State Champ Radio Business
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Try using some of your favorite songs on the short-form video app Triller, and you’ll be hard pressed to find what you’re looking for.
On Thursday, the music catalogs for Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music and Merlin — which provides digital licensing to many top independent labels and distributors — were removed from the platform.
A Triller spokesperson says the platform is “reassessing each of our label deals as they come due as our catalogue music usage is a small fraction of our overall business with creators.
“Some labels are more used than others and if we can make financial arrangements which make sense for the platform, on a label by label basis, we will. In other cases the usage does not justify the cost.”
The news follows a lawsuit filed by Sony Music Entertainment in August, claiming Triller had “historically failed to make payments in a timely manner” but that this issue got even worse in March 2022 when Triller “failed to make any monthly payments required under the Agreement, totaling millions of dollars.”
A source at one of the other major music companies says similar breach of contract and failure to make payments, including “millions and millions in past due royalties,” was behind Triller’s decision to pull these catalogs. The Triller spokesperson, however, called that claim “false and grossly inaccurate.”
Representatives for Universal, Warner, Sony and Merlin declined to comment.
In a Thursday morning email, Merlin’s senior director of business and legal affairs alerted members that Triller had “commenced the takedown of Merlin content.” He continued, writing “at this stage we do not believe that Merlin is the only licensor/content provider to have had content taken down. The term of our current agreement with Triller has now expired. We will update members as soon as we can regarding renewal discussions.”
Merlin members include Secretly Group, Mom + Pop, Monstercat, Symphonic, Ninja Tune, Beggars Group, FUGA, ONErpm, Domino, SubPop, Vydia and more. The Triller spokesperson told Billboard when asked about the Merlin email, “We are in active conversations with Merlin and expect to renew our relationship and continue our friendly and successful partnership.”
“As Triller has grown and expanded its portfolio of services for creators as an open-garden platform, we are recalibrating some of our partnerships with a focus towards showcasing talent and maximizing their monetization,” that statement continued.
A glance at Triller’s Discover Music page shows that there are now few official music options available after the takedowns, and the promoted new releases and top picks are largely artists with no label affiliation. The only traces left of some label-signed artists are available through searching “OG Sounds,” which are typically user-created soundtracks like remixes that sometimes contain copyrighted material, or if a signed artist collaborated as a feature on a song released independently.
The public rift between Triller and the music business dates back to about 2020, when chairman and CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) David Israelite criticized the app in an Instagram post, saying Triller needed to fully license its members works. “It’s a simple proposition – license songs before you use them,” he wrote.
In November of that year, Wixen Music Publishing filed a 15-page lawsuit against Triller, suing the company for $50 million dollars, stating in the complaint that Wixen felt encouraged when Triller’s CEO appeared to agree with the NMPA’s criticism that summer, but then, after months with no agreement reached, Wixen opted to file the lawsuit.
In the indictment, Wixen alleged Triller had “brazenly disregarded copyright law and committed willful and ongoing copyright infringement,” of its more than 1,000 song catalog. The lawsuit was dismissed in February 2021.
Eventually, in March 2021, Triller came to an agreement with the NMPA on behalf of its members.
Also in early 2021, Universal Music abruptly pulled its catalog from Triller, saying the app “shamefully withheld” artist payments. A source familiar with the matter told Billboard at the time that the payments UMG claims Triller is withholding went back several months. Three months later, the two companies announced a new, worldwide licensing agreement, spanning recorded music and publishing and restoring the UMG catalog to the app.
This August, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz also sued Triller for failing to make payments due on the sale of their popular Verzuz livestream series the year prior. They claimed the platform still owed them $28 million from the deal 18 months later. That lawsuit was settled in September.
Outside of music, there have been other claims against Triller for allegedly failing to make owed payments. Boxing journalist Dan Rafael reported that Triller had not fully paid several fighters and crew members from a May 2022 fight. In August, the Washington Post reported that Triller “promised millions to Black creators” to use the app as part of a paid influencer program, but “nearly a year after…its payments to many creators have been erratic — and in some cases, nonexistent.” In September, it was also sued by a smartphone app consulting firm that said it was owed more than $132,000 in unpaid fees.
Over the past two years, Triller has repeatedly announced plans to go public but has so far failed to do so — initially through the formerly-popular ‘SPAC’ merger process, and then in June this year filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that it plans to take a more traditional IPO route. In late September, the company announced it had secured $310 million from Luxembourg-based private alternative investment group for a 36-month term following a public listing of Triller’s common stock and would aim for a public listing by early in the fourth fiscal quarter (October-December).
Michèle Hamelink was named managing director of Sony Music Publishing Benelux. In the role, Hamelink will oversee and implement creative strategy across Benelux, including building and strengthening relationships with clients, local societies and industry partners and expanding songwriter support and service offerings. Based in the company’s Benelux office, Hamelink will also continue in her existing role of senior A&R. She reports to Sony Music Publishing president of international Guy Henderson.
Layla Amjadi was hired as head of music expression at Spotify. In her new role, Amjadi will oversee a team that builds formats enabling “artists, aspiring creators and fans to creatively express themselves through and around music in new ways.” She arrives at the streaming service from Gemini, where she served as vp of product and general manager. Prior to that, she worked in various roles at Meta/Instagram for nearly a decade. She reports to Charlie Hellman, vp and global head of music product.
BMG announced a new A&R structure for its Madrid-based operation, with Marcos Fairweather leading on the recordings side and Javier Doria fronting the publishing side. Fairweather joins from Universal Music Spain, where he was A&R director. Doria has been with BMG since July 2020, when he joined the company to lead A&R across publishing and recordings. Both will report to Albert Slendebroek, who also oversees BMG in Scandinavia. Under their direction, the company will target growth in the Spanish language market, with a renewed focus on established artists.
