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This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between. This week: A murder case against rapper YNW Melly turns into an appellate battle over the death penalty, Phoebe Bridgers defeats a producer’s defamation lawsuit, Megan Thee Stallion wins a restraining order against her label, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: YNW Melly Could Face Death Penalty
Three years after he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, YNW Melly has found himself at the center of a legal battle over the death penalty, with a trip to the Florida Supreme Court looming next.If you haven’t been following: Melly (real name Jamell Demons) faces two counts of murder over accusations that he and another rapper, YNW Bortlen, shot and killed Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams and Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas Jr. in 2018.A first-degree murder defendant in Florida would typically face the possibility of execution if convicted. But earlier this year, Melly’s attorneys argued that the state had forfeited the right to seek capital punishment by failing to comply with strict laws on how they must warn defendants that they’ll do so.Florida requires prosecutors to give notice 45 days after arraignment if they plan to seek capital punishment. In Melly’s case, the state attorney filed such notice when they originally indicted the rapper in 2019, but they then failed to do so when they re-charged him with a so-called superseding indictment earlier this year. In July, a state trial judge sided with Melly’s lawyers, taking the death penalty off the table.But in a ruling last week, a state appeals court overturned that decision. Since prosecutors gave notice that they might seek death when they first charged him, the court said they had complied with state rules – and more importantly, had avoided the due process problems the rules were designed to safeguard against.“Notice is notice,” the court wrote in its opinion. “The defendant has had nearly three years to start the preparation of his defense to the state seeking the death penalty [and] the record contains no evidence that the defendant was prejudiced in any way.”The ruling likely won’t be the last on Melly’s case. In handing down its decision, the appeals court certified that the case dealt with novel legal questions that are of “great public importance” to the state of Florida – meaning they should be decided by the state’s Supreme Court.In a statement to Billboard, Melly’s attorney Philip R. Horowitz said he and his client were “disappointed in the ruling” but “look forward to our opportunity to argue our position before the justices.”
Other top stories this week…
PHOEBE SLAPPS DOWN LAWSUIT – A Los Angeles judge tossed out a lawsuit against Phoebe Bridgers that accused her of defaming producer/studio owner Chris Nelson, citing California’s anti-SLAPP law that’s designed to protect free speech against questionable lawsuits. Nelson’s lawsuit claimed that Bridgers lied about him in a series of October 2020 Instagram posts, in which the singer amplified accusations of abuse made against him by another woman. Her lawyers then fired back that Nelson was just using the lawsuit to “chill Ms. Bridgers’ allegations of abusive conduct, which are protected by the First Amendment.” Though Judge Curtis A. Kin sided with that argument last week, he did not issue a written ruling explaining the decision. Nelson has already vowed to appeal; a rep for Bridgers said the star felt “vindicated that the court recognized this lawsuit as frivolous and without merit.”MEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF – A judge in Texas sided with Megan Thee Stallion and granted her a restraining order against her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, issued after she claimed that the company “unlawfully” took steps “to block or interfere” with her ability to use her music in the lead-up to the AMAs on Sunday. The order bars the company from “preventing or blocking the use and exploitation” of Megan’s music in promotional content for the AMAs. The tussle ahead of the awards show is the latest front in a years-long legal war between Megan and 1501. She claims the label duped her into signing an unfair contract and has retaliated against her for challenging it; the company claims Megan, with the help of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, is using baseless litigation merely as a vehicle to escape a deal she “no longer likes.”YE SUED YET AGAIN – Kanye West is facing a new copyright lawsuit over allegations that his “Life of the Party” illegally sampled from 1986 song “South Bronx” by the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions. The company that currently owns BDP’s copyrights says West’s people reached out to clear the sample, but then released it anyway when a deal was never struck. The case is the latest in a string of such infringement case against the embattled rapper, who (amid many, many other problems) has been repeatedly sued for failing to secure licenses for samples.THEIR LOSS? – Just days after Condé Nast sued Drake and 21 Savage for using a fake cover story in Vogue magazine to promote their new album Her Loss, a federal judge issued a restraining order forcing them to stop using it. The judge ruled that the cover – one of several fake promos for the album – was likely violating the publisher’s trademarks because Drake and 21 were “misleading consumers” and “deceiving the public.” DJ SUED FOR NFT PROFITS – 3LAU was hit with a lawsuit claiming the DJ refused to properly share the earnings from an $11 million NFT auction with Luna Aura, a musical collaborator who co-authored one of the songs involved. Aura claims she owns a 50% royalty stake in the song “Walk Away” from his album Ultraviolet — but that 3LAU (real name Justin Blau) offered her just $25,000 from the much-publicized NFT auction tied to the record: “Despite this financial windfall, defendants only offered Luna Aura a flat one-time payment.” 3LAU’s reps said the case was “without merit” and came as a surprise after months of negotiations.BANKROLL FREDDIE ARRESTED – Rapper Bankroll Freddie (Freddie Gladney III) was arrested in Arkansas on federal gun and drug charges, part of a sweeping bust across the state that saw 80 defendants indicted and 45 arrested, including his father Freddie Gladney Jr. The rapper, signed to Quality Control, is facing 11 total charges, including various drug possessions and possession of a machine gun.
