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It’s an uneasy time in the music industry. During a Jan. 31 call with analysts, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek emphasized the positive side of the streaming revolution — “there [are] a lot more artists that are mattering now than ever before” — while still acknowledging the anxiety that’s percolating through the business. “The big counter to that would be: Does it mean that you can sustain yourself, or does it mean we have more one-hit wonders?” Ek asked. “You’re seeing a little bit of both happening in the music industry at the present moment.”
Especially in an era when TikTok appears to run the music industry — trends on the app can send songs bounding up the charts, impacting signing decisions and marketing campaigns — it’s common to hear executives fretting about one-hit wonder overload and the lack of “artist development.” On any given day, a handful of songs flare on the app, soundtracking heaps of videos and leading to jumps in streaming. As a result, “more people are investing in songs that might not have the artist proposition attached to them,” one manager recently lamented to Billboard. “By default, if more of the people responsible for breaking acts are focused on songs, that’s how you have a landscape where there are a trillion one-hit wonders.”
Spotify returned to this theme during its recent Stream On event. Gustav Soderstrom, the platform’s co-president, took the stage to tout the power of features like Release Radar for driving streams and long-term engagement. “That’s why discoveries on Spotify, unlike many other platforms, give creators so much more than just a fleeting moment of viral fame,” he said. He didn’t name TikTok, but it was pretty clear who he was aiming at.
In a statement to Billboard, Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music, hit back against the idea that the popular app prioritizes brief eruptions over long and healthy careers. “In the few years that our music teams at TikTok have been working closely with the musical creator and label community, our commitment to backing artists across the board has helped propel emerging talent and legacy acts to new points of success,” Obermann said. “Artists who broke out from TikTok such as Ice Spice, Lil Nas X, and Coi Leray have sustained multiple Billboard hits. We also see artists such as Tai Verdes, jxdn and Sara Kays who have grown substantial fan bases on TikTok and are building their music careers broadly rather than based on an individual hit song.”
Many in the music industry believe one-hit wonders are newly abundant. But do they show up on the Billboard charts?
Defining a one-hit wonder as an artist that cracks the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and never makes it back to that position, the annual percentage of acts fitting this criterion remained relatively constant from 2002 to 2019, according to Billboard‘s analysis. On average, 54% of the acts who made it into the top 40 during this period failed to return with at least a second entry. Though the fraction got as high as 61% and sank as low as 39% during this time period, there was no pronounced increasing trend visible over time.
In 2020 — the most recent full year it seems fair to judge — the portion of artists who made it into the top 40 but didn’t land a second entry was higher: 70%. Of course, this number may fall in the coming years, because these artists haven’t had much time to score a second hit. Changing the definition of a one-hit wonder to match the available data for 2020 — redefining it as an artist that cracks the top 40 and doesn’t make it back in the next two years — causes the portion of one-hit wonders to jump by more than 7% each year, on average. This means it’s likely that 2020’s one-hit wonder count will end up more in line with previous years.
The opposite of a one-hit wonder is an act who enjoys a steady stream of popular singles. Say a “career artist” appears at least 10 times in the top 40 as a lead or featured collaborator: Around 10% of all acts who reached the top 40 once between 2002 and 2020 went on to achieve this goal. The frequency of career artists hasn’t changed much over the years either — roughly the same number emerged from the first half of the time period examined as from the second half.
There is one other noticeable trend in top 40 data: The number of new artists appearing on the upper reaches of the chart is gently declining over time. The fall is gradual, approximately one less new artist every two years. This mirrors a decline in new artists getting top 10 hits, but the trend is less pronounced in the top 40. That’s presumably because it’s easier to reach the top 40 than the top 10, and because there are fewer top 10s annually.