Dani Oliva was named vp of business and legal affairs at Suzy Ryoo and Troy Carter‘s Venice Music. Oliva, a transgender man, joins the company from Oliva Law Group, P.C., which he established in 2017. “We are beyond proud to welcome Dani to Venice,” said Ryoo in a statement. “With his legal expertise as well as the distance traveled in his personal & professional journey, he is an incredible addition to our team and community at Venice.” Oliva can be reached at dani@venicemusic.co.
The Association of Independent Music (AIM) appointed Nina Radojewski as head of membership, a newly created role that brings together AIM’s membership, events and marketing and communications functions under her leadership. Previously AIM’s professional development lead, Radojewski will oversee the creation and execution of the organization’s membership strategy while continuing to lead professional development initiatives for members, including the AIM Academy and the Associate Members’ Knowledge Base. AIM’s outgoing membership manager, Jude McArdle, is stepping down after more than five years in the role. Radojewski can be reached at nina@aim.org.uk.
Cameo Carlson was appointed CEO at mtheory, where she’s worked since 2017. Also promoted at the artist development and management services company are Michael Corcoran, upped to general manager; Carmela Frangella, formerly controller, elevated to CFO; Amy Davidson, promoted to executive vp; Vince Amoroso, named senior vp, head of marketing; Jonah Berry, upped to vp of marketing out of New York and Los Angeles; and Kaitlyn Moore, promoted to vp of marketing out of Nashville. The company also hired Ed Rivadavia as senior vp, head of digital. Carlson can be reached at cameo@mtheory.com, Corcoran can be reached at michaelc@mtheory.com, Frangella can be reached at carmela@mtheory.com, Davidson can be reached at amy@mtheory.com, Amoroso can be reached at vince@mtheory.com, Berry can be reached at jonah@mtheory.com and Moore can be reached at kaitlyn@mtheory.com.
On-demand vinyl platform elasticStage appointed Raoul Chatterjee as COO. He joins the company from SoundCloud, where he served as vp of content partnerships & operations. Based in London, the Billboard 2021 International Power Player will report to elasticStage founder and CEO Steve Rhodes. Chatterjee can be reached at raoul.chatterjee@elasticstage.com.
Megan Schultz was promoted to label manager at Riser House Entertainment. She will continue to oversee all label operations and scheduling for artists signed to the company’s Riser House Records label, along with label services clients. Schutz can be reached at Megan.Schultz@RiserHouse.com.
Chase Butters was named vp of sync at Concord Music Publishing out of Los Angeles. Butters will lead a team focused on increasing and enhancing Concord’s synch placements in advertising. He reports to senior vp of sync Brooke Primont and can be reached at chase.butters@concord.com.
ATC Management added a trio of new manager partners: Brandon Sanchez, Jordan Alper and Ben Rafson. All three will join manager partner Fabienne Leys and general manager Jessica Fekete at ATC’s newly opened New York office. Sanchez and Alper bring their joint management client Yaeji to the company, while Rafson brings artist clients Avalon Emerson and Jacques Greene. Sanchez joins from New York-based record label RVNG Intl. and also co-runs independent record labels SLINK and Human Pitch; Alper has worked as a talent buyer and producer for Red Bull Music Academy NY, Trevanna Entertainment and Does Festival; and Rafson, who has been in management for nearly 15 years with a focus on electronic musicians, recently founded and serves as executive director of The Rising Artist Foundation grant system. Rafson can be reached at ben@atcmanagement.com, Alper can be reached at jordan@atcmanagement.com and Sanchez can be reached at brandon@atcmanagement.com.
Melanie Seddon was promoted to vp of brand marketing at TuneCore. She will oversee all brand marketing efforts for the company as well as brand partnerships.
Elvin Sabla has been named creative brand director at Shore Fire Media, where he will oversee the PR firm’s branding and content strategy. Sabla most recently led editorial for Crypto.com’s NFT platform.
ASM Global named Kelvin D. Moore regional vp and general manager of McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. Moore will focus on creating new programs and partnerships. Moore was previously regional vp and general manager for ASM Global at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. He succeeds David Causton, who has served as general manager of the venue since 2004. Moore can be reached at kmoore@asmglobal.com.
Jen Moss was hired as a senior synch executive at Bucks Music Group. Previously at Warner Music UK, she arrives at Bucks after several years away from the industry for personal reasons. She can be reached at jmoss@bucksmusicgroup.co.uk.
Rebecca Trujillo Vest, Carls Woolf and Jordan Stobbe launched Pandion Music Foundation (PMF), a nonprofit organization designed to help foster growth in the music creator community by providing the tools and networks needed to build careers “across all lines of diversity and inclusion,” according to a press release. Partners at launch include Earthstar Creation Center, 2indie.com and Sweetwater. PMF previously partnered with 2indie, a synch coaching agency, to hold a global 24-hour “Sync-O-Thon” on Sept. 28, 2022, which helped support emerging artists by bringing in music professionals to provide feedback on their songs. PMF subsequently offered workshops by Sam Knack, Nick Phelps and others. Trujillo Vest, Woolf and Stobbe first met through an online songwriting course during the pandemic. Trujillo Vest can be reached at rebecca@pandionmusicfoundation.org and Stobbe can be reached at jordan@pandionmusicfoundation.org.
Before Jay-Z became embroiled in a nasty dispute with Bacardi over their D’Usse Cognac brand, he offered to buy out Bacardi’s half of the business for $1.5 billion, according to newly unsealed legal documents that reveal the sweeping size of the ongoing legal battle.
