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The estate of legendary rapper Notorious B.I.G. is suing Target, Home Depot and others over allegations that they sold unauthorized canvas prints of the famed “King of New York” photo that was snapped just days before his death.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, Notorious BIG LLC claims the retailers sold prints illegally created by iCanvas – a small firm that the estate says showed a “complete disregard for celebrities’ personality rights, lack of respect for artists’ efforts, and disdain for intellectual property law.”
“Defendants specifically chose to use Mr. Wallace’s persona, name, image, likeness … in an attempt to capitalize on their fame and extraordinary financial value,” Biggie’s estate writes, referring to his legal name, Christopher George Latore Wallace.
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The image at issue in the new lawsuit is “The King Of New York” – a portrait of Biggie wearing a gold crown in front of a red backdrop, snapped in March 1997 only three days before the rapper was killed in a Los Angeles shooting.
The photos — taken by photographer Barron Claiborne, who is also named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit — are some of the most well-known images of the late rapper. One is featured in a huge mural in his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and the plastic crown featured in the image sold at auction in 2020 for a whopping $594,750.
In their Tuesday lawsuit, the estate and Claiborne say that iCanvas sold canvas prints of the images for more than eight years without permission. In addition to selling them directly, the lawsuit claims the prints were also sold by Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, Nordstrom and Target – each of which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
When contacted about the problem in 2023, Home Depot, Nordstrom and Target removed the offending products, the lawsuit says, but iCanvas and Bed Bath & Beyond allegedly continue to sell them.
The case claims that the sale of the images not only infringed Claiborne’s copyrights to the King images, but also breached federal trademark law and violated the rapper’s likeness rights.
“Mr. Wallace’s fan base has continued to expand since his passing,” the estate’s lawyers write. “Mr. Wallace’s persona, name, image, likeness, and artistic works are so well known that they are almost universally and instantly recognizable, even by those born after he died.”
The case could portend bigger problems for iCanvas. The lawyers for Biggie’s estate say they’re only a few of the “victims” of a “multi-year unlawful campaign” by the company to sell unauthorized prints of famous people and images, including musicians Beyonce, Prince, Jay-Z, Snoop Dog and LL Cool J.
None of the defendants immediately returned requests for comment on Wednesday.
It’s not the first time the Notorious B.I.G. estate has sued over photographs. In 2019, the estate sued hip-hop photographer Chi Modu over his famed 1996 image of Biggie standing in front of the World Trade Center. Though Modu owns the copyrights to the image, the estate claimed he was violating the rapper’s likeness rights by using it on merchandise.
That case settled last year on undisclosed terms – a deal that came with a warning from the estate’s attorneys about the use of his image: “Pictures of Christopher cannot be commercially exploited without a license from our client.”
The sprawling 32-acre Gateway Studios & Production Services rehearsal and production studio complex has announced plans for a May 2025 opening. Studio executives for the Chesterfield, Mo., facility — located about 20 minutes west of St. Louis — are now accepting reservations for the state-of-the-art facility, designed to build and rehearse major modern touring arena and stadium shows.
“This facility is designed to set a new standard for production and rehearsal spaces, both in size and innovation,” said Trey Kerr, CEO of Gateway Studios & Production Services, in a statement. “Our goal has always been to create a world-class environment where artists and their teams can prepare to bring their visions to life. Centrally located in the heart of the country, we offer unmatched access and flexibility for artists that strive to deliver unforgettable performances.”
The Gateway complex is comprised of three major rehearsal spaces: Studio 80, a 52,500 square foot rehearsal space; Studio 75, a smaller 15,000 square foot rehearsal space; and Studio 65, a 12,000 square foot space. It also includes an additional 15,700 square feet of open space.
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The spaces are designed to meet the “rigorous demands of live music tours, motion picture and television production, and corporate events,” a press release announcing the opening reads. It describes Gateway Studios as “the largest and most advanced tour rehearsal destination in the United States.”