Attorneys for Dua Lipa are asking a federal judge to quickly toss out a lawsuit claiming she stole her smash hit song “Levitating” from a little-known reggae track, calling the allegations “speculative,” “vague” and supported by little real evidence.
Members of the Florida band Artikal Sound System sued Lipa earlier this year, claiming her 2020 smash hit – which spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart – borrowed its core hook from their 2017 song “Live Your Life.”
But in a motion to dismiss the case filed Monday (Nov. 14), Lipa’s lawyers said there was no sign that anyone involved in creating “Levitating” ever even had access to the earlier song – a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit. Artikal Sound System’s attempts to show such a connection, they said, were “tortured.”
“They amount to nothing more than a speculative, attenuated theory based on numerous degrees of separation, none of which establish any link — let alone a concrete link — between the writers of ‘Levitating’ and ‘Live Your Life,’” wrote Lipa’s lawyers from the firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP.
“Plaintiffs are essentially seeking to plead access,” the star’s legal team wrote, “by alleging that someone who knows someone who knows someone might have met one of the ‘Levitating’ writers.”
“Levitating,” released in 2020 on Lipa’s second studio album Future Nostalgia, was a massive hit, eventually peaking at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and securing the honor of being the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the chart.
Artikal Sound System is a reggae band based out of South Florida, founded in 2012 as a duo before later adding additional musicians and vocalist Logan Rex. The band released “Live Your Life” on its 2017 EP Smoke and Mirrors.
In their March lawsuit, the band said the songs sounded so similar that it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.” The lawsuit also named Warner Records, as well as others who helped create the hit track.
In Monday’s filing, beyond arguing that Lipa and other writers never heard the song, her lawyers also said Artikal Sound System failed to show that the songs were similar enough to constitute copyright infringement. The complaint is full of “vague, boilerplate labels and conclusions,” they said, but “devoid of a shred of factual detail”
“Plaintiffs fail to allege a single fact that identifies what material from ‘Live Your Life’ is copied in ‘Levitating’,” Lipa’s lawyers wrote. “Instead, Plaintiffs merely conclusorily allege purported similarities between the two works without any factual detail whatsoever.”
An attorney for Artikal Sound System did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The current case is one of two lawsuits Lipa is facing over “Levitating.” The other, filed just days later, claims she and the other writers lifted material from both a 1979 song called “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and a 1980 song called “Don Diablo.” That case is still pending in a different court.
On the same day that Taylor Swift casually picked up four Grammy nominations, Swifties fought tooth and nail to pick up tickets for her Eras Tour next year. In fact, so many millions (that’s right, millions) of them flooded Ticketmaster’s site trying to purchase tickets during the tour’s initial presale Tuesday (Nov. 15), the company was forced to postpone a couple of its onsales following high reports of site crashes and technical difficulties.
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“A few updates on the Taylor Swift Eras Tour onsale,” read a statement posted to Ticketmaster’s official Twitter account. “There has been historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up to buy tickets for the TaylorSwiftTix Presale.”
“Hundreds of tickets have been sold,” it continued. “If you have already secured tickets, you are all set. If you are currently in a queue, please hang tight — queues are moving and we are working to get fans through as quickly as possible.”
The company went on to announce that onsales scheduled for West Coast shows in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Santa Clara and Seattle would be postponed to 3 p.m. PT Tuesday instead of its original time of 10 a.m. PT. The Capital One cardholders presale was also moved to 2 p.m. local time Wednesday (Nov. 16), delayed from its originally scheduled starting time of 2 p.m. local time on Tuesday.
“All presale codes and links sent via text will still work at that time,” Ticketmaster reassured Swifties in its statement. “Thank you for your patience as we continue managing this huge demand.”
The presale initially started at 10 a.m. local venue time on Tuesday and was soon followed by outages on Ticketmaster’s website. The technical difficulties were reported and posted about by anxious fans trying to secure seats at one of Swift’s 52 North American shows kicking off in March next year.
Some of the gargantuan demand for Eras Tour tickets had been apparent even leading up to the ticket sale, leading the “All Too Well” pop star to add 25 additional shows to her 27 original dates in the past couple weeks.
Read Ticketmaster’s full statement below.
Overnight sensations are largely a myth in the music business, and Brookfield Asset Management’s surprise emergence in early October as one of the biggest players in the song-catalog investment and management market was no exception.
Angelo Rufino, the managing partner behind the company’s $2 billion investment in music publisher Primary Wave, says the deal “was a real creative endeavor that took many twists and turns over six months until we both said, ‘We’ve got it. This makes complete sense.’ ”
The 41-year-old East Fishkill, N.Y., native is referring to Primary Wave founder/CEO Larry Mestel, whose business model, he says, convinced Brookfield it was time to make its first foray into the music industry. “We found, after a very long search, the manager who really spoke to how we invest as a company. Larry doesn’t buy an asset, then sit back and say, ‘Well, streaming’s growing at 18% this year. I’m going to get my beta just participating alongside that industry growth.’ He’s got a massive team of branding experts, content experts to proactively drive growth.”
Rufino predicts that strategy will be crucial to future success. “As more money comes in and as things become more competitive,” he says, “we think the ability to grow and compound these assets with a value-added component will be the single differentiator between the winners and losers.”