In the new filing, attorneys for Jay-Z’s SCLiquor LLC disclosed that the star made the offer last year after Bacardi offered him just $460 million for his half of D’Usse. Bacardi quickly rejected the offer, the filing said, even though the star had proposed to pay more than three times what the liquor giant itself believed a 50% stake in the business was worth.
The new document also reveals that Jay-Z believes his share in the business is worth $2.5 billion, the first public hint at how much the star is seeking from Bacardi amid the acrimonious split.
Taken together, the disclosures offer an early glimpse into how much could be at stake in the now-sprawling legal battle over Jay-Z’s efforts to exit D’Usse, which spans at least four lawsuits in two states as well as a private arbitration case.
A rep for Jay-Z declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Bacardi did not immediately return a request for comment on the disclosures.
The legal battle over D’Usse centers on Jay-Z’s exercise of a so-called “put option” — a legal mechanism in the joint venture’s operating agreement that, when triggered, requires Bacardi to buy out Jay-Z’s half of the business. Once invoked, the two sides are supposed to negotiate in “good faith,” exchange information and agree on a fair price for Bacardi to pay.
In this week’s unsealed documents, Jay-Z’s lawyers said he triggered the clause in September 2021, but that when the two sides exchanged figures in December 2021, they came in with vastly different valuations. The rapper suggested his half of the business was worth $2.5 billion; Bacardi said the number was just $460 million.
That was when Jay-Z apparently made his counter-offer: Rather than continue to invoke his put option requiring Bacardi to buy him out, he would offer to go vice-versa. “SC formally offered to buy Bacardi’s 50% interest in D’Usse for $1.5 billion, three times Bacardi’s declared valuation of its share (but less than SC believed it was worth),” his lawyers wrote in the new documents.
When Bacardi turned down that offer, the legal battle began.
As a first step, independent experts at JPMorgan were hired to appraise Jay-Z’s stake in D’Usse, but the process quickly became bogged down in disputes over what processes and data the bank should use to do so. Those disputes were submitted to a private arbitration panel, which then led to multiple New York court lawsuits challenging the arbitration panel’s rulings. Two separate lawsuits have also been filed in Delaware court, accusing Bacardi of “stonewalling” and demanding more access to information from D’Usse.
Those cases are all ongoing, including with a testy hearing in New York court on Thursday (Dec. 1) and a potential arbitration hearing on Friday (Dec. 2).
Notably, the newly unsealed document appears to have been made public accidentally.
Like much of a legal battle that’s been shrouded in unusual secrecy, the filings were originally submitted on Nov. 22 under seal. But on Tuesday (Nov. 29) evening, they were suddenly made public on the court’s digital docket. Letters to the judge indicate that the move was unexpected and that the filing should not have been published until it was further redacted. The document, first reported by Bloomberg Law and independently obtained by Billboard, was then fully re-sealed by Thursday afternoon.
Along with Jay-Z’s massive offer, the filing also revealed other key financial information about the dispute.
For instance, Jay-Z’s lawyers say they wanted JPMorgan’s appraisal to be based on an internal Bacardi document that forecast D’Usse to sell more than 2 million cases of cognac and earn $142.8 million annually by 2026. Bacardi apparently objected, saying those figures were “aspirational” and not a good indicator of the brand’s actual value.
Whether or not JPMorgan can cite the Bacardi forecast is now one of the major points of contention in the litigation.
Read the entire unsealed document here:
Over the years, Jim Shaw had loaned his friend Dave Bell, a longtime producer, publisher and label owner in Bakersfield, California, a couple of thousand dollars for various ventures — bits and pieces at a time. “He was one of the guys who kept rolling the dice,” Shaw recalls. “He’d make a million, then lose a million. Very interesting guy.”
By 2002, Bell was starting to feel guilty about how much money he owed to Shaw, a veteran member of Buck Owens‘ Buckaroos who now runs the late country legend’s foundation. Bell proposed a unique deal: In lieu of cash, he gave Shaw publishing rights to the rockabilly song “The Goo Goo Muck,” co-written and recorded by local country singer Ronnie Cook and his band, the Gaylads, in 1962. “At the time, it was like magic beans,” Shaw says. “[Bell] had a lot of gospel songs. He’d become very religious, and that song didn’t fit into what he wanted to do.”
Shaw knew, of course, that The Cramps had released a classic new-wave psychobilly-punk version of “Goo Goo Muck” in 1981, but since then the band’s popularity had faded and he never expected it to amount to much of anything. In fall 2021, though, the producers for Netflix’s Wednesday series called to license the Cramps’ version for a synch. When the Addams Family revival came out Nov. 23, the series saw record-breaking viewership and the track took off, much like Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill” last spring in Stranger Things, shooting from 2,500 streams the day before the premiere to 134,000 five days later. “It’s a really amazing, fun little bonanza,” says Shaw, 76. “I wasn’t familiar with the show, but I was happy to make the deal, and caught by surprise on all this.”
Bell, who died in 2013, was a U.S. Navy veteran who evolved from directing a church choir to recording artists, including local symphonies and a pre-stardom Merle Haggard, for his Bakersfield-area studio and his Audan Records label. He also owned a couple of publishing companies, including Damosi, named after his wife and daughters. Not much is known about Cook, who wrote “Goo Goo Muck” with Ed James. “I really thought it was a fun little song — the Duane Eddy guitar and that sound,” Shaw says. “I don’t know what this leads to. I was thinking of Pulp Fiction. Remember some of the really cool songs that got dusted off?”
