CD Baby
CD Baby, one of the biggest do-it-yourself distribution services in the industry, laid off members of its creator services team last week, a source close to the matter tells Billboard. Responsible for providing customer support, this team is now being “consolidat[ed]” in an effort to “re-allocat[e] resources” within the company, says a spokesperson for CD Baby.
News of CD Baby’s employment cuts echo the recent news that Distrokid was placing 37 union employees responsible for quality control and customer service on “administrative leave.” These roles were to be outsourced to contractors, located internationally. Its other competitor, TuneCore, was recently sued by UMG in a landmark $500 million lawsuit for allegedly allowing its users to distribute songs that clearly infringed on UMG’s copyrights to streaming services.
Over the last year or so, a number of music businesses, even beyond the realm of DIY distribution, have restructured their companies, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of music professionals on the search for new jobs. This year alone, UMG completely restructured its recorded music division, laying off hundreds of employees. WMG followed suit with similar restructuring of Atlantic Music Group and layoffs. WMG also shut down LEVEL, one of its distributors. In late 2023, BMG laid off “dozens” in its film/tv, theatrical and international marketing departments.
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A spokesperson for CD Baby replied to Billboard’s request for comment, saying: “In an effort to support the changing needs of artists and the industry, we are consolidating certain CD Baby functions within Downtown and re-allocating resources towards long-term growth opportunities. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the elimination of certain roles and positions at CD Baby. We want to recognize the achievements of these staff members during their tenure with CD Baby. Their dedication to innovation helped CD Baby to become a globally recognized leader in the distribution space. Going forward, we will stay committed to this music-first and pioneering approach, building the services that benefit artists today and in the future.”
CD Baby has helped independent musicians get their music out since its founding in 1998. In the intervening years, it has become one of the pioneers and leaders of the DIY distributor market, democratizing the music business and opening it up to musicians of all backgrounds. CD Baby, and the other services owned by its parent company AVL Digital Group, sold to Downtown Music Holdings in 2021 for a reported $200 million dollars. At the time, CD Baby’s then-CEO Tracy Maddux said of the deal: “This transaction will allow us to take the services we offer the independent music community to the next level.”
Downtown Music has named Molly Neuman president of its direct-to-creator division CD Baby. Neuman succeeds CD Baby’s previous president, Scott Williams, who will stay on as a consultant to Downtown and CD Baby. In addition to Neuman’s appointment, it was announced that CD Baby COO Christine Barnum is leaving the company. Neuman boards CD Baby […]
After taking itself out of the bidding for French music group and distributor Believe in April, Warner Music Group (WMG) is shopping for an alternative distribution company that could help it gain market share in the competitive space that serves independent creators and labels — and it’s hired a top music investment banker from Goldman Sachs to lead the effort.
Since taking over as WMG’s CEO last year, Robert Kyncl has said the company is prepared to build in-house the technology and services he thinks it needs. Now he’s ready to buy them as well.
“As part of our mission to be a destination for artists and songwriters at every stage of development, we are expanding our lower-touch services that many indie artists, labels and songwriters rely on,” Kyncl said on a conference call discussing WMG’s quarterly earnings on May 9. “We have a clear plan to develop this area of our ecosystem, and we’re building solutions in-house while staying vigilant about [merger and acquisition] opportunities, which could accelerate our capabilities.”
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On Thursday (June 6), WMG announced the hire of Goldman Sachs’ global head of music & live entertainment investment banking Michael Ryan-Southern to a newly created executive vp role. Reporting to Kyncl, Ryan-Southern will be responsible for acquiring companies and catalogs that can boost WMG’s growth and revenues. When he officially joins in August, the first item on his shopping list will be an independent distribution company, smaller in size and cost than Believe, that an inside source described as a “bolt-on” acquisition to help grow WMG’s market share in the independent distribution and services business without affecting its overall profit margins.
Among the companies that WMG is eyeing, according to sources, are leading independent distributors DistroKid and CD Baby. WMG is “active in the market” but is still in the exploratory stage, those sources say.
A WMG spokesperson declined to comment for this story. A representative for Downtown, which owns CD Baby, also declined to comment, except to say that Downtown “is singularly focused on continuing to grow our business and support our clients’ success.” Representatives for DistroKid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WMG approached Paris-based Believe in February with a nonbinding offer to acquire it at a price of “at least” 17 euros ($18.60) per share. It ultimately decided not to submit a formal offer in April. Asked why the company did not pursue an offer for Believe, Kyncl said on the May 9 call that it backed away “for a variety of reasons,” including the brief amount of time it was given to conduct due diligence.
