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For the first time ever, Billboard is introducing a peer-voted award to its annual Power 100 ranking of the music industry’s most influential executives. This new Power Player’s Choice Award will honor the executive whose peers believe has the most impact across the music business over the past year, from recording and publishing to touring.
Voting will be open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member.
The first round of voting will begin Jan. 6, with an open call for nominees.
The second round of voting will begin Jan. 11, in order to narrow down the top 20 nominees into the final five top executives.
The third round of voting will begin Jan. 13, to select the winner from that list.
Voting will close Jan. 17.
If you are not yet a member of Billboard Pro, you can join here.
The man accused of murdering Migos rapper Takeoff was released from a Houston jail late Wednesday (Jan. 4) after posting a $1 million bond, court records show.
According to filings in Harris County court and from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office obtained by Billboard, Patrick Xavier Clark posted bond on Wednesday and was released at 8:47 p.m. local time. He’s due back in court for a hearing on March 9.
Bond had initially been set at $2 million, but Clark’s lawyers argued that that figure was excessive and potentially unconstitutional — essentially a backdoor to simply denying bond altogether. After they demanded the figure be lowered to $100,000, the judge agreed to reduce it to $1 million on Dec. 14.
Court records show Clark will still be under 24/7 hour arrest, cannot have any contact with anyone involved, and will be required to wear a GPS monitor that can immediately notify prosecutors and defense attorneys of any violations. He must also submit to drug testing and cannot drink alcohol, as court records indicate that “alcohol was a factor in the offense.”
A representative for the late star did not immediately return a request for comment on Clark’s release. Clark’s lawyer also did not respond to a request for comment.
Takeoff (born Kirshnik Khari Ball), 28, was shot and killed Nov. 1 during a private party he attended at 810 Billiards & Bowling in downtown Houston with his uncle and bandmate, Quavo. The musician was killed by “penetrating gunshot wounds of head and torso into arm,” according to a report from the Harris County coroner’s office. Clark, 33, was arrested on the east side of Houston on Nov. 1 and charged with murder; another man, 22-year-old Cameron Joshua, was arrested and charged with the unlawful carrying of a weapon.
Sony Music has reached a settlement to end a lawsuit that claimed the name of Future’s chart-topping album High Off Life infringed the trademark rights of a creative agency that uses that exact same name.
High Off Life LLC sued Sony in 2020, alleging the label had “destroyed” the smaller company’s brand by using the name for the title of Future’s eight studio album. Though Sony argued an album name was protected by the First Amendment, a federal judge refused to dismiss the case last year.
But in a motion filed Tuesday, both sides agreed to end the case. The terms of the settlement, like whether any money exchanged hands or any names would be changed, were not publicly disclosed. Attorneys for both sides did not return requests for comment.
High Off Life reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 in May 2020. It was originally set to be titled “Life Is Good” – the name of the album’s third single – but the name was switched at the last minute as the COVID-19 pandemic swept made life somewhat less than good.
That was a problem for High Off Life LLC, which filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in October 2020 against Sony and Future’s Freebandz Productions. The company claimed it had been selling “High Off Life” apparel since 2009, had launched a creative agency under the name in 2017, and operates a hip-hop YouTube channel called “High Off Life TV.”
The case claimed that Sony’s promotion of Future’s album had buried the smaller company in search results: “Overnight, Defendants destroyed HOL’s investment of many years and many thousands of dollars into building consumer recognition.”
To beat the lawsuit, Sony and Freebandz cited something called the Rogers test — a legal doctrine that makes it very difficult to win lawsuits over the use of brand names in “expressive works” music. The rule says that authors have a First Amendment right to use trademarks in their work unless it explicitly misleads consumers, or is completely irrelevant to the artwork.
That argument might have prevailed eventually, but U.S. District Judge Scott Hardy ruled in April that it was too early to make that call. The decision allowed the case to proceed into discovery, where both sides to gather evidence and build their cases.
Amazon is set to lay off more than 18,000 workers, CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees Wednesday.
