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The organizers of Coachella are suing the creator of a Washington D.C.-based music event called “Moechella,” accusing the smaller group of violating the trademark rights to the giant yearly festival.
Filed after months of public dispute with Justin Johnson over the name of his go-go music events, Coachella’s lawsuit says he’s continued to use the allegedly infringing name unabated — even announcing last month that he’s planning 10 new events in the coming year.
“Despite plaintiffs’ repeated efforts to avoid litigation, defendants have made clear that they have no intent of ceasing their infringing activities, forcing Plaintiffs to file this action,” wrote lawyers for Goldenvoice LLC, the AEG subsidiary that operates the California festival, in a complaint filed Tuesday (Jan. 31) in D.C. federal court.
In an interview with Billboard on Friday, Johnson said he’d been surprised to learn of Coachella’s lawsuit because he said he’d already agreed with the company’s lawyers that he would “pivot away” from the “Moechella” name and had been continuing to do so.
“These events are protests that have spawned out of the gentrification of D.C. and the erasure of the culture in this city, not festivals for monetary gain,” Johnson said. “It’s surprising that a multi-billion dollar company is approaching a non-profit organization like this.”
The new case is just the latest trademark clash for Coachella. In 2021, the festival sued Live Nation for selling tickets to an event called “Coachella Day One 22.” Last year, Coachella sued a West African company over an event called “Afrochella,” then later sued a California business park that has been using the name “Coachillin.”
An attorney for Coachella did not immediately return a request for comment on the new case.
According to Washington City Paper, Moechella started in 2019 as musical protests organized by Johnson and others after residents of a luxury apartment building complained about go-go music that was being played outside. The name, according to that article, is a portmanteau of “moe” — D.C.-area slang for a friend — and Coachella.
The dispute with Coachella first became public last summer, when the festival filed legal documents seeking to block Johnson from registering the name as a federal trademark. In response, Johnson quickly dropped his trademark application, but publicly vowed that he was “not going to stop using the name” even after Coachella’s complaints.
In the new lawsuit, Coachella’s attorneys said the company had no problem with the Moechella event itself — only with the use of a title that seems to clearly play on the better-known festival’s name.
“Plaintiffs have no objection to Defendants’ lawful activities, including the hosting of live music and entertainment events,” the company wrote. “Plaintiffs’ only objection is to the Defendants’ infringing and confusing use of the term ‘Moechella.’”
The new case also named Kelsye Adams, a woman who appears to be the executive director of the group that organizes Moechella. She could not immediately be located for comment on Friday.
In an effort to underscore the argument that Coachella doesn’t want to be confused with the smaller event, the festival’s lawyers took the notable step of citing a recent tragedy.
In June, a 15-year-old boy was killed and three others shot when gunfire erupted at Moechella. In a statement to the media at the time, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser criticized the fact that the event “did not have any proper planning for the number of people who were here and with guns involved.”
In Tuesday’s lawsuit, Coachella said the shooting was an example of the kind of “reputational harm” that can be caused if consumers think the bigger festival has somehow approved of Moechella.
“Plaintiffs contend that incidents such as the shooting death and melee cause harm to Plaintiffs, particularly given Defendants’ infringing use of similar looking and sounding ‘Moechella’ marks,” Coachella’s lawyers wrote.
In speaking with Billboard on Friday, Johnson said he viewed the linking of the shooting directly to Moechella as “unfair,” arguing it had actually occurred after the event ended. But he reiterated that he would adopt a new name, which he says he’ll use in the future to continue drawing attention to gentrification, gun violence and other issues facing D.C.
“This name was something that was chosen by the people, so we’re going to do a call to action to change the name, just like a sports team would do,” Johnson said, alluding to the recent high-profile name change for Washington D.C.’s professional football team.
“They named it once, so they can name it again,” Johnson said.
Five years ago, award-winning electronic music DJ-producer Jesse Rose and hit songwriter-producer Jesse Rogg decided to launch a global agency to represent creative directors. “We just realized that there was no structure to the world of creative direction,” says Rogg. Having previously worked well in the studio together, Rose says they figured they would work just as well as business partners and, in 2018, formed the Original Creative Agency.
Today, OCA represents over 50 creative directors — or “architects,” as Rose and Rogg say — with clients including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Christina Aguilera, Tame Impala and Steve Lacy. And while the agency’s creatives work across mediums from music videos to styling to album art, looking at the year ahead, the pair predicts the live space will become a much bigger part of business. “Now people are coming to us and asking us to produce their tours, starting from the creative,” says Rose. “Which makes sense because our job is to make a story for a show.”
