State Champ Radio Business
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Arriving just before New Years’ Eve, on Friday (Dec. 30), the Copyright Royalty Board judges issued their ruling on streaming royalty rates for songwriters for the period of January 2023 to December 2027, upholding a settlement proposed by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), Digital Media Association (DiMA), and Nashville Songwriters’ Association International (NSAI) in late August. This ruling sets the rates for Subpart C and D of the five year period known as Phonorecords IV (or “Phono IV” for short), and it represents a compromise between the music industry and the streaming services, creating certainty around the royalties owed to songwriters for U.S. mechanicals.
According to the settlement, which the NMPA touts as the “highest rates in the history of digital streaming,” the headline rate will increase from 15.1% of revenue in 2023 to 15.2% in 2024 and then up a half a percentage point in each of the remaining three years, peaking at 15.35% in 2027, the final year of the term.
For stand-alone portable subscription offerings — like Spotify — the total content cost (TCC) component of the rate formula will be set at 26.2% of what’s paid to labels for the entire term, or $1.10 per subscriber, whichever is lower. Previously, those numbers were 21% of revenue and 80 cents per subscriber.
This means that the resultant TCC pool is measured against the total service revenue. Whichever is larger is designated the “all-in” pool, including both performance and mechanical royalties. After this is established, performance royalties are subtracted out, leaving behind solely the mechanical royalties.
Finally, the resultant mechanicals are compared against a pool, calculated by multiplying a streaming service’s total subscribers by 60 cents per person. Whichever of these two totals is bigger becomes the final mechanical royalty pool paid out to publishers and songwriters. Previously, the multiplier for the last 10 years had been set at 50 cents per subscriber.
This final ruling, reached two days before its rates are set to take effect, is a striking contrast from the lengthy proceedings to set streaming rates for Phonorecords III (2018-2022). Though that five year period is nearly over, its rates are still not finalized. In 2018, the music industry initially won the increase of the headline rate from 11.4% to 15.1% over the five year period, but the following year, Spotify, Amazon, Google and Pandora appealed, hoping to secure a lesser rate. This resulted in a legal back-and-forth that continues today, and although it is nearing its completion, it has created uncertainty surrounding what songwriters are owed for their work.
In hopes of streamlining the process and avoiding lengthy proceedings, the three settling parties worked together to propose a settlement for approval or denial by the CRB. Though other participants and interested parties outside of those who took part in the settlement were given the opportunity to explain their point-of-view during the month-long “comment period,” which ran from Nov. 7 to Dec. 7, the board explained in its ruling that its role is to either adopt or decline the settlement’s terms as presented, not to “modify” or add “requested adjustments.”
The ruling makes note of concerns provided by the 20 total commenters who weighed in on the settlement during the period, including that to some independent songwriters “the proposed rates might seem inadequate” and that several commenters prefer “alternative methods for inserting inflation adjustments.” “However,” the board states in the ruling, “the settlement is what is before the judges for consideration, not alternative rates or proposals for alternative procedures.”
In a statement Friday, NMPA president and CEO, David Israelite, celebrated the news. “Starting January 1, songwriters will enjoy the highest rates in the world and the highest rates in the history of digital streaming,” he said. “Thanks to the many songwriter advocates who worked hard to make this happen. There are still many challenges ahead to ensure that songs receive their proper value, but the future is bright.”
DiMA president and CEO, Garrett Levin, added, “We appreciate the Copyright Royalty Board for recognizing the benefits of this landmark agreement and the certainty it provides for streaming services, publishers, and songwriters alike. Thanks to the agreement, we can kick off 2023 focused on fans and continuing to grow streaming for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
Additional Reporting by Ed Christman
This year, a handful of new recordings beat long odds and were among the 50 most popular holiday tracks: Lizzo’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Someday at Christmas” and Lauren Spencer-Smith’s version of “Last Christmas” by Wham! ranked Nos. 39 and 47, respectively, in consumption – measuring track sales and streams – from Nov. 4 to Dec. 22, according to Luminate. Kane Brown’s version of “Blue Christmas,” made famous by Elvis Presley, ranked No. 48.
If historical trends persist, though, many of this year’s new holiday recordings won’t even survive the summer. Creating a holiday standard is one of the most difficult, unlikely tasks in all of songwriting.
Looking back over the last five years shows the slim odds a new recording faces in becoming an annual favorite. In 2017, 72 newly released tracks made the top 1,000 holiday recordings of the last two months of the year. Three of them — Sia’s “Santa’s Coming for Us” (No. 37), Pentatonix’s “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” (No. 68) and Us the Duo’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (No. 98) — made the top 100. Gwen Stefani had eight of the 72 new recordings in the top 1,000. Hanson’s “Finally, It’s Christmas,” at No. 610, was an original song competing against new recordings of well-worn favorites like “Wonderful Christmastime” and “The Christmas Song.”
