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Lawyers for Ed Sheeran’s copyright accusers are firing back at the star’s efforts to ban an infamous YouTube clip from an upcoming trial over “Thinking Out Loud,” calling the video “among the most important and critical evidence in this case.”
With a trial looming in April over whether Sheeran’s smash hit infringed Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On,” a pre-game showdown is brewing over whether jurors will get to watch the YouTube video. In it, Sheeran draws cheers at a 2014 concert by seamlessly toggling between the two songs.
Earlier this month, the star’s lawyers argued that the clip will confuse jurors. While such a performance might appear to be evidence of illegal copying, Sheeran’s lawyers argued that it really only showed that both songs feature a common chord progression that’s “freely available to all songwriters.”
But in a response on Thursday (Feb. 23), lawyers for Sheeran’s accusers said the clip was obviously relevant to the core dispute in the case: whether “Thinking Out Loud” shares enough similarities with “Let’s Get It On” to constitute copyright infringement.
“The video of the medley at issue provides helpful guidance to highlight and/or illustrate those similarities and why they are significant,” attorney Patrick Frank wrote. “The medley which defendants belatedly seek to exclude from admission at trial … is among the most important and critical evidence in the case.”
The current case against Sheeran was filed way back in 2017 by heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On.” Gaye’s heirs, who once famously sued Robin Thicke over accusations that his “Blurred Lines” was stolen from the legendary singer, are not involved in the case.
Sheeran’s lawyers have long argued that the star did nothing wrong, since “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get It On” share only “unprotectable and commonplace elements” that are not covered by copyright law. But Judge Louis D. Stanton has repeatedly refused to decide the case in their favor, ruling that the dispute is close enough that it must be decided by a jury.
In the lead-up to the trial, attorneys for the Townsend heirs filed a formal notice that they planned to play the YouTube clip for jurors. In the video — a six-minute snippet of a November 2014 concert in Zurich, Switzerland that’s been viewed nearly 300,000 times — Sheeran abruptly switches from “Thinking” to “Let’s” and back again, drawing huge cheers from the crowd.
In Thursday’s new filing, those same lawyers pointed out that the judge overseeing the case previously singled out the YouTube clip as potential evidence that might resonate with jurors, saying they “may be impressed” by the footage. “Presumably, if the court believed that the video … would be improper for a jury to view at trial, the court would have been reticent to state a jury’s possible interest in the same,” the Townsend lawyers wrote this week.
In seeking to exclude the clip, Sheeran’s lawyers argued earlier this month that allowing such evidence could have a broader “chilling effect” on the music industry and on medleys, which they called an “important, enduring aspect of live concerts.” But in Thursday’s response, the lawyers for the Townsend heirs sharply disagreed.
“Defendants have provided nothing beyond mere speculation that the inclusion of directly relevant evidence … would have any collateral impact on any aspect of the concert industry.”
An attorney for Sheeran declined to comment on the new filing. But earlier on Thursday, the star’s lawyers filed a motion arguing that the deadline for such a response had already expired; they can file a formal reply brief in the weeks ahead.
Music publishing companies Reservoir Media Management and PopArabia are suing Anghami Technologies Limited and its parent, Nasdaq-listed Anghami Inc., the Middle East’s largest legal streaming company, for copyright infringement related to a dozen Western and Arabic songs from artists like Lil Jon, 50 Cent and Kelly Clarkson.
The suit was filed Dec. 22 at the Abu Dhabi Global Markets Court.
In the filing, a copy of which Billboard procured, the court says the claim by Reservoir and PopArabia involves “the exploitation of a small number of songs in one territory” but that “the Anghami service exploits a very large number of songs in numerous territories across the Middle East region and beyond.”
Anghami is primarily a freemium audio-streaming service that says it has more than 73 million users across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Europe and the United States, and a library of over 57 million songs. The service, which was launched by co-founders Elie Habib and Eddy Maroun in Beirut in 2012, relocated its headquarters in 2021 from Lebanon to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where it’s part of the Abu Dhabi Global Market. (Anghami also operates a subscription service called “Anghami Plus” that allows users to download songs.)
PopArabia, which describes itself as the “leading music publisher” in the MENA region, is also based out of Abu Dhabi. In 2020, PopArabia entered into a joint venture with Reservoir to sign and develop Arab talent
The suit names 12 songs, including such international hits as “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” by John Denver; “Candy Shop,” written by Scott Storch and 50 Cent; “Yeah!” written by Lil Jon; “I Gotta Feeling,” co-written by Frédéric Riesterer; “Havana,” “Señorita” and “Break My Heart,” co-written by Ali Tamposi; and “Because Of You,” written by Kelly Clarkson, David Hodges and Ben Moody.