Ryan-Southern is a former EMI publishing executive who, along with Goldman’s global head of entertainment investment banking, Aaron Siegel, was on some of music’s biggest deals. These included New Mountain Capital’s acquisition of BMI and the spinoff of Sphere Entertainment, which owns the Sphere in Las Vegas, MSG Networks and Tao Group Hospitality, from Madison Square Garden Entertainment, which owns and operates the Garden and Radio City Music Hall among other venues in New York and Chicago. Ryan-Southern and Siegal also advised Believe founder/CEO Denis Ladegaillerie and his consortium with investment funds EQT and TCV on their effort to take Believe private.
Buying or building something that can leverage WMG’s independent distribution and services division, ADA, would help the music company recruit more early-stage artists, something its executives consider core to its success.
WMG launched ADA in 1993, roughly 20 years before Sony bought a stake in The Orchard and Universal Music Group launched Caroline International as an indie-label distributor that was later rebranded as Virgin Music Group. And though WMG was the first major to carve out a presence serving the independent artist market — renting its major-label services to indies, as industry sources have described it — competition in the market has heated up.
UMG and Sony have invested tens of millions in recent years buying rival startups in the space. A minority shareholder since 2006, UMG acquired Ingrooves in 2019. In 2022, UMG acquired Mtheory Artist Partnerships as well as a 49% stake in [PIAS]. Sony closed out its full acquisition of The Orchard in 2015 and then bought AWAL in 2022.
The Orchard now holds a commanding lead in the U.S. market with a 7.27% current market share, according to Luminate. UMG’s Virgin Music Group, which comprises Ingrooves, Mtheory and Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, holds around 3.42% of the current market. ADA has a current market share of 1.68%. Its biggest client, BMG, which contributes 0.94% to ADA’s current share, is winding down its distribution agreement.
WMG now needs to “turbocharge” this part of its business to capitalize on the fast-growing independent sector, says Fred Davis, partner at The Raine Group.
“The world now is divided into three categories of artists: those signed to major labels, those signed to indie labels and indie artists without a label,” Davis says. “Distribution platforms are proving to be a viable source of A&R for the major labels.”
Focusing WMG’s A&R more on capturing opportunities, particularly in genres that are just beginning to experience growth, was one of Kyncl’s top 2024 agenda items highlighted in a New Year’s Day note he sent to all staff. In April, WMG’s publishing division, Warner Chappell Music (WCM), partnered with ReverbNation, BandLab Technologies’ premium artist services platform, to identify and sign emerging songwriters. WCM administers music rights for any users who enroll in a new program through ReverbNation Publishing Administration, and signed songwriters gain access to WCM’s services.
WMG has acquired majority stakes or launched joint ventures with a few distribution-oriented companies in recent years — some before Kyncl joined WMG — primarily in emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia. Among them: a majority stake in Africori, the leading digital music distribution, music rights management and artist development company in Africa, in January 2022. That March, it also acquired Qanawat Music, a leading distributor in the Middle East and North Africa.
Last year, WMG did two deals in India: It acquired a majority stake in Indian digital media company Divo and formed a joint venture with Sky Digital, which aggregates releases from Punjabi and Hindi labels.
While WMG has made acquisitions in other geographical regions, rival majors have bought companies serving the U.S. market for independents. “It would make sense for [WMG] to augment its distribution with an acquisition,” says a source familiar with the company’s strategy.
Vinyl Me, Please, the ebullient record of the month club (and pressing plant) based in Denver, hired creative veterans Rob Jones and Alan Hynes to add some rocket fuel to VMP’s product line. In their new roles (Jones as executive creative director and Hynes as senior creative director), the duo will help guide VMP’s artistic direction and work alongside existing creatives on custom record packaging designs for releases. They’ll also work with studios and composers to bring movie scores to vinyl as part of its new Soundtracks offering, beginning with a new pressing of Dave Grusin’s score for The Goonies later this summer. Jones joins VMP after a successful couple of decades as co-founder of Mondo, the maker of pop culture collectibles (including vinyl records and posters) that was acquired by Funko last year. Hynes also arrives from Mondo, where he played an integral role in its design department for years — creating original record packaging for films like Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut and others.