Five years later, only 30 recordings released in 2017 remained in the top 1,000. Sia’s “Santa’s Coming for Us” dropped from No. 37 to No. 171, while her song “Snowman” has risen to No. 53 to become the most popular recording of the class of 2017. Stefani had only three recordings from 2017 in the top 1,000, and her top-ranked holiday song, “You Make It Feel Like Christmas,” released in 2011, slipped to No. 42 from No. 18 five years earlier. Hanson was in the top 1,000 — with “What Christmas Means to Me,” originally recorded by Stevie Wonder in 1967, not its original song from five years earlier.
To become a holiday favorite, a new recording must prove itself by competing against popular holiday songs that have withstood decades-long wars of attrition. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is a relatively young holiday standard at 28 years old. “Last Christmas” by Wham!, ranked No. 5 this holiday season, is 36. Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” (No. 7) and Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” (No. 8), just 8 and 12 years old, respectively, have beaten the odds to challenge established recordings like Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (No. 6), released in 1963 and often heard in advertisements and movie soundtracks.
That weeding-out process isn’t enough to deter songwriters from trying to create the next holiday hit and collect royalty checks year after year, though. This year, Chris Isaak, Backstreet Boys and Thomas Rhett released albums or EPs of Christmas songs. Sam Smith, Alanis Morissette, Dan + Shay, Joss Stone, Lukas Graham and Remi Wolf released individual tracks.
Even though the odds of writing a holiday standard are slim, the payoff is a lure, says Rhett Miller, singer for the alt-country band The Old 97’s. Miller and his musician friends have told “a probably apocryphal story” amongst themselves about musician Nick Lowe walking to his mailbox one day in a bath robe and finding a check for a million dollars not knowing that Curtis Stigers’ cover of his song “Peace, Love and Understanding” was featured on the soundtrack to the movie The Bodyguard that would go on to sell 44 million copies worldwide.
“In the olden days, landing a song on a soundtrack like that was sort of the end all be all,” says Miller. “But, really, the Christmas song is the biggest dream of any songwriter — to have a song that connects and becomes a standard.” Miller acknowledges the long odds a holiday recording faces in becoming a recurring hit. Writing a holiday standard is like winning the lottery: A jackpot is exceedingly unlikely, but, as the saying goes, you can’t win if you don’t play. “I did have an idea that if we contributed an album of holiday songs to the conversation, we would at least be in the running for one of those songs that connected,” says Miller.
Miller has the benefit of having an influential company in his corner: Disney. James Gunn, writer and director of Marvel Comics’ Guardians of the Galaxy movie franchise, cast the Old 97’s for the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special that premiered on Disney+ video on-demand streaming service in November. The Old 97’s re-recorded their original song, “Here It Is Christmastime,” with actor-singer Kevin Bacon, and performed the song wearing prosthetic makeup. That helped “Here It Is Christmastime” debut at No. 7 on the Holiday Digital Song Sales and No. 27 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales charts for Dec. 10. Although the recording ranks only at No. 865 this holiday season, it will likely benefit from Marvel Comics fans viewing the special in the coming years.
In the streaming age, nothing helps posterity like a partnership with a giant multi-national entertainment platform. Lizzo, Spencer-Smith and Brown, the top of the Class of 2022, recorded their holiday tracks under exclusive partnership with Amazon Music. In earlier years, Amazon Music has released original holiday recordings by Katy Perry (“Cozy Little Christmas” in 2018), Carrie Underwood (an original song, “Favorite Time of the Year,” in 2020), John Legend (“Happy Christmas [War Is Over]” in 2019), Taylor Swift (“Christmas Tree Farm [Old Timey Version]” in 2019) and Camila Cabello (“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in 2021).
“Each year, we really look to work with artists that we know our customers love and who we think are going to be a good fit for our holiday listeners and really work with them to find the right track,” says Stephen Brower, global co-lead, artist relations at Amazon Music, “whether that’s a cover in the case of Lizzo doing Stevie Wonder’s ‘Someday at Christmas’ or in Katy and Carrie’s cases, having brand new songs.”
What holiday listeners seem to want every November and December is comfort music that harkens back to eras bygone. Even an original holiday song must have a classic, throwback sound that takes from late ’50s and early ’60s pop and rock. The rockabilly in Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” and Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” production in The Ronettes “Sleigh Ride” set a template that’s been closely followed by later artists. “Ever since Mariah, only songs that had that ’60s Spector feel seem to be getting any traction,” says Sean Ross, author of the Ross on Radio newsletter.
Christmas is no time to reinvent the wheel. Recreating the sounds of Christmas past gives Lizzo, Spencer-Smith and Brown the best chance at capturing an audience and maintaining momentum for the next five years. “Because the Christmas music season is typically only about six weeks, people don’t get tired of them,” Tom Poleman, chief programming officer for iHeartMedia, says in an email to Billboard. “As a result, there’s a huge supply of great songs to play, making it hard for new ones to cut through. The ones that do break through are usually well-made remakes of holiday classics by a big star like Kelly Clarkson.”