To accommodate the needs of most modern touring shows, Gateway studio spaces were built for large, heavy shows. Studio 80 includes an 80-foot ceiling grid with a 2 million pound (or approximately 1,000 ton) weight capacity. All three studios include large receiving and staging areas with dedicated loading docks, drive-in ramps and dressing rooms with ensuite private bathrooms, offices and a catering lounge. Gateway is also equipped with redundant high-speed fiber-optic internet access from two independent service providers and a 5.5-megawatt independent backup generator system.
“We’ve designed this new facility with a clear purpose: to provide an exceptional space where creativity and technical innovation can thrive,” said Kerr. “Our aim is to offer artists a dynamic environment that seamlessly supports their production needs, from rehearsal to execution. In addition, we offer comprehensive production services to ensure every aspect of the creative process is expertly handled. Situated in a central location, we offer both unparalleled convenience and the flexibility required for artists to push the boundaries of their craft and deliver extraordinary performances.”
You can learn more at gsps.com/studios.
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: Experts weigh whether Kendrick Lamar can play “Not Like Us” during his Super Bowl halftime show amid Drake’s defamation lawsuit; Spotify wins a ruling dismissing a lawsuit over streaming royalties; federal prosecutors file a superseding indictment against Sean “Diddy” Combs; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Can Kendrick Play ‘Not Like Us’ At The Super Bowl?
Under normal circumstances, it’s silly to even ask the question. Obviously a Super Bowl halftime performer will play their chart-topping banger — a track that just swept record and song of the year at the Grammys and was arguably music’s most significant song of the past year.
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But these are very much not normal circumstances. Last month, Drake sued Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar‘s “Not Like Us,” claiming the label spread the song’s “malicious narrative” — namely, that Drake is a pedophile — despite knowing it was false.
That pending legal action makes it fair to wonder: When Lamar steps onto the world’s biggest stage on Sunday night, will he face pressure to avoid the whole mess by just skipping “Not Like Us” entirely?
To answer that question, I turned to top legal experts – who told me that Drake probably won’t win in court, but that corporate legal departments are also famously risk averse and might want to avoid trouble. For the full breakdown of how Sunday might go, read my entire story here.
Other top stories this week…
SPOTIFY BEATS ‘BUNDLE’ CASE – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against Spotify by the Mechanical Licensing Collective, rejecting the group’s allegations that the streamer illegally slashed its music royalty rates. The lawsuit, filed last year, accused Spotify of bookmaking trickery – namely, claiming that the addition of audiobooks to the platform entitled the company to pay a lower “bundled” rate for music. But in her ruling, the judge said Spotify had done nothing wrong under “unambiguous” regulations – and that if anything, the company had paid too much in royalties.
A.I. COPYRIGHT REPORT – The U.S. Copyright Office issued a long-awaited report on artificial intelligence. The report’s overall message was hardly groundbreaking: only human authors are eligible for copyrights, but material created with the assistance of AI can qualify on a case-by-case basis. But it included key assurances for existing music industry practices — saying using AI as a “brainstorming tool” to help write a song, or using it to assist in a recording studio session, would not automatically void copyright protection for the resulting songs.
TERMINATION GOES GLOBAL? A Louisiana federal judge issued an unusual legal decision on copyright termination, breaking with existing precedents and handing a major win to songwriters and their heirs. Ruling on a dispute over the 1963 rock classic “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” the judge said that termination rules apply not just to American copyrights but also to the rights to a song around the world – an outcome that legal experts have said would represent a “major upheaval” and could “radically revolutionize the way the music business runs.” The losing party in the case, who has warned the decision will cause “chaos,” is almost certain to appeal the ruling.