Taken together, this indicates that it is somewhat harder to get a top 40 hit than it was two decades ago, but once artists get that breakout hit, they have roughly the same odds of eventually building a catalog of big tracks. The first development is cause for concern. But the second should be reassuring — the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The laureates for the 2023 Polar Music Prize have been revealed. They are Chris Blackwell, who founded Island Records, one of the U.K.’s most successful independent labels; Angélique Kidjo, dubbed “Africa’s premier diva” by Time; and Arvo Pärt, who created the minimalist compositional style known as tintinnabuli, and is one of the most-performed classical composers in the world. All three will be honored in the presence of the Swedish Royal Family at a ceremony and banquet on May 23 at Stockholm’s Grand Hotel.
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The prestigious Polar Music Prize was created by Stig “Stikkan” Anderson, famed Swedish writer/producer/label owner/publisher and manager of ABBA, and first presented in 1992. This year’s laureates, who will all be in attendance, will each receive a cash prize of 600,00 Swedish kronor (approx. $58,000 U.S.).
Blackwell built an impressive roster of artists for Island, including Bob Marley, Cat Stevens, Roxy Music, Steve Winwood, Robert Palmer, Nick Drake, Melissa Etheridge, Tom Waits, Grace Jones, U2 and Marianne Faithfull. Kidjo relocated from her home country of Benin to Paris, where Blackwell heard her sing and signed her to Island. Her life of music and activism was praised by President Bill Clinton, who cited her “passionate call for freedom, dignity, and the rights of people.” Influenced by sacred music, including Gregorian chants, Pärt is known for his laconic, reduced compositions, with his style evolving from neo-classical in his early years to more avant-garde music.
Blackwell has a long history with Sweden, first traveling there in the late 1950s. In 1960, he met with Dag Haeggquist, a beloved figure in the Swedish music industry, who was running the independent Sonet label. “I really liked him,” Blackwell tells Billboard. “So when I was back in Jamaica, I did a record there and thought it sounded okay. I sent it to Dag to see if he might be interested in releasing it, and that’s what happened. It didn’t do well but I worked with Dag for many years after that.”
One of Blackwell’s most memorable times in Sweden was a visit on his 30th birthday in 1967, when he was in Gothenburg, on tour with Traffic. “A few people were smoking what they were not supposed to be smoking and everybody was shocked that I’d never smoked any weed before in my life. ‘You? Coming from Jamaica and you’ve never smoked any weed?’ And I said no. I never had – at that time.”
Kidjo also has many memories of Sweden, though one that stands out is laced with tragedy. “I was on tour and was supposed to play in Stockholm,” Kidjo recalls to Billboard. “The night before, I heard that a discotheque had burned down with all the kids in it.” (On Oct. 29, 1998, an arsonist burned down a discotheque in Gothenburg. There were 63 deaths and 213 people were injured). “I thought, ‘How are we going to do this concert?’ Everybody wanted to cancel, and I said, ‘No. Please, let’s do something. Let’s celebrate the spirit of those kids that are gone. Let’s help heal the wound.’ It was one of the most difficult things that you do as a performer, knowing that the youth [who died] were never going to be there anymore and thinking about the pain of the parents and the loss of the parents. I use music to be the art of healing, building bridges. Music has come to my rescue so many times that I ask myself sometimes, ‘If I was not a singer, how would I live in this world?’”
Kidjo is looking forward to seeing Blackwell for the first time since the pandemic began. “I couldn’t dream of a better person to share this with because he was the one who taught me what it is to be on a major label, to be humble, to keep grounded and focus on the music. The first 10 years of my career brought me to where I am today because Chris won’t lie to you. If it’s not good, Chris is going to tell you. When he would listen to my demos, he would call me right away and say, ‘I like this number and this number, but I didn’t like that.’ And he’s always right.”
The citation that will be read at the ceremony for Blackwell says, in part, “As a record producer and genuine music lover, Chris Blackwell has been one of the key figures in the development of popular music for half a century. When Island Records was founded in Jamaica in 1959, he began his mission to introduce the world to ska and reggae. In folk, rock and disco, he has invested in uncompromising artists and helped them become the best version of themselves. Never focusing on sales figures, but on the songs and albums as works of art, Chris Blackwell has expanded the world and abolished border controls between genres.”
