Business
Page: 425
This content was created in partnership with Ascend Agency.
Viral TikTok star Bryce Hall has become an investor and partner in Dog For Dog, a cause-based dog food and products company founded by Ryan Kavanaugh, Snoop Dogg, and Michael Bublé in 2011. In celebration of the partnership, Dog For Dog has launched a new dedicated site called “Bryce’s Dog House,” at BrycesDogHouse.com, which will offer special products, giveaways, and offerings only available to fans and followers of Bryce through the partnership site, BrycesDogHouse.com.
Dog For Dog is the first one-for-one cause-based dog food company that specializes in high-quality, natural dog food, treats, and supplements, among other products in key categories. The company is committed to providing the best possible products for dogs, and now it is taking that commitment further by donating a significant portion of its net sales to help dogs in need.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Dog For Dog’s primary products include “DogsFood,” “Dogsbutter” (an all-natural line of peanut butter made especially for dogs), “Dogstreats,” “Dogsbars,” these products were developed using innovative ingredients with the goal of improving and extending the health of dogs.
“Dog For Dog is not just a company but a movement,” said Ryan Kavanaugh, founder of Dog For Dog. “When we created Dog For Dog, we realized there is a huge need in the market for dog products that use the newest breakthroughs in medicine, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, nutrition, and advancements in genetics to help extend both the quality and lifespan of dogs. That is our goal,” said Kavanaugh.
“We are thrilled to add Bryce as an investor and partner, and to launch ‘Bryce’s Dog House’ to help bring the best dog products to first-time dog owners and help educate people on the importance of helping dogs in need,” said Tamoor Shafi, CEO & Managing Partner of DogForDog.com. To date, Dog for Dog has donated more than one million pounds of dog food, and the company aims to donate four million pounds in the near future, fueled by its mission to get shelters to “zero kill”. “We are incredibly grateful for our loyal customer base and partners who share our values and support both our mission and the products we offer,” remarked Shafi.
Initially, for every product sold, the company donated a meal to a dog in a shelter or rescue organization. It has since upgraded the program to providing resources for organizations like Labelle to reach even more dogs in need. The program is designed to help provide much-needed nutrition to dogs who may not otherwise have access to high-quality food.
“I have always loved dogs,” said Bryce Hall. “I feel it is my generation’s responsibility to end the idea of any dogs being killed in a pound or shelter because they can’t be fed or can’t find a home, which is why I put my time and money behind such a worthy company. To stand side by side with industry titans like Snoop, Michael, and Ryan is an honor, and I have agreed to take on the responsibility of making sure my generation understands the importance of helping shelter dogs.”
Bryce Hall is passionate about ending the needless killings of dogs in shelters and is committed to educating his generation on the importance of helping shelter dogs. “I feel it is my generation’s responsibility to end the idea of any dogs being killed in a pound or shelter because they can’t be fed or can’t find a home, which is why I put my time and money behind such a worthy company,” said Hall.
Dog for Dog is not just a business but a movement to help stop the millions of dogs euthanized in pounds around the world. The company’s commitment to using only the highest quality, natural ingredients in its products and providing exceptional customer service has earned it prestigious awards, such as “best in show.”
Snoop Dogg and Michael Bublé, both founders of the company, are both passionate dog lovers, and share the same commitment to providing the best possible care for their own pets. This commitment is reflected in the quality of the products they offer through Dog for Dog. “Michael and I believe in giving our own dogs the best possible nutrition, and we wanted to extend that same quality to all dogs,” said Snoop Dogg. “We’re proud to offer high-quality, natural products through Dog for Dog, and to give back to dogs in shelters in need.”
For more information about Dogfordog.com and its products, please visit the new website at www.dogfordog.com.
Peermusic has signed production and songwriting team, The Stereotypes (Jonathan Yip and Jeremy Reeves), to a worldwide publishing administration deal. The Stereotypes have made their mark on the music industry by penning hits like “That’s What I Like” by Bruno Mars, “Please Me” by Cardi B and Bruno Mars, “Somebody to Love” by Justin Bieber ft. Usher, “Better” by Lil Yachty, and “After Last Nite” by Silk Sonic (with Thundercat and Bootsy Collins), and Yip says of their new peermusic partnership that he “immediately realized [peermusic] was aligned with our vision.”