“Bringing joy to people through tangible, transcendent experiences with music is what VMP is about and what we’re always striving to offer our customers,” said Cam Schaefer, CEO of VMP. “The addition of Rob and Alan to the team takes us to the moon creatively and fills out a 1992 Olympic Dream Team of art and design. Their experience, mind-bending creativity, and passion for exploration will allow them to make a deep impact within VMP and help us to elevate and expand our product line for customers. We’re lucky to have them.”
Liliahn Majeed exited her post as Universal Music Group‘s first global chief diversity, inclusion and belonging officer for a similar DEI role at L’Oréal. During her three years at UMG, Majeed led a team focused on boosting the label giant’s inclusion and equity efforts, and she notably co-chaired one of the committees of UMG’s high profile “Task Force for Meaningful Change.” Before Majeed traded the globe’s No. 1 music company for the No. 1 beauty firm, she held senior marketing and diversity roles at the NBA and earlier, at Frito-Lay. Majeed moves into the chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, North America role at L’Oréal following the retirement of Angela Guy.
Warner Music Latina appointed Andrés Shaq as A&R director. He’ll be based in Miami and report to Hector Ruben Rivera, senior vice president and head of A&R Latin Music. Shaq was previously senior A&R manager at Warner Music Colombia, where he spent three years and played a key role in the careers of artists like Piso 21, Mike Bahía and Blessd. He also signed notable Colombian producers such as ICON, DJ MAFF, and SOG. “Colombia and the Andean region have an abundance of incredible talent waiting to be discovered. I’m fully committed to discovering and fostering future Latin superstars,” said Shaq. –Leila Cobo
Sony Pictures Television tapped Palash Ahmed to lead new efforts to develop more music-connected projects at the studio. As head of music development — a newly created role — Ahmed will work with studio president of international production Wayne Garvie on synergistic pairings with obvious partners (Sony Music’s recorded music and publishing divisions), as well as with non-Sony artists and labels. In announcing Ahmed’s new role, studio chairman Ravi Ahuja said film and TV content with a music tie-in “comes with a built-in, highly engaged fanbase, and we are excited to begin leaning in to opportunities to develop projects with musical artist connections.” Ahmed, who is based in Los Angeles, joined Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2017 and most recently held the title of senior vp of corporate development.
Tim McGraw‘s management and marketing company, EM.Co, appointed Doug Phillips as vp of marketing and digital. Phillips has previously worked at companies including Q Prime South, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Nashville. Concurrently, EM.Co vice president Brian Kaplan joins McGraw’s media venture Down Home as co-founder and chief strategy officer. Down Home launched earlier this year with partners Skydance and social content studio Shareability. –Jessica Nicholson
Faryal Khan-Thompson joined Downtown-owned music distributor CD Baby as senior vice president of marketing and community engagement, responsible for strategy around the disciplines in her job title, as well as branding initiatives, artist education efforts and growing the company internationally. The NYC-based Khan-Thompson was previously vp of international at TuneCore. “I am committed to building on the great work that has been done and positioning CD Baby as the leading provider of music distribution services for independent artists,” she said. CD Baby recently made headlines by sunsetting most of its physical distribution business — namely, that it will no longer warehouse or distribute the CDs that it makes for artists.
ICYMI: Big Machine Music elevated Mike Molinar to president of the publishing company.
Justin Chacona was named vice president of brand & marketing at Stockholm-based production music company Epidemic Sound, where he’ll lead a team of 40-plus staffers working on marketing and PR initiatives, social media strategy and consumer relations as the company eyes expansion into new markets. Launched in 2009, Epidemic offers a catalog of restriction-free music for use in videos, podcasts and other content. Chacona joins from Polar Electro where he’s been group chief marketing officer since 2020. Earlier in his career, Chacona worked at Rovio Entertainment, where he led marketing efforts surrounding the video game developer’s hit movie for Angry Birds. Chacona’s appointment follows the hiring of Rob Bullough as global brand director earlier this year.
Vickie Nauman was appointed to the advisory board of Interstellar Music Services, a specialist digital rights management company. Based in Los Angeles, Nauman is the founder and CEO of music and tech consultancy CrossBorderWorks and before that held executive roles at 7digital and Sonos. Interstellar, which launched in January, works to maximize the collection of royalties via a suite of services that includes digital distribution, brand partnerships, metadata cleaning, neighboring rights, publishing administration and detailed analysis/reporting. “The Company sits right at the intersection of music and innovation,” said Nauman, “so I hope that it will benefit from my experience as it enters its next phase of growth.”
