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Lizzo is now — legally speaking — 100% that b-tch.
In a decision issued Thursday (Feb. 2), a tribunal at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the superstar could register “100% That B-tch” as a federal trademark for clothing — meaning Lizzo now has exclusive rights to use the phrase on apparel.
Last year, the agency rejected Lizzo’s application for the trademark on the grounds that it was merely a commonplace “motivational phrase” aimed at “female empowerment,” not the kind of unique brand name that’s eligible for trademark protection.
But the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) overturned that ruling Thursday, saying that people who see the phrase on a t-shirt would immediately think of Lizzo.
“Consumers encountering ‘100% That B-tch’ on the specific types of clothing identified in the application ― even when offered by third parties ― associate the term with Lizzo and her music,” the appeals board wrote in its ruling.
Lizzo included the famed lyric — “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that b-tch” — in her breakout smash hit “Truth Hurts,” but she didn’t actually didn’t come up with it herself. Instead, the singer pulled it from a popular internet meme, and she has since given its creator — Mina Lioness — songwriting credit on the hit track.
In refusing to give Lizzo the trademark, the USPTO had pointed out that backstory, arguing that even if the singer “popularized” the phrase, she was still not entitled to legally “appropriate” it for her own exclusive use on consumer goods.
But in Thursday’s decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board disagreed — ruling that Lizzo had clearly “popularized the lyric” and elevated “a lesser known phrase” into “more memorable status.”
“Lizzo did not originate the expression she encountered as a Twitter meme,” the board wrote. “Nonetheless, lyrics from songs are more likely to be attributed to the artists who sing, rap or otherwise utter them, rather than the songwriters.”
An attorney for Lizzo did not immediately return a request for comment. The USPTO does not comment on rulings by the TTAB.
Read the entire decision here:
Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge is calling on music industry executives to come together to get artists paid. Last night (Feb. 1), Grainge addressed an audience of Billboard Power 100 honorees in Los Angeles with the hope that the most powerful business figures in the industry can come together on the side of creatives.
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“Our industry is entering a new chapter where we’re going to have to pick sides, all of us are going to have to pick sides,” Grainge said from the stage in Hollywood. “Are we on the side of FinTech [Financial Technology] and functional music, functional content? Or are we on the side of artistry, and artists?”
Grainge was the first executive to take the stage after Billboard editorial director Hannah Karp opened the ceremony and introduced Grainge who, once again, landed the top spot on the Billboard Power 100 list this year. Grainge takes the top spot as the leader of UMG which reported third-quarter earnings of 2.66 billion euros (approximately $2.9 billion), up 13.3% year over year in constant currency, a fifth-straight quarter of growth since the company spun off from Vivendi in fall 2021.
His call to action was based on the idea of disrupting the music industry, but from those who care most about it. “I’ve always seen opportunity in disruption. And for those of us that have been in the business, made our living out of music, boy have we seen an enormous amount of disruption,” said Grainge. “But the problem is that all too often we’ve let others disrupt our industry. But if we work together across the music community, we can disrupt the status quo instead. And that offers enormous opportunity for real music, real artists. Now, that’s what I call powerful.”
The executive was also quick to thank his colleagues at UMG and provided a shout out to its label Republic Records, which landed the No. 1 label of the year based on current market share. But Grainge’s short and poignant speech focused on his love of music and those who work on behalf of artists.
“Working on behalf of artists and working to grow this industry has been my life’s passion and I’ve been very lucky,” Grainge said. “I feel very strongly that if we’re to succeed, more than ever, we need to come together as an industry, to fight for artists, and for music.”
He continued: “Let’s focus our energy on rewarding those that make great music and those that made music great. Let’s break artists, fight to get them paid, and to give fans real joy.”
While accepting the UBS & Billboard Trailblazer Award at Billboard’s Power 100 Event at Goya Studios in Hollywood on Wednesday night (Feb. 1), Harbourview Equity Partners founder/CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares struck a somber note during an otherwise celebratory evening.