The indie publisher has also signed singer, songwriter and producer Alex Anwandter to an exclusive, worldwide co-publishing deal. The deal with peermusic marks the first music publishing deal for the Latin pop artist and encompasses his entire catalog as well as future works, according to the company. The Chilean multi hyphenate is set to release his new album, El Diablo En El Cuerpo, on May 26. It will feature singles such as “Qué Piensas Hacer Sin Mi Amor?” and “Maricoteca.”
Sony Music Publishing Nashville has renewed is publishing agreement with Lindsay Rimes, a songwriter and producer who co-created “Whiskey on You” by Nate Smith and “Heaven” by Kane Brown. Rimes has also worked with Troye Sivan, Kylie Minogue, Kelsea Ballerini, Thomas Rhett, Phillip Phillips, Dylan Scott, LoCash, The Cadillac Three, Tyler Rich, Canaan Smith and The Shires. “I couldn’t be more excited about continuing my journey with the Sony family,” says Rimes of the renewed deal.
Warner Chappell has partnered with Song Sleuth, a startup designed to find “undiscovered” royalties from user-generated content and derivative works, specifically using their tool UGSeeker. Song Sleuth describes this as “the first of a number of major deals that are currently in the pipeline.”
Connection Music Publishing has signed a new agreement with indie pop singer-songwriter Hayes Warner, fresh off the release of his songs “Shut Up” and “Airport.” The rising talent will perform at SXSW and as an opener for Lewis Capaldi. Connection Music Publishing is an indie publishing house, founded in early 2021 by Daniel Glass, founder and president of Glassnote Records, and Chris Scully, general manager and CFO of Glassnote Records.
Two songwriters who sued Benny Blanco, Halsey, Khalid and Ed Sheeran for copyright infringement over their 2018 hit “Eastside” have suddenly dropped the lawsuit. Blanco’s lawyer tells Billboard the accusations were “baseless” and “never should have been made.”
Konstantine Lois and Shane Williams, who perform under the name American XO, accused Blanco and the other stars of ripping off a 2015 song called “Loveless,” claiming that a core riff in each song involved “identical” musical features.
But in a motion filed Tuesday in California federal court, attorneys for Lois and Williams voluntarily agreed to dismiss the case. The filing said each side would pay their own legal bills; it gave no indication that any money would exchange hands or songwriting credits would be amended.
In a statement to Billboard, Blanco’s attorney Donald S. Zakarin said the accusers had unilaterally dropped the case because they were “certain to lose” and would have faced the prospect of repaying the stars’ legal bills if they had continued to litigate such a case.
“While we are grateful that plaintiffs belatedly recognized they had no viable claim of copyright infringement, it is unfortunate that our clients … ever had to deal with an infringement accusation that never should have been made,” Zakarin said. “Like many of the infringement cases we have been seeing in the last few years, baseless infringement claims come at a cost, not merely to our clients in defending but to the public because they will inevitably chill creativity.”
In their own statement to Billboard, Lois and Williams said they had dropped the lawsuit because they lacked “the financial resources or insurance to continue the fight.” But they noted that the judge had actually sided with them in an early-stage ruling, allowing their case to move forward.
“The obvious similarities in the songs created genuine concerns that our work was copied. Before filing the lawsuit, we hired a respected musicologist who shared those concerns,” Lois and Williams wrote. “We continue to believe that our concerns are not without merit, however, simply put, continuing forward with the case would be too costly, challenging, and risky for us.”
Released in July 2018, “Eastside” was the debut single for Blanco (born Benjamin Joseph Levin), who had previously spent years writing and producing major hits for other stars under the tutelage of producer Dr. Luke. The song, co-written and performed by Blanco, Halsey and Khalid and co-written by Sheeran and Nathan Perez, reached No. 8 on the Hot 100 and eventually spent 52 weeks on the chart.
But in May 2021, Lois and Williams claimed that Blanco’s hit was essentially lifted directly from their “Loveless.” In a complaint filed in California federal court, attorneys for the pair dove deep into the alleged musical similarities between the two tracks.