The Arabic tracks are “Laa,” written by Bassem Funky and Dok Dok; “Number 1,” written by Mohamed Saber, Fawzy Hassan, Islam Mohamed Ali and Abdel Hakim; and “LV COCO” and “Hallelujah” by Moroccan hip-hop star 7Liwa.
Reservoir and PopArabia are seeking an injunction to restrain Anghami from infringing its copyrights, as well as unspecified damages, interest and costs. The applicable law for the claim is U.K. Private International Law, the court says.
In an email response to Billboard, Saurabh Poddar, Anghami’s head of licensing, says the company intends to defend itself against the lawsuit. “Despite having this claim for a handful of songs, we assert that Anghami is more than willing to sign a license with publishers no matter how small or big they are, as long as such license is negotiated and implemented with a scientific method with regards to identification of actual market share, legal capacity and provided representation is confirmed especially in the case of a sub-publisher,” Poddar says.
A spokesperson for PopArabia says the company does not comment on ongoing litigation but notes that “we do take the protection of our rights and those of songwriters very seriously and believe it is essential to the development of a healthy ecosystem for music creators, which we have championed for in the UAE for over a decade.”
Anghami says on its website that it has licensing agreements in place with major international and Arabic music labels, as well as with “thousands of independent labels and distributors.”
In their suit, Reservoir and PopArabia counter that “while [Anghami] may indeed have licensed the copyright in certain sound recordings from record companies, it has not…obtained any license to use the underlying musical and lyrical works which are embodied in the sound recordings which it offers to consumers for streaming and downloading, or to reproduce the lyrics of those Songs.”
Two sources with knowledge of the case tell Billboard that in the past Anghami has questioned PopArabia about whether the company owns the rights it says it does. “In these court cases, one of the things that they will always challenge you on is the chain of title,” says a leading executive from a global publishing company who spoke to Billboard on background. “It’s much easier for PopArabia to instigate the case using [a handful of] works that they have directly signed to them.”
Licensing negotiations between PopArabia and Anghami were ongoing for at least three years before they reached a stalemate, says the source. “That’s when the question was raised, are they actually genuine in these attempts to license?”
Abu Dhabi-based media executive Michael Garin, who says he has seen the correspondence between the two companies, tells Billboard that Anghami has made licensing deals with the three major record companies, “who clearly protect their [own] intellectual property rights.” But in the case of Anghami, “it’s my understanding that for 10 years they’ve been using music from the region and from smaller publishers who they just felt were either too ignorant, too disorganized [or] too naive to ever sue for the collection of their rights,” says Garin, the former CEO of film and entertainment company Image Nation and media hub twofour54, of which PopArabia is “an investment and portfolio company.” (Anghami did not respond to Garin’s assertions.)
Garin, who until recently was also the director-general of the Abu Dhabi Creative Media Authority, a governmental organization, says he has been “working for the past decade to help protect the intellectual property rights of content creators.”
On the support section of its website, Anghami says it generates and pays out royalties after deducting 8% for publishing rights from revenues to be paid to music-collecting societies such as SACEM. However, SACEM no longer has a licensing deal with the platform.
“In 2018, we succeeded in getting a settlement with Anghami to cover the period of exploitation [from 2012] until 2018, but from 2019 we do not have any agreement,” says Julien Dumon, the director of development, phono and digital at SACEM. Significantly, the deal, which excluded the United States, covered usage in Europe and the Middle East. Talks for a renewal have been ongoing since 2019, says Dumon.
“We have been negotiating for close to five years now,” he says. “The fact that nothing has been signed whereas on the other side, SACEM has been able to close deals within a year with all the other actors in the industry clearly demonstrates that Anghami is not willing to properly engage and get an agreement in place.” (Anghami did not respond to a question about negotiations with SACEM.)
The Middle East and North Africa is the fastest-growing music market in the world, as per the IFPI’s Global Music Report for 2022, which said revenues from recorded music in the region grew by 35% in 2021 to $89.5 million. Streaming accounts for 95% of those revenues. A consumer research study conducted by the IFPI in April surveyed over 1,500 people aged 16 to 44 in the UAE and found that 54% of the respondents “typically listen to at least one Middle Eastern genre.”
With a claimed 58% share of the music streaming market in the region, Anghami is the dominant player; at least one report has said that Spotify was considering buying the streamer.
According to a source close to the matter, Anghami initially submitted a jurisdictional challenge to the case filed by Reservoir and PopArabia and subsequently withdrew it. The streamer now has about a month to file a response in the ADGM Court.