LYFT DISCRIMINATION CASE – A Detroit rapper named Dank Demoss (Dajua Blanding) filed a discrimination lawsuit against Lyft over allegations that one of the company’s drivers told her she was “too big” for the backseat of his car and that “his tires were not capable of supporting plaintiff’s weight.” In a viral video of the January incident, the driver can be heard telling Blanding that he’s “been in this situation before,” and that she needs to order a pricier “Uber XL” to accommodate her size.
UPDATED DIDDY INDICTMENT – New York federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment against Sean “Diddy” Combs, adding additional victims and new allegations in the sprawling criminal case against him. Among the new claims: that he or his associates paid a $100,000 bribe to hotel staff to bury the now-infamous surveillance video of him assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016. Another civil lawsuit was also filed against Combs, the latest in a long list of such cases filed by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with a pair of new sexual assault lawsuits that allege he drugged and sexually assaulted the plaintiffs and/or forced them to engage in sex acts with others during a “group-sex” party at Trump Hotel in midtown Manhattan.
Filed in New York state court on Tuesday (Feb. 4), the lawsuits — the latest to be lodged by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee against the disgraced hip-hop mogul — were filed by Jane Doe plaintiffs who say they were involved in the New York hip-hop scene in the ’80s and ’90s.
The first complaint was filed by a woman who says she was “an active member of New York’s hip-hop industry from the 1980s onward” and “appeared in numerous music videos for varying hip hop artists, was employed as a hip hop dancer for live productions, as well as having roles in major motion pictures.” According to the complaint, she was subject to “sexual assault, coercion, abuse and violence either at the hands of, or direction of Combs” on numerous occasions.
In the first alleged incident, the woman claims she was drugged and “forced to participate in group sexual activity” with Combs and others while attending (and being prevented from leaving) a so-called “shadow party” held at a New York bar sometime in the 1990s.
Later in the decade, while allegedly dating Combs’ security guard, the woman says she attended another of Combs’ parties at the five-story New York nightclub Limelight, where she says “group-sex parties” were occurring on the top two floors. After the party, she claims Combs and the security guard took her and a friend to a penthouse at a Trump hotel in midtown Manhattan, where she says she was “physically and sexually assaulted” by the guard as Combs watched. Later that evening, she claims she and her friend were forced to take “ecstasy or [a] similar ‘party’ drug” and “engage in a group sex activity that [they] did not want to participate in.”
This alleged incident is echoed in the second lawsuit filed on Tuesday by a woman who claims she was “a part of the hip-hop scene that was developing in New York City” in the ’80s and ’90s and “appeared in numerous music videos for various hip-hop artists and participated in other projects within the industry.”
After attending a party also allegedly held at the Limelight — which reads like the same event described by the first plaintiff — the woman claims she and a friend were taken to the Trump Hotel in midtown Manhattan against their will, drugged “and forced to participate in group-sex activity during which she [was] sexually assaulted over the next several hours. For instance, Plaintiff was vaginally raped by a club promoter at Combs’ direction, while Combs observed.”
The woman also outlines a second incident she says occurred after she was hired to serve as a “bottle-service attendant” at a party Combs hosted in the Hamptons in 1997. Shortly after arriving at the event, the woman says she and others hired for the event were encouraged by Combs to drink from coolers and offered marijuana, after which she “began to feel woozy, slipping in and out of consciousness.” At this point, she says she was “sexually assaulted and vaginally raped by Combs’ associates, at Combs’ direction, while Combs was present.” After suspecting the assault was videotaped, she says she reached out to Combs “to request that he delete the video, but Combs refused to comply.”
The woman further alleges she “suffered several incidences of sexual assault at Combs’ hands while traveling to other states, including California,” though only the New York incidents are included in the complaint.
Both women are asking for compensatory and punitive damages from Combs and his various Combs Global businesses, which are named as co-defendants for “enabl[ing]” the alleged abuse.