“Both the Loveless riff and the Eastside riff comprise of identical two note dyads of identical note intervals played over identical beats,” attorney Matthew Higbee wrote at the time. “Both riffs are played on guitar and require identical finger positions. Both riffs contain an identical slide of the fingers up the neck of the guitar between the second and third dyad.”
The duo claimed the allegedly stolen riff played a particularly important role in “Eastside,” because it was “repeated on a loop for the entirety of the song.”
Until very recently, the case showed no signs of an imminent settlement. As is typical in such lawsuits, the two sides were in the midst of exchanging reports by musicologists about whether the songs were similar enough to constitute copyright infringement. Both sides then planned to file motions seeking so-called summary judgment – a final ruling without a trial.
But last month, attorneys for Lois and Williams filed notice with the judge that their chosen musicologist had suddenly become unavailable to continue working on the case, and that they would need an extension of deadlines to find a replacement.
Faced with that request, attorneys for Blanco and the other pop stars quickly argued that sudden disappearance raised “serious concerns.” They said there might be an “innocent explanation,” but suggested that it also might be because Lois and Williams couldn’t find an expert who would testify that “Eastside” had infringed “Loveless.”
“If plaintiffs’ problems are the product of the weakness of their claims and their consequent inability to secure an expert who is willing to attempt a rebuttal of [the defendants’ expert], then they should dismiss this case now with prejudice instead of unnecessarily imposing on the time of this court and increasing the costs of defendants,” Zakarin wrote the judge on Feb. 13.
Two days later, the judge denied the request for an extension. Two weeks after that, Lois and Williams dismissed their case with prejudice.
Mojo Music and Media has acquired rights to the catalogs of six different hitmakers: Warren Cuccurullo, Geraldo Sandell (Teddy Sky), Bruce Belland, Omar Lyefook, and two members of the pop band Metro Station.
A music publisher and brand/legacy management firm with offices across four continents, Mojo is home to a diverse catalog of more than 20,000 compositions, including shares of songs recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Aretha Franklin to George Strait.
Its new additions include works by Cuccurullo, a songwriter and guitarist who started his career with Frank Zappa before co-founding Missing Persons and joining Duran Duran. The deal entails Cuccurullo’s entire share of his writer and publishing rights as well as artist royalties and neighboring rights. As part of Missing Persons, he helped pen songs like “Words,” “Mental Hopscotch” and “Destination Unknown,” and as a member of Duran Duran he contributed to “Bruning the Ground,” “Ordinary World,” “Come Undone” and “Violence of Summer.” Additionally, Mojo has also signed a deal with Cuccurullo to manage and promote his solo work.
Mojo also acquired the entire publishing and songwriter interests in the catalog of Sandell, who is best known for “On The Floor” by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, “Down For Whatever” by Kelly Rowland and more.
The indie publishing house’s acquisition of Belland’s work included his complete songwriter and publishing rights and recorded music royalties. Belland is best known as the lead singer of The Four Preps, a four-part harmony troupe he co-founded in 1956. During their nine-year run, Belland and the band made hits like “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” and “Big Man,” along with “Down By The Station,” “Got A Girl” and “A Letter To The Beatles,” and Belland also wrote singles for other popular artists at the time, including Barron Knights, Lee Hazelwood and Lutricia McNeal.
Lyefook, the English neo-soul artist and songwriter, sold his full writer’s share and majority of his publisher’s share to Mojo. His songs “There’s Nothing Like This,” “Outside,” “Keep Steppin,” “Saturday” and “Say Nothin,” became major hits in the U.K. during the 1990s, leading to collaborations between Lyefook and American singers like Lamont Dozier, Leon Ware, Angie Stone and Stevie Wonder.
Lastly, Mojo has also bought rights to the catalog of Metro Station members Blake Healy and Anthony Improgo, including the late aughts hit “Shake It” and follow-up single “Seventeen Forever.”