This holiday season, Clarkson’s covers of Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph” (No. 103) and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (No. 238) were the first and second most popular versions of those songs after the originals. She also has popular versions of “My Favorite Things” (No. 282), “Please Come Home for Christmas” (No. 317) and “Silent Night” (No. 382). But Clarkson is the rare contemporary artist whose original songs are more popular than her covers. In a few years, “Under the Mistletoe” (No. 105) from 2020 and “Christmas Isn’t Canceled (You Are)” (No. 168) from 2021 could become the next “Underneath the Tree” (No. 8).
Miller is aware of the long odds that “Here It Is Christmastime” faces in the coming years – but he’s hopeful he can have a Clarkson-level hit one day. “It’s going to be something,” he says. “But will it be my Nick Lowe-in-a-bath robe moment? I don’t know. It would be great if something broke through.”
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler is facing a new lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a minor in the 1970s, filed by a woman who claims she was referenced in the singer’s memoir as almost his “teen bride.”
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles court, Julia Holcomb says Tyler used his “power as a well-known musician and rock star” in order to “gain access to, groom, manipulate, exploit” and sexually assault her for three years starting in 1973, when she was just 16 years old.
The lawsuit does not name Tyler, listing only an anonymous John Doe defendant. But Holcomb’s lawyers repeatedly quote from Tyler’s memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? when referring to the alleged perpetrator, who they identify as a “leading member of a world-famous rock band.” Tyler’s book itself, reviewed by Billboard, also lists a “Julia Halcomb” in the acknowledgments.
“She was 16, she knew how to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it,” Tyler wrote in the book passage that’s quoted in the lawsuit. “I was so in love I almost took a teen bride.”
The lawsuit alleges that Tyler convinced Holcomb’s parents to grant him guardianship over her — an accusation that also came with quotes from his memoir: “I went and slept at her parents’ house for a couple of nights and her parents fell in love with me, signed paper over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state.”
The lawsuit also claims Tyler impregnated Holcomb but later “pressured and coerced” her into eventually aborting the pregnancy.
Billboard independently obtained a copy of the lawsuit, which was first reported Thursday by Rolling Stone. A representative for Tyler did not immediately return a request for comment.
The allegations against Tyler are not new. Holcomb made similar accusations in a 2011 article published by the anti-abortion website LifesiteNews, and she made the same claims in 2020 during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s television show on Fox News.
The new lawsuit, which included claims for sexual battery, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotion distress, 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 is Dec. 31.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
Music streaming company LiveOne’s podcasting division, PodcastOne, filed an S-1 with the Securities Exchange Commission on Tuesday as a prelude to becoming a standalone, publicly traded company. LiveOne has set a record date of Jan. 16 for PodcastOne’s special dividend to LiveOne shareholders of record.
The spinoff “will meaningfully enhance our industry market perception,” the company wrote in the filing, “thereby providing greater growth opportunities for us than our consolidated operation as a private subsidiary of LiveOne.”
LiveOne will remain PodcastOne’s majority shareholder and will distribute approximately 6.2% of outstanding shares to LiveOne shareholders. LiveOne will retain 86.3% of outstanding shares. The remaining shares will be held by holders of bridge notes as well as the company’s directors and executives. PodcastOne currently expects its shares to trade on the Nasdaq.
In addition, LiveOne said it intends to explore spinning out SlackerOne into a separate public company during its 2024 fiscal year. LiveOne acquired music streaming service Slacker in 2017 for $50 million. Slacker was ordered by a judge in November to pay SoundExchange $10 million for performance royalties owed since 2018. Slacker asked the judge to overturn the ruling, saying the decision had led debtors to default on two senior secured notes, threatening “economic damage” to the company that would be “unsustainable.” The judge denied LiveOne’s request.
PodcastOne was co-founded in 2012 by current president Kit Gray and Westwood One founder Norman Pattiz and ranks No. 14 on Podtrac’s list of top podcast publishers in the U.S. It has about 2.1 billion downloads annually and produces 350 episodes per week. Among its podcast titles are Court Junkie, Cold Case Files, The Adam Corolla Show and Nappy Boy Radio with rapper T-Pain. PodcastOne also operates LaunchpadOne, a do-it-yourself platform for independent podcasters in the vein of Spotify-owned Anchor and Amazon-owned Art19 that distributes content to Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts and other outlets. LiveOne — then named LiveXLive — acquired PodcastOne in 2020.
PodcastOne generated $32.2 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, a 36% improvement from the prior-year period, and plans to have revenues of $25 million in the nine-month period ending Dec. 31, 2022, according to LiveOne.