Calling her “unique and unstoppable,” Kidjo’s citation reads, in part, “Angélique grew up in Cotonou, surrounded by the dynamic Beninese culture and listening to music from all over the world: soul, jazz, reggae, Afrobeat, pop, classical. When a communist dictatorship tried to silence her, she moved to Paris and became even more active. Angélique Kidjo invented the word batonga, a response to those who think girls don’t belong in schools, and runs the Batonga Foundation, which seeks out girls and provides them with education. Bono has said of her, ‘In Africa’s new morning, Angélique Kidjo is the warmth of the rising sun.’”
Pärt’s citation says he “has likened his music to white light. It is in the encounter with the prism of the listener’s soul that all colors become visible. Arvo Pärt has created the compositional style tintinnabuli, from the Latin word for ‘bell,’ in which the music moves according to a given structure. In 2006 and 2007, Arvo Pärt dedicated the performances of his works to the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and other dissidents in Russia. Arvo Pärt’s courageously beautiful music creates depth in every sense.”
Marie Ledin, managing director of the Polar Music Prize, tells Billboard, “It was so great to be back last year staging the Polar Music Prize after two years away due to COVID. And this year I feel that the committee has again risen to the challenge of choosing three laureates that are so well-deserving. It’s a great privilege for the Polar Music Prize to be able to put these three remarkable talents in the spotlight and hopefully introduce new audiences to their music. I’m looking forward to a wonderful evening of great music at the ceremony in Stockholm on May 23.”
Blackwell, Kidjo and Pärt join a long list of laureates that includes Elton John, Ravi Shankar, Metallica, Ennio Morricone, Led Zeppelin, Renée Fleming, Paul McCartney, Grandmaster Flash, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Isaac Stern, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Sonny Rollins, Diane Warren, Gilberto Gil, B.B. King, Emmylou Harris, Yo-Yo Ma, Miriam Makeba, Björk, Wayne Shorter, Patti Smith, Dizzy Gillespie, Iggy Pop, the Kronos Quartet, Youssou N’Dour and Chuck Berry.
Ticketmaster has rolled out crypto wallet integration for Avenged Sevenfold’s upcoming tour, allowing NFT holders from the heavy metal band’s fan club — Death Bats Club — to get priority access to tickets and reserved seating with no queues.
Fans have already used the feature to purchase tickets for events at New York’s Madison Square Garden and The Forum in Los Angeles ahead of the general public. Now the initiative will now go live for the rest of the dates available on Ticketmaster. “We have integrated Death Bats Club into Ticketmaster,” confirmed singer Matt Sanders on Twitter, “assuring that fans get the best tickets at the best prices without bots, scalpers and long wait-times.”
Shadows was instrumental in pushing the Ticketmaster integration forward, and has been an early advocate for NFTs and Web3. The band launched the Death Bats Club in 2021 — a collection of 10,000 NFTs with unique visual traits that unlock real-life perks such as care packages, meet-and-greet opportunities, and now early-access ticketing.
Ticketmaster has already issued more than 5 million NFTs as commemorative tokens for major events including the Super Bowl, but this is the first token-gated integration for purchasing tickets directly. Currently it is a pilot program but may roll out to more artists based on demand. “Avenged Sevenfold used the capability to offer first access to tickets, but there are a variety of ways it can be used by artists in the future,” said David Marcus, Ticketmaster’s executive vp of global music, in a statement. “From unlocking premier seats to special experiences like sitting in on soundcheck.”
Ticketmaster’s token-gated sales are currently compatible with tokens minted on Ethereum and stored in dapp wallets, such as MetaMask or Coinbase.