Youth-focused social media platform Zigazoo hired Joe Kelley as director of music partnerships. In his new role, Kelley will lead outreach efforts with the music industry at large as the short video app looks to build on the recent launch of its product for kids 13 and up. Kelley had plenty of experience connecting with music acts during his four years as Billboard‘s head of artist relations — booking talent for a wide swath of events and other branded franchises. After leaving Billboard, Kelley worked as an artist manager and, more recently, as head of artist partnerships at music impact events platform WithOthers.
The Royal College of Music has enlisted James Williams to be only its 11th director since the prestigious school, located in South Kensington, London, was founded in 1882. Williams will join RCM on Sept. 1, 2024, succeeding current director Colin Lawson, who is retiring. Williams is managing director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he has held since June 2016.
Nashville Bites: Universal Music Group Nashville hired Charlene Bryant as senior vp of business development and strategy. For the last five years, she ran her own company, Riveter Management, a multigenre firm whose clients have included hip-hop artist Trippie Redd… Rachel Burleson was promoted to Big Machine Label Group director of streaming from Big Machine Records project manager… SMACKSongs promoted Sam Sarno to creative director from creative manager… Mark Turcotte starts July 18 as Nashville-based Outback Presents senior vp of marketing. He arrives from Cox Media/Atlanta, where he was general sales manager. –Tom Roland
CD Baby has mostly exited the physical distribution business: “Going forward, we won’t have a warehouse, we won’t stock CDs, we’re no longer doing mail orders and that sort of thing,” says Scott Williams, president of CD Baby.
“We don’t take a decision like this lightly,” he adds. “But it’s just not as not as relevant for us and not as valuable to the artists that we serve. And so it’s time has come.”
That said, CD Baby isn’t exiting the physical business completely: Artists can still get CDs and vinyl manufactured through the company, CD Baby just won’t warehouse them. “We will still sell them, but those will be shipped to the artists that have purchased them,” Williams explains. “They can use Bandcamp; they can set up their own Shopify site. We have a lot of overlap today with Bandcamp — a lot of people that use us for digital distribution prefer to do their own physical distribution through Bandcamp, and they can still do that.”
CD Baby was founded roughly 25 years ago to sell compact discs for independent artists. (Downtown Music acquired CD Baby’s owner in 2019.) But CD sales started to decline in the 2000s, falling for 17 years straight until experiencing a small uptick in 2021. Sales of vinyl, the other primary physical music product, have traced the opposite path, recently celebrating their 17th consecutive year of growth.
In the first 10 weeks of 2023, CD sales ran slightly ahead of 2022 — 6.8 million in 2022 to 6.9 million, according to Luminate. CD prices are more affordable than vinyl, which often pushes past $30, executives say, and there are fewer production delays. Stars often sell them as a collectible item, and for touring acts, CDs are easier to take on the road to sell at shows.
Some distributors have seen the growth of the vinyl market as an opportunity to get into the physical distribution side of the business. Symphonic Distribution announced that it was adding physical distribution capabilities in partnership with AMPED in 2020. Pieter van Rijn, CEO of FUGA, told Billboard last year he was excited about the company’s recent entry into the physical distribution space. (Downtown also owns FUGA.)
But Williams says the CD has “fade[d] in relevance” for many of CD Baby’s acts. “Operating the fulfillment side of it isn’t going to be part of our core strategy going forward,” he continues. “I think we have better opportunities and things to focus on on the digital side.”
In order to meet the growing demand for physical music and video in the United Kingdom, Utopia Music has entered a long-term contract with DP World for a £100 million ($124.8 million), 25,000-square meter warehouse in Bicester, United Kingdom. The new warehouse will feature technologically advanced solutions, including high-density storage and robotic transfer of product, to enable the efficient distribution of over 30 million units a year across the United Kingdom and export markets. Stock will be moving from Utopia Distribution Services’ current warehouse in Aylesbury, United Kingdom (inherited from physical distributor Cinram, whose assets were acquired by Utopia in 2022) to the new facility over the summer.