Shaw, who is on the board of directors for the Buck Owens Foundation and has written songs of his own for Garth Brooks and Tom Jones, among others, recalls the late Bell as a character who was both religious and “had a potty-mouth.” Says Shaw, with a laugh: “He said, ‘The problem in this world is that people don’t pay attention to the fucking Ten Commandments.’”
Although Bell had done “very well in his life” as a label and studio owner and song publisher, Shaw says, he hit a rough period in the early 2000s and his friend started loaning him $100 or $200 at a time. “It kind of accumulated, and he was telling me how badly he felt about it. He says, ‘I want you to have this song.’ I said, ‘OK, sure,’” Shaw recalls. “It’s really cool. That’s what every songwriter and publisher hopes will happen. It’s what everybody dreams.”
Years ago, when the music business was at its low point, devastated by online piracy and struggling to sell one-dollar downloads, tech pundits used to ask why the major labels hadn’t just started their own online store. There are a few answers: They did (anyone remember PressPlay or MusicNet?), and a more serious effort would have outraged other retailers, which were still generating considerable revenue. Besides, consumers would have been reluctant to embrace a service with a limited selection, and getting too many labels together presented logistical issues (who would run it?) as well as legal ones, in the form of potential antitrust concerns. The result has been a business where technology companies have more control than rightsholders would like over pricing, promotion, and relationships with consumers.
That was then. It’s still hard to imagine any label creating its own mainstream streaming service – the kind that would compete with Spotify or Apple – but what about a smaller one, focused on a particular genre? It would be a tough sell now that consumers are used to getting all their music in one place, but the payoff – in profit, information about consumer preferences, and control of a direct marketing channel – could be significant.
As it turns out, there actually is such a service. On Nov. 21, Universal Music Group’s Deutsche Grammophon launched Stage+, which for $14.90 a month offers music from the label’s archive and that of sibling Decca Records, plus video programming and a new live performance every week. In terms of popularity, Stage+ can’t compete with mainstream platforms, but it’s not meant to – and it doesn’t even need to. It could make money with a number of subscribers in the low six figures, partly because it costs more than other services, and it gives Deutsch Grammophon a way to market other products directly to consumers.
Stage+, which was developed by Deutsche Grammophon president Dr. Clemens Trautmann under Universal Music Central Europe chairman and CEO Frank Briegmann, faces any number of challenges – consumer disinclination to subscribe to multiple services, existing specialist streaming platforms, even a rumored new project from Apple. But the product looks great, and it’s worth thinking about how a genre-focused, label-owned service might develop – and the issues it raises for the streaming model that has relatively quickly come to dominate the music business.
Right now, Stage+ only offers Universal Music content. But there’s no reason other labels couldn’t license it music. (Trautmann says he’s open to this, although he’s not seeking it out now.) Presumably, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group would be reluctant to license their classical music repertoire to a service run by their rival. But it might make financial sense to do so, since the subscription price for Stage+ would imply a better payout. Perhaps just as important, the Stage+ policy of dividing royalties according to listening time is fairer to classical performers than the standard number-of-tracks model. If you had spent decades mastering an instrument, how would you feel about hearing that your 20-minute recording was only worth a tenth as much as 10 two-minute pop songs that played for the same total amount of time.
This model could also work for other genres, which is where things really get interesting. The obvious candidate is jazz. Like classical music, it appeals to aficionados, many of whom might be willing to pay a premium price for a well-curated service that offers high-fidelity audio and video. As it happens, Universal has a substantial market share there, too: It owns Decca, Blue Note and Verve (which controls Impulse! Records) and has distribution deals with ECM Records and Concord Records (which owns the catalogs of the Prestige and Riverside labels). That’s far from everything – Sony has the important Miles Davis recordings, for example – but it would be one hell of a start. After that, who knows? Could there be room for an Americana platform, a service for independent punk, even one for jam bands?
The truth is that subscription streaming saved the music business, but the dominant model just isn’t great for some genres. Neither are the dominant services, which offer a mind-blowing selection of music but are aimed at a general audience. That has helped the music business grow, but it hasn’t always served fans focused on specific genres. Classical aficionados want better metadata to find specific performances of classic compositions, for example, while jazz devotees could use more information about which musicians play on certain recordings. Jam-band fans might want help figuring out the coolest versions of “Dark Star.”
These kinds of services probably won’t cost mainstream services many subscribers, but they could put a bit of pressure on them to reconsider some of the rules that favor pop at the expense of other genres. Why don’t services double-count songs that are more than 10 minutes long, for example, or create an easy and reliable way to search for albums based on the musicians that play on them instead of just the named artist? For the last few years, the music streaming market has been extremely competitive based on marketing and discounts – all the mainstream services offer the same music for about the same price, with a fairly similar experience. What would help record labels, as well as creators, is more competition in terms of business models, where services that offer different features face off against others that are aimed at different audiences. And who better to spark that competition than the labels themselves?
For the Record is a regular column from deputy editorial director Robert Levine analyzing news and trends in the music industry. Find more here.
The estate of Luther Vandross tapped Epic Rights — part of Universal Music Group’s merchandise and brand management company Bravado — as the global merchandise management agency to develop a multi-category worldwide retail and e-commerce program for the late singer. The agreement will see a roster of new licensing partners create branded merch and other elements to extend Vandross’ legacy in advance of multiple anniversary celebrations slated for next year. Vandross released his solo debut album, Never Too Much, in 1981; he went on to release 11 consecutive platinum albums and win a total of eight Grammys. According to a press release, over his more than 30-year career, he sold in excess of 40 million albums worldwide and also produced records for Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and Dionne Warwick. Next year is the 20th anniversary of both his Dance With My Father album and Live at Radio City Music Hall, which marked his final live performances. Other activations will include the launch of the Luther Vandross Foundation and a remix collaboration for Black History Month.