A representative for Combs and Combs Global did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
Combs is currently awaiting the start of his criminal trial, which is set to commence on May 5, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He is charged with running a criminal enterprise aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” Among other accusations, Combs is alleged to have held so-called “freak offs” during which he and others drugged victims and coerced them into having sex. He is also accused of acts of violence and intimidation to silence his alleged victims. Combs faces a potential life prison sentence if convicted on all charges.
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take action to prevent radio stations from offering airplay to artists in exchange for performing free shows.
In a letter sent to FCC chairman Brendan Carr on Thursday (Jan. 30), Blackburn decried the alleged practice she says is “critically impacting Tennessee’s content creators,” branding it as “payola” — the practice of accepting payment in exchange for radio airplay without disclosing it.
“As you know, the FCC considers payola a violation of the Sponsorship Identification Rules,” Blackburn wrote. “From what we have learned, it appears that to sidestep these restrictions, radio stations and networks have adopted a troubling new tactic. Instead of demanding cash or lavish perks from record labels in exchange for airplay, they now pressure artists to perform ‘free radio shows’ — also referred to as ‘listener appreciation shows’ or ‘charitable concert events.’”
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She adds that radio stations “often receive the financial benefit of these shows through ticket sales, sponsorships, and other income while the artists and record labels frequently absorb the expense.”
Blackburn claims she has heard from artists in the industry who say “it is not unusual for them to perform anywhere from 10 to 50 such shows in any given year.” She adds that artists early in their careers tend to perform more but that “those that have had more success” are still often expected to perform free shows in exchange for airtime.
“This practice is exploitative and should not be tolerated,” the letter continues. “Federal law and FCC rules prohibit radio stations from receiving undisclosed compensation for broadcasting songs, and this principle must extend to free performances for radio stations and networks. Artists should not be extorted into providing free labor in exchange for airplay. I urge you to take swift action to end this abuse and protect our music community.”
A longstanding issue in the music industry, payola was first regulated by Congress in 1960 and later became the subject of a mid-2000s investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office that led to all three major labels paying millions in penalties and agreeing to reforms, including a vow not to use “commercial transactions…in an explicit or implicit exchange, agreement, or understanding to obtain airplay or increase airplay,” among other concessions.
Despite this, there has been ongoing concern in the industry and beyond about the continued effectiveness of these regulations. In 2019, then-FCC commissioner Michael O’Rielly asked the Recording Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to investigate allegations of payola. In 2022, several music executives met with the New York Attorney General’s office to complain that some independent promoters hired by labels had continued engaging in the practice.
According to Blackburn, whose state’s capital city of Nashville is the heart of the country music business, the alleged free concerts are simply payola in another form, writing that there’s “often an implicit suggestion that declining to perform could result in reduced airplay” — what she characterizes as “forced quid pro quo.”
You can read Blackburn’s letter in full below.
The Honorable Brendan Carr
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
45 L Street, NE
Washington, DC 20554
Dear Chairman Carr, Thank you for your leadership at the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”). I am writing to bring attention to an issue critically impacting Tennessee’s content creators, particularly its songwriters and music community.
Federal law prohibits radio stations from accepting payment for airtime without disclosing the transaction—a practice commonly known as “payola.”1 As you know, the FCC considers payola a violation of the Sponsorship Identification Rules. 2
From what we have learned, it appears that to sidestep these restrictions, radio stations and networks have adopted a troubling new tactic. Instead of demanding cash or lavish perks from record labels in exchange for airplay, they now pressure artists to perform “free radio shows”— also referred to as “listener appreciation shows” or “charitable concert events.”
We have heard the new scheme works in this manner: radio stations and networks offer more airtime for an artist’s songs if the artist performs a free show. There is often an implicit suggestion that declining to perform could result in reduced airplay. Radio stations and networks often receive the financial benefit of these shows through ticket sales, sponsorships, and other income while the artists and record labels frequently absorb the expense.
This forced quid pro quo applies to essentially all artists, regardless of their level of success. Artists in the industry have told me that it is not unusual for them to perform anywhere from 10 to 50 such shows in any given year. Those just starting out in their career will often perform more, while those that have had more success will have to perform fewer, but they will still be expected to do them.