Beyond the copyright lawsuit, Anghami faces other challenges. The streaming service said in November that it was trimming its headcount by 22%, or roughly 39 employees, in order to maintain profitability. And on Jan. 9 the company received a notice from the Nasdaq indicating Anghami was not in compliance with the stock market’s listing rules due to its failure to file an interim balance sheet and income statement for its second quarter of 2022, according to a company filing. Nasdaq gave the company until Mar. 10 to submit a plan to regain compliance.
BRISBANE, Australia — Three-piece Australian pop outfit Blusher is the latest signing to Atlantic Records, Billboard can exclusively reveal.
Hailing from Melbourne and formed in 2021, Blusher made all the right noises with their debut, the independently-released “Softly Spoken.”
The 2022 tune, a slice of euphoric pop, got support from national youth network Triple J and its Unearthed sister station, and it’s edging towards one million plays on Spotify, where it landed on several playlists, including New Pop Picks and Fresh Finds.
Carrie West, Atlantic senior director of A&R, admits she was “blown away” when she caught the band live. “Blusher embodies the next generation of empowered female artists – a self-contained force of nature who write and produce all of their music,” she comments, lauding their “riveting” stagecraft.
“I look forward to standing alongside them as we continue to channel that irresistible creativity and energy into great records for a global audience.”
Atlantic Records chairman & CEO Craig Kallman welcomes the group into the “Atlantic family.”
They’re among “those rare artists that you know from day one are destined for the world stage, and we’re proud to give this amazing trio the platform to amplify their unique voices and bring their personal visions to life on a global scale,” Kallman notes in a statement.
“From their voracious appetite for creation to their fastidious work ethic, they’re everything we look for in an Atlantic artist.”
Blusher’s career is guided by Powerhouse Management’s Jamie-Rose Fowler (George Alice, Japanese Wallpaper, INXS, ex-YUNGBLUD) and Charlotte Ried (Polish Club, Gretta Ray, Matt Corby, ex-Vera Blue).
The new Atlantic signing is comprised of Miranda Ward, Lauren Coutts and Jade Ingvarson-Favretto, all solo artists before forming the act during the pandemic.
They produce and write together, share vocals on many of their songs and swap instruments during live outings, which have included showcases at the Bigsound conference in Brisbane.
“We’re happy to partner with (Warner Music Australasian president) Dan Rosen and the entire Warner Australia crew to give Blusher the launching pad for what we have no doubt will be a long and successful career,” adds Atlantic’s Kallman.
To celebrate their introduction to major label-world, the trio today (Feb. 24) releases “Dead End,” just their second single — and first with Atlantic.
It’s a crystal-clear pop experience with a chewy bassline and dreamy melodies.
Stream “Dead End” and watch the official music video below.
A woman who is suing Nick Carter over accusations that he raped her in 2001 now says the Backstreet Boys member is trying to “harass and intimidate” her with meritless counterclaims about a “conspiracy.”
A month after Shannon “Shay” Ruth filed her lawsuit in December, Carter countersued — claiming he’d been the victim of a “five-year conspiracy” that aimed to “to harass, defame and extort” him by exploiting the MeToo movement.
But in a filing Wednesday, Ruth’s lawyers said those counterclaims were brought with “no other purpose than to harass, intimate, and potentially silence plaintiff.”
“He seeks to use his wealth and celebrity status to outlast plaintiff,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote. “All while hiding behind being the ‘victim’ of the ‘#MeToo’ movement and the preposterous notion that plaintiff is only seeking attention and publicity.”
Ruth’s lawyers want the case dismissed under Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statute — a type of law enacted in states around the country that aims to make it easier to quickly dismiss cases that threaten free speech.
“Fortunately, Nevada is among approximately 31 states that have enacted a statutory scheme to prevent such suits or, at minimum, limit their nefarious intent by requiring a party to demonstrate there is a probability of success on the merits before their claim can progress,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote. “This is the very definition of a SLAPP lawsuit, and it should not be allowed to progress.”
A representative for Carter did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
Ruth sued Carter in December, claiming he raped her when she was 17 years old following a 2001 concert in Washington state. Now 39, Ruth says she waited more than 20 years to come forward because she was afraid of retaliation.
“He told plaintiff she would go to jail if she told anyone what happened between them,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote at the time. “He said that he was Nick Carter, and that he had the power to do that. Due to his various threats, plaintiff did not report Carter’s crimes for many years.”
Carter fired back in January, claiming Ruth had been manipulated into bringing the allegations by Melissa Schuman Henschel — a former member of the teen-pop group Dream who previously accused Carter of assaulting her in 2003. “Ruth was a vulnerable and highly impressionable individual, craving attention and desperate to fit in,” his lawyers wrote.