“As we approach our fifth anniversary, we are deeply honored that our success in thoughtfully promoting veteran songwriters and their songs continues to attract some of the most influential music makers in the world to our Mojo family,” says the company’s co-founder and CEO Mark Fried. “The Mojo catalog, now representing nearly 700 chart hits, including 250 Top 10’s spanning nine decades, is proudly one of the most diverse and hit-laden collections in the indie publishing space. We couldn’t be more excited to be representing Warren, Teddy, Bruce, Omar, Blake and Ant’s collective works, still beloved by fans everywhere, and look forward to re-energizing them via everything from faithful covers and genre-busting interpolations to trailerized remixes, ubiquitous syncs and guerilla social media campaigns.”
After a weeks-long shower of bad publicity and multiple artist withdrawals, Australia’s Bluesfest has removed the controversial rock band Sticky Fingers from its lineup.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The popular, and long-running, music festival today (March 2) issued a statement in which organizers remarked, “Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition, and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built.”
In recent days, festival director Peter Noble had doubled-down on his decision to book the polarizing band, despite growing calls from within the music community to boycott the event.
Melbourne prog-rock outfit King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and two-time Australian Music Prize winner Sampa The Great recently withdrew from the lineup in protest to the inclusion of Sticky Fingers, with King Gizz issuing a statement remarking that “as a band and as human beings, we stand against misogyny, racism, transphobia and violence.”
Sticky Fingers has a reputation that, well, sticks.
The issues relate to the past behavior of lead singer Dylan Frost, who has been accused of threatening Indigenous musician Thelma Plum and making racist remarks at a gig featuring Indigenous punk band Dispossessed.
Sticky Fingers took a break after those incidents allegedly occurred in 2016, reuniting again in 2018.
Frost went on to address his mental health battles, and issued a statement in which he said he was “wholeheartedly against racism, and so is the band,” and that he doesn’t “condone or in any way excuse violence against women, straight up, I never have and I never will.”
Noble and Bluesfest’s statement claims “the narrative that they continue to deserve to be cancelled, as well as anyone who publicly supports them, is difficult to accept, wherein a portion of society and media passes eternal judgment toward those, in this case, a diagnosed mentally ill person whom we feel doesn’t deserve the continued public scrutiny he’s being given.”
The message continues, “We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.”
It’s not the first time Australian event organizers have performed a u-turn on Sticky Fingers.
In 2018, the band withdrew from the Newcastle fest This That, with promoters explaining at the time that “if their inclusion began to impact negatively on the other artists performing and our Newcastle and wider communities, that it would be best if they refrain from performing. That’s the decision we have both taken today.”
Sticky Fingers, notes Bluesfest in its statement, “has done so many good deeds that have never been reported, including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities.”
After enduring a two-year obstacle course which included the pandemic, floods, border closures, public health orders, and more, the 2022 edition of Bluesfest welcomed more than 100,000 revelers.
The 2023 edition of Bluesfest is set for April 6-10 at Byron Events Farm, with headliners including Gang of Youths, Paolo Nutini, Tash Sultana, Bonnie Raitt, the Doobie Brothers and more.
Read the full statement from Bluesfest below.
Bluesfest Byron Bay Statement Regarding Sticky Fingers
We are sad to announce that Bluesfest has decided that Sticky Fingers is to step off the Bluesfest 2023 line-up.
Bluesfest cannot, sadly, continue to support Sticky Fingers by having them play our 2023 edition, and we apologise to those artists, sponsors and any others we involved in this matter through our mistaken belief that forgiveness and redemption are the rock on which our society is built.
The narrative that they continue to deserve to be cancelled, as well as anyone who publicly supports them, is difficult to accept, wherein a portion of society and media passes eternal judgment toward those, in this case, a diagnosed mentally ill person whom we feel doesn’t deserve the continued public scrutiny he’s being given.
We thank everyone who has contacted us and advised their support in this matter, especially those suffering from a mental illness who feel they cannot have their illness supported in a manner whereby they feel included in society.
Sticky Fingers has done so many good deeds that have never been reported, including building and funding recording studios and music education programs in disadvantaged regional communities.
We will now move on, put this behind us and continue to plan and present our best-ever edition of Bluesfest… proudly.