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“Harbourview has been a dream of mine for many years in the making, and I feel grateful that I’m able to do my life’s work,” said the executive, who has acquired nearly 40 catalogs since launching the company in October 2021. “However, at the same time I experience the joy of receiving the recognition, my heart is heavy. At first I could not really sort why, but as I prepared to board my flight to head out West, the words hit me, ‘I just want to get home.’”
Those words — spoken by Tyre Nichols, the Black man who died after being beaten by police officers following a traffic stop in Memphis on Jan. 10 — formed the crux of Clarke Soares’ brief speech, in which she also acknowledged other recent incidents of hatred, including mass shootings in California and the anti-Semitic vandalism of Jewish synagogues.
“Echoing in my head and in my heart, emotions ran deep as I thought of the last words of a young man 100 feet from his home, and I realized that over the last few weeks, as a country and as a community, we’ve beared witness to so much disregard and undervaluing of life,” Clarke Soares continued. “And so while I’m honored to stand before you today, I know our work at Harbourview will not be done until we use our power to trailblaze a path through music, storytelling and art that connects our collective humanity, humanizing each precious life, so that everyone makes it home to their families at night.”
Named one of Billboard‘s Change Agents in 2021 while serving in her previous role as founder/CEO of Tempo Music, Clarke Soares has consistently pointed to the importance of fostering diversity through her work — both in the staff she hires and the investments she makes. Before taking the stage, her efforts on that front were also highlighted by Wale Ogunleye, former football player and head of sports & entertainment at UBS, who presented Clarke Soares with the award while noting her “extremely diverse” team and “culturally…and musically diverse” portfolio of music catalogs.
Clarke Soares reiterated that overarching mission during her speech by invoking the phrase “Out of many, one people” — “a phrase we say at Harbourview, and we embody it if you look at our team,” she said. “And as a company, our trailblazing should not only be measured in the economic barriers that we break, but in the impact we have to be a place of hope without fear to tell stories that shape hearts and minds for love and humanity. And we ask all of you in this room, with all of your power, to join us in that journey.”
Clarke Soares was one of five individuals to accept awards at the high-powered event on Wednesday. Also honored were Noah Assad (executive of the year, presented by Bad Bunny); Avery and Monte Lipman, COO and CEO of Republic Records, respectively (label of the year, presented by Kim Petras); and HYBE chairman Bang Si-Hyuk (the Clive Davis visionary award, presented by Clive Davis and Scooter Braun).
SiriusXM reported its full-year 2022 revenue grew by 4% to $9 billion on Thursday, as increased numbers of streaming subscribers helped the company hit its financial targets for the year.
While key metrics like earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were up 2% at $2.8 billion, executives struck a cautious tone on a call with investors, saying they expect softness in the year ahead.
“We broadly anticipate a softer first half (of 2023) in terms of revenue, EBITDA, and subscriber growth as compared to the back half of the year,” SiriusXM chief executive Jennifer Witz said on the call. “We are not issuing subscriber guidance at this time, although we anticipate we’ll see modestly negative self-pay net adds for the year as economic and demand uncertainty persists, auto sales remain soft, and we moderate marketing spend for our streaming service early in the year ahead of planned product improvements late in 2023.”
SiruisXM reported net income of $365 million in the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, up from $318 million the year prior. EBITDA for the quarter rose 10% to $742 million. The company reported 348,000 net new self-pay subscribers for the year.
The company said late last year it would embark on a broad effort to cut costs, as it invests in the back-end technology and user-friendliness of its SiriusXM app. Updating the app’s infrastructure so that the company can bring new products to the app quickly is a key part of the company’s growth strategy.
In a memo to staff last year, Witz said the company will be looking at all ways to trim costs, including possible job cuts, as it weighs how to handle macroeconomic challenges like declining advertising budgets and auto manufacturer delays.