The two are confident that storytelling — both on and offstage — will be key to 2023’s most successful treks. Rose recalls speaking with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker ahead of the band’s Slow Rush tour, initially planned in 2020, about how to make the outing feel fresh in 2022. Their solution was to build an entire campaign around the tour. Creative director Ryder Ripps came up with the idea for Rushium, a fictitious pharmaceutical company pushing “rush pills” that appeared on posters, merchandise and the sides of trucks. As for Lamar, the pair praises the way his 2022 Glastonbury headlining set (creative-directed by Mike Carson, along with Lamar and Dave Free) “told a story through movement rather than over-the-top stage design,” relying on two groups of dancers, says Rose. Most effective, he recalls, was the finale, during which Lamar chanted, “Godspeed for women’s rights,” as blood dripped from his thorny crown.
At a time when the live space is more competitive than ever, Rogg adds that such effective campaigning and messaging help set a tour apart — and cites a significant return on investment, too. Plus, adds Rose, the approach has recently helped OCA form relationships with nearly every major agency. “Artists and creatives — the great ones, at least — are always the ones coming up with what’s next,” says Rogg. “So we’re quite mindful of only representing the folks who are those trendsetters. They understand the bigger picture — and not just over one campaign, but across a whole career.”
This story will appear in the Feb. 4, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Apple on Thursday posted its first quarterly revenue drop in nearly four years after pandemic-driven restrictions on its China factories curtailed sales of the latest iPhone during the holiday season. The company’s sales of $117 billion for the October-December period represented a 5% decline from the same time in the previous year, a deeper downturn than analysts had projected.
Despite the downturn — which marks Apple’s first year-over-year decrease in quarterly revenue since the January-March period in 2019 when sales also slipped 5% — the company’s Apple Services division actually set a new revenue record. The company said that combined, Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and others generated $20.8 billion for the three months ending Dec. 31, up from up from $19.5 billion a year earlier. Apple said that it now has more than 935 million paid subscriptions across its services, up from more than 900 million paid subscriptions reported in the previous quarter.
Apple’s profit also eroded during the past quarter, even though the Cupertino, California, company remained a pillar of prosperity. Earnings totaled $30 billion, or $1.88 per share, a 13 decrease from the same time in the previous year. Those results also missed a target of $1.94 per share set by analysts polled by FactSet Research.
Investors reacted to the letdown by initially driving down Apple’s stock by nearly 5% in Thursday’s extended trading. But management remarks made during a conference call with analysts raised hopes that Apple’s disappointing performance may have been a mere hiccup, paring the decrease in the company’s shares to less than 1%.
Apple’s rare stumble came against a backdrop of renewed investor optimism about tech’s outlook for this year, helping to spur a 17% increase in the sector’s bellwether Nasdaq composite index so far this year.
But now Wall Street seems likely to reassess things in light of Apple’s latest results and ongoing worries about a potential recession in the wake of rising interest rates aimed at tamping down inflation, said Investing.com analyst Jesse Cohen.
With Google also disclosing a year-over-year quarterly decline in its digital ad sales on Thursday alongside Apple’s disappointing performance, Cohen said it’s clear there are “several challenges the tech sector faces amid the current economic climate of slowing growth and elevated inflation.”
Despite the quarterly downturn in its fortunes. Apple hasn’t signaled any intention to resort to mass layoffs — a stark contrast to its peers in technology. Industry giants Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta Platforms have announced plans to jettison more than a combined 50,000 employees as they adjust to revenue slowdowns or downturns caused by people’s lessening dependence on the digital realm as the pandemic has eased.
“We manage for the long term,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts during the conference call. “We invest in innovation and people.”
Cook had tried to brace investors for tougher sledding in late October when he warned of “increasingly difficult economic conditions” heading into the holiday season. Then, just a few days later, Apple cautioned that China’s attempts to clamp down on the spread of COVID was affecting its production lines and would prevent meeting all the demand for the premium iPhone 14 models during the holidays.
That contributed to an 8% decrease in iPhone sales from the previous year to $65.8 billion in the most recent quarter.
Cook indicated Apple’s supply headaches are now over, assuring analysts that “production is now back where we want it to be.”
In another positive sign, Apple also disclosed that it now has more than 2 billion iPhones, iPads, Macs and other devices in active use for the first time. That is likely to help Apple sell more digital subscriptions and ads, helping to fuel long-term revenue growth.