The majority of the cuts will impact staffers in the Amazon Stores and People Experience and Technology divisions, the latter of which includes teams involved in Human Resources. Impacted employees will be contacted beginning Jan. 18, though the company had already begun laying off staff in November across its devices and books businesses, which include products like Alexa, Fire TV and Kindle.
The 18,000 figure — which represents roughly 1.2 percent of Amazon’s 1.5 million global workforce, as of last September — is larger than the latest reported layoff figures at the e-commerce giant; in November, timed to the earlier round of cuts, the company was expected to cut around 10,000 roles.
“This year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years,” Jassy said in his note, which was shared publicly Wednesday evening after the Wall Street Journal first reported the updated figures. “Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so. These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure; however, I’m also optimistic that we’ll be inventive, resourceful, and scrappy in this time when we’re not hiring expansively and eliminating some roles.”
Amazon most recently reported an earnings miss for the third quarter, with net income falling from $3.1 billion to $2.9 billion year over year. The company has continued its big spending in entertainment with deals for the NFL’s Thursday Night Football, which is commanding a $1 billion yearly spend for the streaming rights, and the $465 million price tag for the first season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Last year, Amazon also closed its costly $8.5 billion acquisition of the MGM studio.
But the tech and e-commerce behemoth is not alone in facing the negative impacts of an ongoing downturn. In November, Meta said it would lay off 11,000 staffers, or roughly 13 percent of its workforce. Earlier Wednesday, Vimeo and Salesforce announced layoffs ranging in the 10 to 11 percent range, respectively.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Downtown Music Holdings has acquired Curve Royalty Systems, a company that specializes in royalty processing for digital income, it was announced Thursday (Jan. 5). Curve will now be a part of Downtown Music, a division that focuses on servicing the professional music industry.
In recent years, Downtown has pivoted away from its previous role as a traditional publisher and rights holder by selling off its 145,000-song catalog and putting its efforts into building a service-focused music company to tap into the growing cohort of DIY artists and professionals. The company has quickly amassed a suite of service tools via acquisitions including Curve, FUGA, CD Baby, Soundrop, AdRev and more. Downtown is also an active investor in companies like Beatbread and Vampr.
Though Downtown is integrating Curve into its suite of offerings for distribution and monetization, the royalty processing firm — which can distill multiple royalty statements into one cohesive report — will continue to serve its existing client base of over 1,000 labels and publishers worldwide. This includes Warp Records, Ingrooves, Mad Decent, MRC, Royalty Solutions Corp, Domino Recording Company, Hospital Records/Songs in the Key of Knife, Cal Financial and Alta Financial. Since its inception in January 2019 by co-founders Tom Allen, Richard Leach and Ray Bush, the company says it has processed nearly $4 billion in revenue.
Downtown Music president Pieter van Rijn said of the deal, “In Downtown Music, we’ve combined innovative technology and industry-leading services to create an offering that empowers music businesses and their creators. Curve perfectly complements our mission to be the leading music industry platform and their past work speaks to their high standards and pioneering technology.”
Downtown CEO Andrew Bergman added, “For some time, we have been admirers of the technology and service quality that Tom and Richard have been building at Curve. As we got to know them and their team, it became ever more obvious that their dedication and forward-thinking vision were a great fit for Downtown. Accuracy, precision, timeliness, and innovation in royalty services are core to Downtown’s mission of supporting creators and the businesses that serve them. Welcoming the Curve team to Downtown is another important step in furtherance of our mission.”
A prominent ’90s hip-hop duo is suing Universal Music Group for withholding royalties tied to what they’re alleging is a “sweetheart” deal the label reached with Spotify in the late 2000s.
Filed Wednesday (Jan. 4) in U.S. district court in New York by attorneys representing Andres Titus (Dres) and William McLean (Mista Lawnge), members of the hip-hop duo Black Sheep, the lawsuit claims UMG owes its artists approximately $750 million in royalties deriving from the company’s stock in Spotify. Under a licensing deal they claim UMG and the streaming giant reached in 2008, the label agreed to receive lower royalty payments in exchange for equity in the then-nascent streaming company. But Titus and McLean say the label breached their contract with Black Sheep and other artists by withholding what they argue is the artists’ rightful 50% share of UMG’s now-lucrative Spotify stock — and otherwise failing to compensate them for the lower royalty payments they received as a result of the alleged deal.