In 2023, Billboard introduces the Power Players’ Choice Award, a peer-voted honor chosen by Billboard Pro members to honor the executive they believe has had the most impact across the music business in the past year. After more than 1,500 votes cast across three rounds of voting, Pro members selected Brandon Silverstein, founder/CEO of S10 Entertainment, for this year’s award.
As a manager, Silverstein has helped build Anitta’s and Normani’s breakout careers, while moving S10 into publishing, recorded music and film/TV. Since expanding S10’s publishing venture with Avex USA last year, the company — Brandon Silverstein Publishing — now represents songwriters-producers-composers HARV (Justin Bieber’s “Peaches”) and Grammy winner Jasper Harris (Jack Harlow’s “First Class”), among others.
“Being recognized by the music industry as one of the most powerful and impactful executives is an absolute honor,” says Silverstein, who is a previous honoree on Billboard’s Latin Power Players and 40 Under 40 lists. “I’m proud of what we’ve built with S10 on a global level and the trust our artists and creatives have in me and my team.”
This story will appear in the Feb. 4, 2023, issue of Billboard.
When tickets for Bad Bunny’s El Último Tour del Mundo arena tour went on presale in April 2021, his manager, Noah Assad, was cautiously optimistic.
“I thought we would do well, because it was post-pandemic and everyone wanted to go out, but we went on sale without really knowing — and we did it a year out for that very reason,” says Assad.
For Assad, “doing well” has become synonymous with breaking some sort of record. But even he wasn’t expecting Bad Bunny to have one of the most historic, record-setting runs for an artist in the history of the Billboard charts. El Último Tour del Mundo’s presale date became the top sales day for any tour on Ticketmaster since Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s On the Run II tour went on sale in 2018, and the run sold out 480,000 tickets in less than a week.
Four months after El Último Tour del Mundo wrapped in April 2022, Bad Bunny embarked on his World’s Hottest Tour stadium run, becoming the first artist to ever mount separate $100 million-plus tours in the same calendar year. Ultimately, his 81 concerts in 2022 grossed $434.9 million, the highest calendar-year total for an artist since Billboard Boxscore launched in the late 1980s. The tour broke local revenue records in 13 North American markets en route to becoming the biggest Latin tour ever.
Bad Bunny’s chart dominance made him Billboard’s top artist of the year, by the numbers, the first Latin act and the first artist who records in a language other than English to earn the distinction. His album Un Verano Sin Ti, released in May on Assad’s independent label, Rimas Entertainment, and distributed by The Orchard, became the first non-English set to ever top the year-end Billboard 200 Albums ranking and the first all-Spanish release nominated for album of the year at the Grammy Awards, one of Bad Bunny’s three nods.
“I was very proud about that one, especially because it was 100% a Spanish-language album,” says Assad. “It doesn’t have even a verse in English.”
On top of that, in April, Bad Bunny will become the first Latin act to headline Coachella. And, Assad, 32, is realizing some milestones of his own, including being named Billboard’s youngest-ever Executive of the Year and the first Latino to secure the honor.
His achievement underscores not only the growing worldwide popularity and profitability of Latin music, but also shines a light on what an upstart independent can do — regardless of genre or the backing of a legacy company — when armed with guts, hustle, deep musical knowledge, loyalty and the confidence to break rules and create new ones.
Bad Bunny is signed to Assad’s label, Rimas Entertainment, which originated in 2014 as a digital marketing and distribution company. It has evolved to become a 100-plus-person operation with distribution from The Orchard, with a roster ranging from veterans (Arcángel, Jowell & Randy) to promising newcomers (Mora, Eladio Carrión), many of whom are signed to 360 deals. Rimas ended 2022 at No. 7 on Billboard’s year-end Top Labels chart and at No. 1 on the year-end Top Latin Labels chart, with 23 charting albums by seven artists besides Bad Bunny.