Rufino and Mestel worked together to craft a three-pronged structure without outside help — unusual in today’s world where investment bankers are often relied-upon go-betweens. They set up a permanent capital vehicle, which they filled partly by buying out some of the investors in Primary Wave’s first and second funds. They rolled $700 million in assets from those funds into the new structure. Brookfield threw another $1 billion on top, and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) joined as a strategic partner and minority shareholder. The result: one of the biggest single funds aimed at catalog acquisitions in the music industry.
Angelo Ruffino’s desk plaque serves as a reminder “that contrarian thinking is required, as things tend to come full circle.”
Krista Schlueter
Rufino, who holds a seat on the company’s newly formed board, sees the music intellectual-property (IP) asset class eventually becoming a $100 billion market and Primary Wave doubling or even tripling in size — while generating returns exceeding 20% — through movies, gaming partnerships and international expansion.
“It just so happens that Brookfield is the largest private investor in Brazil — a country that has an enormous music culture,” Rufino says. “We’ve also made strong footholds in India as a company, and it’s a market we are interested in exploring with Primary Wave.”
That’s not all. Brookfield’s limited partners — clients on the side of Brookfield’s business that manages money for a fee — remain extremely interested in investing in artists’ rights, especially now that some of the frenzied buying of last year has calmed, Rufino says. “We believe music [IP] as an asset class is still in the very early innings.”
Brookfield’s investment in Primary Wave is its first in the music industry. What should people unfamiliar with your firm know about Brookfield and how it invests?
We are a 100-year-old asset manager that has its roots in a Canadian holding company. We always take a contrarian view to value investing. We want to own things that we view as the backbone of the global economy. We began as a company that owned and operated assets, as opposed to just invested in them from a financial perspective. We started in real estate [and] very quickly branched out into infrastructure, renewables, corporate private equity. We’ve ticked every box of the global ecosystem of asset classes while [building on] our heritage as owner-operator with the best of both worlds — permanent capital and third party-managed money.
Where does Primary Wave fit in Brookfield’s $750 billion portfolio of assets?
Our CEO, Bruce Flatt, wants us to own the backbone of the economy. With Primary Wave, we own the backbone of the music industry with a super-long tail and very stable cash flows. When you own Bob Marley, Whitney Houston, James Brown, these are brands. He’s the best I’ve ever seen at leveraging brand extensions to supercharge the growth of these assets. When we saw the catalogs, we said, “These are the types of assets we can own forever if we so choose.”
Who brought in CAA?
That was Larry’s relationship. He introduced us to [CAA president] Jim Burston, and it became very obvious very quickly that they would supercharge Larry’s core competency. There is an absolute grab for content at this point. Netflix, Hulu and 30 others need to keep us engaged. We are going to keep seeing these artists weave their way into our lives, and CAA has the relationships to help us do that across many entertainment venues while also providing intros to artists.
The Buddha statuette “was a gift from a friend and colleague to bring our team good luck and fortune,” says Rufino.
Krista Schlueter
The market for investing in song catalogs and other intellectual property has grown crowded over the last two years. What’s your outlook for this asset class?
I’d actually argue it’s not that crowded. Somewhere around $7 billion has been raised to go after this asset class, and we think the total addressable market is well in excess of $100 billion. We think there’s going to be a massive opportunity over the next three to four years to acquire these rights. The other thing is that the opportunity set will become much more nuanced. These are really emotional, sensitive transactions for artists, and Larry has emerged as somebody whom artists trust, and that’s important when you are selling something as incredibly important as your life’s work. We wanted to buttress that by saying, “What would be better than partnering with the best steward for my assets and a financial partner that understands this asset class and has an ability to hold the asset forever?”
Why do this deal now?
I was resigned to thinking we wouldn’t get something done in the space until we met Larry earlier this year. What we knew was that 2021 didn’t feel like a good time to do this type of transaction. 2021 was a year of madness in the markets — sky-high valuations across anything you could look at. Brookfield is patient and has the capital base and buy-in from our CEO and investors to wait until opportunities are ripe and fit our organization. So we continued studying the space, gaining conviction in the asset class and understanding that the macro environment would eventually present the opportunity to acquire these assets at a good value.
Do you expect to deploy additional capital beyond what was already committed?
If the business model plays out the way we expect, yes, this entity will just keep receiving capital from us.
As you look to scale Primary Wave, what other companies might make sense to buy?
There are many things we can look at. There are going to be things that touch future mediums of how music is disseminated. Maybe it’s channels of distribution that might make sense for us. Maybe it’s song-catalog managers — people who are doing what we’re doing but need assistance with the value-added component. It could be international opportunities where we are looking at companies that could help us fully brand some of these artists in areas outside of their home country.
What kind of return does Brookfield expect to earn?
We have a 20-year history of compounding at 20%-plus in our public top company. We think returns for this asset class can be at that level and for a very long duration.
Where do you see opportunities for growth?
There are so many ways to monetize music. Think about movies, video games. Music is going to be like the Marvel and DC comic catalogs. We started with Batman and Superman. Then Justice League and Wonder Woman and Black Panther. You think about Rocket Man, Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis. Now Larry is bringing Whitney Houston to Hollywood. I look at our portfolio of musicians and say we’re going to have movies made on each of them. Prince, Whitney, Bob Marley.
The ability to scale streaming penetration globally is enormous, and the number of vectors that are going to occur with YouTube, TikTok, Peloton are not going to only drive music penetration and pricing, but growth in areas that we haven’t begun to realize.