“Token-gated ticket sales are available as part of our expanding Web3 services and other features that help artists set their own terms on how tickets get to fans,” said Marcus. “Any artist who is minting their own NFTs or partnering with another independent community can explore with token-gated ticketing now.”
This marks the latest mainstream Web3 wallet integration after Spotify recently launched token-gated playlists as a pilot feature with several NFT projects including KINGSHIP and Overlord. Holders can connect their wallet and listen to exclusive playlists curated by their communities.
The Web3 fan club model — such as Death Bats Club — has emerged as a resilient use-case for blockchain technology even as the hype around NFT trading fades. Artists such as The Chainsmokers, Steve Aoki and Portugal. The Man have found token-gated communities as a way to engage more closely with their biggest fans and deliver exclusive perks and content.
For example, Chainsmokers host a Discord community open only to NFT holders where the duo regularly talk directly with their fans and offer meet-and-greet exclusives. Steve Aoki launched the “Aokiverse” NFT club with six different levels of ownership offering discounts and backstage access. Santigold, Tycho and Sigur Ros have all launched free Web3 fan clubs using a white label tech platform called Medallion where fans get first access to exclusive content.
Prophets Over Profits, a Brooklyn-based art collective that raises funds and awareness for marginalized voices, will hold its sixth annual charity event on Saturday (April 1) at immersive Brooklyn venue ArtsDistrict Brooklyn.
Inspired by the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C., the collective’s mission is to empower more femme-led experiences, inspire consistent activism and encourage financial transparency in fundraising. This year, Prophets over Profits is supporting Girls Write Now, an organization thatbreaks down barriers of gender, race, age and poverty to mentor and train the next generation of writers and leaders for life.
Themed “Ain’t Foolin’ Us,” this year’s event will feature bands and DJs including Lion Babe, Hot Honey Sundays, SUSU, Synead, Big Body Kweeng, Miss Sabado and Hannah Noelle performing at ArtsDistrictBrooklyn, formerly known as House of Vans. The sprawling venue will feature local vendors and music in the main hall, a skate yard next to the East River, and art for sale curated by local woman-owned gallery The Locker Room. Girls Write Now mentees will be sharing powerful poetry while local comedians Kate Robards and Glorelys Mora will be curating two comedy hours in the Gallery Space.
At the event, guests can taste delicious meals catered by Beck + Call with cocktails by Ilegal Mezcal, mocktails by Curious Elixirs and brewskis by Heineken Silver. Taxi cab app Curb is offering a $5 discount to guests.
Prophets Over Profits founder Dani “SLOWKEY” Slocki, an award-winning producer and founder of virtual space vSpace, each year chooses a new organization that aligns with the collective’s mission.
“I recently learned that less than 3% of authors in the US are women of color. If we want to change the #StatusBro we must change the narrative by directly investing in diverse narrators,” says Slocki. “That’s why we’re proud to raise funds and awareness for the Girls Write Now.”
“Most investors and funders are men, which is why the majority of funds invested or donated will continue to be into other male lead businesses and nonprofits unless we call out unconscious bias,” she adds. “I truly believe most people want to help but they would rather have a trusted voice guide them than do their own research. I’m here to be that trusted voice.”
For those who can’t attend, vSpace is debuting the ArtsDistrict virtual twin to host a re-broadcast of the show. No hardware or app download is required, allowing anyone, anywhere, on any device to attend. Visit popdonate.com to learn more.
Scenes from the 2022 Prophets Over Profits event.
Sasha B Photography
Scott Borchetta, founder/president/CEO of Big Machine Label Group, was involved in a car crash while racing at a Trans Am Series event at Road Atlanta on Sunday (March 26).
A statement from the label confirmed the crash and his condition but was scant on details: “Big Machine Label Group Chairman and CEO Scott Borchetta was involved in an accident yesterday, Sunday, March 26 while racing in the Trans Am Series. He was taken to the hospital to assess his injuries and is currently in stable condition. We ask everyone to please respect the Borchetta family’s privacy during this time.”