Assad also launched RSM Publishing, which is administered by Universal Music Publishing Group and was No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Hot Latin Songs Publishers list. And while Bad Bunny is his most visible management client, Assad also started managing Karol G 18 months ago with his new management firm, Habibi, with stellar results. Her 2022 $trip Love tour, promoted by AEG Presents, grossed $69.9 million with 410,000 tickets sold across 33 arena shows in North America — the highest-earning U.S tour ever by a female Latin act, according to Billboard Boxscore.
“Noah has an unmatched understanding of his artists,” says Jody Gerson, chairman/CEO of UMPG. “His instincts about how to market and promote them, as he has done so well with Bad Bunny and Karol G, are among the best I’ve ever seen in the business. As an executive, Noah is loyal, honest, innovative and smart, and these are just some of the many traits that make him a fantastic partner.”
Though only 32, Assad considers himself a “semi-vet. I may be ‘new’ to a lot of people, but I’ve been at this for 12 years,” he says with a laugh. A self-professed reggaetón nerd with long blonde hair that matches his laid-back surfer vibe, Assad — born to a Lebanese father and a mother from St. Croix — grew up in Puerto Rico, and since seventh grade has been “consumed with reggaetón culture.” By 16, he was promoting house parties, booking the likes of Farruko before he became a big name and cultivating relationships with already established acts like Plan B’s Chencho Corleone. “Chencho was the first established artist to simply say yes to me,” says Assad, a favor that has paid dividends for Corleone; “Me Porto Bonito,” his smash collaboration on Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, became the first all-Spanish song to top Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart. That full-circle moment highlights Assad’s reputation for cultivating relationships with contacts to whom he stays loyal. “We work with everybody; we are always coexisting,” he told Billboard last year. Witness his deals with opposing teams at The Orchard and Universal, while his top touring acts — Bad Bunny and Karol G — work with Live Nation and AEG, respectively.
“Noah is similar to Bad Bunny in that he’s also a unicorn,” says Henry Cárdenas, the veteran promoter and founder of CMN, which produced and promoted Bad Bunny’s last two tours, including the stadium tour in partnership with Live Nation. “The guy’s going to create an empire, and he’s a man of his word. I compare him to the old managers, where we closed business with a handshake, and he’s appreciative. Where I’m concerned, he has continued to take me into account, and it harks back to the fact that I worked with him from the very beginning.”
While Assad’s success feels very of the moment — in keeping with his young acts, the relatively recent mainstream success of reggaetón and Bad Bunny’s fondness for releasing music with little or no notice — he’s actually a planner; like his famous client, he takes a long view on success. It wasn’t always this way. As a young promoter, Assad recalls struggling mightily to make a buck (and often getting “hustled”) in what he half-jokingly refers to as “the reggaetón depression era” of 2009-2016, when the music was largely consumed for free and money came almost solely from live shows.
“YouTube was the outlet that turned it into a commercial business,” says Assad, who says he struck an early deal with the platform to monetize the millions of views the music generated for many independent artists and eventually for his own — including a 22-year-old who called himself Bad Bunny. “I didn’t have the privilege to work with an artist who was already established, but I was very fortunate to have Bunny trust me and work with me. Bunny makes me look good,” he says. Alongside his artist, Assad began thinking long term, and even when his actions seem improvised, they are anything but. Take the one-two punch of back-to-back tours with a hit album in between, conceived after ticket prices to Bad Bunny’s arena tour started soaring just after they went on sale in 2021.
“We started getting the heat, but we didn’t think of stadiums until the summer,” says Assad, pointing out that Bad Bunny already had plans to release a new album when the arena tour wrapped. By October, a plan had been made: arenas in February, an album in May and a stadium tour in June to be announced in January with a series of humorous videos featuring Bad Bunny’s girlfriend, Gabriela Berlingari, and Spanish actor Mario Casas. “There’s a lot of pivoting along the way, but we still follow the plan,” says Assad. “And everything we do has to make sense. If it doesn’t make sense, even if it’s beautiful, we pass.”