While 2022 will be remembered as the year that Taylor Swift made history as the first artist to populate the entire top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 with songs from her album Midnights (among other chart records), Billboard’s annual Money Makers ranking of music’s top royalty and box-office earners reveals that she dominated 2021 as well.
Swift, who released two (Taylor’s Version) rerecorded albums, finished the year as the No. 1 earner globally with an estimated $65.8 million in take-home pay. That’s an impressive sum considering she did not tour, which usually constitutes the lion’s share of an act’s annual income, and last year’s runner-up, The Rolling Stones, spent three months on the road last fall concluding their No Filter Tour.
Swift topped the ranking because she owns half of her studio record catalog and because of the strength of her sales and streaming income, $29.8 million and $28.9 million, respectively, in a year that saw her international streams surpass her U.S. streams, 9 billion to 6.8 billion, a 34% increase.
The Stones’ live dates, all of which took place in the United States, resulted in a $44.5 million box-office take. That played the biggest role in boosting the veteran rockers to No. 1 on Billboard’s U.S. Money Makers ranking with a total income of $50.8 million.
But Swift, who finished second in the U.S. ranking — she and the Stones have swapped the top two spots since 2018 — was not far behind with $38.8 million, largely on the strength of her master recording royalties.
Compared side-by-side, the top five earners on the global and U.S. Money Makers rankings are nearly identical, with Harry Styles holding the No. 3 spot on both, $41.3 million and $37 million, respectively; and Drake at No. 5, with $30.7 million and $23.8 million. The big difference can be found at No. 4, where K-pop superstars BTS reside on the global ranking, with a $38.4 million in 2021 take-home pay, and the hard-touring Eagles occupy the U.S. tally, with earnings of $27.3 million.
Methodology
Money Makers was compiled with 2021 Luminate and Billboard Boxscore data, the RIAA’s physical and digital revenue report for 2021, and IFPI global revenue statistics. All revenue figures cited are Billboard estimates and may not equal the sum of the subcategories due to rounding and the omission of revenue categories. Global sales were extrapolated for 21 artists that ranked highest on the 2020 Money Makers list. Global artist royalties were extrapolated using U.S. revenue totals, minus 30% of international royalties in line with major-label contractual clauses for foreign distribution.
U.S. formulas were used to estimate publishing revenue. Calculating royalties from master-recording performance rights was not possible because those rights do not exist for most uses in the United States. Unless otherwise noted, references to streaming totals consist of combined on-demand audio, video and programmed streams. References to recording-career totals are the sum of an act’s sales, streaming and publishing earnings. Revenue from featured-artist appearances, merchandising, synchronization and sponsorship is not included. Touring revenue, after the manager’s cut, equals 34% of an act’s Boxscore. Sales royalties were calculated based on physical and digital albums and track sales. Streaming royalties consist of on-demand audio and video streams, and estimated royalties from webcasting, SiriusXM and Music Choice.
The following royalty rates were used: album and track sales, 22% of retail revenue; 66% of wholesale if the artist owns his or her masters. On-demand streaming royalties were calculated using blended audio and video rates of, respectively, $0.0053 and $0.0038 per stream, applied against a 37% superstar-artist royalty rate; 50% for heritage artists (acts that have released at a minimum of 10 albums or been active for at least 20 years); and 79% for artist-owned masters. Further, a blended statutory subscription per-stream rate of $0.0024 was applied to programmed streams and per-play estimated rates of 74 cents for Music Choice and $46 for SiriusXM. Royalties for programmed streams were calculated on a similar basis using a 50% base royalty rate; 68% for artists that own some of their masters and 100% for artists that own all their masters, minus 5% for side performers.
Publishing royalties were estimated using statutory mechanical rates for album and track sales. The Copyright Royalty Board streaming formula produced an average rate of 13.4% of streaming revenue, an average of $2.50 per play for hit songs; $1 per play for heritage spins and genre songs that didn’t attain hit status; and per-play publishing rates of 40 cents for Music Choice, $8.33 for SiriusXM and $0.0003 for programmed streams. A 10% manager’s fee and 4% producer’s fee were deducted from the appropriate revenue streams.
Over the course of the past year, the music industry has lost some of its brightest behind-the-scenes stars: corporate executives, songwriters, managers, producers, engineers, lawyers, promoters, inventors and more.
Between them, these individuals penned hit songs (“Crazy for You,” “Elvira,” “My Whole World Is Falling Down,” “The Way We Were”); helped launch important careers (Metallica, Prince, Little Richard); masterminded iconic cultural events (Woodstock); founded enduring labels (Stax, Impulse!); built empires (Clear Channel); created and/or produced iconic Broadway musicals (Hair, Dear Evan Hansen); helped popularize burgeoning musical genres (hip-hop, alternative rock); and even changed the way people listened to music.