David Bither has something on his mind. Sitting at his desk at the Warner Music Group’s midtown Manhattan offices, he pulls up a recording he heard the night before on SiriusXM’s Beatles Channel: accomplished jazz pianist Brad Mehldau performing his solo interpretation of “I Am the Walrus,” off his upcoming album of Beatles covers out Feb. 10. It’s the last minute of the song Bither keeps coming back to: how Mehldau teases out the melodies, takes the song to new places that seem at once completely disconnected from the acid-infused silliness of John Lennon’s original and at the same time still retaining its pop essence.
It’s a Friday afternoon, which in these post-pandemic days means there are few, if any, others in the building. But Bither is here, as he has been for decades, manning the ship for Nonesuch Records’ eclectic, intensely artistic roster of musicians. His office is bursting with vinyl records, and plaques and posters line the walls and the floor: Emmylou Harris, the Velvet Underground, Steve Reich, artists who have influenced him deeply, on both a personal and professional level. It’s no wonder his focus is, at all times, on the music, which filters out through his open office door into the building’s hallways.
That focus on the music, and the wildly different ways that music can be expressed, has paid off more than ever this year: at the upcoming 65th annual Grammy Awards, Nonesuch — the label at which Bither has worked officially since 1995, unofficially since 1986, and of which he became president in 2017 — received 15 nominations, the most in the label’s 59-year history. And those nominations run the gamut of genres: rock (The Black Keys), blues (Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal), folk (the Punch Brothers), jazz (Cécile McLorin Salvant; and Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride & Brian Blade), contemporary instrumental (Mehldau), chamber music (Caroline Shaw), historical (the 20th-anniversary edition of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) and bluegrass (Molly Tuttle). Reflecting the label’s dedication to presentation, both musical and physical, there were nominations for producer of the year, non-classical (Dan Auerbach), best arrangement, instruments and vocals (McLorin Salvant) and best album notes (Bob Mehr for the YHF box; Fernando Gonzalez for Astor Piazzolla box set The American Clave Recordings). Most shocking of all, there was a best new artist nomination for Tuttle, the first bluegrass artist to ever receive such recognition.
It’s an impressive haul for a label that employs just 12 staffers in the States and three in the U.K., and one that rarely, if ever, traffics in the music mainstream. But it’s also a testament to Bither’s role as a figure who, as his predecessor Bob Hurwitz did before him, stands up and provides a platform for artists to express themselves in many forms, regardless of how many streams they may rack up or records they may sell.
“It’s just keeping your ears open to what’s going on and realizing there’s a lot of doors out there to open, and to be open to that and be casting the net as wide as we can,” he says, reflecting on the breadth of those nominations. “But with the kinds of music we’ve been involved in, I don’t think that 20 years ago we could have been nominated in all those categories. They didn’t all exist then, but we weren’t making records in all those places. Now, I don’t think there’s a category that would be off-limits to us.”
Nonesuch has rarely been beholden to a specified lane. Founded in 1964 by legendary executive Jac Holzman as a budget classical label, the imprint was led for more than a decade by Tracey Sterne, who established its classical bonafides while expanding into indigenous music from around the world. The label was sold to Warner in 1970 and, in 1984, was shifted to fall under Elektra Records boss Bob Krasnow, who hired Hurwitz to run a newly-reimagined Nonesuch — one that quickly expanded into a home for contemporary composers, jazz artists and musicians from all over the world. Bither, who had a background in music journalism and performance arts centers like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was working at WMG parent Warner Communications at the time and established a rapport with Hurwitz and his marketing chief Peter Clancy — enough so that when Krasnow needed a new head of international for Elektra, Hurwitz recommended Bither, despite the fact that he had no experience in the record business.
“There were a few eyebrows raised for sure, and I give Bob Krasnow credit forever for taking that risk,” Bither says. “They would do conventions every year of all the labels with presentations, and I was at the big international meeting at Montreux within two weeks; I didn’t even know what was coming out on Elektra. We went on a road show to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, and I was going to be presenting Elektra’s 1987 slate of releases. So that’s how I got started.”
Bither learned quickly, and after a few years running international he shifted to domestic marketing, then to the GM role, working on projects for Metallica, Tracy Chapman and 10,000 Maniacs, among others. But he had maintained an informal advisory role at Nonesuch, with Hurwitz sliding him $1 a year for his input prior to him taking the Elektra job and Bither bringing artists to Nonesuch over the years. So when Warner went through an executive upheaval in the mid-1990s, Hurwitz brought Bither on full-time — a partnership that continues to this day, even as Hurwitz stepped back into a chairman role in 2017 and relinquished the label presidency to Bither.