“Noah is singular in his sense of the moment, commitment to a vision and fearlessness,” says UTA agent Jbeau Lewis, who books Bad Bunny and Karol G. “Noah understands his artists, he always plays the long game, and he’s unafraid to say no.”
Bad Bunny has said repeatedly that he plans to take a break after Coachella, from both recording and touring. But for Assad, the work of growing his business never slows. Last year, in partnership with The Orchard, he launched Sonar, a label for developing acts that already has deals with over 50 artists from around the world, including non-Latin acts. Assad also began a strategic alliance with Live Nation to develop new businesses outside of touring, including Gekko, the restaurant Bad Bunny opened in Miami in August with hospitality entrepreneur David Grutman. Most recently, he announced the launch of Rimas Sports, a stand-alone management company (name notwithstanding, it is not a division of Rimas Entertainment) whose client list already includes the Toronto Blue Jays’ Santiago Espinal and Diego Cartaya, a top prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Assad says his biggest goal for 2023 has nothing to do with business, however. “I want to fly less, enjoy more and spend as much time as I can in Puerto Rico,” he says. “That’s my goal. People look at me and think that because of the hair I’m from Mississippi or something. But I’m just a kid from Carolina, Puerto Rico, who loves reggaetón.”
This story will appear in the Feb. 4, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Saweetie has scored here very own touchdown, by fronting an NFL metaverse concert during Super Bowl week. The “Best Friend” rapper is the headline performer at the Saweetie Super Bowl Concert, a free virtual show presented by Intuit on Roblox and set to premiere Feb. 10.
The Warner Records artist will step into the metaverse on the heels of the launch of WMG’s Rhythm City, for what’s said to be a first-of-its-kind “music-themed social roleplay experience” on the Roblox gaming platform.
According to WMG, which partnered with NFL on the latest initiative, Saweetie will perform a “family-friendly, fully motion-captured” set featuring her hit singles and presented as official part of the Super Bowl LVII event lineup.
The virtual concert will drop next Friday at 7:00pm ET and will re-air every hour, on the hour, until Sunday, Feb. 12.
“As our ecosystem evolves,” comments Oana Ruxandra, chief digital officer & executive vp of business development at WMG, the music major “is focused on building open, interactive and dynamic virtual experiences that deeply connect artists with their fans. It doesn’t get more iconic than the Saweetie Super Bowl Concert Presented by Intuit on Roblox. We are so thrilled to be working in support of this event and incredibly excited to kick off our first concert in Rhythm City.”
Saweetie is the latest WMG artist to make the crossover into the Roblox world, namely Twenty One Pilots, Why Don’t We, Ava Max, David Guetta and Royal Blood.
This year, she’s on a mission to expand her creative horizons. Saweetie is reportedly stepping back onto the small screen with a guest starring role on Peacock’s Bel-Air, the streaming platform’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air spin-off. The 29-year-old previously appeared in several episodes of Freeform’s Black-ish spinoff show Grown-ish, as rapper Indigo.
As for music, Saweetie most recently released her six-track EP The Single Life in November 2022. And she has hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Triller U.S. chart with three numbers: “Tap In” in mid-2020, followed by “Fast (Motion)” in mid-2021, and “Closer,” featuring H.E.R., in February 2022.
With the Rhythm City project, WMG is the latest music company to partner with Roblox, which boasts more than 61 million daily active users and exploded in popularity with young gamers during the pandemic.
Sony Music and BMG announced partnerships with Roblox in 2021. Spotify became “the first music-streaming brand to have a presence on Roblox” last year.
Ultra International Music Publishing (UIMP) has acquired the catalog of Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Zaytoven. In addition, the hitmaker — whose catalog includes tracks by Migos, Drake, 21 Savage, and more — has signed a co-publishing agreement with Ultra to further foster his career moving forward.