Angelo Ruffino’s “Fugazi” bell is “a fun way to call out analysis, accounting or anything that doesn’t make sense as we review investment opportunities.”
Krista Schlueter
If there was one biopic you want Primary Wave to make, what would it be?
Prince. I’m a big Prince fan.
What other music do you like?
Classic rock. I love all things ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. I’m a massive Talking Heads fan. I’ve always been into music and sang a cappella at Skidmore College and for many years in New York, including in a group called The Invisible Men. We disbanded when we all started having kids. My two sons, who are 3 and 4, love Tom Petty. We don’t own that catalog. Larry’s going to have to buy it.
Mariah Carey might be the “Queen of Christmas,” but a new legal ruling means she won’t be able to stop others from using the same name.
In a decision issued Tuesday, a tribunal at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Carey’s application to register the royal title as a federal trademark. The decision went in favor of Elizabeth Chan, another singer who says she’s used the same name for years.
Chan filed a legal case against Carey in August, arguing that “Christmas is big enough for more than one Queen.” After that, Carey never responded to the case or defended her applications for the trademarks, prompting the Trademark Office to rule in favor of Chan by default.
“We are pleased with the victory, and delighted that we were able to help Elizabeth fight back against Carey’s overreaching trademark registrations,” said Tompros, an attorney at the law firm WilmerHale.
In the same statement, Chan herself added: “Christmas is a season of giving, not the season of taking, and it is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like Queen of Christmas for the purposes of abject materialism.”
Carey’s attorney did not return a request for comment on the decision.
In a statement, Chan’s lawyer Louis Tompros called Carey’s efforts to secure legal protection over the “Queen” name “a classic case of trademark bullying” – a term used to criticize overly-aggressive trademark protection by big brands.
Likely playing on her perennial smash hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Carey’s company (Lotion LLC) applied last year to register the “Queen” name as an exclusive brand name for a variety of different goods and services, ranging from music to alcohol to fragrances.
Trademarks are different than copyrights, and they do not give someone blanket ownership over particular words. If Carey had won the registrations and wanted to sue someone, she still would have needed to prove that consumers had confused the two brand names – not always an easy task, particularly with a fairly unoriginal name like “Queen of Christmas.”
But such registrations are still important, and would have empowered Carey’s company to start threatening litigation and crowding out others from using it in similar commercial contexts. That potentially would include Chan, who calls her self “pop music’s only full-time Christmas singer” and says she’s also been repeatedly dubbed the “Queen of Christmas.”
The risk of such litigation prompted Chan to file her August case at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, a court-like body within the USPTO that decides disputes over who is entitled to register particular trademarks. Repped by Tompros, she argued that no single singer or company should be able to lock up the title.
“Ms. Carey can call herself whatever she wants, but she shouldn’t have the ability to block others from doing the same,” Tompros said at the time.
It’s unclear exactly what motivated Carey and her lawyers (from the elite trademark law firm Fross Zelnick) to file the applications, particularly after she gave an interview in December in which she seemed to disclaim the title: “To me, Mary is the Queen of Christmas.”
The dispute over the “Queen” title prompted some fun wrangling among other Christmas “queens.” Darlene Love jokingly urged Carey to “call my lawyer,” noting that David Letterman had “officially declared me the Queen of Christmas 29 years ago.” And just last week, Dolly Parton quickly conceded the title to Carey after an interviewer suggested that Parton might be “the new Queen of Christmas.”
“Now, don’t you say that! I’m not going to compete with Mariah,” Parton said in the interview with Better Homes and Gardens. “I love her. You think of Christmas, you think of Mariah.”
“Is it true that Mariah Carey trademarked ‘Queen of Christmas?’ What does that mean that I can’t use that title?” Love asked in the post. “At 81 years of age I’m NOT changing anything. I’ve been in the business for 52 years, have earned it and can still hit those notes! If Mariah has a problem call David or my lawyer!!”
Santigold has launched a new community fan club powered by Web3, allowing her to connect directly with fans and offer exclusive content and experiences. It follows a tour cancellation in September where she told fans, “I have tried and tried, looked at what it would take from every angle, and I simply don’t have it.”
The difficult touring conditions has many artists looking for an alternative in Web3. Digital communities, unlocked through NFT access, are becoming increasingly popular for musicians seeking a deeper connection with their fans.
“I am excited about Web3 as an opportunity for artists to interact with our audiences in more honest, intimate and creative ways, while exploring new art mediums and technologies,” says Santigold. “I’m also looking forward to using this space to innovate ways to control the release of our art on our own terms.”
After claiming a free NFT pass, fans will have access to a hub of exclusive content including a sneak peak at Santigold’s upcoming music video. Fans can also submit questions for her new podcast and vote on merchandise designs.
Santigold’s ‘Fan Club’ is powered by Web3 tech company Medallion which already hosts personalized fan clubs for Tycho, Sigur Ros and Jungle. The tech is customizable so it can be integrated into an artist’s existing website and aesthetic. The onboarding process for fans is free and seamless — an example of Web 2.5 whereby the complicated crypto technology is disguised with simple and familiar interfaces.