Borchetta had to be extracted from his car after the crash, which happened on lap 24. He was taken to an Atlanta hospital, according to racing website TobyChristie.com. According to the site, Borchetta, a racing enthusiast, has competed in 34 Trans Am Series events.
Borchetta owns Big Machine Racing, a NASCAR Xfinity team, which, according to its website, has seen multiple top 5 and top 10 finishes for its drivers since launching in 2021. The team logged its first win at the Texas Motor Speedway in 2022.
Big Machine was founded in 2005. Among its first successes was Taylor Swift‘s debut album, released in 2006. Its current roster includes Carly Pearce, Tim McGraw, Thomas Rhett, Chris Janson, Brantley Gilbert and Brett Young. Ithaca Holdings bought Big Machine in 2019 for around $300 million, while HYBE bought Ithaca Holdings for $1.05 billion in 2021. Borchetta has remained head of Big Machine through the transitions.
Generative AI is hot right now. Over the last several years, music artists and labels have opened up to the idea of AI as an exciting new tool. Yet when Dall-E 2, Midjourney and GPT-3 opened up to the public, the fear that AI would render artists obsolete came roaring back.
I am here from the world of generative AI with a message: We come in peace. And music and AI can work together to address one of society’s ongoing crises: mental wellness.
While AI can already create visual art and text that are quite convincing versions of their human-made originals, it’s not quite there for music. AI music might be fine for soundtracking UGC videos and ads. But clearly we can do much better with AI and music.
There’s one music category where AI can help solve actual problems and open new revenue streams for everyone, from music labels, to artists, to DSPs. It’s the functional sound market. Largely overlooked and very lucrative, the functional sound market has been steadily growing over the past 10 years, as a societal need for music to heal increases across the globe.
Sound is powerful. It’s the easiest way to control your environment. Sound can change your mood, trigger a memory, or lull you to sleep. It can make you buy more or make you run in terror (think about the music played in stores intentionally to facilitate purchasing behavior or the sound of alarms and sirens). Every day, hundreds of millions of people are self-medicating with sound. If you look at the top 10 most popular playlists at any major streaming service, you’ll see at least 3-4 “functional” playlists: meditation, studying, reading, relaxation, focus, sleep, and so on.
This is the market UMG chief Sir Lucian Grainge singled out in his annual staff memo earlier this year. He’s not wrong: DSPs are swarmed with playlists consisting of dishwasher sounds and white noise, which divert revenue and attention from music artists. Functional sound is a vast ocean of content with no clear leader or even a clear product.
The nuance here is that the way people consume functional sound is fundamentally different from the way they consume traditional music. When someone tunes into a sleep playlist, they care first and foremost if it works. They want it to help them fall asleep, as fast as possible. It’s counterintuitive to listen to your favorite artist when you’re trying to go to sleep (or focus, study, read, meditate). Most artist-driven music is not scientifically engineered to put you into a desired cognitive state. It’s designed to hold your attention or express some emotion or truth the artist holds dear. That’s why ambient music — which, as Brian Eno put it, is as ignorable as it is interesting — had its renaissance moment a few years ago, arguably propelled by the mental health crisis.
How can AI help music artists and labels win back market share from white noise and dishwasher sounds playlists? Imagine that your favorite music exists in two forms: the songs and albums that you know and love, and a functional soundscape version that you can sleep, focus, or relax to. The soundscape version is produced by feeding the source stems from the album or song into a neuroscience-informed Generative AI engine. The stems are processed, multiplied, spliced together and overlaid with FX, birthing a functional soundscape built from the DNA of your favorite music. This is when consumers finally have a choice: fall asleep or study/read/focus to a no-name white-noise playlist, or do it with a scientifically engineered functional soundscape version of their favorite music.