Yonatan Watts has signed a worldwide publishing deal with Position Music and Tommy “TB Hits” Brown‘s Chapagne Therapy Music Group (CTMG). A Grammy-nominated hitmater, Watts has already penned hits for Chris Brown, Ariana Grande, Ari Lennox, Coi Leray and more, including “main thing” by Grande which he co-wrote alongside Brown for the singer’s album Positions.
SOFI TUKKER has extended their publishing deal with Third Side Music. The independent publisher will continue to act as the administrator of the electronic pop group’s catalog, as they have since 2017. “Signing with [Third Side] has been one of the best decisions we’ve made in our career,” says SOFI TUKKER about extending their deal.
Warner Chappell Production Music has expanded its operations into São Paulo, Brazil. Helmed by Renato Moraes, the WCPM team in Brazil will focus on building out a local repertoire of music and service Brazil’s film, tv, radio and advertising clients with custom music services and a wide-reaching catalog of songs and sound design. Moraes will reported to Sinéad Hartmann, vp of licensing and music creative.
Ocha Media Inc. has launched its new publishing administration and music synchronization service, Ocha Publishing. The new company will focus on aiding underground house music — including afro house, deep house, soulful house, techno and other subgenres — makers and will help the genre reach music supervisors, producers and creative directors. Its first signing is Osunlade’s Yoruba Records.
Sony Music Publishing Nashville and Droptine have jointly signed country hitmakers Russell Sutton and Tommy Karlas to global publishing deals. Sutton got his start as part of Grassroots Revival, and as a songwriter he has made cuts with Elvie Shane, Drew Green, and Nate Smith. Karlas has written songs for Blake Shelton, Warren Zeiders, Old Dominion, Randy Travis, and Montgomery Gentry.
Shirin David, one of Germany’s most popular female hip hop artists, has signed a deal with Warner Chappell Music. Natascha Augustin, vp of a&r, Warner Chappell Music Germany, adds, “Warner Chappell Music is known for its diverse roster, and we’re delighted to welcome Shirin who has been pushing boundaries as a female hip-hop artist.”
Peermusic U.K. has signed The Reytons to an exclusive global publishing deal via their joint venture with Max Music Publishing. The British indie rock outfit comprises of Jonny Yerrell, Lee Holland, Joe O’Brien, and Jamie Todd, and their new deal arrives on the heels of their record What’s Rock and Roll, reaching a new U.K. chart high.
Warner Chappell and Truth or Dare Publishing have signed country singer/songwriter Abbey Cone to a joint publishing deal. A CMT Next Women of Country inductee, Cone released her debut EP, Hate Me, last year. In 2023, she will perform at Stagecoach.
On Jan. 29, the Brooklyn Variety Ramble debuted in New York City. The city’s first ongoing music variety show showcasing country, bluegrass, Americana, American Roots and more, Brooklyn Variety Ramble series, hosted by comedian Ali Clayton, will also hold shows on Feb. 26, March 26, April 30, May 28, and June 25. Tickets are available for purchase online.
Harry Styles, Mariah Carey and big streaming gains helped Sony Music Entertainment finish 2022 with a bang. Styles’ album Harry’s House and Carey’s typically strong holiday performance drove SME’s revenues up 22.9% to 363.7 billion yen ($2.57 billion at quarter’s average exchange rate) in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, 2022.
Styles’ 2022 release Harry’s House and 2019 album Fine Lines were among SME’s top performing titles of the quarter. Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” topped the U.S. Hot 100 chart for four weeks (chart dates of Dec. 17, Dec. 24, Dec. 31 and Jan. 7). The company also pointed to strong sales and streams by Steve Lacy’s Gemini Rights, SZA’s SOS, Future’s I Never Liked You, Chris Brown’s Indigo, Beyonce’s Renaissance and Bruce Springsteen’s Only the Strong Survive.
Quarterly operating income improved 14.3% to 63 billion yen ($445 million). Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were 80 billion yen ($565 million).