Medallion Logo
Courtesy Photo
British band Jungle launched their Medallion fan club in September and has already used it to launch hyper-localized campaigns to support their touring activity. For example, the band onboarded 500 local fans in Mexico City ahead of a headline show. “The Jungle Fan Club has allowed us to connect with fans directly in a digital space that feels communal, interactive and collaborative,” says Jungle. “Medallion’s technology has built solutions for ideas we’ve had for years, but have never had the tools to make practical.”
Since launching, Medallion has onboarded 20,000 users to Tycho, Sigur Ros and Jungle’s communities — 95% of those had never touched crypto before. Within 24 hours of launching his Web3 fan club, Tycho tripled the number of fans in his Discord community.
“Medallion’s technology has been built with a singular goal of helping artists create more meaningful connections with their fans, both on and off the road,” says Medallion president Derek Davies. “And with the hardships facing touring artists since the onset of the pandemic, the invaluable importance for community in digital spaces has become clearer than ever.”
Web3 fan clubs are not a new phenomenon. Steve Aoki launched the Aokiverse in 2021 which offers fans token-gated access to VIP tickets and free NFT airdrops. Hard rock band Avenged Sevenfold launched the Deathbats Club which gives fans unlimited meet and greet access for life. Meanwhile, alt-rockers Portugal. The Man launched a Web3 fan club complete with its own social token $PTM.
The trend is accelerating, however, especially as new platforms are developed to create a simple, custom experience. The harsh realities of touring in a post-COVID world, coupled with the pressure to create ‘content’ for a mass audience on social media, means that digital communities could become an increasingly important way to engage with super fans.
The ongoing legal battle between Megan Thee Stallion and her label 1501 Certified Entertainment has taken another nasty turn around this weekend’s American Music Awards.
According to court documents obtained by Billboard, the “Savage” rapper (born Megan Pete) was granted a restraining order against 1501, along with her distributor 300 Entertainment, after claiming 1501 “unlawfully” took steps “to block or interfere with Pete exploiting, licensing, or publishing her music” in the lead-up to the upcoming AMAs on Sunday (Nov. 20). Filed in Harris County District Court in Texas, the order says Megan “provided evidence” that the company “recently engaged and will continue to engage in threatening and retaliatory behavior that will irreparably harm” her music career.
Without providing further detail on what 1501 or 300 allegedly did, the court notes that it filed an ex parte order — essentially, a type of emergency order granted without waiting for a response from the other side — “because there was not enough time to give notice to Defendants, hold a hearing, and issue a restraining order before the irreparable injury, loss, or damage would occur.” It adds that voting for the AMAs, where Megan is nominated for favorite female hip-hop artist, closes on Monday night (Nov. 14) at midnight, and that Megan “will suffer irreparable harm if her music cannot be used in conjunction with her promotion for the AMAs.”
Under the order, 1501, 300 and anyone acting “in concert or participation with” them are restricted from “preventing or blocking the use and exploitation” of Megan’s music in promotional content for the AMAs, — including by “threatening or otherwise attempting to intimidate or coerce” third parties not to use it — through Nov. 20. It also sets a hearing on Megan’s restraining order request for Nov. 22.
The restraining order is just the latest volley in a more than two-year-old legal battle that began in 2020 when Megan filed a lawsuit alleging that 1501 founder Carl Crawford tricked her into signing an “unconscionable” record deal in 2018 that was well below industry standards. She claims that upon signing a management deal with Jay-Z‘s Roc Nation the following year, she got “real lawyers” who showed her that the 1501 agreement was “crazy.”
In February, Megan filed a separate lawsuit claiming 1501 had refused to count her 2021 Something for Thee Hotties release as an album — a pivotal definition, as her 1501 deal states that she must produce three albums to fulfill her obligations. 1501 quickly countersued, arguing that Thee Hotties included just 29 minutes of original material and therefore didn’t qualify.
In September, Megan filed yet another lawsuit seeking more than $1 million in damages, claiming that 1501 “systematically failed” to pay her the proper amount of royalties she was owed and had “wrongfully allowed for excessive marketing and promotion charges,” in addition to allegations that the label leaked her most recent album Traumazine. In response, attorneys for the label argued it was actually Megan who had failed to pay 1501 its fair share of money she made from endorsements, partnerships and other business deals, as well as requirements related to publishing royalties. They further added that any claims of underpayment of royalties should be redirected to 300 Entertainment.
Representatives from 1501 and 300 did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
A tourism minister for the Bahamas is throwing cold water on Billy McFarland‘s comeback plans. In a statement Monday (Nov. 14), Chester Cooper, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister for Tourism, said that the creator of the disastrous Fyre Festival is still considered a “fugitive” in the country and that anyone knowing his whereabouts should contact the Royal Bahamian Police Force. In response, McFarland issued a letter to the Bahamian government later that day apologizing for Fyre Fest and promising, “I will spend the rest of my life working to right my wrongs.”
The news — first reported by local newspaper The Tribune — comes after McFarland was earlier this year released from prison and later home confinement for crimes he committed while raising money for the 2017 festival. Last month, McFarland released a video on TikTok teasing out a new Bahamas-based project that would be promoted through a treasure hunt set to begin this week on the Caribbean island nation.