For those that wish to know more, there is a carefully researched article in The Australian in 2018 that took the trouble to examine the facts, unlike a lot of the current published material.
The president and co-founder of PodcastOne, Chris “Kit” Gray, is facing a lawsuit filed by his former executive assistant, who says she was fired after refusing to ship cannabis products legally purchased in California to his home in Florida where cannabis is illegal. PodcastOne is also named as a defendant in the complaint.
Cherri Bell, an executive assistant with more than 20 years of experience including seven years at PodcastOne — which was purchased by media company LiveOne in 2020 — alleges that she was terminated on Feb. 10 in retaliation for refusing two requests by Gray to ship cannabis vape pens, gummies and other THC products across state lines through FedEx.
The suit, filed by Bell’s attorney Timothy McCaffrey Jr. in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday (Feb. 24), claims that after relocating his residence from California to Florida “in or around November 2021,” Gray “began planning trips to the Los Angeles area beginning in January 2022” and, following each of those visits, asked Bell “to ship various items to his home in Florida in random boxes that she was instructed to collect from around the office” using the company’s FedEx account.
“On or around” Oct. 18, 2022, the suit continues, Gray sent Bell a text message requesting that she ship some clothing to his family in Florida along with another package he left at the office. “In this text he also thanked her and mentioned again that he did not want to take the contents [of the package] on the plane and that he was nervous keeping it at the office,” the complaint reads. Inside the package, Bell claims she found “smoking paraphernalia from a marijuana dispensary including vape pens and vials” and subsequently decided not to ship the items after determining it was illegal to send drugs and drug paraphernalia across state lines.
Bell was right: While marijuana possession is legal in a number of states, possession and transportation are barred at the federal level under the Controlled Substances Act. Using FedEx as a drug courier to ship more than 50 grams of cannabis can land a person in federal prison for five years.
When Gray allegedly asked about the package weeks later, Bell says she responded via text that she did not feel comfortable sending the envelope. Gray then allegedly responded, “‘Oh I wouldn’t sweat that,’ completely dismissive of Plaintiff’s concern even though he had admitted to Plaintiff that he was nervous about carrying the package and leaving it at the office,” the complaint reads. Gray also allegedly told Bell he wished she would have told him earlier, “since apparently his supply was running low,” and that he had shipped “similar items approximately ten times in the past.”
Two days later, Gray allegedly asked Bell to drop off the package, along with a few bags of “gummy bears,” with another female employee, who would take care of the shipment. Following this incident, Bell claims she “noticed a definite change in her working relationship with Gray and the way he treated her,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that Gray began to retaliate against Bell in the days and weeks that followed, including by delaying repayment of her expense report, giving her negative performance reviews and attempting to isolate her from the rest of the staff. While Bell was on medical leave for work-induced stress, it continues, Gray terminated her.
Bell is suing Gray and PodcastOne for illegal retaliation, wrongful termination and failure to pay wages upon termination.
Billboard made multiple attempts to reach Gray and PodcastOne/LiveOne officials but did not receive a response.
Generative artificial intelligence is currently one of the hottest topics in Silicon Valley, and its impact is already being felt in the music industry. BandLab — the music-creation app that has become popular on TikTok — relies on AI as the engine for its tool SongStarter. Users can lean on it to generate beats or melodies at random, or prompt it to spit something out based on specific lyrics and emojis; BandLab’s 60 million registered creators are churning out more than 17 million songs each month, including breakout hits for dv4d and ThxSoMch.
The tracks that emerge from BandLab depend on the interaction of human creators and AI. That holds true for some of the companies focusing on functional audio as well. LifeScore, which uses AI to “create unique, real-time soundtracks for every journey,” relies on “Lego blocks of sound all made in a studio by real musicians playing real instruments through lovely microphones,” says co-founder/CEO Philip Sheppard. Even the sound of a stream trickling through a forest comes from “someone going out with a rig and standing in that stream and recording it.”
The AI kicks in when it comes to assembling that sonic Lego. “The AI is saying, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be delightful if these could arrange themselves in this different way?’” Sheppard explains. “’How about if we could turn that into eight hours that felt like it was original every time you listened to it?’”