The recorded music division’s revenues improved 30.1% to 239 billion yen ($1.69 billion). Streaming revenue grew 33.2% to 159.1 billion yen ($1.12 billion) and accounted for 66.6% of recorded music revenue, up from 65% in the prior-year period. Download revenue, up 14.3%, accounted for just 4.7% of digital revenues compared to 5.5% a year earlier. Physical sales declined 6% to 31.1 billion yen ($219.1 million) and accounted for 13% of total recorded music revenue, down from 18%.
Publishing revenues increased 42.9% to 74.2 billion yen ($523.4 million) in the quarter. Within publishing, streaming revenue improved 59.8% to 41.6 billion yen ($293.3 million). Streaming’s share of publishing revenue grew to 56% from 50.1% in the prior-year period. Other publishing income rose 25.9% to 32.6 billion yen ($230.1 million).
Excluding foreign exchange and the visual media and platform segment, SME’s recorded music and publishing divisions grew 10% in the quarter. That is a smaller improvement because changes in foreign exchange rates helped SME’s yen-denominated results. From the end of 2021 to 2022, the value of the yen declined against the three main foreign currencies: -10% against the U.S. dollar, -6.9% against the euro and -1.8% against the pound.
The visual media and platform segment was a drag on earnings due to lower anime sales, however. The segment’s revenue fell 16.3% to 47.4 billion yen ($334.7 million).
Looking ahead, the company maintained its forecast for full-year revenue at 1.37 billion yen (approximately $9.7 billion) at operating income at 265 billion yen (approximately $1.87 billion).
Digital music piracy still plagues global music creators, with criminals employing new tactics like “bulletproof” internet service providers, but it is not as much of a problem as copyright infringement of film and television content, according to a new report from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).
The USTR’s annual report on “Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy” (NML) lists seven websites that pose a threat to music industry creators, the same number as in 2022. Those websites engage in stream-ripping, torrent hosting or illegal downloading of pre-release or newly released digital albums.
The latest USTR report highlights new infringement tactics and growing concerns about how social networking sites like Russia’s VKontakte (VK) and Tencent Music Entertainment’s WeChat in China are facilitating the sale of copyright-infringing or counterfeit products.
While the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented spike in online piracy — music, film, television, publishing and software all saw higher levels in 2022 compared to 2021 — music experienced the lowest increase, according to a study by Muso, a U.K. company focused on measuring global piracy, which the USTR highlighted in its report.
Data from Muso determined that from January to August 2022 there were 141.7 billion visits to piracy websites, a 21.9% boost over the same eight-month period in 2021. The most dramatic increase came from film piracy, which grew 49.1% year-on-year. Music saw the lowest increase at 3.87%.
The USTR stresses, however, that while progress has been made in forcing some sites to remove pirated content, the introduction of streaming platforms and their widespread adoption has changed the way media is consumed and done little to stem overall piracy levels, especially for audiovisual works.
“Despite expectations that streaming would help combat piracy, the illegal distribution and consumption of high-quality video content has remained prevalent,” the NML report states.
Reacting to the Notorious Markets list, Mitch Glazier, chairman/CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said it “shines a much-needed spotlight on the devastating impact of copyright theft on American creators.” He adds that “copyright enforcement is necessary to protect livelihoods.”
New to this year’s report are concerns about an increase in piracy sites utilizing “bulletproof” Internet service providers (ISPs) to facilitate their infringing activities. Bulletproof ISPs are characterized by terms of service that often explicitly advertise leniency in allowing their customers to upload and distribute infringing content.
While right holders have expressed concerns about bulletproof ISPs for several years, in 2022, several submissions noted that the growing reliance by pirate sites on such ISPs made it increasingly difficult for right holders to remove infringing content.