Swedish Web3 music company anotherblock has raised €4 million ($4.34 million) in an investment round led by Stride.VC and joined by Swedish House Mafia member Axwell (whose Swedish House Mafia partner, Steve Angello, previously invested in the company). The money will be used to help anotherblock scale globally and make its product available to a wider range of artists, producers and record companies.
Seeker Music has acquired the masters and publishing catalog of Charlotte Caffey — lead guitarist, keyboardist and primary songwriter for The Go-Go’s. Caffey wrote some of the group’s biggest hits, including their breakthrough song, “We Got the Beat,” as well as “Head Over Heels,” “Vacation,” “How Much More” and “Turn To You.” Caffey has also written songs for artists including Keith Urban (“But for the Grace of God”) and her Go-Go’s bandmate Belinda Carlisle, as well as songs for film and TV including the theme song for the Clueless TV series. The deal was brokered by veteran record executives Michael Rosenblatt and David Simone.
300 Entertainment has partnered with Florida-based imprint Remain Solid, founded by manager and executive 100k Track, for a label joint venture. The first artist signed under the deal is Brooklyn-based rapper BreezyLYN, who released the remix to her single, “Bad Bitches” featuring Lola Brooke and Kali, earlier this month.
Songtradr announced a partnership with TikTok around the video-sharing platform’s Commercial Music Library. Under the deal, Songtradr is now a certified “Subscription Sound Partner,” supplying music for the Commercial Music Library, which gives businesses, organizations and creators access to pre-licensed, rights-safe music for organic content and paid advertising.
Music technology companies Tuned Global and Revelator struck a partnership that will allow digital service providers and other Tuned Global customers to enable artists to mint and distribute music releases as NFTs directly on Web2 streaming platforms using Revelator’s Web3 tech. “These NFTs will coexist with traditional streamed music, enabling fans to enjoy digital collectibles and actively engage with token gated content, while providing artists with blockchain-based payment opportunities through smart contracts,” according to a press release announcing the deal. Added Revelator CEO/founder Bruno Guez: “This partnership lets music lovers collect NFTs in fan-friendly ways where they are already experiencing music. Fans won’t need to mess with wallets or special Web3 players, or even leave their favorite music platform. They’ll pay with a credit card. This access and ease will open up new revenue streams for artists, as more fans jump in.”
AI music startup AudioShake announced a $2.7 million seed funding round led by Indicator Ventures, with participation from Precursor Ventures and Side Door Ventures. Also taking part in the round are Metallica-backed Black Squirrel Partners, AJR, Google’s Black Angel Group, peermusic, Audius CEO Roneil Rumburg, S-Curve Records CEO Steve Greenberg and Crush Ventures, the venture arm of Crush Music, among others. Audioshake’s B2B deep learning technology deconstructs audio into stems so that they can be made available for new uses across music, film, dubbing, transcription, synthetic voice and more. The company has worked with departments from all three major labels as well as publishers including Primary Wave, Hipgnosis, Spirit, peermusic, Concord, Downtown and Reservoir.
Unitea, a Miami-based engage-to-earn music platform, has raised a seed round of $7 million led by 1st Class Guernsey, Chaos Capital and Fuel Venture Capital. The funds will be used to further expand the platform’s capabilities within the music industry and beyond. The platform allows users to share music and create content to earn digital tokens, called Karma, that can be redeemed for exclusive rewards including custom digital assets, concert tickets and artist meet-and-greets. The company’s board of directors includes Pitbull and Claude VonStroke.
Freshsound, a self-serve licensing platform for commercially released music, closed a €2 million ($2.17 million) seed funding round that will support the company as it seeks to expand internationally while continuing to grow in the Nordic market. The new investment comes less than a year after the company’s pre-seed funding round worth €1.3 million ($1.41 million). The latest investment round was led by Zenith Venture Capital and Aligned. Founded in 2021 by Stevie Gyasi and Sara Larsson, Freshsound boasts a dynamic pricing model that gives clients instant quotes for any use and the ability to license their music for commercial purposes.
CD Baby and creator copyright protection platform Cosynd have expanded their existing partnership with the integration of Cosynd’s Copyright Registration API into the CD Baby platform, which allows artists to register copyrights and establish legal ownership over their work.