Full-service B2B distributor FUGA, a division of Downtown Music, partnered with electronic label Insomniac Music Group for a deal that will see FUGA provide a range of distribution, marketing and label services for several labels under the Insomniac umbrella, providing access to over 260 DSPs globally. Insomniac will also be utilizing FUGA’s sync and audience engagement services and have access to its trends and analytics platform. Insomniac additionally reached a deal with Downtown Neighbouring Rights.
China-based online music platform NetEase Cloud Music struck a licensing renewal agreement with Japanese entertainment company Avex. Under the deal, the companies will collaborate on promoting the presence of Avex artists on the NetEase platform. Avex’s roster includes Ayumi Hamasaki, Ai Otsuka, Kumi Koda, Awesome City Club, HIRAIDAI, I Don’t Like Mondays and NAQT VANE.
Actor and singer-songwriter Reneé Rapp signed with WME in all areas. Known for her role on the HBO Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls, Rapp recently signed with Interscope Records, which released her debut EP, Everything to Everyone, on Nov. 11. She continues to be represented by Adam Mersel of Immersive Management, Lisa Socransky Austin and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern LLP.
Universal Music Group (UMG) partnered with Artist Partner Group (APG) on The Fast & Furious: Drift Tape (Phonk Vol 1), “a fan-first mixtape” released in conjunction with character pieces from Universal Pictures’ Fast & Furious franchise that are meant to reintroduce characters to fans. Led by APG CEO Mike Caren and UMG’s Steven Victor, the project features music and collaborations from Phonk music’s biggest artists, including Kordhell, MUPP, Kaito Shoma, SCXR Soul and more. The full mixtape will be released Dec. 16.
Montreal-based pianist and composer Alexandra Stréliski signed to XXIM Records/Sony Music Masterworks. The first release under the deal is the song “The Hills,” which is Stréliski’s first new music in four years; she’s slated to put out a new album in spring 2023. All forthcoming music will be released by XXIM Records/Sony Masterworks worldwide, excluding Canada, in partnership with Montreal-based Secret City Records, her Canadian label home since 2018.
MOBO Group welcomed The Orchard to its recruitment and mentoring platform MOBOLISE, which launched in beta in 2020. MOBOLISE “supports and connects career opportunities to empower diversity, excellence and transformation in the workplace,” according to a press release, via a jobs board, mentoring and career development events and educational resources. It aims to create a more equitable industry by overcoming systemic obstacles faced by Black professionals. “MOBOLISE directly supports The Orchard’s goal to attract diverse talent by providing resources and information to the MOBOLISE community as well as direct recruitment opportunities to add to our workforce,” said Naledi Nyahuma Seck, vp of diversity & inclusion at The Orchard.
The Tahoe Douglas Visitors Authority and Oak View Group reached an exclusive multi-year naming rights agreement with Tahoe Blue Vodka for a new live entertainment, sports and conference center on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. Located in Stateline, Nevada, the 6,000-capacity Tahoe Blue Center is projected to open in July 2023 and host 130 events annually. The deal includes prominent exterior and interior signage. This is the first naming rights sponsorship for the vodka brand.
Payton Smith (“Like I Knew You Would”) signed with Combustion Masters, which recently released his latest single “Need You To Not.” Smith is currently in the studio with Combustion president Chris Warren at the production helm. New music from the singer, who’s signed with Eclipse Music Group for publishing, is expected early next year.
Independent digital distributor IDOL signed a full-service digital distribution partnership with independent label Fire Records, which boasts acts including Black Lips, Jane Weaver, The Lemonheads and Vanishing Twin on its roster. IDOL will handle the digital distribution of Fire Records’ repertoire to its global network of DSPs, excluding South Korea. Fire Records will also work closely with IDOL’s international audience development team on marketing and release strategy for frontline releases, with a dedicated specialist working on the label’s back catalog.
Q Prime South signed singer-songwriter Paul Cauthen for management. Cauthen, who will be on tour throughout December and into early 2023, is working on new music for release next year. His most recent album, Country Coming Down, was released by Thirty Tigers.
Warner Music Latina has signed emerging Mexican singer-songwriter Arriola to “continue the development” of his career within the regional Mexican genre, according to a press release. Arriola (real name Eduardo Arriola Gómez) — who released his first single “En Eso Estoy” when the label announced his signing — is also currently working on additional new music that will be part of his first album under the label. – Griselda Flores
Synch clearance and licensing software Trevanna Tracks partnered with music and cue sheet reporting company Soundmouse. The deal will allow Trevanna users to move song metadata, including splits and usage, from Trevanna to Soundmouse in order to generate accurate cue sheets. “Trevanna’s data and documents give production teams everything needed to air a synced song, but it doesn’t take the next step to ensure ongoing downstream payments,” said Jennifer Freed, founder and CEO of Trevanna Tracks. “This process was brilliantly sorted by Soundmouse.” Added Soundmouse head of business development Mark Vermaat, “This partnership enables collaboration between music supervisors and editors, saves time, and significantly lessens the margin for error in reporting royalties.”
Irish singer-songwriter Lisa O’Neill signed with Rough Trade Records for the release of her next album, All of This Is Chance, which is slated for release Feb. 10.
Country trio Track45 signed with UTA for booking. Comprised of siblings Jenna, Ben and KK Johnson, the group will be working with UTA agent Lance Roberts as its day-to-day. Track45 is signed to BBR Music’s Group’s Stoney Creek Records and managed by T.R.U.T.H. Management’s Missi Gallimore.