This practice is exploitative and should not be tolerated. Federal law and FCC rules prohibit radio stations from receiving undisclosed compensation for broadcasting songs, and this principle must extend to free performances for radio stations and networks. Artists should not be extorted into providing free labor in exchange for airplay.
I urge you to take swift action to end this abuse and protect our music community. Thank you for your attention to this pressing matter.
Sincerely,
Marsha Blackburn
United States Senator
Will Drake’s pending defamation lawsuit stop Kendrick Lamar from performing “Not Like Us” during his Super Bowl halftime performance? Legal experts say it might — but that it really shouldn’t.
Under normal circumstances, it’s silly to even ask the question. Obviously a Super Bowl halftime performer will play their chart-topping banger — a track that just swept record and song of the year at the Grammys and was arguably music’s most significant song of the past year.
But these are very much not normal circumstances. Last month, Drake filed a lawsuit over “Not Like Us,” accusing Universal Music Group of defaming him by boosting the scathing diss track. The case, which doesn’t name Lamar as a defendant, claims UMG spread the song’s “malicious narrative” — namely, that Drake is a pedophile — despite knowing it was false.
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That pending legal action makes it fair to wonder: When Lamar steps onto the world’s biggest stage on Sunday night (Feb. 9), will he face pressure to avoid the whole mess by just skipping “Not Like Us” entirely?
He shouldn’t, legal experts say, and for a pretty simple reason: Drake’s lawsuit against UMG is a legal loser. “I don’t think the case is strong at all,” says Samantha Barbas, a legal historian and an expert in defamation law at the University of Iowa’s College of Law.
For Drake to eventually win the case over “Not Like Us,” he’ll need to show that Lamar’s claims about him are provably false assertions — meaning the average person would hear them and assume Kendrick was stating actual facts. Barbas says that’ll be tough for Drake to do about a diss track, where fans expect bombast and “rhetorical hyperbole” more so than objective reality.
“In the context of a rap battle, the average listener is going to know that the allegations aren’t to be taken seriously,” she says. “Taunts and wild exaggerations are par for the course.”
Another challenge for Drake is that he’s a public figure. Under key First Amendment rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, a public figure like Drake must show that UMG either knew the lyrics were false or that the company acted with reckless disregard for the truth — a legal standard that’s intentionally difficult to meet so that rich and famous people don’t abuse libel lawsuits to squelch free speech.
“A high-profile public figure like Drake immediately enters the case with a high burden of proof,” says Roy Gutterman, the director of the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University.
UMG’s attorneys will also likely point to the fact that Drake himself made harmful allegations against Kendrick earlier in the same exchange of diss tracks, including that Lamar had abused his fiancée and that one of his children was fathered by another man. Were those defamatory statements of fact, or merely the exercise of artistic license within the conventions of a specific genre of music?
“Factoring in the context here — music and art within an ongoing dispute between rival musicians — he has an even tougher case,” Gutterman says.
So if Drake’s case is likely to eventually be dismissed, then there’s no reason for Kendrick to hold back on Sunday, right?
Not exactly.
For starters, Federal Communications Commission rules prohibit the airing of “obscene, indecent, or profane content” on broadcast television during primetime hours. To avoid those rules, Super Bowl halftime performers typically avoid curse words or overtly sexual material — something that would probably already preclude the “pedophile” line and other lyrics in “Not Like Us.”
Corporate legal departments are also famously risk averse, and often prefer to play it safe rather than potentially face expensive litigation, even if they’d ultimately win. That could lead any of the big companies involved here to put pressure on Kendrick to skip “Not Like Us.” His label, UMG, has vowed to fight back against Drake’s “frivolous” lawsuit, but might not want to add complications mid-litigation; the game’s broadcaster, Fox, or the NFL itself might worry about getting added to the suit as defendants.
