The Lumineers’ Wesley Schultz alongside special guest Yola. The performance, produced by AEG Presents and supported by the University of Colorado Boulder, will be filmed by Citizen Pictures for a later broadcast.
The concert series is a partnership between the Recording Academy and the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, a public-private partnership developed by David Clark Cause alongside UN Human Rights that seeks to address climate change as a human rights crisis.
“We are honored to be working with several United Nations-supported global music initiatives to bring together artists and create unique music events to promote social justice around the world,” said Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. in a release. “Music has no boundaries so we are excited to partner with the artist community and work with the United Nations to further their human rights goals and ultimately, better the world.”
The Right Here, Right Now initiative plans to hold additional concerts in cities on multiple continents, with discussions already underway for shows in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, London, Johannesburg, Bogotá and Dubai. Proceeds will go to United Nations Human Rights climate justice initiatives as well as MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s music charity, which is establishing The Right Here, Right Now MusiCares Fund to focus relief efforts on music communities impacted by the climate crisis.
“Music provides a platform for the biggest megaphone in the world,” added Clark Cause in a statement, adding that Boulder was chosen as the kickoff city because it “has become the ‘Davos of Climate Change,’ since the University of Colorado Boulder recently convened world leaders, top climate experts, business leaders, and human rights advocates, along with students from our Education Coalition that includes over 2,300 universities – for the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit co-hosted with United Nations Human Rights last year.”
Celebrities who have previously lent their support to the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance and United Nations Human Rights include Quincy Jones, Celine Dion, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cher, Camila Cabello, Annie Lennox, LL Cool J, Cyndi Lauper, Pitbull, Jack Black, the Lumineers, Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Bridges, Edward Norton, Bob Weir, Dead & Company, Kesha, Joss Stone and Michael Franti.
“Throughout history, music has been an important outlet for communication, cultural expression, and expression of dissent. As the Global Partner of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, UN Human Rights welcomes the news that the Recording Academy will be joining the alliance as the Global Partner of Right Here, Right Now Music, in order to help promote our mutual goals and objectives to help prevent the worst impacts of the climate catastrophe on persons, groups and peoples in vulnerable situations,” said Benjamin Schachter, UN Human Rights team leader for environment and climate change.
The Right Here, Right Now Mini Global Concert at Boulder Theater is being advised on best sustainability practices by Sound Future Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to accelerate climate innovation for the live event industry.
Bob Dylan, Sam Smith, Lil Nas X, Nile Rodgers and Janelle Monáe are among the big stars confirmed for the 57th edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival, set to take place mid-year on the shoreline of Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
Also lining up this time are Christine and the Queens, Chilly Gonzales, Mavis Staples, Mark Ronson, Norah Jones, Lionel Richie, Iggy Pop, Caroline Polachek, Chris Isaak and many others, organizers announce today (April 5).
This year’s show is set to run June 30 to July 15.
Dylan returns to Montreux for the first time in a decade to present his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways, which arrived at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart. Rough and Rowdy Ways earned Dylan his 23rd career top 10, as he became the first act to have achieved at least one new top 40-charting album in every decade from the 1960s through the 2020s.
Meanwhile, the iconic fest’s two venues, the Auditorium Stravinski and Montreux Jazz Lab, will host performances from across the music spectrum, and from the late ‘50s to the present day.
Auditorium Stravinski boasts a stacked bill with Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Maluma, and many others, its performers owning a combined 85 Grammy Awards. Sam Smith will perform for the first time at the Auditorium, eight years after wowing the crowds at the Montreux Jazz Lab.
Established in 1967 by late jazz connoisseur Claude Nobs, the festival has hosted many of the greats of contemporary music, from Prince to David Bowie, Nina Simone, Quincy Jones, Marvin Gaye, Elton John and others. Mathieu Jaton has directed the fest since 2013, the year Nobs passed away.
Nearly 250,000 spectators attend the event in a regular year, which continues to evolve and introduce audiences to styles and tunes well outside the broad world that is jazz; the event paused in 2020 due to pandemic, returned in 2021 with a downsized format, and was back to its regular programming in 2022.
Also appearing on this year’s program is Brit Award-winning indie-pop duo Wet Leg, Grammy Award-winning Australian electronic trio Rufus Du Sol, and Aussie retro soul act the Teskey Brothers.
On the closing night, uber-producer Mark Ronson will present a specially curated and “unique collaborative concert,” organizers say, featuring special guests Yebba and Lucky Daye.
Tickets go on sale Thursday (April 6) at montreuxjazzfestival.com.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday it remains to be seen if artificial intelligence is dangerous, but that he believes technology companies must ensure their products are safe before releasing them to the public.
Biden met with his council of advisers on science and technology about the risks and opportunities that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence pose for individual users and national security.
“AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but it also has to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security,” Biden told the group, which includes academics as well as executives from Microsoft and Google.