This is how Generative AI can create new revenue streams for all agents of the music industry, today: music labels win a piece of the the market with differentiated functional content built from their catalog; artists expand their music universe, connect with their audience in new and meaningful ways, and extend the shelf life to their material; DSPs get ample, quality-controlled content that increases engagement. Once listeners find sounds that achieve their goals, they often stick with them. For example, Wind Down, James Blake’s sleep soundscape album, shows a 50% listener retention in its seventh month after release. This shows that, when done right, functional sound has an incredibly long shelf life.
This win-win-win future is already here. By combining art, generative AI technology and science, plus business structures that enable such deals, we can transform amazing artist-driven sounds into healing soundscapes that listeners crave. In an age that yearns for calm, clarity, and better mental health, we can utilize AI to create new music formats that rights holders can embrace and listeners can appreciate. It promises AI-powered music that not only sounds good, but improves people’s lives, and supports artists. This is how you ride the functional music wave and create something listeners will find real value in and keep coming back to. Do not be afraid. Work with us. Embrace the future.
Oleg Stavitsky is co-founder and CEO of Endel, a sound wellness company that utilizes generative AI and science-backed research.
The largest publicly traded music companies gained this week as investors digested the impacts of another increase in the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate.
Billboard‘s Global Music Index rose 2.1% this week to 1,213.30 despite 11 of its 20 stocks being in negative territory. Shares of Universal Music Group, the most valuable component of the 20-stock Index, rose 6.7% to 22.82 euros ($24.58). K-pop company HYBE rose 4.5% to 187,500 won ($144.70), Warner Music Group improved 4.3% to $31.50, SiriusXM rose 3.6% to $3.77 and Spotify was up 1% to $128.30.
The Index’s greatest gainer was streaming company LiveOne, which climbed 13.1% to $1.12. On Tuesday, LiveOne said it is extending the record date for the previously announced spinoff of its PodcastOne subsidiary to April 7. “We expect the special dividend and trading of PodcastOne to begin in April,” said Robert Ellin, LiveOne CEO and chairman. The company also announced it gained 136,000 paid subscribers since Jan. 1, to more than 2 million monthly paying members, and plans to reach 2.75 million subscribers by the end of the year.
Broadcast radio company Audacy, a relatively small component of the Index, had the week’s biggest decline of 21.4%. On March 16, a B. Riley analyst cut the price target for Audacy shares from 50 cents to 10 cents. The stock closed at 11 cents per share on Friday and is down 52% year to date.
The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank raised its benchmark interest rate a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday — from 4.75% to 5% — and suggested additional hikes may not be needed “to return inflation to 2% over time,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement. That decision sent markets into negative territory on Wednesday: both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq composite fell 1.6% while the S&P 500 dropped 1.7%. But stocks rallied on Thursday and Friday. The Dow finished the week up 1.2% while the Nasdaq composite and S&P 500 rose 1.7% and 1.4%, respectively.
50 Cent has reached a settlement to end a lawsuit in which he accused a Miami medical spa of falsely suggesting that he’d had penis surgery, according to court documents filed Friday (March 24).
The rapper claims that Angela Kogan and her Perfection Plastic Surgery & MedSpa exploited an innocent photo he’d “graciously agreed” to take with her to imply that he was a client — and, more startlingly, that he had received penile enhancement surgery as part of his work.
But in a joint filing made Friday in Miami federal court, attorneys for both 50 Cent (real name Curtis Jackson) and Kogan said they had “reached an agreement in principle to settle Mr. Jackson’s claims” and were “in the process of preparing an agreement to finalize and memorialize” the deal.
An attorney for 50 Cent did not immediately return a request for comment. A lawyer for Kogan declined to comment.
50 Cent sued Kogan in September, arguing that he took a photo with “someone he thought was a fan” and had “never consented” to the use of the image for commercial purposes in any form. He says Kogan not only posted the image to Instagram herself but also engineered an article on the website The Shade Room that used the post to make the “false insinuation” that she’d provided him with penile enhancement.