Gutterman said it would be “a significant stretch of liability law” for Drake to successfully sue Fox or the NFL simply because Kendrick played “Not Like Us” at the halftime show. But in practice, that might not be how their in-house attorneys are thinking about it.
“The threat of litigation can have a chilling effect on speech,” Barbas says. “The safe thing to do is not to publish or broadcast.”
Reps for Lamar did not return a request for comment on whether he’ll perform the song. The British tabloid newspaper The Sun, citing anonymous sources, reported last week that Kendrick has faced pressure to skip the track but plans to perform it anyway and “won’t be silenced.” But that report could not be confirmed by Billboard and was not widely re-reported by other outlets.
Asked whether they have a position on whether Lamar plays the song, reps for UMG, Fox, the NFL and Roc Nation (Jay-Z’s company that produces the halftime show) all either declined to comment or did not return requests for comment.
When the show kicks off on Sunday night, the most likely outcome is probably somewhere down the middle: That Kendrick plays the song’s already-iconic instrumental hook and perhaps some of the lyrics, but skips any of the portions that are directly at play in Drake’s lawsuit.
“It wouldn’t be surprising,” Barbas says, “if the challenged lyrics are changed.”
The Music Business Association has announced the agenda for Music Biz 2025, set for May 12-15 at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly. This marks the first time the conference will be held in Atlanta, as part of a new rotating host city model, following a decade in Nashville.
The change, announced last March, is inspired by the Music Biz Roadshow series, which has connected industry professionals with local artist communities like Memphis and Chattanooga since 2022.
New events include a First Timers’ Meetup on May 12, allowing newcomers to connect with Music Biz staff and board members, followed by first day-capping party sponsored by Spotify. The State of the Industry breakfast on May 13 will explore global consumption trends and industry outlooks. Multi-panel discussions like Humans of Music and Workflow Workshop will focus on workforce and operational improvements.
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The Music Biz Roadshow returns on May 12, with support from The Mechanical Licensing Collective and Made In Memphis Entertainment, to help artists and their teams optimize revenue streams. Tech-focused pros can attend events such as the Startup Lab on May 12, Startup Round Robin on May 13, and the Music Tech Hackathon on May 15. Additional summits include Let’s Talk Physical, Music Security Summit, Publishing Summit, Music & Money and the Indie Label Summit.
The fourth annual Bizzy Awards dinner, sponsored by Warner Music, will be held on May 14, honoring late Twitch executive Cindy Charles, who died in a tragic traffic accident in October, with the 2025 Presidential Award, and Digital Data Exchange with the 2025 Impact Award. Finalists will be announced in February, with winners recognized at the event.
Music Biz president Portia Sabin expressed excitement for this year’s expanded agenda, highlighting the industry’s strong hand in shaping the program.
“The task of building a comprehensive, four-day program for our Annual Conference becomes harder and harder every year thanks to the innovative and compelling panel ideas contributed by our ever-growing global community — it’s a good problem to have!” said Sabin. “We’re proud of how the agenda for Music Biz 2025 came together, and we can’t wait to welcome both new & returning faces to our event in this year’s new host city.”
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) announced on Tuesday (Feb. 4) that it would issue takedown notices to Spotify for 2,500 podcast episodes on the platform that allegedly contain “unlicensed musical works” from 19 NMPA member publishers.
“Spotify has thousands of unlicensed songs in its podcasts, which it has done nothing to remedy. This takedown action comes as no surprise, we have warned of this issue for some time,” says NMPA president and CEO David Israelite of the takedown notices. According to the NMPA, this is just the start of the takedown requests, and the demands will continue to roll out.
This is the latest of many retaliatory actions the NMPA has taken against Spotify since last March, when Spotify significantly cut payments to NMPA’s members for premium subscriptions. By adding audiobooks into its premium subscription tiers, Spotify argued it qualified for a discounted royalty rate, known as “bundle,” given it would now have to pay for books and music from the same price tag that was once just for music. Israelite said at the time that he would “declare war” on Spotify for this move, and launched a number of actions to fight back.