In legal terms, Carter’s countersuit accuses Ruth, Schuman and Schuman’s father of defamation and other forms of wrongdoing. But in Wednesday’s motion to dismiss the case, Ruth’s lawyers said Carter would not be able to prevail on those allegations because he is a “public figure” – a status that makes it hard to sue for defamation in American courts.
“By his own admission of being an ‘American icon,’ Carter is by definition a ‘general public figure’ in Nevada,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote. “As such, the burden he must meet to defeat an anti-SLAPP motion is significantly higher than would be for the average citizen, and he cannot meet that burden in this matter.”
Max Cutler, Spotify‘s head of audio talk shows and partnerships, is departing to “return to his entrepreneurial roots,” according to the company. His exit is part of a broader reorganization at the streaming company’s podcast division, where Julie McNamara has been appointed to lead licensed exclusives in addition to her oversight of Spotify’s global podcast studios. Additionally, Bryan Thoensen will continue overseeing content partnerships for third-party creators while expanding both those efforts and his team, while Bill Simmons will now report to podcasting head Sahar Elhabashi; in addition to continuing to lead The Ringer, Simmons will partner with vp/global head of ads business & platform Lee Brown on podcast monetization across the Spotify portfolio. No layoffs are connected to these shifts, according to the company.
Stacey Tang and Glyn Aikins were named co-presidents of RCA UK; both have worked at the label since 2018, with Tang most recently serving as executive vp while Aikins was co-president of Sony Music’s Since 93, a label partnership with RCA. Tang was named to Billboard‘s International Power Players list last year.
Robin Godfrey-Cass joined Primary Wave Music to focus on catalog acquisitions for the publishing giant. Godfrey Cass has over 40 years of experience in the music industry, including as managing director at Warner/Chappell Music UK and Round Hill Carlin UK; founder of Crosstown Songs; and co-founder of Perfect Storm, which eventually sold to Reservoir.
Cathy Bauer was appointed to the newly created role of head of physical sales & marketing at ADA Worldwide. In the role, she will manage ADA’s global physical sales and marketing division “with a focus on growing partners’ businesses and establishing efficient and standardized processes,” according to a press release. Bauer will additionally be tasked with identifying growth and innovation opportunities for ADA’s artists and partners, including through direct-to-consumer initiatives. She reports to ADA Worldwide president Cat Kreidich. Bauer joins ADA from ABKCO Music & Records, where she served as vp of sales & marketing for nearly five years.
Concord promoted 12 staff members to vp and senior vp roles across multiple business areas: Carol Boldish to vp of production, Concord Label Group (Nashville); Tom Frank to vp of sync marketing, Concord Label Group (London); David Geer to vp of music & publications, Concord Theatricals (New York); Shane Guitar to vp of operations, Fearless Records (Los Angeles); Randy Linsey to vp of international marketing & sales, Craft Recordings (Los Angeles); Clare Maxwell to vp of marketing, Concord Label Group (London); Elysha Miracle to senior vp of rights data management (Nashville); Meredith O’Leary to vp of sync marketing, Concord Label Group (New York); Gary Paczosa to senior vp of A&R, Rounder Records (Nashville); Stephen Phillips to vp of sync, Concord Music Publishing (London); Kelly Voigt to senior vp of corporate communications (Nashville); and Marty Willard to senior vp of business & legal affairs (remote).
Parlophone Records announced several key promotions and hires, chiefly Jack Melhuish, who has been named GM. He will continue to oversee and develop campaigns for Parlophone’s roster while also taking on wider responsibilities at the label. Additionally, Arina Logacheva, Molly McNulty and Seb Smith have been hired as senior A&R managers while Jason Ngimbi was hired as junior A&R manager. Logacheva joins from Universal Music, McNulty comes from Kobalt Music Publishing, Smith comes from Believe Music and Ngimbi joins from BMG. Lastly, Grace O’Neill was promoted to head of radio while Sam Palm was promoted to head of the newly created insight department, where he will extend the work he’s been doing as streaming head by incorporating more robust audience data.
Marcus Wise was appointed CEO for the European region at Wise Music Group. Previously global head of media, the London-based executive will lead the company’s music publishing and recorded music interests across the continent. Additionally, Dave Holley was named Wise Music Group COO, also based in London.
Alexander Brose, former executive director and CEO of The Tianjin Juilliard School in China, will succeed Dr. Peter Simon as president/CEO of The Royal Conservatory of Music upon Simon’s retirement on Aug. 31, 2024. The transition will begin on Sept. 1, 2023, when Brose will assume the role of president designate and work closely alongside Simon leading up to his departure.