That period coincided with some of the most significant Nonesuch deals in the label’s history: partnering with World Circuit Records to release three albums from the Buena Vista Social Club that collectively sold millions worldwide, in a deal that came about after Hurwitz asked Bither what music was emanating from his office that particular day; signing Harris and Laurie Anderson, artists from the major label system who needed a creative outlet to explore different forms of expression; bringing on the Black Keys and Wilco, two acts who would make a significant impact on rock and alternative music; and putting out Brian Wilson’s SMILE, the culmination of a 50-year journey to release one of music history’s most mythical projects. Nonesuch became a home for artists who wouldn’t fit anywhere else, who had something to say beyond the ordinary.
“Maybe because of my international background, but the idea of this music coming from all these different places felt like there was a home for a lot of different ideas at Nonesuch,” Bither says. “It was different than what the bigger, mainstream labels were doing. And that was the mission: it was the mission when Bob started, and it’s the mission 40 years later, to try to do those things. We’re not gonna compete with the big labels; it’s not what we do. But I think there are a lot of other opportunities, maybe more than ever now, because of the way that the business has evolved, for music that’s real, that has original voices.”
“The label is that most old fashioned of labels, in a very good way — one that seeks to follow an artist as they grow and change, rather than depend on the quick hit,” says Rhiannon Giddens, who has worked with Nonesuch since the beginning of a career that has spanned country, folk, bluegrass, soul, Gospel, jazz, R&B, operas and ballets. “It’s hard to imagine another home that would let me be me so completely. David has been an incredible support, sounding board and just all-around excellent friend to me, through the ups downs and sideways of my weirdo career, and I simply wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”
Those real, original voices and musicians are on display with Nonesuch’s Grammy nominees this year — beginning with Tuttle, the uber-talented guitarist, singer and songwriter who had recently become the first woman to win guitarist of the year at the International Bluegrass Music Association awards when Bither met her in 2019 in Manhattan. Her album with her band Golden Highway, Crooked Tree, brings bluegrass into the modern conversation, with lyrics that reflect a 2022 reality rather than a century-old art form, and with musicianship that is mind-spinning. (“When I met David Bither, we instantly connected, and I was struck with how much thought and care he puts into the albums that Nonesuch releases,” says Tuttle. “I have loved being part of such a diverse and brilliant family of musicians [and] I’m looking forward to working alongside the Nonesuch team for many years to come.”) But while Nonesuch had hoped for a best bluegrass album nomination, her nod for best new artist came as a shock.
“Did we think she was going to be best new artist? We didn’t think that the day the nominations were announced,” Bither says. “But she had something special, and it’s going to be really exciting to see what comes next. I’ve come to understand — having sat at the Grammys now for many years with artists and others — how much it means to the artists. It’s attached surgically to their names forever after. I think Molly Tuttle’s name will mean something that it didn’t mean six weeks ago, and that will inform everything that happens with the next record. The sky’s the limit, and what she’s now earned is the ability to decide for herself. It’s about her as an artist, not about figuring out a lane for her to drive in and continue driving there.”
There is something to the longevity of Nonesuch’s mission, as well as the long-standing leadership guiding it, that tends to bring artists back. Ry Cooder has worked with the label since the Buena Vista days in the late 1990s; Brad Mehldau has worked with them since 2004. The Black Keys had their pick of any label in the world when they signed with Nonesuch in 2006, and after 17 years, 18 Grammy nominations and seven wins, they’re still here. Wilco spent a decade at the label before heading out to form their own operation, but when it came time to set up the 20th-anniversary box set of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, they came back to Nonesuch to get it done.
“There was no way if we had done this ourselves that it would have come out nearly as good, or nearly as expansive, nor would it have gotten the treatment in the media that Nonesuch was able to get,” says Josh Grier, Wilco’s former lawyer and current manager. “They could have made this a lot simpler for themselves and probably still sold a fair amount of records and made some money, and they went a lot further than that. Jeff [Tweedy], like most musicians, doesn’t like looking back; he likes to focus on his new records. David made it seem fresh and showed a lot of energy for the project that got Tweedy back engaged. It’s kind of nice to come back after 20 years and see the same guy sitting at the desk.”
A lot has changed since Bither first worked at Nonesuch; the shift from sales to streaming, for one thing, as well as the tastes of the mainstream. (The nature of streaming services, which cater principally to mega-hit singles, has made it more difficult to break through the noise, he notes.) But the label is still managing to thrive as it comes up on its 60th anniversary next year, and this coming weekend’s Grammys could be a capstone for a place that continues to thrive with its particular sense of artistic taste, in an ecosystem that isn’t necessarily set up to reward it.