While they may not have enjoyed the high profile or public adoration of their artist counterparts, these individuals played just as important a role in keeping the business humming – or at least dissecting it, in fire-breathing fashion. Some worked in the industry across decades and eras; others passed on far too soon, but left their mark nonetheless. Some created new and important spaces for underrepresented voices; others paved the way for those who came after them. They have been remembered as dreamers, visionaries and jokesters, and described as “magnetic,” “legendary” and possessing “a rock and roll heart” by those who knew and loved them.
To celebrate those who have passed on, Billboard is highlighting these often-unsung movers and shakers, all of whom made a difference in the music industry in ways both large and small, across every aspect of the business.
Here are the behind-the-scenes players we lost in 2022.
TOKYO — For non-Japanese music artists, Japan’s decades-long obsession with physical media has meant they must grapple with legacy strategies for getting attention in the world’s second-largest market — such as landing on a major Japanese TV show or getting CDs into a large brick-and-mortar retailer.
Now, new digital opportunities are emerging that could make it easier. A three-year-old YouTube channel, The First Take, is at the forefront of breaking new artists in Japan and nudging a market long allergic to the internet toward digital music consumption. The channel has featured a handful of big Western artists in 2022, including Harry Styles, who appeared in June to sing “Daughters” from this year’s Harry’s House, and Avril Lavigne, who in September offered up a stripped-down version of “Complicated.”
Launched in late 2019, The First Take now boasts more than 7 million subscribers. It landed its first viral videos with five episodes featuring singer-songwriter LiSA, who performed the opening theme to the anime series Demon Slayer. But it was in the early months of the pandemic when the channel — like other digital entertainment in Japan — surged in popularity.
Digital music sales, which have grown for eight straight years in Japan, jumped 13% to 89.54 billion yen ($660.3 million) in 2021 over 2020, while physical music consumption, which has fallen over the past three years, dipped slightly by 0.4% to 193.64 billion yen ($1.43 billion), according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan. (Physical sales still comprised 68.4% of total sales, easily the highest level of any major music market.)
Fresh-faced artists stepping up to the mic on The First Take to show off their skills — such as Yoasobi, Yuuri and DISH//— have gone on to top the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and produced videos with over 100 million views. They’ve done so primarily through digital and streaming channels, reflecting a shift in how listeners receive J-pop domestically.
When the team started work on the channel in 2019, “what we wanted to create was something you couldn’t see on TV, or more detailed than what you would see on a weekly music show,” says channel producer Makoto Uchida. They drew inspiration from NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts series and Germany’s Colors. “We decided to shoot it from the side, rather than the front, so that it felt like you were in the studio, getting a peek of the artist at work.”
They leaned into this sense of intimacy by positioning The First Take as, well, a first take, capturing whatever the artist sings into the microphone, with errors and emotion on full display. Channel director Naoko Furukawa says that early on, driving this point across to participating artists proved most challenging, as many came in assuming they would have the chance to redo performances.
Soshi Sakayama from The First Take
Kazuki Nagayama
The First Take saw a substantial increase in views, with uploads featuring young creators like DISH// and Yoasobi, who went from fledgling J-pop names to chart toppers, particularly on subscription services such as Spotify.
The First Take is among the first major music efforts in Japan to use streaming data to target the show’s main demographic of 20- and 30-year-olds, and to determine when artists should perform, says team member Kazuto Fushimi.
“The data shows that Japanese people listen to music by seasons,” Fushimi says. “I used that to cast songs that would fit well for this project at certain times of the year.”
Even after Japan loosened COVID-19 restrictions later in 2020, The First Take morphed into an internet-era version of weekly TV shows like Music Station, a music program featuring live performances that started airing in Japan in 1986. It has added a news platform, podcast and live concerts, and has also tried to bring in artists from other markets, initially from China and other Southeast Asian countries.
“We used anime and anime songs to get attention from those markets,” says Fushimi. “They weren’t made explicitly for foreign audiences, but we always made sure to put subtitles and other things so that everyone could follow along too.”
K-pop group Stray Kids was the first non-Japanese artist to appear on The First Take, in the spring of 2020. Fushimi says many new viewers came to the clip via Twitter, where fan communities were sharing it and explaining what The First Take was. The Korean act has appeared on the channel two more times since, which has further boosted their video views on YouTube. “The more that they’ve appeared, the more likely they are to appear on the ‘related’ videos list, which leads to more fan engagement,” Fushimi says.
Other K-pop acts have appeared on the channel since — most recently, burgeoning girl group Kep1er — as have acts from other parts of the continent, including a recent turn by Taiwanese artist WeiBird.
The team’s focus didn’t move beyond the region until this past summer when they landed Styles in June and started looking outside Asia to the West. The team put together English-language promotional materials for Twitter, knowing that it would get them new looks from abroad. Fushimi says Styles’ appearance generated the most tweets about any artist on The First Take to date. (The First Take’s producers declined to share how the Styles collaboration specifically came together.)