Allison Smith was promoted to vp of promotion at Big Machine/John Varvatos Records; she was previously national director of promotion. In her new role, Smith will continue cultivating relationships between rock radio and the Varvatos imprint’s roster, which includes Badflower, Ayron Jones, Starcrawler, The Struts and Violet Saturn. She can be reached at allison.smith@bmlg.net.
Samantha Steel was named COO at Triple 8 Management, where she will oversee operations, promote a positive company culture and vision and develop solutions for internal communications as well as growth potential for employees and clients. Steel first joined Triple 8 in 2017, when Good Time Inc., where she served as GM, was acquired by the company. She can be reached at Sam@Triple8Mgmt.com.
JukeJoint Foundation, a nonprofit designed to empower women of color in the music business, was launched by Fresh ‘N Sassy Productions and ENCORE Music Tech Solutions founder Janishia Jones out of Los Angeles. Current board members include Live Out L!ve CEO Candace Newman, Exceleration Music head of data strategy Britnee Foreman, Jammcard operations manager Katrina Lee and Mass Appeal head of finance Daphnee Pierre. The Foundation will help women of color forge key professional connections by providing access to music industry events, scholarships to assist in repaying student loan debt and grants to aid the launch of their own music businesses. It plans to open additional chapters in New York, Atlanta and Nashville.
Gail Berger was named senior vp and GM of automotive partnerships at SiriusXM, succeeding Rodney Pickett, who will retire at the end of the month. Reporting to chief commercial officer Joe Verbrugge, Berger will oversee the company’s automotive partnerships, automotive remarketing and automotive field operations teams responsible for growing SiriusXM’s presence in new and used vehicles. Berger, who has been with SiriusXM since 2012, was most recently senior vp of automotive remarketing.
Bryce Sherlow was promoted to A&R manager at Warner Chappell Music in Nashville, while Benji Amaefule was hired in the same role. Amaefule joins from media platform Country Central, where he served as head of artist and label partnerships; he also interviews Nashville artists and writers and reviews new music via his brand TheBenjiChord.
Drive Agency president/CEO Jessy Tolkan was appointed as chairperson of the board of directors at HeadCount, the nonpartisan, nonprofit voter registration organization that harnesses music, culture and digital media to increase voter turnout. She succeeds Peter Shapiro, who recently finished out his four-year term as chair but will keep a seat on the board.
Mary Beth O’Toole launched The Conduit Collaborative, a boutique public relations firm with locations in Los Angeles and Sacramento, Calif. The firm specializes in finding non-traditional pitch angles for clients, ranging from music artists to Washington lobbying firms. It offers a range of PR services, including tour press and red carpet services, and has already worked with the Janis Joplin estate, Universal Music and L.A. Live, among other clients. O’Toole can be reached at info@conduitcollab.com.
Sound Future Foundation, which harnesses the influence of the live event industry to further climate innovation, announced its new board of directors, including board chair Terah Lyons, who previously served as policy advisor to U.S. chief technology officer Megan Smith in President Obama’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and founding executive director of the global nonprofit Partnership on AI. The remainder of the new board includes treasurer Kelci Zile (sustainability partner, Madrona Ventura Labs); secretary Adam Brunner (senior planner & counsel, Wildstar Partners); Brandy Schultz (co-founder/chief marketing officer, Sound Future and founder of Adventure Nannies); Ashley O’Winter (co-founder/COO, Sound Future); Wesley Schultz (songwriter-producer-lead singer of The Lumineers); Sara Full (tour manager); Joe Atamian (senior vp, Wasserman Music); and Alex Bruford (founder/CEO/agent, ATC Live).
ASM Global appointed Leonie Patrick of the San Francisco Travel Association as GM for its San Francisco convention center the Moscone Center. “Her focus will be to actively create an international destination while driving a great value for live meetings and events that drive action within their communities,” said ASM Global executive vp of convention centers Dan Hoffend in a statement.
TAIT — a global group of designers, fabricators, engineers and innovators for live and location-based experiences — promoted Gemma Hodgson to chief commercial officer. Additionally, Jess Chalifoux has joined the company as vp of global business development. Chalifoux reports to Hodgson, who can be reached at gemma.guy@taittowers.com.
Sander Shalinsky was named legal counsel at SRG/ILS Group. In music, Shalinsky is best known for his work with The Weeknd and producer Bob Ezrin, among many other record labels, artists, publishers, managers and music executives.
Singer-songwriter Jewel co-founded Innerworld, a mental health platform that aims to “build the largest community in the metaverse for mental health support,” according to a press release. Jewel will serve as chief strategy officer, while founder Noah Robinson will serve as CEO.
CrossBorderWorks founder/CEO Vickie Nauman joined the advisory board of Web3 company Pixelynx, which develops new formats of music and experiences for the metaverse.