“The public is advised that no application has been made to the Government for consideration of any event promoted by Billy McFarland or any entity or parties known to be associated with him,” said Cooper in a statement. “McFarland was the organizer of the Fyre Festival several years ago, a notorious charade for which McFarland was convicted and sent to prison in the USA. “The Government of The Bahamas will not endorse or approve any event in The Bahamas associated with him. “He is considered to be a fugitive, with several pending complaints made against him with the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF).”
McFarland first announced his plans for PYRT on Oct. 24 after serving four years in prison, noting he’s “working on something new” that’s “a little crazier but a whole lot bigger than anything I’ve ever tried before.” In the video announcement, he then flipped a whiteboard to reveal a treasure map taped to the other side and a phone number to call for more information.
In addition to his prison sentence, McFarland was ordered to pay roughly $26 million in restitution for his crimes. In May, his attorney Jason Russo told Billboard that McFarland was focused on finding “the best way to generate income to pay this restitution back and make amends,” adding, “Any new projects that he does become involved in will be done solely for the purpose of generating the restitution for paying back his victims.”
Later Monday, a representative for McFarland provided Billboard with a copy of a letter McFarland says was sent to the Bahamian government in response to Cooper’s statement. In it, he says he has been working to “make amends” with the Bahamian people and pledges to “make these families whole as soon I am allowed.” He goes on to “ask for guidance on whom to speak with to begin my journey to do right by the incredible people of the Bahamas and Family Islands.”
Read it in full here:
Dear Government of The Bahamas,
I am writing to you to profusely apologize for my actions 5 years ago. I was completely wrong and I wholly regret my actions.
I’ve now served my punishment in prison and now that I am out, my main focus is how I can right my wrongs and how I can make the Bahamas and Family Islands, a region I care so deeply about, whole again.
Over the years, and particularly since my release on August 30, I have been in constant touch with the people throughout the Islands. Their generosity and kind hearts have been a constant guide and motivation for me. I have been re-engaging with the families of the islands to see what I can do to begin making amends.
I don’t have much right now, but I am committed to make these families whole as soon I am allowed. I ask for guidance on whom to speak with to begin my journey to do right by the incredible people of the Bahamas and Family Islands.
I truly acknowledge the hurt I caused to the people, and region, and I will spend the rest of my life working to right my wrongs.
Sincerely,Billy McFarland
BMG has acquired the songbook of beloved, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson for an undisclosed amount, the company announced Monday (Nov. 14).
The deal includes Nilsson’s publishing catalog and writer revenue streams of songs including “One,” “Coconut,” “Jump Into the Fire,” “Gotta Get Up” and “Me and My Arrow” as well as songs co-written with John Lennon (“Mucho Mungo/Mt. Elga” and “Old Dirt Road”), Danny Kortchmar (“(Thursday) Here’s Why I Did Not Go to Work Today” and “Moonshine Bandit”), Dr. John (“Daylight Has Caught Me”) and Ringo Starr (“How Long Can Disco On”). The deal additionally includes artist revenue streams of Nilsson’s recordings, also including including hits he didn’t write like “Everybody’s Talkin’” and “Without You.”
Over his career, Nilsson released 18 studio albums, including his 1966 debut Spotlight on Nilsson, Harry, Nilsson Sings Newman, Nilsson Schilsson, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, the Lennon-produced Pussy Cats, Knnillssonn and Flash Harry. The list also includes soundtracks for Skidoo, Son of Dracula and Popeye, as well as the posthumous album Losst and Found. Nilsson died of a heart attack in 1994 at age 52 while recording the latter album, which was finished and released 25 years later in 2019.
As part of the acquisition, BMG will collaborate with Nilsson’s family to explore opportunities around his other creative assets. These include Nilsson’s story for The Point! — the 1971 ABC TV special for which he also wrote the soundtrack — as well as his name, image and likeness, including for film, TV, stage and books.
Nilsson launched his music career in 1960s Los Angeles as a songwriter for groups including The Monkees and Three Dog Night. He broke through with his cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” in 1969, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and netting him a Grammy for best contemporary vocal performance, male. He cemented his status as a left-field hitmaker with his seventh album, 1971’s Nilsson Schmilsson. That set was nominated for album of the year at the 1973 Grammys and ultimately went was RIAA-certified gold on the strength of hit singles, including the No. 1 smash “Without You” (a cover of the song by Badfinger), “Jump Into the Fire” and “Coconut.” He followed that with the Gold-selling Son of Schmilsson the following year. That album’s biggest hit, “Spaceman,” peaked at No. 23 on the Hot 100.
Over the decades, Nilsson’s music has found new generations of fans thanks to placements in films and TV shows like Goodfellas (“Jump Into the Fire”), Reservoir Dogs (“Coconut”), Russian Doll (“Gotta Get Up”), Forrest Gump (“Everybody’s Talkin’”) and You’ve Got Mail (“The Puppy Song”).
The Nilsson family’s team was led by John Rudolph of 1.618 Industries, Inc. (formerly Music Analytics) with counsel provided by Jason Karlov and Amanda Taber of Barnes & Thornburg.
“We are delighted to have found a partner that shares our love and reverence for Harry’s legacy,” said the Nilsson family in a statement. “We look forward to a long relationship with BMG, working together to celebrate this true genius of pop music.”