Nettwerk Music Group signed several new artists: lo-fi hip-hop producer linanthem; Sun Lo, a new project from artist-producer Attlas and songwriter-vocalist Richard Walters; alt-pop duo Bestfriend; beatmaker and producer Mr. Käfer; and disco-pop artist and producer Wingtip. The label recently released linanthem’s single “wind in my sails,” Sun Lo’s debut single “Factory Gates”; Mr. Käfer’s single “Blurred”; and Wingtip’s single “Mr. 29.” On Dec. 9, the label will release Bestfriend’s new single “LEMON LIME.”
Natalie Carr signed with Dallas Austin‘s distribution company DAD, which will release her new song “Drive.”
Mailboat Records signed yacht rock group Yachtley Crew. The outfit, which is managed by Andy Gould and is revving up for a series of monthly performances at Palms Casino Resort’s KAOS, recently released their first original song, “Sex On the Beach.”
As streaming became the dominant mode of music consumption, fraud and “fake streams” have been regarded as a minor nuisance — generally acknowledged but seldom worried about. Most industry executives tend to see this activity as a way for aspiring acts to inflate their numbers, and thus their commercial potential, or as an avenue for grifters to steer money into their pockets by running up plays of white noise or rain sounds.
At least since this summer, however, SoundCloud has detected evidence of fraudulent streams or manipulation on multiple releases from both notable independent acts and major-label artists, including hitmakers with track records of successful singles, according to two sources familiar with the company’s operations who spoke on the condition of anonymity. And this is not unique to SoundCloud. This summer, Deezer executive Ludovic Pouilly told the French investigative publication Les Jours that it has become more common to see “artists in the top 200 who have millions of real streams” have fake streams as well.
Streaming services are increasing their effort to fight the fakes. In a statement, a spokesperson for SoundCloud said, “We take the issue of stream manipulation extremely seriously and make every effort towards identifying and mitigating inauthentic plays.” It’s not alone: Earlier this year, a Spotify spokesperson told Billboard, “Stream manipulation is an industry-wide issue that Spotify takes very seriously.” SoundCloud also works with a third-party company that “specialize[s] in bot detection” to fight stream manipulation, an executive said at a Music Biz panel in May. (The panel had a pointed title, “They’re Coming For Us: Fraudsters & How We Stop Them.”)
Streaming executives say there are a handful of ways to fraudulently boost an artist’s numbers, including harnessing bot networks or fake or stolen user accounts, and that this activity is becoming “more intense,” as Pouilly put it. At Music Biz, Napster senior vp and general counsel Matthew Eccles noted that fraud on the platform “increased over COVID.”
In fact, the current streaming business is rife with “very prevalent fraud and abuse,” according to SoundCloud vp of strategy Michael Pelczynski, who spoke at the same panel. This abuse has “cultural ramifications,” Pelczynski added: If fraudulent streams go “undetected and not policed, and [they] start influencing the way we measure the success of music, we are literally supporting inauthenticity.”
The level of fake streams detected varies by service and region. At one point, bots on Pandora were generating “a large, large fraction of spins,” according to George White, senior vp of music licensing at SiriusXM, “nearly equaling” the amount coming from human accounts. Pouilly told Les Jours that “7% of the volume of daily streams [on Deezer] is now detected as fraudulent.”
The Merlin Network, which handles digital licensing for many independent labels and distributors, used to send members a monthly report detailing the percentage of fraudulent streams from their releases on Spotify; this February, 2.5% of ad-supported streams and 1.2% of the plays from premium Spotify accounts were identified as fraudulent. (Asked about the issue, a spokesperson for the platform said that stream manipulation was “an industry-wide issue.”) The ad-supported number was nearly 10% at one point in 2020, according to one executive who received the report.
As evidence of what Pelczynski dubbed “prevalent fraud” grows, music executives worry that artists who are playing by the rules will start to feel pressure to pad their numbers in order to keep up with rivals — especially in an increasingly crowded landscape where it feels harder than ever to stand out. Paying for fraudulent streams “will become a marketing expense that everyone needs to employ if it’s left unchecked,” White warned at Music Biz.
Eccles from Napster worried that the music industry could enter a phase like professional cycling decades ago, when cyclists felt compelled “to dope” just to compete at a high level. It is “key,” Eccles stressed, “to avoid a situation where that happens in music.”
A new lawsuit claims that CNN used more than 100 different songs in international segments without paying for them, constituting copyright infringement on a “breathtaking scale.”
Freeplay Music, a company that sells so-called production music for use in web videos, television segments and other content – and hasn’t been afraid to sue over it – claims the cable news giant used the company’s library of music as “their own personal cookie jar” for segments on CNN Philippines, CNN Indonesia, CNN Chile.
“As high-profile news media companies which strive to provide the best news product all across the world, CNN and the international parties know they must obtain a license to use other’s intellectual property,” Freeplay’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Despite this, they willfully and consciously did not do so here on a breathtaking scale.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in California federal court, claimed that CNN used 115 songs across 283 segments. And Freeplay’s lawyers say they were “not minor uses” but rather “essential to each of the segment” – allegedly often used throughout entire segments.
Discovering the illicit use of their music in foreign media segments was like “finding a needle in a haystack,” Freeplay’s lawyers say, but that CNN knew that when it allegedly stole the music: “CNN apparently counted on the difficulty of being caught in deciding to engage in this massive willful copyright infringement.”
Freeplay is seeking at least $17 million in damages, saying anything less “would not get the attention of these media goliaths that continue to commit widespread infringement of FPM’s intellectual property.”