All results of these processes may not work. “Unsuccessful soundscapes are generated all the time,” says Oleg Stavitsky, co-founder/CEO of Endel, which offers an app that generates music designed to help users focus, relax or sleep. “Each soundscape goes through a multi-step testing process: from automated testing, detecting sound artifacts and bad sound combinations to in-house testing to our community testing.” That community includes some 4,000 people who provide feedback through Endel’s Discord channel.
“We put human eyes on everything before it goes out,” says Alex Mitchell, founder/CEO of Boomy, a company that offers aspiring musicians the chance to make songs in seconds with help from AI tools. Since 2019, Boomy users have created over 12 million songs. “We have a generic content policy that basically means if all you’re doing is pressing buttons and we detect that, then your release probably won’t be eligible for distribution,” says Mitchell. “We reject way more releases than what gets submitted. That way we’re not flooding the [digital service providers] with a bunch of nonsense.”
How will Boomy scale this approach as it attracts even more users and generates even more millions of songs? “We’re hiring,” Mitchell says.
Women in Music honoree Doreen Schimk has one of the more interesting backstories in the music business: She escaped from the former East Germany as a teenager.
In the late 1980s, she and her sister Susann, both promising athletes, went to an East German training camp where she met a teenage boy she liked. Schimk took a bigger step than most girls her age, though, sneaking across the border in his car and moving to Hamburg in what was then West Germany. In 2011, this journey became the subject of the fictionalized German film Westwind.
In 1990, not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Schimk moved to London, and later New York, where she says she “picked up English on the street.” “But I was obsessed with music – I was a DJ for a few years – and I thought this was the place I could get into the business, but I didn’t know the difference between an agent and a manager and a label.”
Then a friend from back home called about an opening for an internship at the German indie label Edel Records. Schimk moved back within 48 hours and then spent six years learning about promotions before taking a job at Sony Music Germany – and then, eventually, at Warner Music.
In August 2021, she and Fabian Drebes were named co-presidents of Warner Music Central Europe, which oversees operations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. One priority is “cultural change,” she says. “There’s a huge opportunity to create a new way of working in terms of changing the mindset and breaking these barriers in terms of hierarchies.” Another is focusing more on dance music and German language hip-hop.
“With dance and EDM we have a huge opportunity to grow globally,” she says. For hip-hop, she and Drebes founded Atlantic Records Germany “to be a new door for German rap artists,” she says. “It’s based in Berlin” – Warner Music’s German headquarters is in Hamburg – “and it’s growing out of the culture there.” Change takes time, she says, but Warner Germany has shown strength this year on the singles chart.
As for the movie, she recalls, “I was in my 30s, sitting with my twin sister Susann on a balcony in Berlin, having a drink, and one of the guys we were with said, ‘Why don’t you make a movie about it?’ — [Her sister is a movie producer] — “From such a young age when I made that decision,” she says, “being fearless has always been a driver for me.”
The 2023 Billboard Women in Music Awards take place tonight (March 1) at the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles. The event will livestream here on Billboard.com and via Billboard’s YouTube account.
A Los Angeles judge ruled Tuesday (Feb. 28) that Marilyn Manson‘s lawyers could not cite a recent bombshell recantation by Ashley Morgan Smithline, one of his former abuse accusers, in his ongoing defamation lawsuit against actress Evan Rachel Wood.
Last week, Smithline claimed in a court filing she had “succumbed to pressure” from Wood to make “untrue” accusations against Manson. The singer’s lawyers wanted to use that as evidence in their lawsuit against Wood, who they allege orchestrated an “organized attack” of false rape accusations against her ex-fiance Manson.
But Wood quickly fired back that she “never pressured or manipulated” Smithline. And her lawyers asked the judge to ignore the new filing, arguing that the “eleventh hour” reversal by Smithline was just a “bad-faith” effort to save Manson’s case from being dismissed.
In an order issued Tuesday obtained by Billboard, Judge Teresa A. Beaudet sided with Wood’s lawyers, refusing to allow Smithline’s statements to be admitted into the case record for now because they had been filed too late.