Thomas Scherer, BMG president of repertoire & marketing, Los Angeles and New York, added, “For generations, Harry Nilsson’s timeless music has captivated millions of people all around the world. A brilliant songwriter with an exceptionally beautiful and unique voice, we will ensure his spirit thrives for generations to come. We are honored the Nilsson family chose BMG to entrust as the custodians of his musical legacy and are proud to represent the cherished works of Harry Nilsson.”
Other recent acquisitions by BMG include the publishing and/or recorded music catalogs of John Legend, Mötley Crüe, John Lee Hooker and ZZ Top.
Bill Oakes, who was president of RSO Records in the 1970s, remembers the first time he heard Bee Gees’ demos for the songs that would end up on the label’s blockbuster 1977 soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. He and Robert Stigwood, the Bee Gees manager and founder of RSO, were visiting brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb at the Château d’Hérouville recording studio in northern France as the trio were mixing a live album. Stigwood requested that the Bee Gees come up with some new songs for a disco movie he was producing, starring an emerging actor named John Travolta. Following the meeting, Oakes went to Paris; a short period of time later, he received a cassette from Bee Gees’ personal manager Dick Ashby.
“I put it on in my hotel room,” Oakes recalls. “It was one after the other — No. 1 records. Even in their demo form, it was quite obviously a staggering success. It started with ‘More Than a Woman,’ ‘Night Fever,’ ‘If I Can’t Have You,’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ and ‘How Deep Is Your Love.’ I said to Robert, ‘We’ve got the score. We’ve got it.’”
Those new songs that the Bee Gees came up with in short order catapulted both the movie and the soundtrack to massive commercial success, transformed the Gibb brothers into superstars and further popularized disco. Released 45 years ago on Nov. 15, 1977, the double album of disco standards is one of the best-selling soundtracks ever; in the last five years, the soundtrack’s songs have racked up 1.9 billion on-demand U.S. streams, per Luminate.
“As the years go on, it makes me more proud in a way,” says Oakes, who is credited with “album supervision and compilation” in the Fever liner notes. “Anything that stands the test of time must be, by its very essence, worth it. Other things I’ve done have disappeared and you don’t usually get satisfaction, 40 years later, out of what you did back then. But [the Fever soundtrack] does hold up.”
During his time as RSO Records president, Oakes oversaw a roster that included Bee Gees and Eric Clapton. He was friends with the British journalist Nik Cohn, who wrote a 1976 New York Magazine story, “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” which centers on an Italian-American working-class youth named Vincent who spends his Saturday nights at the 2001 Odyssey disco club in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Through Oakes and Stigwood’s assistant Kevin McCormick, Stigwood became acquainted with Cohn’s article and bought the film rights that would serve as the basis for Saturday Night Fever. For the movie’s lead character Tony Manero, Stigwood signed Travolta — who was best known as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter — to a multi-picture deal.
“Robert saw [Travolta] and he just made a note, ‘This is the guy who could play the lead in Saturday Night Fever,’” says Oakes. “He said [to Travolta’s manager], ‘I’ll make you an offer for three pictures for a million dollars.’ That was Robert just basically taking everyone else out of the market. It turned out to be actually a very good deal because, from the million dollars, he got him for Saturday Night Fever and Grease, which turned out well.”
Stigwood suggested to Oakes that the soundtrack would be a two-record set of disco’s greatest hits featuring Bee Gees. “That was an inspired move of saying, ‘We’re gonna do a gatefold double album and fill it up with all the best soundtrack goods,’” says Oakes. “It didn’t really matter if you didn’t see the movie. It became an iconic thing in itself, because if you were giving a party in 1978, all you needed was that album. I sequenced the album specifically so it would be that way.”
Before their involvement in Saturday Night Fever, Bee Gees were slowly making a comeback after a commercial and creative dry spell, starting with such Billboard Hot 100 toppers as 1975’s “Jive Talkin’” and 1976’s “You Should Be Dancing” (both of which also appeared on the soundtrack). “I presided over a bad time in their career with [the 1974 album] Mr. Natural,” says Oakes. “They couldn’t really get a hook on how to sell themselves. It was [producer] Arif Martin who really brought their sound into a modern R&B world.”
Oakes recalls that after he and Stigwood met with the Bee Gees at the Château d’Hérouville, he realized that the film script remained unopened on the studio console. “They hadn’t even looked at it,” he says. “What Robert did tell them in broad terms is it’s about a guy who works in a paint store and blows all his wages on a Saturday night, and he goes to a club and they do the hustle…Robert’s mission was [to] get the Bee Gees to write a disco track that you cannot stop dancing to, with a great melody. And that’s how they came up with ‘Night Fever,’ for instance. These are great melodies that happened to be in the disco mold. That was the breakthrough. It was interesting: they just simply dropped the live album they were mixing and went straight into it.”
With Bee Gees compositions taking up side one, Oakes now had three more sides of the record to fill. Aside from contributions by Kool & the Gang (“Open Sesame”) and KC and the Sunshine Band (“Boogie Shoes”), the soundtrack consisted of mostly relatively unknown acts. One of them was singer and Oakes’ then-wife Yvonne Elliman, who recorded the Bee Gees-penned “If I Can’t Have You.” “The Bee Gees originally wanted her to do ‘How Deep Is Your Love,’” Oakes says. “But Robert said no — he wanted the Bee Gees to do that. So Yvonne got ‘If I Can’t Have You.’ It just happened she was on the label, so there’s a bit of nepotism there (laughs).”