“I don’t do interviews very often, because it’s not about us, it’s about all these artists that we’re here to support,” Bither says. “But it did feel now that because of all these nominations, it does say something about us as a label that I think is important to be said. And you know, these are not easy times for the business. We’re all struggling to be heard over the din of the 100,000 tracks a day being uploaded. But I think there will always be a place for what we do. We’ve never looked at it as being a niche, we’ve looked at it as being about a certain kind of quality. And the world of music is a big world.”
A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee is pushing Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores because of national security concerns as the Chinese-owned company faces escalating prospects of a national ban amid bipartisan scrutiny of its data-sharing practices.
In a letter addressed to the chief executives of Apple and Alphabet, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. says TikTok’s popularity “raises the obvious risk that the Chinese Communist Party could weaponize TikTok against the United States” by forcing parent company ByteDance to “surrender Americans’ sensitive data or manipulate the content Americans receive to advance China’s interests.”
The government has increasingly been taking action against TikTok’s ties to China. In December, President Joe Biden signed a bill prohibiting the use of TikTok by nearly four million government employees on devices owned by its agencies. At least 27 state governments have passed similar measures.
There’s no evidence that the Chinese government has demanded American user data from TikTok or its parent company or influenced the content users see on the platform.
In a statement, TikTok said that the Bennet “relies almost exclusively on misleading reporting about TikTok, the data we collect, and our data security controls.” It added that the letter ignored its investment in a plan, known as Project Texas, to “provide additional assurances to our community about their data security and the integrity of the TikTok platform.”
Mirroring concerns made in a letter from a Federal Communications commissioner to Apple and Google in June, Bennett stresses TikTok’s data harvesting practices. He says its reach “allows it to amass extensive data on the American people, including device information, search and viewing history, message content, IP addresses, faceprints and voiceprints.” Unlike other tech companies that harvest similar data, he claims TikTok “poses a unique concern” because its obligated under Chinese law to cooperate with state intelligence work.
TikTok has over 100 million active users. Roughly 36 percent of Americans over 12 use the platform, spending over 80 minutes per day on the app — more than Facebook and Instagram combined. In November, TikTok confirmed that China-based employees could gain remote access to European user data. Reporting by BuzzFeed News has also revealed that company employees in China had access to US user data.
The data TikTok collects can be leveraged by the Chinese government to advance Chinese interests, according to the letter. It may be forced, for example, to tweak its algorithm to boost content that undermines U.S. democratic institutions or “muffle criticisms of CCP policy toward Hong Kong, Taiwan, or its Uighur population.”
According to Pew survey in 2022, a third of TikTok’s adult users report that they regularly access news from the app. Forbes has reported on the ability of TikTok staff to “secretly handpick videos and supercharge their distribution, using a practice known internally as heating.”
To curb criticism of its data-sharing practices, TikTok has announced a partnership with Oracle to move its data on U.S. users stored on foreign servers to Texas. The project also includes audits of its algorithms and creating a subsidiary called TikTok US Data Security to oversee content moderation policies and approve editorial decisions. U.S. employees will report to an independent board of directors.
The US Committee on Foreign Investment, which reviews business dealing that may be a threat to national sceurity, is reviewing ByteDance’s 2017 merger of TikTok and Musical.ly. It may force TikTok to sell to a US company, harkening back to when former President Donald Trump issued in 2020 an executive order demanding ByteDance to divest ownership of the app (the order was blocked by a federal court). Scrutiny of TikTok quieted when Biden took office, but the company continued to run into legal trouble over data-sharing practices. In 2021, TikTok agreed to pay $92 million to settle lawsuits alleging that the app clandestinely transferred to servers in China vast quantities of user data on children.
Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University who was briefed by TikTok about Project Texas, says the U.S. banning TikTok may “embolden other governments to do the same to apps and services from the U.S.” He adds, “It’s not clear to me that anything short of a sale will satisfy TikTok’s critics.”
TikTok’s chief executive Shou Zi Chew will appear before a House committee in March.
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
Nick Carter is hitting back against a lawsuit that claims he raped a 17-year-old girl on his tour bus in 2001 following a Backstreet Boys concert in Tacoma, Wash.