Irving Azoff teed off on scalpers, Stubhub and the federal government in a no-holds-barred panel Wednesday during the Pollstar Live conference at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. Azoff, along with artist Garth Brooks, MSG Entertainment chairman James Dolan and former top Department of Justice antitrust official Makan Delrahim, took the federal government to task for the way it handled last month’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on ticketing. Despite evidence that the problems linked to the ticket sale were the result of a massive bot attack, most senators at the hearing blamed Ticketmaster for service disruptions and tried to link customer dissatisfaction with the ticket sale to antitrust allegations that the company is operating as a monopoly.
Delrahim, who investigated Live Nation and Ticketmaster on behalf of the Department of Justice in 2019, told his fellow panelists that Congress was convoluting two separate issues and “were well intentioned, but didn’t understand the issues” facing the primary ticketing business. Azoff was more aggressive in his comments. He said most problems in ticketing were “likely perpetrated by scalpers” who “steal massive amounts of tickets” and pay lobbyists to “to demonize Ticketmaster, and actually make laws to support and protect scalpers instead of artists or fans.”
The panel was a call for unity within the music business after the senate hearing left many in live entertainment feeling rattled, including many of Live Nation’s own competitors.
The touring community has stayed silent through most of the sector’s controversies in the post-pandemic period – including consumer frustration over high prices for Adele, Bruce Springsteen and Blink-182 tickets – leaving Ticketmaster to take most of the incoming barrage. And the Senate Judiciary Committee revealed — to many people’s surprise — how angry and often misinformed politicians are with Ticketmaster, and by extension, the concert industry writ large.
The panel was held during an annual conference sponsored by Pollstar, a long-running trade publication now owned by Azoff, Tim Leiweke and the Oak View Group. Wednesday’s panel was the concert businesses’ first attempt to create a unified voice between buildings, artists, promoters and ticketing companies and to launch a new offensive targeting scalpers who, as Brooks pointed out, are becoming increasingly effective at using bots to “slow the system down so people get frustrated and immediately head to the secondary markets.” Dolan noted scalpers have made it very difficult to get tickets into the hands of people “who don’t have seven figure incomes.”
No artist “wants their fans to have to pay for a ticket that is exponentially higher than face value,” Azoff said. “I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Washington isn’t focused on the real issue — screwing artists and their fans. Our government has a long history of screwing artists.” Add in the explosion of fraudulent and misleading ticketing sites and the scourge of speculative ticket listings, and it’s easy to see why Azoff, Dolan and the other panelists are alarmed about the growth of the secondary ticketing business.
They’re not wrong, but the situation may also not be as dire as Azoff and his compatriots want to make it seem. Unlike sports ticketing where nearly all non-season-ticket sales are handled by a small cadre of elite brokers, the concert business has been highly effective at delegitimizing the secondary ticketing industry and preventing sites like StubHub from gaining direct access to ticketing inventory. Brokers have further been stymied by initiatives like Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan and SafeTix, which have proven effective at reducing the number of tickets sold on the primary market. In fact, the primary ticketing business’ success at stopping the secondary industry less than a decade ago is why most scalpers are now resorting to such extreme measures to procure tickets.
This is mostly good news for Azoff. His worst fears about the growth of the secondary ticketing market have not materialized, and today the industry has been marginalized and to the point that some actors have resorted to illegal acts to procure tickets.
As Delrahim explained, there are already existing laws on the books and “all sorts of limits” the government can place on scalpers. Existing securities law regulating the short selling of stocks could be applied to speculative ticket listings, noting that prosecutors with the Southern District of New York have “already brought a number of prosecutions” for what he calls “naked short selling.” There are also Federal Trade Commission laws banning “deceptive and unfair practices” that could be better enforced.
“The FTC should open an investigation against speculative ticket sellers who go online and try to sell tickets way before they have been sold – that’s a clear violation of the artist rights,” he added.
Compelling the government to enforce its own laws is difficult, though, and Live Nation and Ticketmaster are not equipped to slow down the bad behavior of the secondary ticketing industry on its own. Instead, Azoff made a rare plea to the audience of touring business professionals for help.
“If you agree with us,” he said, “you all have work to do because there’s a lot of weird bills being proposed out there and the people in this room have a chance to go out and let fans be heard. Ultimately, this is going to be decided at the local and municipal level and that’s where all of us need to bring the fight.”
To afford living in Austin, Katie-Marie Marschner works two jobs in the music business: In addition to her gig as a tour manager, she earns $19 an hour working remotely 40 hours a week as a YouTube Music subject matter expert — poring over spreadsheets for errors in the company’s charts algorithm. To manage it all, she alternates between her YouTube Music “office computer” and her “fun computer.”