“Compared with Japanese artists, foreign artists really are quick about recording – they don’t take much time for rehearsals, they just jump right in,” Furukawa says. “Harry Styles only took 10 minutes after he showed up to the studio to do the actual recording.”
Lavigne’s video followed several months later, attracting over 7 million viewers (boosted by a domestic love for her music that has endured for decades), and offering The First Take another opportunity to tip-toe toward Western attention.
“It’s hard to export J-pop to the world,” Fushimi says, “but we want to use The First Take as a bridge to introduce great Japanese artists to the world.”
ReoNa from The First Take
Kazuki Nagayama
Rapper Tory Lanez has been found guilty on all three counts in the closely-watched trial over whether he shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot, ending a nearly two-week trial over the July 2020 incident and setting the stage for a potentially lengthy prison sentence.The verdict was handed down by a jury in Los Angeles court on Friday (Dec. 23). Lanez was convicted on all counts: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. He faces up to 22 years in prison.
Upon the reading of the verdict, Lanez’s father, who was present in the gallery, began screaming. “This wicked system. Shame of all of you!” he cried out.
In the course of the trial, Lanez’s defense team made their best effort to sow doubt over pulled the trigger, painting a scenario in which Megan’s ex-friend and assistant Harris was the shooter. To make their case, they leaned on inconsistent statements made by Megan in the more than two years since the incident as well as an account from alleged eyewitness Sean Kelly. However, Kelly undercut the defense team’s theory by offering confusing and contradictory testimony from the stand on Tuesday — stating he saw a muzzle flash near where Megan and Harris were scuffling in the street near his home but also that he saw a man matching Lanez’s description holding a gun and, at another point, that he never saw a gun at all.
On the other side, prosecutors have continuously highlighted Megan’s emotional testimony last week, when the Grammy winner held back sobs as she recounted the ordeal and said that she’s received severe public blowback in the wake of the incident, at one point stating, “I wish he had just shot and killed me if I would have known I was going to go through this torture.” In addition to Megan’s direct claims that Lanez was the one who pulled the trigger, prosecutors also poked holes in the defense team’s theory that Harris was the one responsible. In closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott strongly suggested that Harris — who in a prior interview with prosecutors said that Lanez shot Megan and also assaulted her when she tried to intervene — contradicted her prior statements only after being threatened or paid off.
The blockbuster trial arrived nearly two and a half years after Megan was shot at least once in the foot in the early morning hours of July 12, 2020, while on the way home from a small party thrown by Kylie Jenner. According to Megan, after a fight erupted between Lanez, Harris and herself in an SUV driven by Lanez’s security guard Jaquan Smith, she exited the car only to be shot at multiple times by Lanez, who she claimed at one point shouted, “Dance, b—-” while firing out the window. That is clearly the version of the story that jurors, who took less than two days to reach their unanimous verdict, chose to believe.
The trial could well have dragged on beyond Christmas had either Lanez or Smith taken the stand, but on Wednesday, the rapper said he would not be testifying and defense lawyers opted against placing Smith on the stand, citing procedural wrangling and the possibility of a delay that could have forced jurors to return after the holiday.
Megan was not present for the reading of the verdict on Thursday.
Less than three weeks after two dozen Taylor Swift fans sued Live Nation over Ticketmaster’s disastrous presale of tickets to her Eras Tour in November, another similar lawsuit has been filed against the concert giant in California federal court.
Filed Tuesday (Dec. 20), the class-action lawsuit, brought by Swift fan Michelle Sterioff, accuses Live Nation and subsidiary Ticketmaster of violating federal antitrust and unfair competition laws and “intentionally and purposefully” misleading “millions of fans into believing” Ticketmaster would prevent bots and scalpers from participating in presales for the tour.
Similar to the lawsuit filed earlier this month, Tuesday’s lawsuit alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which merged in 2010, represent a monopoly in both the primary and secondary ticketing markets and have used that alleged monopoly power “in a predatory, exclusionary, and anticompetitive manner.” According to the complaint, this monopoly is used to charge “supracompetitive” ticketing fees that can increase the price of tickets “by 20-80%” over their face value.
“Ticketmaster…has violated the policy, spirit, and letter of [antitrust] laws by imposing agreements and policies at the retail and wholesale level that have prevented effective price competition across a wide swath of online ticket sales,” the complaint reads, adding that the company “is only interested in taking every dollar it can from a captive public.”
Sterioff claims that she registered for the Eras Tour presale on Nov. 1, 2022, and “relied” on Ticketmaster’s claim that its Verified Fan program “would ‘level the playing field’” so that more tickets would go to real fans over bots. However, she claims she was unable to secure a ticket during the presale on Nov. 15 or Nov. 16, forcing her to purchase tickets “through an alternate secondary ticketing service provider” after Ticketmaster canceled the general public sale, citing widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried -– and many failed –- to buy tickets.