In a countersuit filed in Nevada court Thursday (Feb. 2), the singer claims he’s the victim of a “five-year conspiracy” orchestrated by three individuals “to harass, defame and extort” him by latching onto the #MeToo movement. Among other allegations, Carter says the alleged victim of the assault, Shannon “Shay” Ruth, was manipulated into filing her lawsuit by Melissa Schuman Henschel — a former member of the teen-pop group Dream, who previously accused Carter of assaulting her in 2003 when she was 18 years old — and Schuman’s father, Jerome Schuman.
“Ruth was a vulnerable and highly impressionable individual, craving attention and desperate to fit in,” the lawsuit reads. “Schuman and Jerome groomed and coached Ruth, coaxing her to inflate her initial claim of being abused at the hands of a third-party, to being physically abused at the specific hands of Carter, and, finally, to being sexually assaulted by Carter.” The countersuit goes on to highlight the evolving nature of Ruth’s claims against Carter in social media posts as well as “numerous factual changes and amendments” made to her initial police report against him over a period of 12 months.
In addition to claims that the co-defendants illegally conspired against him, Carter accuses the defendants of defamation owing to various social media posts and a podcast appearance in which they variously accused him of being “a rapist,” an “abuser,” a “#SerialPredator” and more.
Also named as a defendant is the holder of the @ElaineModo Twitter handle (under the name Olay Elaine Mcintosh) — though the countersuit alleges that the account is likely orchestrated by the Schumans and Ruth to spread false information about him from a source designed to appear independent.
Carter is asking for damages of no less than $2.35 million — the amount he claims he lost in various career opportunities — as well as emotional distress damages, punitive damages and more.
In an emailed statement sent to Billboard, Ruth’s attorney, Mike Boskovich of Corsiglia McMahon & Allard, said: “Why should Nick Carter be believed with his long history of abusing females. A jury will weigh the evidence and decide.”
One particularly eyebrow-raising allegation in the countersuit involves Carter’s late brother, singer Aaron Carter, whom Nick alleges the Schumans and Ruth used as a pawn to try to “legitimize” their claims against his older brother. “The Schumans’ timing couldn’t have been better since, at the time, Aaron was addicted to drugs, battling serious mental health issues, and engaged in a misguided campaign of retaliation against Carter and other members of his family who were worried about Aaron and pushing him to seek professional help,” the complaint reads. It adds that the Schumans went so far as to accompany Aaron to a court hearing after a restraining order application was filed against him by Nick and his wife following a series of threatening social media posts by the younger Carter.
The countersuit notes that Aaron later recanted his previous statements backing up the women’s claims on Instagram and during a subsequent podcast appearance, but that the Schumans and Ruth continue to use those earlier statements to try to lend credibility to their claims.
In the wake of Melissa Schuman’s initial allegations against Carter in November 2017, the singer claims that, in addition to career and financial blowback, he has become the target of death threats and been forced to hire private security for himself and his family. He alleges that he and the Backstreet Boys were dealt an even costlier financial blow after Ruth filed her lawsuit last December, losing at least $2.35 million due to the cancellation of promotional events, contracts and endorsement deals with companies including MeUndies, VRBO, Roblox and ABC, which scrapped the group’s A Very Backstreet Christmas Special due to air on the network after Ruth’s lawsuit was filed.
Though named as a co-defendant, throughout the filing Ruth is depicted as little more than a pawn in a game designed to bring the Schumans wealth and attention. The countersuit paints Melissa specifically as a desperate fame-seeker who is using the allegations against Carter to revive her dormant career as a singer and actress. Jerome, meanwhile, is characterized as akin to an attack dog, regularly making “aggressive, nasty, and, often, threatening” statements on social media against Carter and his fans.
The lengthy countersuit includes a detailed account of Ruth and Melissa Schuman’s inconsistent statements since making their accusations and attempts to discredit them by noting that they waited 19 and 14 years, respectively, before going public about the alleged assaults. “Upon information and belief, Schuman and Ruth deliberately waited for the applicable limitation periods to run so as to allow evidence to spoil, witnesses to die or disappear, and memories to fade in an effort to evade any thorough investigation into their false claims,” the countersuit reads.
With respect to Ruth’s claims, the countersuit alleges that no autograph signing event was held outside Carter’s tour bus on the night in question, as she claimed in her lawsuit, and includes evidence that after going to the Tacoma police nearly 20 years later, Ruth continually contradicted important details in her account — including an initial claim that Carter had only “injured her arm.”
In further denying Melissa Schuman’s claims, Carter alleges that, far from a rape, the two engaged in consensual sex on the night in question. After highlighting Schuman’s prior statements that she tried to avoid the singer in the wake of the alleged rape, the countersuit adds that she not only completed work on the movie they were filming together after the alleged assault but recorded a duet with Carter and later performed it live with him. It also points to various supportive social media posts Schuman made about Carter as recently as May 2017.