Marschner’s employment for YouTube Music is through Cognizant, an IT company that contracts with the Google-owned music streamer to supply staff. But after she and her coworkers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a union election that would effectively unionize them, Cognizant is now mandating that all 58 employees report to work in Austin — even though Marschner and her colleagues say the company hired them with the understanding they’d work remotely, often outside the city. This kind of flexibility has allowed Marschner to travel on off-days as a tour manager and book hotels during her lunch breaks, and she says, “Returning to the office is completely unfeasible.”
Marschner and her colleagues see the new in-office mandate as a union-busting move: Rather than allow the workers to unionize, Cognizant is demanding they return to the office, and, presumably, will fire the workers who can’t. The remote employees – some of whom work far from Austin and even Texas – say they accepted their jobs years ago with the understanding they’d be able to work from home and accuse Cognizant of changing the terms after their union activity. In response, on Jan. 23, the workers filed an Unfair Labor Practice complaint with the NLRB. Three weeks ago, the workers went on strike, marching last Tuesday to Google’s downtown Austin headquarters for a rally.
The division’s union movement caught the attention of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas). They wrote a Feb. 21 joint letter to the CEO of YouTube’s parent companies, Google and Alphabet, complaining the return-to-work announcement was an “anti-union posture” and requested the workers be “able to freely exercise their right to join a union as guaranteed by federal law.”
“These workers are inspiring people across the country,” Casar tells Billboard. “When the United Auto Workers started organizing at General Motors, their first strike was 50 workers. Soon enough, hundreds of thousands of autoworkers decided to join. That helped make auto-worker jobs stop being poverty-wage, dangerous jobs and made them into middle-class-family-sustaining jobs.”
A Google rep did not respond to inquiries, but a spokesperson has told reporters the striking workers are employees of Cognizant, not Google. Jeff Demarrais, a Cognizant spokesperson, sent a statement saying the company “respects the right of our associates to disagree with our policies, and to protest them lawfully,” adding that it is “disappointing” the workers decided to strike over a return-to-office policy the company has “communicated to them repeatedly” since December 2021. In an email, Demarrais accused the protesters of issuing “death threats” against other Cognizant employees and “blocked the office driveways with downed trees.”
Neil Gossell, who works for the striking YouTube Music division, calls the downed-tree claim a “flat-out lie,” saying a recent Austin ice storm was responsible for the blocked walkways. “I don’t know of any threats we made to anybody who chose to return to work,” says Gossell, a music generalist with YouTube Music who oversees “missing content” taken down due to copyright issues or missing artist names. “Sure, we’re frustrated with them, but we hope we can convince them into joining and help themselves have a better and fairer workplace.”
Gossell and Marschner are upset that Google, whom they see as their employer, has deferred to Cognizant. “I’ve gone through Google training. I go through their security training. I go through their ethics training…. [But] if we want to negotiate over pay, they say, ‘Pay is based on the contract we have with Google, so we can’t bargain over that.’” Marschner says.
The employees, affiliated with the Alphabet Workers Union, which has never held a strike, are awaiting National Labor Relations Board decisions on their election petition and the two Unfair Labor Practice complaints.
“It’s going to be a long labor movement, because we’re not stopping until we have a union,” Gossell says. Referring to recent union activity at Amazon, Disney and Tesla, he adds: “I’m not saying we’re the tip of the spear, but we’re part of something bigger that’s going on in America. All you have to do is pick up a history book to see how this ends.”
UTA has added two new hires to its Nashville office, with Brian Hill joining as music agent and Jaime Roberts joining as tour marketing director.
Hill brings more than three decades of talent agency experience, including stints at Monterey Peninsula Artists/Paradigm and Creative Arts Agency (CAA). Hill has been named Pollstar‘s Third Coast Agent of the Year twice and has worked with artists including Eli Young Band, Aaron Lewis, Frankie Ballard and Home Free.
New York native Roberts launched her career in live entertainment by promoting live family entertainment experiences with Feld Entertainment, followed by more than a decade leading in marketing and promotions at Live Nation and The Bowery Presents for events in the New York and New Jersey region. Most recently, Roberts spent seven years in Austin, Texas, where she developed and executed multi-channel marketing campaigns for major touring artists with Messina Touring Group. During her time there, she led successful tour marketing efforts for artists including Shawn Mendes, Tim McGraw/Faith Hill, Little Big Town and Kelly Clarkson.
Over the past year, UTA Nashville has added Tyler Hubbard, Bobby Bones, Chris Janson, Parmalee, Dalton Dover and more to its roster and helped develop music newcomers including Megan Moroney, Alana Springsteen, Brittney Spencer and Chase Matthew.