Artificial intelligence burst to the forefront in the national and global conversation in recent months after the release of the popular ChatGPT AI chatbot, which helped spark a race among tech giants to unveil similar tools, while raising ethical and societal concerns about technology that can generate convincing prose or imagery that looks like it’s the work of humans.
The White House said the Democratic president was using the AI meeting to “discuss the importance of protecting rights and safety to ensure responsible innovation and appropriate safeguards” and to reiterate his call for Congress to pass legislation to protect children and curtail data collection by technology companies.
Italy last week temporarily blocked ChatGPT over data privacy concerns, and European Union lawmakers have been negotiating the passage of new rules to limit high-risk AI products across the 27-nation bloc.
The U.S. so far has taken a different approach. The Biden administration last year unveiled a set of far-reaching goals aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of AI systems, including guidelines for how to protect people’s personal data and limit surveillance.
The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights notably did not set out specific enforcement actions, but instead was intended as a call to action for the U.S. government to safeguard digital and civil rights in an AI-fueled world.
Biden’s council, known as PCAST, is composed of science, engineering, technology and medical experts and is co-chaired by the Cabinet-ranked director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar.
Asked if AI is dangerous, Biden said Tuesday, “It remains to be seen. Could be.”
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: Billboard reveals its yearly list of the top lawyers in the music industry; experts weigh in on the recent copyright infringement lawsuit against the Rolling Stones; Tory Lanez asks for a new trial following his conviction for shooting Megan Thee Stallion; and much more.
Want to get The Legal Beat newsletter in your email inbox every Tuesday? Subscribe here for free.
THE BIG STORY: The Lawyers Behind The Music Biz
Billboard revealed its yearly list of top attorneys in the music industry this week, breaking down not only the best dealmakers and litigators at the country’s elite law firms, but also the key players from in-house legal departments at record labels, streamers, concert promoters and more.
Among other things, we asked this year’s honorees to name the pressing concern facing the music business in 2023. One of the most common responses from the folks who get paid to worry about future legal problems? The rise of so-called generative artificial intelligence tools like the popular ChatGPT.
“Those of us representing human artists and songwriters will have to stay ahead of the curve to ensure our clients have the opportunity to evolve in tandem with technology,” said Farrah A. Usmani, an attorney at the firm Nixon Peabody.
To read this year’s full list of Top Music Lawyers – featuring dozens of names with short blurbs on why they matter in 2023’s music industry – go read the entire thing here.
Other top stories…
NO SATISFACTION LIKELY FOR STONES ACCUSER – I took a deep dive last week into the recent copyright lawsuit claiming that the Rolling Stones copied their 2020 song “Living In A Ghost Town” from two little-known tracks, chatting with musicologists and litigators to understand the allegations and whether they’re likely to succeed. Go read what they said here.
MORE ROLLING STONES LITIGATION – In unrelated news, a new trademark lawsuit was filed that centers on the famed “tongue and lips” logo used by the Stones since 1971. The case was filed by a clothing chain that says it was threatened by a UMG-owned merch company with “unfounded” infringement litigation after it featured a similar design on t-shirts. (The band itself is not involved in the litigation and is not accused of any wrongdoing.)
TORY LANEZ DEMANDS NEW TRIAL – Attorneys for the rapper asked a Los Angeles judge for a new trial after he was convicted in December in the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion, calling the guilty verdict a “miscarriage of justice.” Such requests are standard procedure for someone who has lost at trial, but they are very rarely granted.
NICK CARTER COUNTERSUIT MOVES AHEAD – A Las Vegas judge refused to dismiss a countersuit filed by Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter against Shannon “Shay” Ruth, a woman who has accused him of rape. Ruth claimed that Carter’s defamation case was a so-called SLAPP suit that aimed only to “harass and intimidate” her, but Judge Nancy Alff was not convinced.
COACHELLA SETTLES ‘COACHILLIN’ LAWSUIT – The organizers of the annual festival agreed to drop a trademark lawsuit against Coachillin Business Park, a development site located just a few miles to the north of the grounds. Under the terms of the settlement, Coachillin said it would “cease any and all use” of the name going forward.
The magic number is 44 for I.M.P. productions today as it prepares for the 44th anniversary of the opening of the original 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., with the May 30 launch of Atlantis, a 450-capacity venue with 44 underplay shows booked through late September — including an opening show from the Foo Fighters — all priced at $44.
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl let the news slip that I.M.P. would open a new, smaller venue fashioned as a near-replica of the original 9:30 Club — where he got his start — when he reopened the venue in 2021 following the COVID-19 shutdown.
“We’ll probably be the band that opens that place, too, right?” he told the confused audience at the time. Notably, the original 9:30 Club — located at 930 F Street, NW in D.C. — was previously home to another club called Atlantis prior to I.M.P.’s takeover of the venue in 1980.