“Rather than distribute to artists their 50% of Spotify stock or pay artists their true and accurate royalty payments, for years Universal shortchanged artists and deprived Plaintiffs and Class Members of the full royalty payments they were owed under Universal’s contract,” the complaint reads. Titus and McLean further claim that Universal deliberately omitted from royalty statements both the company’s ownership of Spotify stock and the lower streaming royalty payments that resulted from its alleged deal with the streaming service.
“Over time, the value of the Spotify stock that Universal improperly withheld from artists has ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars,” the complaint continues. “These and the other wrongful conduct detailed herein resulted in the Company’s breaching its contracts with artists, violating the covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is implicit in those contracts, and unjust enrichment at the expense of its artists.”
In a statement sent to Billboard, a UMG spokesperson denied Titus and McLean’s claims: “Universal Music Group’s innovative leadership has led to the renewed growth of the music ecosystem to the benefit of recording artists, songwriters and creators around the world. UMG has a well-established track record of fighting for artist compensation and the claim that it would take equity at the expense of artist compensation is patently false and absurd. Given that this is pending litigation, we cannot comment on all aspects of the complaint.”
According to the lawsuit, Titus and McLean signed a record contract with Polygram in July 1990 (later amended and revised in July 1991) as Black Sheep — the duo best known for the hit rap single “The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)” from their RIAA Gold-selling 1991 album A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Black Sheep’s record contract was then assumed by UMG after the company merged with Polygram in 1998.
UMG acquired just over 5% of Spotify shares “in or around the summer of 2008” in a licensing agreement in exchange for lower royalty payments, the complaint adds, citing a 2018 Music Business Worldwide report. It claims that Universal acquired additional Spotify shares through its 2011 purchase of EMI, which had acquired shares in the streaming company around the same time, the suit alleges. It then cites UMG’s own prospectus, released in September 2021, revealing that the label held roughly 6.49 million, or roughly 3.35%, of Spotify shares as of June 30, 2021, valued at 1.475 billion euros ($1.79 billion).
It’s worth noting that UMG’s stake in Spotify has become significantly less lucrative since June 30, 2021, however. As of Wednesday’s closing price, UMG’s stake in Spotify is now worth just $560 million — the result of Spotify shares falling 70.5% over the past 18 months. Notably, Spotify isn’t the only streaming service UMG has equity in; according to the same prospectus, it also owns 0.73% of Tencent Music Entertainment shares, a stake that’s currently worth $112.5 million.
Included as an exhibit in the complaint is Black Sheep’s amended July 1991 contract with Polygram, which states that royalties paid to Titus and McLean “‘shall be a sum equal to fifty percent (50%) of [Universal’s] net receipts with respect to’ the ‘exploitation’ for any ‘use or exploitation’ of ‘Master Recordings’ created by Plaintiffs.” The plaintiffs claim they and other UMG artists are thereby entitled to 50% of the labels’ Spotify stock but that UMG has failed to pay it. This demand stems from a couple of broad assumptions: that all artists in the class signed similar contracts and that they were similarly not compensated with a portion of UMG’s stock holdings in Spotify.
The plaintiffs are asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages and an injunction “or other appropriate equitable relief” requiring UMG “to refrain from engaging in deceptive practices” as outlined in the lawsuit.
UMG isn’t alone among the major labels in acquiring Spotify stock — both Sony and Warner Music, as well as indie Merlin, also have or had stakes in the company. In May 2018, Sony sold half of its 5.707% stake in Spotify for an estimated $761 million, while that same month Merlin announced it sold its entire stake for an unknown amount and had shared the proceeds with its members. Warner followed suit in August 2018 when it sold its entire 2% stake in the streamer for $504 million, with the company announcing that around $126 million of the proceeds would be paid out to the company’s artists.
UMG has yet to sell any of its stock in the streaming giant.