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This included sending cease and desist notices for podcast and video content on its platform that were allegedly infringing on music IP; a legislative proposal, asking for the overhaul of the statutory license; complaints to the FTC and nine state attorneys general; and more. Around the same time, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) also fought back by filing a lawsuit against Spotify for the move to bundle premium subscriptions, calling it “unlawful.”
On Sunday, Jan. 26, the Spotify bundling issue was brought back into the headlines when Universal Music Group announced a new direct deal with Spotify which included changes both to the recorded music and publishing royalty rates. This marked the first direct deal between Spotify and a publisher since the passage of the Music Modernization Act (MMA), and sources close to the deal say that the agreement included improved remuneration for UMG’s publishing company, Universal Music Publishing Group, and its songwriters.
Still, all other publishers, most of which are members of the NMPA, remain on the baseline bundle rate. The NMPA told Billboard at the time that the deal was “good news for the entire industry” and that “a rising tide lifts all boats, and this signals that Spotify is coming back to the table,” but the organization also added it had no plans to stop any of the actions it had already set in motion against Spotify, and neither did the MLC.
A few days later, on Jan. 29, the MLC’s lawsuit against Spotify was dismissed, with a federal judge saying that Spotify’s move to bundling was supported by “unambiguous” regulations. The judge is not giving the MLC a chance to refile and said the law is clear. Still, if the MLC wants to, it can challenge the ruling at the federal appeals court.
These takedown requests make it clear that the NMPA is not ready to bury the hatchet with Spotify. Among the 2,500 takedown requests are podcasts that allegedly contain unlicensed musical works from publishers like ABKCO, Anthem Entertainment, Big Machine Music, BMG, Concord Music Publishing, Downtown Music Publishing, Hipgnosis Songs Group, Kobalt, Mayimba Music, peermusic, Primary Wave Music, Reservoir, The Royalty Network, Inc., Sony Music Publishing, Spirit Music Group, Ultra Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, and Wixen Music Publishing.
Israelite adds: “Podcasts are a growing source of revenue for songwriters and publishers, and it is essential that podcasts provide lawfully produced entertainment. This is not hard to do, and Spotify knows, and has known, how to fix this problem for their users. We hope podcast hosts will stand up for their fellow creators and demand that Spotify do better. Spotify will stop at nothing to undervalue songwriters on behalf of its bottom line. Look no further than its recent bundling scheme and its ill-conceived appeal of songwriters’ rate increase in CRB III. We will not stop until the platform fixes its podcast problem, and all other areas where songwriters are not earning what they deserve.”
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order directing the U.S. to take steps to start developing a government-owned investment fund that he said could be used to profit off of TikTok if he’s successful at finding it an American buyer.
Trump signed an order on his first day office to grant TikTok until early April to find an approved partner or buyer, but he’s said he’s looking for the U.S. to take a 50% stake in the massive social media platform. He said Monday in the Oval Office that TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance, was an example of what he could put in a new U.S. sovereign wealth fund.
“We might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make or we do a partnership with very wealthy people, a lot of options,” he said of TikTok. “But we could put that as an example in the fund. We have a lot of other things that we could put in the fund.”
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Sovereign wealth funds invest in assets, such as stocks, bonds and real estate. They are typically funded by a country’s budgetary surpluses, which the U.S. currently does not have.
Trump noted many other nations have such investment funds and predicted that the U.S. could eventually top Saudi Arabia’s fund size. “Eventually we’ll catch it,” he promised.
There are over 90 sovereign wealth funds around the world that mange over $8 trillion in assets, according to The International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, a London-based organization made up of roughly 50 of these entities.
In the U.S., more than 20 sovereign wealth funds exist at the state level, according to analysis from the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based nonpartisan think-tank.