A spokesperson for CNN did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
The case is hardly Freeplay’s first. Court records show that the company has filed dozens of similar copyright lawsuits over alleged unauthorized uses of its music, including cases against online retail giant Alibaba and guitar maker Gibson. Most recently, Freeplay sued Ford Motor Co. in 2020 over accusations that the car company had used 54 different songs in online promotional videos but was was “too cheap” to pay for them.
Ford later countersued in that case, accusing Freeplay of actively seeking out litigation with “bait-and-switch” practices. The carmaker said Freeplay falsely advertises that its music is free to lure companies and individuals to the platform, only to later sue them “to extort vast amounts of money” when they used the music.
“Freeplay has asserted copyright infringement claims in dozens of lawsuits, extracting settlements in these litigations and … in an untold number of other instances where the simple threat of litigation was enough to shake down Internet users who mistakenly thought they were getting exactly what Freeplay advertises – music that was “free” to use,” Ford’s lawyers wrote at the time.
The case between Freeplay and Ford ended in a settlement last year.
Over the last six weeks, Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd., the trailblazing acquirer of music publishing and recording rights, has been buying up a different kind of asset. Over seven transactions since Oct. 18, the company has been repurchasing its own stock, 250,000 shares at a time, to help support its slumping share price. So far, it has spent 1.5 million pounds ($1.8 million) to buy back 1.75 million of its shares. And while that accounts for just 0.14% of the roughly 1.21 billion issued shares, it underscores a crucial conundrum for the publicly traded company.
While, like much of the music business, Hipgnosis’ business has been steadily growing thanks mostly to booming music streaming revenues, its shares have lost 34% of their value year-to-date through Nov. 29. That decline is about six times worse than the 5.7% drop suffered by the FTSE 350 Media Index, representing 10 media companies on the London Stock Exchange. It’s more than triple the New York Stock Exchange composite index’s 10.1% deficit.
Normally, buying back shares lifts a company’s stock by both providing demand (which supports the stock price) and reducing the number of shares outstanding (which increases the per-share equity value). But since Hipgnosis began repurchasing its shares on Oct. 18, its share price has fallen 3.5% while the stock market has solidly improved: Over that time, the FTSE 350 Media index rose 6.8% and the New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 9.5%.
The share repurchases to date have been too few to move the needle. At the Sept. 21 annual general meeting, Hipgnosis’ shareholders approved a repurchase program that can buy up to 14.99% of its issued share capital through Dec. 8. So far, less than 1% of that allowable number has been bought back. And with less than 10 days left until the deadline, Hipgnosis is unlikely to make a much more meaningful dent. As of March 31, the date of Hipgnosis’ latest financial statement, the company had only $30 million in cash and about $100 million of borrowing capacity under its $700 million revolving credit facility. To buy back that full 14.99% stake at the current price and exchange rate would cost the company another $180 million.
But buying enough shares to directly impact the price isn’t necessarily the goal. The repurchase program can still act as a signal to investors that the company believes its stock is undervalued and is taking measures to address the matter. If all goes well, the decision to return cash to shareholders will end up boosting investor confidence in the music fund. That could ultimately help its share price, which is currently trading at a 46.7% discount to the company’s operative net asset value per ordinary share, according to the company’s July 13 mid-year earnings results. (Operative NAV is the fair market value of the catalog with amortization added back.) Even after considering its $570 million of debt (as of March 31), Hipgnosis shares are still trading 27.7% below the catalog’s value.
On paper, Hipgnosis should be a safe bet for investors: It buys dependable, recession-proof music intellectual property that churns out predictable royalties that are uncorrelated with the marketplace. The face of the company, founder Merck Mercuriadis, reshaped music investing by bucking the tradition of using debt to fund catalog acquisitions and launching the first publicly traded, equity-backed royalty fund that focused solely on music assets. Mercuriadis runs an investment advisory, Hipgnosis Songs Management, that collects a fee for managing the publicly traded company’s catalog. Mercuriadis declined to comment for this article.
From 2018 to 2021, Hipgnosis raised almost 1.3 billion pounds ($1.55 billion) through eight offerings on the London Stock Exchange, spending the money, and some debt, on established, proven songs — music publishing, recorded music catalogs and creator royalty streams — by the likes of Neil Young, Journey and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Mercuriadis and his team recommend catalogs for Hipgnosis Songs Fund to purchase and try to generate more revenue from its portfolio. Hipgnosis Songs Fund itself is a lean organization – it has a board of directors and a team of outside accountants, attorneys and other specialists – that collects royalties, pay dividends and operates with minimal overhead. Investors shouldn’t expect the triple-digit returns of a fast-growing tech company, but they shouldn’t face much downside risk, either. Decades-old popular music in a growing industry is a stable investment.
Hipgnosis’ pitch became particularly attractive as low interest rates encouraged investors to pour money into alternative assets like music as central banks cut rates to encourage borrowing to help combat a recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But central banks have hiked interest rates in 2022 to ward off rising inflation, and Hipgnosis and companies like it have seen their share prices fall sharply. An Oct. 27 report by Trust Intelligence posits that Hipgnosis, along with other alternative asset funds, “has seen a significant share price de-rating as investors worry about the potential for valuations to fall in a rising interest rate environment.” Shares of alternative asset managers Blackstone Group – an investor in Hipgnosis Songs Management – and Franklin Resources are down 31.8% and 21.5%, respectively, this year despite the companies’ earnings beating expectations last quarter. Other music companies are having a tough year, too. Shares of Round Hill Royalty Fund Ltd., another music-backed investment trust that trades on the London Stock Exchange, are down 24.9% year to date.