Additionally, Sterioff says the amount she paid for her ticket on the secondary market was subject to Ticketmaster’s “monopolistic prices” due to the company’s dominance in the secondary ticketing market as well. She cites a Ticketmaster technology that limits ticket purchasers from transferring tickets unless they’re resold through the company’s secondary ticketing platform — essentially making it all but impossible to purchase a Swift ticket outside the Ticketmaster ecosystem. That allows the company “to charge monopolistic ticketing fees every time a single ticket is resold,” the complaint adds.
There are a total of eight counts listed in Sterioff’s complaint, including violation of California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act; intentional misrepresentation; common law fraud; fraudulent inducement; antitrust violations; violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law; violation of California’s False Advertising Law, and quasi-contract/restitution/unjust enrichment.
Sterioff is asking the court for injunctive relief, statutory damages, punitive or exemplary damages, costs of bringing the lawsuit and more.
Reps for Live Nation and Ticketmaster did not immediately return a request for comment.
In the wake of the Swift ticketing controversy, Ticketmaster apologized to fans and pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks” and “unprecedented traffic.” But that explanation has seemingly not been enough for many of the company’s critics, who have resurfaced longstanding complaints about the outsized power Ticketmaster and Live Nation have wielded in the market for live music since they merged.
In November, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and her counterpart on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), jointly announced they would be holding a hearing to examine the effects of consolidation on the ticketing industry. Live Nation and Ticketmaster are also reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department over whether the companies represent an illegal monopoly, though that probe is said to have predated the Swift incident.
Whether it was Taylor Swift or Prince or Cardi B, 2022 saw major legal battles involving some of the music industry’s biggest stars, ranging from never-ending copyright fights to sprawling criminal cases centered on rap lyrics. Some stars, like Katy Perry, won big; others, like Young Thug and Gunna, faced repeated setbacks; still others, like Megan Thee Stallion and Ed Sheeran, just got exhausted. To catch up, here are 10 big music law stories that you need to remember from 2022.
Taylor Swift Finally Shakes It Off
There was no bigger music copyright lawsuit than the long-running case accusing Taylor Swift of stealing the lyrics to “Shake It Off.” Since 2017, songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler had argued that Swift’s song (an all-time smash hit that spent 50 weeks on Hot 100) stole some of its core lyrics from “Playas Gon’ Play,” a 2001 song they wrote for the R&B group 3LW. And despite arguments from Swift’s white-shoe lawyers that lyrics about “playas” and “haters” were too commonplace to be monopolized under copyright law, federal courts repeatedly refused to dismiss the case. Following in the wake of earlier battles over Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse,” the lawsuit raised big questions about the where copyright protection ends and the public domain begins. Those questions were set to be answered at a blockbuster trial in January – until Swift and her accusers reached a sudden settlement earlier this month.
Rap On Trial: A Year of Highs and Lows
Despite widespread criticism of the practice, prosecutors continued to cite rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases in 2022, most prominently when Young Thug and Gunna were indicted in May as part of a sweeping gang case against dozens of members of the Atlanta rap crew YSL. The charges included numerous references to Young Thug and Gunna’s music, claiming lyrics were the kind of “predicate acts” that contributed to the overall criminal enterprise. And Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who bought the case, offered no apologies for doing so: “If you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m gonna use it,” Willis said. “I’m going to continue to do that, people can continue to be angry about it.” And yet, 2022 also saw the enactment of landmark legislation in California that would sharply restrict the practice, and efforts to pass similar laws in New York state and at the federal level – hopeful signs for critics who say it unfairly targets black men and violates their First Amendment rights.
Prince Estate Case Closed – Finally
The long legal battle over Prince’s $156 million estate was finally resolved in 2022, more than six years after the iconic rocker died suddenly from a fentanyl overdose without a will. The estate had been stuck in probate court for years, under the control of a court-appointed bank as rival groups of legal heirs wrangled over the rocker’s legacy. Over time, those proceedings came to be dominated in part by Primary Wave, the music industry giant that slowly bought out various Prince heirs to amass a 50 percent stake in the estate. The biggest hurdle was cleared in January, when the heirs reached a deal with the Internal Revenue Service to set a final tax valuation of $156 million, followed by a ruling February on the basic structure for how the assets would be split into two groups, and then a final judicial approval in August. Prince’s legacy is now a music story and a business story, not a legal story.