In addition to Bee Gees’ recording of “More Than a Woman,” R&B group Tavares’ version of that song also appeared on the soundtrack and peaked at No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. Says Oakes: “We wanted another act doing a Bee Gees song, so Tavares seemed the logical choice. I remember calling [their producer] Freddie Perren, and he took it in a different direction. He of course made it into a hit on his own. That was a very fairly easy one because I knew Freddie. He produced two hits with Yvonne: ‘Love Me’ and ‘Hello Stranger.’”
Other numbers, such as Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven,” MFSB’s “K-Jee,” Ralph MacDonald’s “Calypso Breakdown” and the Trammps’ “Disco Inferno,” had been released prior to Fever but enjoyed renewed popularity when they were included on the soundtrack. They were augmented with instrumental scores composed by David Shire such as “Manhattan Skyline” and “Night on Disco Mountain.” However, not every artist that Oakes sought for the soundtrack came on board — including Boz Scaggs, whose 1976 hit “Lowdown” was initially used in the film’s dance rehearsal scene involving the characters Tony and Stephanie (played by Karen Lynn Gorney).
“I just thought Irving Azoff, who managed Boz Scaggs, would let me have the track,” Oakes remembers. “Why wouldn’t he? Of course, his response to me after we shot the scene was: ‘Bill, I don’t want my artist in your little disco movie,’ which was a phrase that I was assailed with throughout the production. In those days, music artists didn’t really want to be in movies. Now it’s completely different. Artists actually upfront tout their songs to get into a movie because they know how good it is for their sales.”
As he was wrapping up work on the album, Oakes saw something one day that told him the disco trend was on its last legs. “I was finishing up after listening to the tracks for a straight 14 hours for any defects at the mastering lab. And then I put the masters in my car, which would become the album. I was stuck behind a truck [whose bumper sticker said] ‘Death to disco,’ and it dawned on me. I told Robert, ‘We might have missed this one.’ We didn’t coin the word ‘disco’ — disco was around. What [the soundtrack] did was just when disco seemed to be dying, it gave it a new lease on life. We certainly didn’t create disco–we created a real global, across-the-board demand for it. That’s what Fever did.”
Three months ahead of the film’s Dec. 14, 1977 premiere in Los Angeles, Stigwood had the foresight to release the soundtrack’s first single, Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love.” “One of the things that Stigwood initiated with film companies was how a record could promote a movie,” Oakes explains. “Paramount said they were thinking of [Fever] as a strictly token release — 50 cinemas for this indie picture. [Stigwood] said, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If we’re putting out a single in September three months in advance, and everybody plays the record, we’ll say it’s “From the forthcoming film Saturday Night Fever.” That will sell the movie.’ He was right about that because by the time ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ went to No. 1, Paramount did have to increase the screens. That was entirely due to Stigwood tying in the record with a promotion for the film.”
Released on Nov. 15, 1977, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed there for 24 consecutive weeks. It gave the Bee Gees three Hot 100 No. 1s with “How Deep Is Your Love,” “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever,” with Yvonne Elliman’s version of the group’s “If I Can’t Have You” also topping the chart.
“When ‘Stayin’ Alive’ went straight to No. 1, that’s when I thought, ‘We really got something here,’ because the album was shipping that next week and the orders were coming in,” Oakes says. “We didn’t know still until the movie opened whether it would open big. It was only after it opened that the cinema owners were calling Paramount saying, ‘We are having people dancing the aisles. We gotta call security.’ Paramount was taken aback. They said that every screening was sold out. It was just an extraordinary thing. So that’s when we knew that the record had really promoted it.”
The Fever movie and soundtrack launched Bee Gees into superstardom. The trio’s next record, 1979’s Spirits Having Flown, also topped the Billboard 200 chart and gave them three more Hot 100 No. 1 songs: “Tragedy,” “Love You Inside Out” and “Too Much Heaven.” “Their following went up through the roof after Fever,” Oakes says of the Gibb brothers. “They were the biggest artists in the world by that point.”
In addition to Bee Gees, the blockbuster success of the Saturday Night Fever movie and soundtrack marked a triumphant period for Stigwood, who enjoyed massive success again in 1978 with another film he produced: Grease, also starring Travolta. The following year, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack won the Grammy for album of the year. But the Fever hysteria also marked the end of an era: in the 1980s, disco was out; Bee Gees never had another No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100; and RSO Records folded. Still, the legacy of the soundtrack endures: in 2013, the U.S. Library of Congress added it to its National Recording Registry; five years later, the album was reissued as a deluxe box set for its 40th anniversary.
Oakes admits that he is surprised by the soundtrack’s longevity decades after the fly-away collars and bell bottoms became passé. “It’s easy to see how it resonates with people who were young at the time. When you go to a party or a wedding anywhere in the world, they’ll still play ‘More Than a Woman,’ ‘Night Fever’ and ‘Stayin’ Alive.’
“’Stayin’ Alive’ is probably one of the most-played songs ever—I get that. What is interesting to me is how is it that young people today are finding it. I think because it is a classic combination of melody and dance. The Bee Gees combined the tune with the dance record. There is something haunting about their hook lines and choruses, which is unique. That’s really down to their music, it’s down to their combining melody with dance and rhythm. I think that’s the combination that still hasn’t been surpassed.”