The new Atlantis, which cost $10 million, will be located next to the newer, 1,200-capacity 9:30 Club, located at 815 V St NW. It will serve as a replica of the original 9:30 Club, “sans the gargantuan rats and notorious stench, but with a nod to the infamous pole,” a press release reads.
“We’ve been doing our smallest shows in other peoples’ venues for too many years now,” said Seth Hurwitz, chairman of I.M.P. “We needed a place that’s ours. This can be the most exciting step in an artist’s career. This will be where we help introduce new artists to the world, and their story needs to be told right. Our smallest venue will be treated as important, if not more, than our bigger venues. If the stories are told right, both the artists and the fans begin their hopefully long-term relationship, and we as promoters do better too.”
When Foo Fighters kick off this new era of The Atlantis, Dave Grohl won’t just be christening the room – he’ll be honoring the legacy of a space that he attended as a kid and later took the stage of with bands like Scream and Nirvana.
Tickets for the inaugural run of shows at The Atlantis will be $44 each and non-transferable. They will be sold via a lottery-style process, with protections to ensure that real fans attend the shows. To thwart scalping, The Atlantis is utilizing Ticketmaster Request for the inaugural run of shows, which is open now at TheAtlantis.com and will run through Friday (April 7) at 11:59 p.m.. ET. Fans will learn next week if their ticket requests have been fulfilled. If a ticketholder is unable to make the show, a fan-to-fan face-value ticket exchange option will be available.
The Atlantis will be booked by Zhubin Aghamolla, who also books The Anthem and Merriweather Post Pavilion, while Sam Hurwitz has been named general manager. Hurwitz has served as front-of-house manager for D.C. club The Anthem since 2018.
You can find the full schedule for The Atlantis’ 44-show run, dedicated to the 9:30 Club’s history, present, and future, below.
May 30 – Foo Fighters
May 31 – The Walkmen
June 2 – Hot Chip
June 3 – Rainbow Kitten Surprise
June 4 – Modern English
June 5 – Franz Ferdinand
June 6 – Pixies
June 9 – Tank and the Bangas
June 10 – Yo La Tengo
June 16 – Marc Roberge of O.A.R.
June 17 – Hannibal Buress + Eshu Tune
June 19 – Sylvan Esso
June 20 – Darius Rucker
June 24 – Rodrigo y Gabriela
June 25 – X
June 28 – Jeff Tweedy
July 2 – Barenaked Ladies
July 6 – Tegan and Sara
July 7 – The Head and The Heart
July 15 – The Magnetic Fields
July 20 – Clutch
July 21 – Jenny Lewis
July 23 – The Struts
July 27 – Third Eye Blind
July 28 – Portugal. The Man
July 29 – Living Colour
July 30 – Iron & Wine
Aug. 5 – Gogol Bordello
Aug. 6 – Bush
Aug. 8 – Shakey Graves
Aug. 10 – Drive-By Truckers
Aug. 14 – Parliament Funkadelic feat. George Clinton
Aug. 17 – Thievery Corporation
Aug. 27 – Joan Jett
Aug. 28 – Gary Clark Jr.
Sept. 2 – Ben Gibbard
Sept. 6 – Luna
Sept. 9 – Bartees Strange
Sept. 13 – Spoon
Sept. 15 – Tove Lo
Sept. 17 – Billy Idol
Sept. 21 – Bastille
Sept. 22 – Matt and Kim
Sept. 29 – Maggie Rogers
American singer/songwriter and Youtuber Poppy has returned to Sumerian Records and released the new single and music video “Church Outfit.”
Sumerian Records founder Ash Avildsen says he was thrilled to bring Poppy — known for representing “a future where high art and high fashion equal subversion of the highest order,” according to her bio — back to Sumerian after a brief stint at Lava Records, which released her EP Stagger last year.
“The only thing more exciting than signing an iconic artist for the first time is signing them again when they choose to return home,” Avildsen says. “Poppy is a pioneer and lover of music, film, pro-wrestling, the unorthodox and the avant-garde. That is why I believe Sumerian is still the best label in the world for her. We are thrilled to have her back.”
During her initial time as a Sumerian Records artist, Poppy released two albums — 2020’s I Disagree and 2021’s Flux — and the 2021 EP Eat (NXT Soundtrack). During that period, she also became the first-ever solo female artist to be nominated for best metal performance at the Grammys for her 2019 single “Bloodmoney.”
Beyond tallying 100 million-plus streams, according to a press release, Poppy has been featured on the covers of NME, Revolver, Upset, Kerrang! and Tush and performed at the 2021 Grammy Awards and the 2022 Glastonbury festival. She’s toured with The Smashing Pumpkins and Jane’s Addiction.
“It’s an artist’s responsibility to always change,” Poppy explained in a press release announcing her return to Sumerian. “I don’t think I’d want to be in my body if I was repeating the same thing over and over again. I’m only competing with myself. I will continue to write the story until I get tired of the book. Then, I’ll write another one.”