Among the bulletproof ISPs being used by music piracy operations is Amarutu, which provides offshore hosting for criminal activity and ignores takedown requests, the USTR says. The dedicated server page of Amarutu’s website advertises that “DMCA messages will be forwarded to the client for resolution but in most cases action is not required.” Amarutu reportedly has an office location in Hong Kong and is registered in Seychelles, with data centers in the Netherlands, the USTR says.
While most of the sites impacting music creators were the same this year, the USTR notes that MP3juices, a stream-ripper, relocated to host Cloudnet in Singapore last year. The website extracts audio from YouTube videos and allows users to download an mp4 file of the audio, often an unlicensed copy. Right holders say MP3juices has attempted to subvert their efforts to demote it in search engine rankings by creating new domain names that reappear at the top of search results.
The USTR once again included Russian social networking and music streaming site VK in its notorious markets report. VK, Russia’s most-visited website, reportedly facilitates the distribution of copyright-infringing files, including thousands of videos and e-books identified by the U.S. film and publishing industries each month. The site allows users “to easily upload video files, including infringing content” and to stream it through an on-site video player, the USTR says.
As Billboard reported in December, following the pullout of most of the global music industry from Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine last year, VK has returned to pirating music. Dozens of albums from Western artists, including from Taylor Swift (signed to Universal Music Group’s Republic) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (on Warner Music Group’s Warner Records), have become available for download.
Complicating matters, last month Belarus adopted a law that essentially legalizes piracy of music and other forms of copyrighted entertainment, which could make it a hotbed for piracy well beyond its borders — and possibly encourage Russian lawmakers to pass a similar law there.
In this year’s report, the USTR also highlights NewAlbumReleases, which previous NML reports said ran out of the Czech Republic but which uses reverse proxy services to mask its location. The website makes its infringing content available for download on “cyberlockers” like Rapidgator, another “notorious market,” according to the USTR.
Also making the list again is FLVTO, a stream-ripping site known to be operated by Russian national Tofig Kurbanov, which has been a thorn in the side of U.S. labels and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). A U.S. district judge last year approved an order for Kurbannov to pay $83 million in damages for circumventing YouTube’s anti-piracy measures and infringing copyrights of audio recordings, but he has appealed the judgment.
Rounding out the list of music-creator threats are torrent sites Rarbg, known to have operated out of Bulgaria, and 1337x, which utilizes reverse proxy services to mask the location of its hosting servers. Variants of 1337x have been subject to blocking orders in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Portugal and the U.K.
This year’s NML report identified a new issue, stating that over the past three years, it has identified a growing concern from rights holders about the proliferation of counterfeit sales facilitated by “social commerce platforms” (social media platforms with integrated e-commerce ecosystems). The concern has coincided with the continued growth of e-commerce and the increased movement of many physical sellers to predominantly online platforms.
Rights holders state that while certain social commerce platforms have taken steps to implement anti-counterfeiting policies, many others still lack adequate anti-counterfeiting policies, processes and tools such as identity verification, as well as effective notice and takedown procedures, proactive anti-counterfeiting filters and tools and strong policies against repeat infringers.
While not calling out music specifically in this newer trend, the USTR names Tencent’s WeChat as one problematic platform. Although described by Tencent as a “social communication tool and information publishing platform,” WeChat provides an e-commerce ecosystem that facilitates the distribution and sale of counterfeit products to users of the overall WeChat platform,” the USTR says in its report. Central to the issue is the growing popularity of WeChat’s short video function, “Channels,” to advertise counterfeit goods directly to consumers, who can purchase the counterfeits featured in the videos via a “shopping cart” functionality in the WeChat app.
Tencent’s efforts to combat counterfeiting with respect to WeChat “have been inadequate,” the USTR says. Rights holders have complained to U.S. officials about the lack of cooperation from WeChat in supporting criminal investigations of counterfeit sellers. “WeChat points to collaboration with law enforcement and regulatory authorities but asserts privacy and data security laws prevent certain disclosures of information,” the USTR says in the NML. (Tencent owns Tencent Music Entertainment, which licenses Billboard China).