Ed Sheeran’s Copyright Nightmare
Ed Sheeran says he’s tired of all the copyright lawsuits, but 2022 was something of an up-and-down year on that front. In April, he won a dramatic victory in UK court over his chart-topping 2017 hit “Shape of You,” when a judge ruled that he didn’t copy the song from a little-known track called “Oh Why.” Following an 11-day London trial – in which an opposing attorney called Sheeran a “magpie,” the singer repeatedly took the stand to defend himself, and he once even sang in open court – the judge ruled there was no evidence Sheeran had intentionally or even “subconsciously” copied any of the earlier material. But the respite was short-lived: In October, a federal judge in New York ruled that Sheeran must face a jury trial in a separate case claiming he borrowed key elements of his “Thinking Out Loud” from Marvin Gaye‘s iconic “Let’s Get It On. Barring a reversal (and Sheeran’s lawyers are asking for one) the decision set the stage for a blockbuster trial at some point in 2023, but a date has not yet been set.
Cardi B v. The World
Cardi B started the year with a bang, winning a $4 million defamation verdict in January against Tasha K, a gossip blogger who made salacious false claims on YouTube about drug use, STDs and prostitution. (Cardi’s lawyers are still trying to collect that money, btw.) And in October, she won at trial again, avoiding millions in damages by beating back a bizarre lawsuit filed by a California man whose back tattoos were unwittingly photoshopped onto the “raunchy” cover of Cardi’s 2016 mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1. The star herself took the witness stand in both trials, testifying about the pain of being defamed and sparring with an opposing lawyer over whether he had “receipts.” Oh, and Cardi also resolved a long-standing criminal case by pleading guilty in September to misdemeanor charges stemming from a 2018 bottle-throwing incident at a Queens strip club. All in all, a quiet year.
Dua Lipa’s Double-Whammy
One could argue you’re not truly a pop star until you’ve been sued for copyright infringement a few times; just ask Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. That means Dua Lipa must have truly arrived this year, when she was hit with not one but two separate lawsuits claiming she copied earlier songs when she wrote “Levitating”– the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the Hot 100. One case was filed by a Florida reggae band named Artikal Sound System, which claimed Lipa lifted the core hook for her song from their 2015 “Live Your Life.” The other case, filed a few days later in March, accused her of copying both a 1979 song called “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and a 1980 song called “Don Diablo.” Armed with a top-flight legal team, Lipa has already struck back in both cases – but both remain pending.
Taylor Swift … Trust Buster?
Ticketmaster’s disastrous November presale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour – which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried (and many failed) to buy tickets – resurfaced some uncomfortable legal questions for the all-powerful concert giant and its parent company Live Nation. Those questions have never fully gone away since the two companies merged in 2010, but in the days after the fiasco, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called for new antitrust investigations – and that was before news broke that the U.S. Department of Justice had already launched such a probe. If violations are found, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues, urged regulators to consider “breaking up the company.” Meanwhile, state attorneys general across the country are also probing the debacle, and at least one class action lawsuit has already been filed accusing the company of fraud and “anticompetitive conduct.” Hell hath no fury like Swifties scorned…
Megan Thee Stallion’s Exhausting Year
Following an October appearance on Saturday Night Live promoting the release of her album Traumazine, Megan Thee Stallion said she needed to take a break because she was “so tired, physically and emotionally.” After her 2022 legal battles, it’s hard to blame her. In February, Megan’s long fight with her former record label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, escalated significantly when she accused the company of purposefully mislabeling an album to keep her locked into the deal. 1501 quickly countersued, then Megan upped the stakes again in August with new allegations and demands for damages. And all of that had nothing to do with the even bigger Megan story: A criminal case against Tory Lanez over charges that he shot her in the foot during a July 2020 altercation in Los Angeles. When a trial in that case kicked off earlier this month, Megan took the witness stand to recount the shooting and the toll it had taken on her. “I wish he had just shot and killed me,” she tearfully recounted.
R. Kelly Gets 30 Years – And Gets Convicted Again
Things went from bad to worse for R. Kelly in 2022. After being convicted last year in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, the disgraced R&B singer was sentenced to 30 years in prison on those charges in June. Then in August, he was convicted in Chicago on separate child pornography charges stemming from an infamous video tape involving him and minor, meaning he faces decades more in prison time. His attorneys plan to appeal both convictions.
Katy Perry Wins Case and Makes Law
When Katy Perry won a copyright ruling at a federal appeals court in March, declaring that her 2013 chart-topper “Dark Horse” hadn’t infringed an earlier song, it was a bigger deal than just one case. Sure, it was important to Perry herself, who avoided $2.8 million verdict by defeating the accusations. And the star was obviously pleased, telling a Las Vegas concert crowd in a viral clip: “So just be sure…before you take me to court, ‘cause I’m a Scorpio, bitch!” But the ruling was also a clear rejection of similar infringement cases over songs, stressing that simple musical “building blocks,” like the short “ostinato” in Perry’s song, cannot be locked up by any particular songwriter because it would chill future songwriting creativity. Much like a 2020 ruling on “Stairway To Heaven,” the decision for Perry could be seen as part of a pendulum swing away from earlier decisions over Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” which were criticized by some for expanding music copyrights to more basic elements.