The underlying business underpinning the Hipgnosis catalog and others like it, however, seems as healthy as ever. Global publishing and label revenues climbed 18% to $39.6 billion in 2021 on the strength of streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. In the U.S., music publishers will enjoy a slightly larger share of subscription revenue from 2023 to 2027. Music subscription prices are rising, too – Apple Music hiked its monthly fees in October and Spotify appears ready to follow in 2023. Social media and short-form video apps such as TikTok are increasingly valuable revenue streams for both publishers and labels. Hipgnosis’s pro-forma revenue – which compares catalogs on a like-for-like basis and ignores recent acquisitions – in the second half of 2021 rose 11.6% from the first half, which was impacted by COVID-19 restrictions that hurt physical sales and performance royalties. In its latest fiscal year ended March 31, catalog additions helped gross revenue grow 24.7% to $200.4 million.
With its stock trading at a large discount to the value of its catalog, though, the company is unable to raise additional equity to expand its catalog. It certainly had plans to do so: In January 2021, Hipgnosis shareholders voted 98.6% in favor of a plan to sell 1.5 billion new shares. At the planned price of $1.68 per share, those additional shares would have raised $2.52 billion. Since then, however, Hipgnosis has sold only 199.6 million shares at an average of 1.21 pounds per share ($1.46), for a total of 241.4 million pounds ($330 million). Money has continued to pour into other funds for music acquisitions: Primary Wave took a $1.7 billion investment from Brookfield Asset Management in October; Influence Media Partners teamed up with Warner Music Group and BlackRock Alternative Investors in July; and last year, KKR partnered with BMG and Apollo Global Management backed upstart HarbourView Equity Partners to the tune of $1 billion.
The share repurchase program could have tangible results: the repurchase of 1% of shares would add 0.5% to the net asset value per share, reduce the dividend payment and “be accretive to annual income by $57,000,” according to JP Morgan Cazenove analysts. Investors could also look elsewhere to gain some confidence. In September, Hipgnosis reiterated its target annual dividend of 5.25 pence (6.34 cents) per share and announced an interim dividend of 1.3125 pence ($1.59) per share. It has also made moves to save money. In July, it reached a deal with French collection society Sacem for reduced administration expenses and collection fees. In October it procured a new revolving credit facility with a lower cost of debt and completed interest rate swaps that provide a hedge against rising rates.
More dramatic steps are available to raise cash, too. JP Morgan Cazenove analysts suggested in an Oct. 24 report that the company could sell “non-core assets” such as the Kobalt fund — 42 catalogs of more than 33,000 songs — it bought in Nov. 2020 for $323 million. The analysts also suggest Hipgnosis could sell part of its catalog to Blackstone, which took an ownership stake in Mercuriadis’ song management operation in Oct. 2021 and provided $1 billion for catalog acquisitions. That would allow Hipgnosis to reduce its debt and free up capital to repurchase shares or invest in new catalogs. Or Hipgnosis Songs Management could seek funding from Blackstone to acquire the entire Hipgnosis Songs Fund portfolio. Another option not mentioned in the report is to sell Big Deal Music, the independent music publisher that Hipgnosis Songs Fund acquired in 2020 and rebranded as Hipgnosis Songs Group, and focus solely on managing its catalog instead of signing and developing songwriters.
Following years of headline-grabbing moves, this has been a relatively quiet one for the publicly traded Hipgnsosis Songs Fund — there have been no acquisitions and no capital raised through stock offerings in 2022. In contrast, the other side of the business, Hipgnosis Songs Management, purchased the catalogs of Kenny Chesney, Justin Timberlake and Leonard Cohen through its venture with Blackstone, Hipgnosis Songs Capital ICAV. In addition, in August Hipgnosis Songs Management raised $222 million from a securitization backed by the royalties of 950 songs from Timberlake, Cohen and others.
Glimpses of what comes next, and how else Mercuriadis plans to address the stock price, could come soon. Dec. 8, the final day of the share repurchase program, is also the day Hipgnosis will release mid-year financial results and host a Capital Markets Day.
Marketing and media company Loud And Live has signed a partnership with booking agency Tesa Entertainment, Billboard has learned. The global partnership deal will include “exclusive touring and booking rights,” according to a press release, with efforts to “elevate the Latin urban genre to the next level.”
The first artist signed under the deal is Panamanian singer-songwriter Boza, who broke out in 2020 with his hit song “Hecha Pa’ Mí” and was nominated for best new artist at the 2021 Latin Grammys.
“We’re very happy with the evolution we’ve had with Boza, and we believe that this partnership will continue to help develop our artist’s career in a positive way,” said Boza’s managers Alberto Gaitan and Andrés Castro. “We’re proud to become part of the Loud and Live and Tesa family.”
“For me, it’s an honor to become part of Boza’s growth, moving forward,” said Giovanna Pérez, CEO and founder of Tesa Entertainment. “Unity is strength and with this new partnership deal alongside Loud And Live, we’ll complement each other perfectly with resources that will offer the Artist the best live show experience globally.”
Launched in 2017, the Miami-based Loud and Live has enjoyed a strong return to touring in 2021, with more than 400 shows and tours for clients including Carlos Vives, Ruben Blades, Camilo and Prince Royce. Tesa Entertainment was founded in 2021 by Pérez, previously at Rich Music and CMN, after working with artists such as Nicky Jam, Sech and Manuel Turizo.
“Loud And Live is honored to join efforts with Tesa Entertainment under the leadership of Giovanna, who brings unmatched experience in the Urban genre booking business,” said Nelson Albareda, CEO of Loud And Live. “This alliance expands the offering of both companies, and we’re proud to be able to offer an added value to the artists with whom we work.”