-Additional reporting by Glenn Peoples
You can read the full lawsuit below.
A federal judge has tossed out a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against Marilyn Manson by model Ashley Morgan Smithline, citing the fact that she failed to retain a new lawyer after splitting with her old legal team last fall.
Smithline’s lawsuit, one of many claims of sexual abuse filed against Manson (real name Brian Warner) over the past two years, alleged that the rocker raped and abused her multiple times between 2010 and 2013. But in an order issued Tuesday (Jan. 3), Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha dismissed the case.
The reason? After Smithline split with her attorney Jay D. Ellwanger in October, the judge gave her until Dec. 5 to find a new lawyer — or to explain how she’d handle the case on her own as a so-called pro se litigant. She never did either, leading to Tuesday’s decision.
“Plaintiff has not filed a response as of the date of this order,” the judge wrote. “The court, therefore, dismisses this action … for plaintiffs failure to prosecute the action.”
The case was dismissed “without prejudice” — meaning Smithline could still refile the same claims at some point in the future. She could not immediately be located for comment; Ellwanger did not return a request for comment.
In a statement to Billboard, Manson’s attorney Howard King praised the outcome: “We thank and commend Ashley Smithline for dismissing her claims against Brian Warner without seeking or receiving anything in return. Ms. Smithline has refused to be manipulated by others who are trying to pursue their own agendas against Mr. Warner. We wish her well and will continue to work to assure that a significant price will be paid by those who have tried to abuse our legal system.”
Manson has faced multiple accusations of wrongdoing over the past two years.
Evan Rachel Wood, who began publicly dating Manson in 2007 when she was 19 and he was 39, accused him in a February 2021 Instagram post of “grooming me when I was a teenager” before he “horrifically abused me for years.” Those allegations were followed by separate lawsuits from Smithline, former assistant Ashley Walters, Game of Thrones actress Esme Bianco and a Jane Doe accuser.
In her lawsuit, Smithline made graphic and disturbing allegations of sexual assault against Manson. She alleged that she and Manson began a consensual relationship in 2010, but that it “quickly became apparent that consensual sex was not enough for Mr. Warner.”
“Ms. Smithline awoke from unconsciousness with her ankles and wrists tied together behind her back and Mr. Warner sexually penetrating her,” Smithline’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. “Ms. Smithline told Mr. Warner to stop and said no multiple times, and Mr. Warner told her to ‘shut the fuck up’ and ‘be quiet.’”
Manson has denied all of the allegations against him and even filed his own defamation lawsuit accusing Wood and another woman of orchestrating the many legal attacks against him. In the March 2022 complaint, he said Wood’s own “malicious falsehood” was part of an “organized attack” aimed at derailing his career, in which she had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously.” Wood denies those allegations.
Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi is facing a new lawsuit over a decades-old claim of sexual assault against two minors.
In a civil complaint filed in Los Angeles on Friday (Dec. 30), two Jane Does allege the singer-songwriter and her ex-producer, Sergio Andrade, “groomed” and “exploited” them when they were between the ages of 13 and 15 back in the early 1990s.
The lawsuit, independently obtained by Billboard and first reported on Wednesday by Rolling Stone, does not specifically name Trevi or Andrade — listing them only as anonymous Doe defendants — but based on the timeline of events and the details of the albums included in the suit, it’s clear that Trevi and Andrade are the defendants.
According to the plaintiffs, Trevi and Andrade used their “role, status, and power as a well-known and successful Mexican pop star and a famous producer” to coerce sexual contact with them over a course of years, much of it occurring in California. As a result of the sexual harassment, abuse and assault, the Plaintiffs have “suffered severe emotional, physical and psychological distress, including humiliation, shame, and guilt.”
The 30-page lawsuit, which includes claims of childhood sexual abuse, harassment and/or assault, was filed just days before the expiration of California’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits. After a three-year window of availability, the deadline to file such long-delayed lawsuits was Dec. 31, 2022.
The new allegations against the “Todos Me Miran” singer come nearly 20 years after she was acquitted by a judge and found not guilty on charges of rape, kidnapping and corruption of minors. This resulted in the immediate release of Trevi, who was being held at a prison in Chihuahua, Mexico and faced up to 25 years behind bars.