That means the judge won’t view those statements as evidence at a hearing next month over whether to dismiss Manson’s case or allow it to proceed toward trial. The ruling leaves open the possibility that the statement could be admitted if the case survives.
An attorney for Manson declined to comment. A rep for Wood did not return a request for comment.
Smithline and Wood are two of several women to accuse Manson of serious sexual wrongdoing over the past two years. After the Westworld star posted her allegations to Instagram in February 2021, lawsuits quickly followed from Smithline, Manson’s former assistant Ashley Walters, Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco and a Jane Doe accuser. Another Jane Doe case was filed last month.
Manson has denied all of the allegations, and the cases by Smithline, Walters and Bianco have since been dropped, dismissed or settled. Now, the rocker is pursuing his own defamation lawsuit, claiming that Wood and another woman, Illma Gore, had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously” with false accusations against him.
Last week, Smithline made her bombshell accusations about being “manipulated” by Wood in a sworn declaration submitted by Manson’s attorneys in the defamation case, stating: “I succumbed to pressure from Evan Rachel Wood and her associates to make accusations of rape and assault against Mr. Warner that were not true.”
The new claims came as Wood’s attorneys were seeking to dismiss Manson’s case by citing California’s so-called anti-SLAPP statute — a law that aims to make it easier to dismiss cases that threaten free speech. Wood’s lawyers say Manson’s case is exactly that: an effort to punish the actress after she chose to speak publicly about years of alleged abuse by a prominent musician.
“For years, plaintiff Brian Warner raped and tortured defendant Evan Rachel Wood and threatened retaliation if she told anyone about it,” her attorneys wrote. “Warner has now made good on those threats by filing the present lawsuit.”
Manson’s attorneys wanted to cite Smithline’s recantation as a reason for Beaudet to deny the anti-SLAPP motion. They argued that it was early proof that they could eventually win their case against Wood, meaning it was a legitimate lawsuit and not merely an effort to stifle her free speech.
But Wood’s lawyers said the window to file such evidence had closed more than three months prior and must be denied: “Plaintiff’s ex parte application is a bad-faith attempt to save his meritless SLAPP claim from dismissal by requesting leave to file an untimely declaration, containing provable falsehoods, made under unreliable circumstances.”
At a hearing Tuesday, the judge denied the request to admit Smithline’s declaration. As reported by Rolling Stone, the judge said at the live hearing that there “really is no explanation as to why this [declaration] is bubbling up at this time.”
A hearing is set for April 11 to consider Wood’s request to dismiss the case under the anti-SLAPP law.
Fadia Kader has joined Troy Carter and Suzy Ryoo‘s Venice Music as executive vp and GM, the company announced Wednesday (Mar. 1).
“The team at Venice Music and I share a passion for changing the perception of what it takes to be successful as a DIY artist,” Kader said in a statement. “I’m excited to partner with Troy, Suzy and the team as we continue the dedicated work of educating, empowering and elevating the independent artist experience.”
Kader previously held the position of global head of strategic partnerships at Clubhouse. Before that, she was part of Instagram’s music partnerships team, and she has also worked at Twitter and Def Jam Records. She was named to Billboard‘s 40 Under 40 list in 2019.
Her new role will be wide-ranging, according to Venice Music’s announcement: “Leading teams across A&R, artist marketing, sync and community, streaming/commerce, and Web3” as well as helping to “drive the global A&R strategy, source and secure key music partnerships, and provide counsel on the products and tools [necessary] to help artists build and grow their careers.”
“Fadia has built a reputation as a trusted leader and trailblazer within the artist community,” said Venice co-founder and CEO Carter in a statement. “She’s a unique bridge between music culture and technology and will be a valuable leader within Venice.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Fadia to our team and community,” added Venice Music co-founder and president Ryoo. “Her choice to join Venice Music is a resounding vote of confidence towards artist ownership, creative freedom and the clear opportunity to make a generational impact in music.”
Carter and Ryoo founded Venice Music in 2021. “Our goal has been to help independent artists succeed on par with major label counterparts,” Carter said last year. “To sustain that success, artists need to feel educated, informed, and supported. Over the last 18 months, we’ve attracted high-quality partners and have begun to make a real impact in the independent community.”