You can read the full lawsuit below.
United Talent Agency is making significant changes to its board of directors.
The company, led by CEO Jeremy Zimmer, is adding two new independent directors, expanding the board beyond its own executives and investors for the first time.
The new directors are Paul Wachter, the founder and CEO of investment firm Main Street Advisors, and Ceci Kurzman, the founder of Nexus Management Group. Wachter will also become chairman of the board for UTA.
With Wachter becoming chairman, UTA co-founder Jim Berkus will step aside from that role, which he has held for the last 25 years, a source close to the company confirms to The Hollywood Reporter. The source added that while Berkus will no longer be on UTA’s board, he remains “very active” at UTA. Berkus co-founded UTA in 1991 with Zimmer and Peter Benedek, and became sole chairman of the firm in 1997, THR reported that year.
The changes to the board come as UTA has spent the last few years transforming its business via expansions and acquisitions. Last summer, the agency secured an investment from EQT Partners and said at the time that it would use the cash to pursue an expansion and growth strategy. EQT is now UTA’s largest minority investor.
And while its agency competitors CAA and Endeavor have pursued megadeals (with CAA acquiring ICM, and Endeavor pushing further into live sports via its acquisition of the rest of UFC and a betting data firm), UTA has made a number of smaller, more targeted acquisitions.
The company acquired the U.K. literary and talent agency Curtis Brown Group last year, and last month acquired the literary agency Fletcher & Company in a push to grow its publishing business. The company also bolstered its UTA IQ data business by buying analytics firm MediaHound, and perhaps most notably made a big expansion into marketing and consulting via the $125 million acquisition of Michael Kassan’s strategic advisory firm MediaLink.
The additions of Wachter and Kurzman are sure to raise questions about UTA’s future, as they will be the first independent directors on the company’s board. UTA has had investors on the board, but never independent directors, who are often tapped to provide more neutral guidance, particularly as a company pursues further growth.
In a statement, Zimmer said that the company and EQT “together recognized the value of adding experienced outside voices to the board to help us continue to pursue our goals.”
“The addition of Paul and Ceci, with their web of expertise in entertainment and technology, finance and corporate governance, is another powerful signal about the trajectory of our company and the work we are doing on behalf of our clients,” he added. “Both Paul and Ceci are passionate about artists and culture and recognize the importance of how UTA can continue to lead into the future.”
“I’ve watched Jeremy and UTA build one of the most dynamic businesses in entertainment, sports and media. These industries are going through a generational transformation, and UTA is uniquely positioned to be one of the companies at the center of it,” added Wachter in a statement. “I’m very honored to join as board chairman and thrilled to be a part of how UTA continues to innovate for their clients and investors.”
“Culture, entertainment and sports are universal throughout the world, creating new forms of disruption and opportunity every day. UTA touches every corner of these ecosystems and has the growing reach and capabilities to continue to drive success for the extraordinary artists, athletes and clients they represent,” Kurzman added. “I’m excited to work with the rest of the UTA board to continue to innovate and pursue their vision.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Shamrock Capital raised $600 million in a new fund aimed at acquiring film, television, music, video games and sports rights, the company announced Thursday (Feb. 2).
Founded in 1978 as Roy E. Disney‘s family office, Shamrock now says it has $4.4 billion of total assets under management, including $2 billion in its content strategy, thanks to the close of this new fund, the Shamrock Capital Content Fund III.
Shamrock has become a powerful force in music catalog investment space, which continues to draw in deep-pocketed Wall Street investors, like Brookfield Asset Management.
Shamrock made headlines in 2020 when it bought Taylor Swift’s Big Machine catalog from Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. (Braun’s firm acquired the master recordings as part of its acquisition of Big Machine in 2019.) Last month, Shamrock bought a portion of Dr. Dre’s music income streams and some owned music assets alongside Universal Music Group. Its other investments include Stargate’s publishing catalog, the trade publication AdWeek and the fantasy sports platform FanDuel.
“We are truly grateful to our existing and new investors for their commitment to this fund and our strategy overall,” said Patrick Russo, partner at Shamrock. “The closing of SCCF III continues to build on our multi-product platform and long-term strategy of owning and financing premium content and media rights. Our track record of successfully investing in these sectors stands out and uniquely positions Shamrock to capitalize on the trends, changes, and opportunities across the global media and entertainment landscape.”