The previous trial occurred after Trevi, Andrade and backup singer María Raquenel Portillo, also known as Mary Boquitas, were arrested in January 2000 in Rio de Janeiro for allegedly luring young girls into a cult-like pornographic ring. Former vocalist Karina Yapor, who filed criminal charges against the so-called Trevi clan, alleged that backup recruits wanting to join the band were forced to have sexual relations with Andrade.
A representative for Trevi declined a request for comment.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
The final two installments of Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly docuseries series ended with a pair of bombshell revelations about the imprisoned singer’s controversial marriage to a then-underage Aaliyah. The two episodes that debuted on Monday and Tuesday, focused in on Kelly’s 2022 federal trial, which included allegations that the singer and his team allegedly forced Aaliyah’s family to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the wake of the annulment of the performers’ brief marriage.
Kelly and Aaliyah were married in secret in August 1994 when the “Rock the Boat” singer was just 15, even though their marriage certificate listed her age as 18; the marriage was reportedly annulled by Aaliyah’s parents in Feb. 1995. Interviews with some of Kelly’s and Aaliyah’s entourages revealed some of the details of the NDA, which reportedly came after Aaliyah’s father was incensed by the marriage.
Longtime friend and former bodyguard Gem Pratt told the Surviving team that Aaliyah’s family signed a contract with Kelly that promised they would not press charges against him for the illegal marriage after the annulment if Kelly promised to sell them the rights to his first three albums. During last year’s federal trial a jury found Kelly guilty on three counts of child pornography and three counts of enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity; Aaliyah was referred to as Jane Doe #1 at that trial.
“Her dad [Michael Haughton] didn’t want her anywhere near him,” Pratt said in the series about wanting to put distance between Kelly, who was 27 at at the time of the marriage, and Aaliyah, whose debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number — released when she was 14 — was produced and mostly written by Kelly. The stories of Kelly and Aaliyah’s secret marriage were rumored at the time, but the final episodes of the Lifetimes series put the details of the aftermath into sharper focus.
They include allegations about members of Kelly’s inner circle allegedly looking the other way at Kelly’s abuse of women girls and young men over decades, with Pratt saying that “He [Kelly] couldn’t do this by himself… it’s clear as day there were enablers.” Variety noted that the Aaliyah NDA came up during Kelly’s 2022 New York trial, though it did not receive widespread media coverage at the time; Chicago reporter Jim DeRogatis originally broke the news of the NDA, telling the New York Times Popcast podcast in 2018 that the agreement was a “harrowing document… A non-disclosure agreement on both her part and Kelly’s, vowing not to pursue further legal claims for physical abuse. So, it wasn’t just an underage sexual relationship, he hit her, allegedly, according to that court document.”
A lawyer for Kelly had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment about the NDA at press time and Kelly has maintained his innocence and is appealing the convictions.
In Sept. 2021, Kelly was found guilty in a New York trial of nine counts, including racketeering and 14 underlying acts including sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery and sex trafficking charges, as well as eight counts of violating the sex trafficking law known as the Mann Act. In June 2022, Kelly, 55, was sentenced to 30 years in prison; the singer is still facing additional sentencing in Chicago as well as pending felony sex crime charges in Minnesota.
The final chapters of producer/director Dream Hampton’s Surviving series also included new allegations of Kelly’s sexual abuse from a survivor named Ebonié Doyle, who claimed she was raped by Kelly just days after his marriage to Aaliyah. Doyle said she was 16 when Kelly’s limo pulled up on her after one of his shows, setting off a relationship that resulted in her mother kicking Doyle out of the house when she discovered it.
After moving in with Kelly, Doyle said she became subject to Kelly’s “controlling” ways, which included forcing her to sit in a specific sexual position for hours until her posture was to his liking. At the time there were whispers about the singer’s relationship with the underage Aaliyah — Doyle noticed she and the singer were similar in stature and appearance — and said at one point she found a sex tape featuring Kelly and Aaliyah. When Kelly found out that she’d seen the tape, Doyle said he pushed her down a flight of stairs.