Music, entertainment and technology platform LiveOne struck an exclusive content distribution deal with OTT Studio, a streaming technology platform and connected TV (CTV) app publisher. Under the deal, LiveOne will serve as OTT Studio’s exclusive music streaming provider, delivering LiveOne’s 600 radio stations via OTT’s Music Plus application. The agreement will expand the distribution of LiveOne’s audio and entertainment content to an additional 47 million CTVs in North America via LG’s webOS and Vizio’s SmartCast platforms.
SiriusXM announced a multi-year extension and expansion of their services agreement with Mercedes-Benz, under which the automaker is expected to make the installation of SiriusXM a standard feature on Mercedes-Benz models available in the United States, starting with model year 2024 vehicles. SiriusXM’s “most advanced audio entertainment experience,” SiriusXM with 360L, is also expected to be included in future Mercedes-Benz models, according to a press release.
Lyric licensing and data solutions company LyricFind signed an agreement with GEMA, Germany’s mechanical and performance rights society, in a further expansion of LyricFind’s international footprint.
Last year, Pandora started to get suspicious about the streaming activity of a prominent act. “This is a top artist by every measure,” George White, senior vp of music licensing at SiriusXM and Pandora, said during a panel at the Music Biz conference in Nashville on Wednesday (May 17). Some of the interest from Pandora users was clearly genuine. But at the same time, the platform picked up “abnormalities” — “lots of quick skips,” White noted, and “very unusual ratios of radio listening to premium listening” — along with “social media sites actively posting tutorials for how to game the Pandora system and teaching potential users how to drive those streams even higher.”
“This is challenging and more difficult to detect because it’s under a background of legitimate activity,” White continued. And he said that Pandora is seeing more of this type of behavior around “established artists.”
White was one of 11 different speakers across a two-hour, three-panel fraud extravaganza — which covered a lot of ground, jumping from bot farms all the way to thieves falsely claiming publishing ownership on songs to collect money that belongs to someone else — at Music Biz. The tone stayed upbeat, though the message was glum and occasionally paranoia-inducing, with lots of talk about cybercriminals hacking into the accounts of innocent unsuspecting users for nefarious purposes.
“We’ve been seeing lately that as technology advances, the fraud is supercharged,” said Mona Simonian, a partner at the entertainment law firm Pryor Cashman. It’s important that “people start really recognizing how much money is at stake here,” she added. And as Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google’s former “click fraud czar” (real title: head of global product for trust and safety), put it: “It’s always a little bit scary before you get your arms around the problem.”
While some panels stay general, these three sessions (an interview with Ghosemajumder about the ubiquity of fraud, “52 Flavors of Fraud,” and “Fraud Use Cases: What Can We Do?”) brought some hard numbers to a fraud conversation that often remains frustratingly diffuse, because the behavior is difficult to quantify. White had his Pandora case study. And Andrew Batey, co-founder and co-CEO of the fraud detection company Beatdapp, came armed with numerous examples and a boatload of graphs.
There was the account that recorded 33,500 plays in one week. (“The average user has a few hundred to a thousand plays a week,” Batey said.) There was the user with 96 devices “playing from 47 cities in 17 countries in the same week,” a geographical impossibility for even the most devoted jet-setter. There was the group of thousands of accounts all targeting the same songs with 155-ish plays a week, and the batch of 53,000 accounts playing around a dozen acts to camouflage the one artist whose numbers they’re actually trying to inflate.
If this behavior continues undetected, it represents “billions [of dollars] that are being sucked out of this industry,” Batey said. This sentiment was echoed by Christine Barnum, chief revenue officer of CD Baby: Fraudsters are “diluting the pool for everyone.” (She spoke about ways for companies to improve their fraud detection capabilities on a budget, including using ChatGPT to help write programs that can detect anomalous activity.)
Why the upbeat mood, despite the grim news? For years, many music executives, especially in the United States, were unwilling to publicly acknowledge that fraud was a problem. The fact that there was a 120-minute block — enough time to watch two episodes of Succession, quipped Beatdapp co-founder and co-CEO Morgan Hayduk — devoted to the topic at a major music business conference is indicative of an attitude shift. “I’m so happy there’s a room full of people talking about fraud,” Barnum said.
White was similarly optimistic. While recent studies have concluded that around 80% of fraud is financially motivated — grifters running bot networks to white noise recordings, for example, rather than the work of actual artists — White said, “We’ve seen enormous strides in identifying that [activity] really early.”
“I won’t say that’s in control; it’s an issue that requires ongoing investment,” he added. “But it’s at least something we feel like we have a handle on.”
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