The article in question (“Penis Enhancements Are More Popular Than Ever & BBLs Are Dying Out: Cosmetic Surgery CEO Angela Kogan Speaks On It”) did not directly claim that Jackson had the surgery. But it allegedly said he was a “client” of the practice while repeatedly using the image of him with Kogan, leading Jackson’s lawyers to say the “implication was clear.”
“Defendants’ actions have exposed Jackson to ridicule, caused substantial damage to his professional and personal reputation, and violated his right to control his name and image,” the star’s lawyers wrote at the time. They included social media comments in which users mocked the rapper, including one that “crudely” said the rapper should be called “50 inch.”
Kogan strongly denied the allegations and immediately moved to dismiss the case, saying 50 Cent actually was a client and had consented to the use of the image as payment for the work he received. She argued it was just an “innocuous” use of the photo, not a direct suggestion that he’d endorsed the office.
But in December, Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. denied Kogan’s request to toss out the case, saying that 50 Cent might eventually be able to prove his allegations at trial.
“As the proverbial saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words,” Scola wrote. “This one in particular depicts a worldwide celebrity next to Kogan with MedSpa’s name repeated all throughout the background. The promotional value is evident.”
As the U.S. government considers banning social media app TikTok, the U.S. music industry faces a few scenarios regarding the platform that’s become a lifeline for discovering and breaking artists — and most aren’t good.
The grilling of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday (March 23) had all the political theater expected from a Congressional hearing. It also had one important characteristic unusual for the United States in 2023: bi-partisan agreement. Despite Chew’s insistence that U.S. TikTok users’ data cannot be accessed from China, home of parent company Bytedance, neither Democrats nor Republicans seem intent on allowing TikTok to operate within their borders.
The showdown seemed inevitable given TikTok’s foreign entanglements and the app’s quick ascendence. The app accounted for 17% of total time spent on mobile apps globally in 2022, according to Data.ai — second behind WeChat’s 19.5% and well ahead of No. 3 YouTube’s 12.7%. Chew told lawmakers that TikTok has 150 million users in the U.S. That’s 50% more than the 100 million figure TikTok previously made public (and eMarketer’s latest estimate of 95.8 million at the end of 2022). Among U.S. Gen Z consumers aged 18 to 24, TikTok ranks No. 2 behind Instagram in monthly average users, according to Data.ai.
But the app’s fate in the United States “is on shakier ground than ever,” according to eMarketer principal analyst Jasmine Enberg. “TikTok’s decision to highlight how entrenched the app has become in US society was miscalculated,” Enberg said in a statement. “It actually strengthened U.S. lawmakers’ argument that TikTok poses a threat to both national security and young people.”
Brendan Carr, a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission, agrees. The vocal TikTok critic told CBS News “the day could not have gone any worse for TikTok” and that Chew “completely failed” to gain “some level” of trust and credibility with members of Congress.
While a TikTok ban appears popular amongst politicians, not everybody is supportive. The Cato Institute’s Paul Matzo called a ban “a hamfisted mistake” born from “neo-Cold War paranoia.” It wouldn’t necessarily make America safer, he argued, and would amount to a bail-out for Meta, whose TikTok competitor, Instagram, has failed to win on a level playing field. The Brookings Institute’s Darrell M. West and Michaela Robison argue that a ban would open up U.S. companies in China — such as automaker Tesla — to similar scrutiny.
If a ban could withstand a legal challenge — former President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban TikTok and Chinese messaging app WeChat both failed — TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, would be forced to sell the company. President Joe Biden’s administration has encouraged Bytedance to sell TikTok. But it wouldn’t be a straightforward process. China would “strongly oppose” a forced sale, a Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said Thursday, and TikTok is subject to Chinese law on tech exports and would require government approval.