A record 159 billion music tracks were streamed in the United Kingdom last year, up 8.2% on 2021 and more than double the volume of audio streams registered five years ago — and more than 40 times bigger than a decade ago — according to year-end figures from labels trade body BPI.
In 2017, just over 68 billion music tracks were streamed in the U.K. That number soared to 159.3 billion in 2022 when an average of more than three billion audio streams were listened to on music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music every week (the numbers don’t include video streams on YouTube or other video streaming platforms).
BPI reports that it now takes an average of 1.3 million audio streams to break into the U.K.’s official Top 40 singles chart and a combined seven million audio and video streams to score a number one.
Across digital and physical formats, the equivalent of 166 million albums were streamed or purchased last year, up 4.3% on the previous 12 months. Contributing to the rise in music consumption was the ongoing resurgence of vinyl, which shows no signs of slowing.
Sales of vinyl LPs climbed 2.9% year-on-year in the U.K. in 2022 to 5.5 million units — marking a 15th consecutive year of growth for the once considered dead format and the highest level of vinyl purchases in the country since 1990, when …But Seriously by Phil Collins was the year’s biggest-selling studio album.
Vinyl now represents just under one third (31.7%) of all physical music sales in the U.K., while CD sales fell 19.3% year-on-year to 11.6 million units and cassettes climbed 5.2% to 195,000 units. The CD’s share of the U.K. physical market now stands at about 67%, while tapes account for 1.1%, up from 0.9% in 2021.
Overall, streaming now accounts for just over 86% of all music sales in the U.K., up from 83.1% in 2021. That leaves physical formats with 10.4%, digital albums at 2.2% and track equivalent albums with 1.2% of all sales.
Five years ago, streaming accounted for just over 50% of the British market. In line with the year-on-year increase in music streaming, digital download sales fell 18.9% year-on-year to 3.7 million in 2022.
The U.K. is the world’s third biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of just over $1.8 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2022 Global Music Report.
BPI’s preliminary year-end report, published Wednesday (Jan. 4), doesn’t include financial sales data. Instead, it uses Official Charts Company data to measure U.K. music consumption in terms of volume. The London-based organization will publish its full year-end report, including recorded music revenues, later this year. Another British trade body, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), is due to report on annual music retail spending later this month.
For the first time since year-end charts were introduced more than 50 years ago, British artists accounted for the top 10 biggest-selling singles in the U.K. last year (either as the lead or as a featured artist), led by Harry Styles’ “As It Was,” which topped the U.K. singles chart for 10 consecutive weeks (as well as 15 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100) and was streamed more than 180 million times in the United Kingdom.
Hit singles by Ed Sheeran, Cat Burns, Glass Animals, Lost Frequencies & Calum Scott, LF System, Sam Fender made up the rest of the top 10, joined by Kate Bush, whose 1985 track “Running Up That Hill” spent three weeks at number one following its high-profile Stranger Things synch and was streamed 124 million times in the U.K.
Styles also landed the year’s best-selling album with his third studio set Harry’s House. He is the first artist to have both the U.K.’s top single and top album since Lewis Capaldi in 2019. Sheeran’s = (Equals) and Taylor Swift’s Midnights were the year’s second and third best-selling albums, respectively, with Midnights the only album to achieve more than 200,000 chart-eligible sales in a single week. More than 60,000 of those first week sales were vinyl purchases, says BPI.
Last year was also a strong year for independent artists and labels in the U.K. Independent labels grew their share of the U.K. music market for a fifth consecutive year to account for 28.6% of album or their equivalent purchases across streaming and physical, up from 26.9% in 2021. Nine independently released LPs topped the U.K. albums chart in 2022 including records by The 1975, Central Cee, Fontaines D.C. and Wet Leg.
In a statement, BPI chair Yolanda Brown said the success of homegrown talent in 2022 was down to a “compelling mix” of musical creativity and artistry, coupled with the “the ever-expanding opportunities afforded by streaming” and the support of record labels.