“We are excited to have Brian and Jaime join us at UTA as we continue to expand and elevate the music department,” said UTA co-head of global music Scott Clayton in a statement. “Their decades of experience and stellar track record of going above and beyond for their clients make them perfect additions to our world-class team in Nashville.”
Bronx drill rapper Kay Flock is among eight members of Bronx gangs Sev Side and Third Side being charged with murder and racketeering, among other “violent offenses,” according to the Department of Justice. The Thursday (Feb. 23) press release also detailed charges related to, “attempted murder and assault with a dangerous weapon arising from seven shootings committed in the Bronx between June 2020 and February 2022.”
Six of the charged individuals, including Kay Flock — born Kevin Perez — are in police custody, while the remaining two are named in the release as fugitives. “Over a span of several years, the members of these gangs allegedly terrorized neighborhoods in the Bronx and Manhattan by killing and shooting other people. Through these charges, we will hold Sev Side and Third Side members responsible for plaguing our communities with gun violence,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in a statement.
Kay Flock is currently awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on the federal charges. His alleged crimes carry a punishment of “mandatory life in prison or death,” according to the Department of Justice.
Kay Flock’s team did not respond to Billboard‘s request for comment at the time of publication.
The new charges add to 19-year-old Kay Flock’s collection of legal troubles, most notably his alleged 2021 murder of Hwascar “Oscar” Hernandez outside a Hamilton Heights barbershop in New York City, on which he is currently awaiting trial. Despite his growing rap sheet and the fact that he’s currently behind bars, he has continued to release new music, most recently The D.O.A. Tape [Care Package] in December 2022. Last year, Kay Flock’s single “Shake It” featuring Cardi B, Dougie B and Bory300 made quite the buzz, appearing on both the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at No. 51, and Billboard‘s US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, where it peaked at No. 14.
New York City mayor Eric Adams has publicly declared his disdain for the drill genre, linking it to violence and crime in the city. Since entering office in January 2022, the retired police captain has cracked down on artists in the genre, with the NYPD shutting down a number of drill performances. In September, drill rappers 22Gz, Sha Ek and Ron Suno were dropped from the Rolling Loud NYC lineup at the NYPD’s request. Other notable New York drill artists including Dusty Locane and Sheff G are also behind bars, while 22Gz is awaiting trial on attempted murder charges.
Live Nation’s 2022 was record-breaking across basically all key metrics — revenue, concert attendance, gross transaction value and sponsorships were all at all-time highs — and the company expects 2023 to top that.
As the company reported Thursday (Feb) with its fourth quarter earnings, total revenue reached a record $16.7 billion in 2022 — up 44% from the pre-pandemic era of 2019. That growth was spread across a number of factors: more fans, more concerts, more spending per fan, higher average ticket prices and a greater number of large sponsors.
Adjusted operating income improved 49% to $1.4 billion over the year, and operating free cash flow rose nearly four-fold to $1.8 billion.
Concert revenue in 2022 was $13.49 billion, up 43.1% from 2019 and 185.8% more than 2021. Concert attendance reached 121 million fans in 2022, up 24% from 2019 and a 246% increase from 2021, a year Live Nation began to recover from the pandemic but was not yet at full strength. The concerts division put on 43,600 events in 2022, up 153.2% from 2021 and up 8.4% from 2019. Attendance for Venue Nation, the venues operated by Live Nation, reached almost 50 million.
Ticketing revenues of $2.24 billion was up 44.9% from 2019 and up 97.4% from 2021. Fee-bearing ticket volume rose 28% from 2019 to 280 million. Fee-bearing gross transaction value grew to $28 billion, up more than 50% from 2019.
The average ticket costs were higher in 2022, too. With more tickets priced dynamically to true market value, Live Nation estimates $700 million was shifted to artists (and, presumably, away from the secondary market). That said, the average entry price for tickets remained below $35 in the U.S.
Even though consumers felt the pinch of high inflation throughout 2022, music fans didn’t shy away from spending money at Live Nation concerts. Ancillary per-fan spending rose at least 20% across all venue types from 2019 levels.
Sponsorship revenue reached $968 million, up 64% from 2019 and 135% greater than 2021. Live Nation had 120 large sponsors globally, up 32% from 2019. Last year, the company added PayPal, GoPuff, Hulu and Snap as sponsors. They and other new, large sponsors accounted for 80% of sponsorship’s revenue growth in 2022.
Live Nation points to a number of leading indicators that suggest 2023 will be even stronger than 2022. As of mid-February, event-related deferred revenue — tickets sales for concerts that have not yet occurred — was up $400 million to $2.7 billion. Also through mid-February, ticket sales are up 20% and fee-bearing gross transaction value of tickets sold is up 33%.