In 2021, Shamrock expanded into the lending space with a $196-million debt fund intended to loan money to intellectual property owners across music, film, TV, games and sports. Shamrock’s Capital Debt Opportunities Fund raised the money from both existing and new limited partners and is managed by Shamrock partners and other investment professionals, including pension funds, foundations and financial institutions.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is filled with hundreds of artists that combine commercial success with cultural influence: The Beatles (class of 1988), U2 (class of 2005), Blondie (class of 2006), The Who (class of 1990), Stevie Wonder (class of 1989), Bob Dylan (class of 1988) and Whitney Houston (class of 2020) represent dozens of No. 1 records, platinum records and Grammy Awards (and one Nobel Prize in literature).
Sometimes, as with Parliament-Funkadelic (class of 1997), importance can also be measured by the number of times their songs were sampled in hit songs. In other instances, such as the Grateful Dead (class of 1994), inclusion of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame comes from an unmatched touring legacy more than a relatively modest sales history (In The Dark reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1987).
But influence alone might not be enough. In 2022, voters opted not to induct proto-punk groups New York Dolls and MC5, pioneering Afro-funk musician Fela Kuti and new wave group Devo (whose track “Whip It” reached No. 14 on the Hot 100 in 1980). They even passed on Beck, whose 180,000 album equivalents units far surpassed both Pat Benetar and The Eurythmics, although his airplay audience was far lower.
Influence can trump commercial success in determining who voters induct, however. The Ramones (class of 2002) and Velvet Underground (class of 1996) had little commercial success when active. Even as their fame grew over the decades, neither band’s catalog sales matched their significant cultural importance. The Hall has purposefully set aside space to recognize the genre’s foundational musicians. Blues greats such as Robert Johnson (class of 1986), Lead Belly (class of 1988), Howlin’ Wolf (class of 1991) and Elmore James (class of 1992) were inducted as “early influences” for their incalculable impact on rock music, not their album sales figures.
None of this year’s nominees have 2022 consumption numbers nearly as low as MC5 (8,000), New York Dolls (7,000) and Kuti (37,000) had in 2021. Warren Zevon is the at the bottom of the group with 66,000 units. Last year, Carly Simon’s 91,000 units was the lowest of the inductees.
Kate Bush, also passed over for induction in 2022, could have better odds this year after her 1985 recording “Running Up That Hill” re-entered the Hot 100 — peaking at No. 3 — thanks to the Netflix series Stranger Things. Last year, that renewed interest pushed Bush’s album equivalent up 326% and her U.S. radio audience up more than 5,400%, according to Luminate.
Returning nominees Rage Against the Machine and A Tribe Called Quest have some of the highest consumption figures of this year’s batch. Both groups had about the same number of equivalent units in 2021 and 2022. Soundgarden’s 218,000 album equivalent units are in the middle of the pack but could be helped by its airplay audience that ranked second only to Bush.
WME’s music department has promoted seven to partner and 12 to agent across its global offices in Beverly Hills, New York, Nashville, London and Sydney.
Agents recently promoted to partner are: Dave Bradley (co-head of WME’s pop division based in London, with clients including Dua Lipa, Kim Petras and LCD Soundsystem); Brendan Long (London-based and representing electronic music artists including Richie Hawtin, Eric Prydz and Adam Beyer); Henry Glascock (Nashville-based, with clients including Parker McCollum, Catie Offerman and Randy Rogers Band); Doug Singer (Beverly Hills-based, with clients including Orville Peck, Blood Orange and Vince Staples, also appointed department lead for podcast and book tours); Bradley Rainey (who leads WME’s music for visual media group, with a roster that includes Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Randy Newman and Max Richter); Levi Jackson (who leads the tour marketing team for all WME clients including Adele, Luke Combs, Travis Scott, Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters and more) and Jared Rampersaud (Beverly Hills-based and working across the agency’s roster, specializing in live performances for private events and brand activations).
Those promoted to agent in contemporary music include Kidder Erdman, Phillip Richard and Henry Delargy in Beverly Hills; Anna Horowitz and Josh Sanchez in New York; Tom Larner in London; and Brendan Moylan in Sydney. In Nashville, Becca Chisholm, Caleb Fenn, Carter Green and Kanan Vitolo became agents in the country music department and Morgan Carney became an agent in Christian music.
“These promotions showcase the breadth of our client roster and how far we can go in servicing our artists,” said Lucy Dickins, WME’s global head of contemporary music and touring, and Becky Gardenhire, co-head of WME’s Nashville office, in a joint statement. “We are so proud of the leadership and ingenuity each of these individuals has demonstrated, and we look forward to what they will achieve.”