The largest ones — based in Alaska, New Mexico and Texas — are financed through revenue that comes from oil, gas and mineral proceeds and used to fund in-state programs, such as education. Though these funds are owned by governments, they tend to operate as standalone institutions with their own investment strategies and staff, the center said.
The president put Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, in charge of laying the groundwork for creating a the fund, which would likely require congressional approval. The executive order says a plan for the fund — including recommendations for investment strategies and a governance model — has to be submitted to Trump within 90 days.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration had studied the possibility of creating a sovereign wealth fund for national security investments, but the idea did not yield any concrete action before he left office last month.
Bessent said the administration’s goal was to have the fund open within the next 12 months, and Lutnick said another use of the fund could have been for the government to take an profit-earning stake in vaccine manufacturers.
“The extraordinary size and scale of the U.S government and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens,” Lutnick told reporters.
TikTok was supposed to be banned in the U.S. last month under a federal law that forces ByteDance to divest its stakes or face a ban. The law was passed in April with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Biden. The two companies and some users quickly took legal action against the statute, which was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court last month.
After taking office, Trump, who had attempted to ban the popular app during his first term, directed the Justice Department to pause enforcement of the law for 75 days. The reprieve has given the company more time to work out a deal with the administration.
Several investors — including billionaire Frank McCourt and Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — have spoken publicly about their desire to purchase TikTok’s U.S. platform. Trump has said “many people” had also reached out to him privately about it. Last week, he said Microsoft was one of the U.S. companies eyeing the social media platform.
A San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup called Perplexity AI presented a proposal to ByteDance last month that would allow the U.S. government to own up to 50% of an entity that combines TikTok’s U.S. platform with Perplexity’s business, a person familiar with the matter previously told the Associated Press. If successful, the proposal would allow the U.S. government to have a sizable stake in that entity once it makes an initial public offering of at least $300 billion.
The wait is over. In 2025, Billboard U.K. will be hosting its inaugural Power Players list, also known as the Power 100, for the U.K. and Ireland’s world-beating music industry professionals.
While Billboard’s Power 100 ranks the music industry’s most influential executives globally, this list will celebrate and recognise the executives and members that are at the forefront of the U.K. and Ireland’s music scene, and boosting the region’s hugely talented artists on a global scale
Billboard U.K.’s Power Players list will be published in June 2025, and will be celebrated with an exclusive event at the upcoming inaugural SXSW London.
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Further details will be shared in the coming months.
“The U.K. and Ireland has long been home to some of the most influential figures in global music, shaping the industry and driving artists to new heights,” says Mo Ghoneim, president of Billboard U.K. “We look forward to spotlighting the executives leading this charge with Billboard U.K.’s Power Players, from labels to live, streaming to rights, and beyond.”
The news follows a period of success for British and Irish artists in recent years. In 2024, there were appearances for Hozier, Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran on Billboard’s Year-End Top Artists charts. Rising stars, meanwhile, like Lola Young, Aretmas, Myles Smith and more are growing their audiences domestically and internationally.
2025 will also be a bumper year for concert-goers with the U.K. hosting some of the most in-demand tours and live experiences: Oasis will kick off their reunion tour in Wales before heading around the globe, and superstars like Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Usher and more come into market for huge shows.
There are challenges to be met, too: Grassroots music venues face decimation without urgent action; legislation on artificial intelligence is paramount to the government’s agenda on growth; artists are finding touring a loss-making endeavour; the live and festival landscape continues to evolve and bring new obstacles. These themes will shape the inaugural U.K. Power Players, but the doors are wide open.
The Power Players list will be peer-nominated and selected by the Billboard U.K. team. Nominations open Feb. 4 and will close in two weeks on Feb. 17. Interested parties can fill in the nominations form here. For any queries, please contact power100@uk.billboard.com or tsmith@uk.billboard.com.