A prompt sale of TikTok, which is reportedly valued at $60 billion, would be the best outcome for the music industry in search of new sources of streaming revenue. TikTok’s revenue rocketed from $4 billion in 2021 to $10 billion in 2022, according to reports. Research firm Omdia projects that TikTok’s ad revenue will climb to $44 billion by 2027 — presumably assuming there are no geopolitical interferences — and surpass the combined video ad revenues of Meta and YouTube. Although TikTok is not a major source of revenue for labels and publishers, rights holders expect to eventually have licensing agreements that give them a share of advertising revenue for user-generated content (like their deal with YouTube).
The current hodgepodge of bans also hurts both TikTok and the music industry. In the United States, TikTok has already been banned by some federal agencies, state and local governments and universities. Elsewhere, TikTok has been banned from the official phones of staff of the European Commission, U.K. parliament, Canadian government, Belgian government, Danish Defense Ministry and Latvian Foreign Ministry, to name a few. Fewer TikTok apps installed on fewer smartphones is twice the punishment for an app that depends on user-generated content. Lower usage means fewer people creating and viewing videos.
Perhaps the biggest question is what would happen to TikTok under new ownership. If, say, Oracle owned a stake in TikTok, as was proposed during the Trump administration, would the app continue to have the same magical recommendation algorithm that has made TikTok so irresistible and its competitors unable to keep up? New ownership would eliminate restraints on TikTok’s revenue and user growth, but if the product suffers, the music industry would be handed a less effective promotional tool and a less valuable source of revenue. The only certainty in this TikTok controversy is that such unintended consequences are guaranteed.
A Manhattan federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Donald Glover of ripping off his chart-topping Childish Gambino hit “This Is America” from an earlier song, ruling that the two tracks are “entirely different.”
A rapper named Kidd Wes (real name Emelike Nwosuocha) sued in 2021, claiming Glover’s 2018 song was “practically identical” to his own 2016 called “Made In America.” But in a decision issued Friday (March 24), U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said they were anything but.
“A cursory comparison with the challenged composition reveals that the content of the choruses is entirely different and not substantially similar,” the judge wrote.
In reaching that conclusion, Judge Marrero briefly explained how Nwosuocha’s lyrics were a “short, simple, self-aggrandizing proclamation,” while Glover’s song was about “what America means and how it is perceived.”
“More could be said on the ways these songs differ, but no more airtime is needed to resolve this case,” the judge wrote.
Released in 2018, “This Is America” spent two weeks atop the Hot 100 and eventually won record of the year and song of the year at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. It was accompanied by a critically acclaimed music video, directed by Hiro Murai, that touched on issues of race, mass shootings and police violence.
Nwosuocha sued in May 2021, claiming there were “unmissable” similarities between the song and his own “Made In America,” including the “flow” — the cadence, rhyming schemes, rhythm and other characteristics of hip hop lyrics.
“The distinctive flow employed in defendant Glover’s recorded performance of the infringing work’s chorus … is unmistakably substantially similar, if not practically identical, to the distinct and unique flow that was employed by Nwosuocha,” his lawyers wrote at the time.
But in Friday’s decision, Judge Marrero said the “flow” and other similar characteristics “lack sufficient originality” to be protected by copyrights. And “no reasonable jury” could find that the lyrics themselves were similar enough to constitute copyright infringement, the judge said.
The judge also ruled that the case failed for an even simpler reason: That Nwosuocha had failed to secure a federal copyright registration for the underlying composition to his song. “Accordingly, dismissal of Nwosuocha’s complaint is warranted.”
In a statement to Billboard, Nwosuocha’s attorneys Imran H. Ansari and La’Shawn N. Thomas said their client was “understandably disappointed” and considering appealing the ruling. “He stands by his music, creativity, and the independence of grassroots artists to create their own music, and receive credit where credit is due, without the fear of it being apportioned by another.”
An attorney for Glover did not immediately return a request for comment on the decision.