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Downtown Music has launched a new royalties and financial services division called DR&FS, which will streamline all of its royalty services, accounting and payments systems, the company announced Tuesday (May 14). The division is an outgrowth of Curve Royalty Systems, a royalty processing platform acquired by Downtown in January 2023. Curve’s founder, Tom Allen, has been […]
Last year, Kanye West started looking for a distribution deal to release a new album. When Vultures 1, a full-length collaboration with Ty Dolla $ign, finally came out on Saturday, it was through FUGA — a business-to-business tech and distribution platform for labels — according to information available in YouTube’s content management system.
FUGA was not pleased, according to a company spokesperson. “Late last year, FUGA was presented with the opportunity to release Vultures 1,” the spokesperson said in a statement to Billboard. “Exercising our judgment in the ordinary course of business, we declined to do so.”
The spokesperson continued, “on Friday, February 9, 2024, a long-standing FUGA client delivered the album Vultures 1 through the platform’s automated processes, violating our service agreement. Therefore, FUGA is actively working with its DSP partners and the client to remove Vultures 1 from our systems.”
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A rep for West did not respond to a request for comment.
When West began hunting for a new distributor, some potential partners passed on the chance to work with him due to the rapper’s antisemitic comments. Others’ interest diminished when they found out that streaming services might not support the album.
The lead single from Vultures 1, “Vultures,” was distributed by Label Engine, a company owned by Create Music Group, according to information in YouTube’s CMS. The follow-up, “Talking/Once Again,” was also delivered last week by Label Engine. The album was subsequently delivered by FUGA.
FUGA’s plan to remove Vultures 1 from its platform is just the latest hiccup for the album. Its release was repeatedly delayed. After it came out, on Wednesday, the track “Good (Don’t Die)” was removed from Spotify after a complaint from Donna Summer’s estate.
“Kanye West… asked permission to use Donna Summer’s song I Feel Love, he was denied… he changed the words, had someone re sing it or used AI but it’s I Feel Love… copyright infringement!!!” the estate wrote in an Instagram Story on the official Donna Summer account on Saturday.
A new social action platform, ShowUp, wants to make it easy for artists to integrate activism into album releases, touring strategies and other components of their work.
Launching Monday (Aug. 28), ShowUp connects artists with organizations supporting the causes they care about in order to create, support and scale activism in the music industry. The platform is currently linked with more than 300 hand-selected nonprofit organizations across climate justice, social justice, women’s rights, LGBTQ activism and more. (Using a broader search, users can access more than 1.7 million international organizations.)
ShowUp will be activated by artists as the demand for projects that incorporate activism grows within the industry and among fans. This connection to artists is being facilitated by ShowUp’s partners at launch: ADA Worldwide, Downtown, EMPIRE, The Orchard and Symphonic Distribution.
“Ultimately, ShowUp is an artist services tool, and collectively our partners act as a broadcast point for us to over 100,000 artists and growing,” says ShowUp co-founder/CEO Mat Hall. “ShowUp provides timely and forward-thinking, actionable information and tools to our partners to inform and activate artists.”
Hall continues, “How can artists help our neighbors in Maui? What local organizations can artists support during Hispanic Heritage Month? How can an artist support women’s reproductive health in Mississippi? The teams and leaders we work with daily at our partners help us identify artists across their roster interested in this work and help shape the campaigns we create.”
ShowUp also makes it possible for qualifying artists to select an organization to dedicate a portion of their royalties to via a new release or catalog track. Admin for this function happens seamlessly through existing split-share technology on each partner’s backend.
ShowUp will also provide artists with data regarding who gave what, where and when so that artist teams can identify the activism-oriented segments of their fanbases.
“Our goal isn’t to turn every artist into an activist,” says Hall. “This work isn’t for everyone. However, we do want to make sure that any artist practicing activism, or who may be inclined to do so, has the tools and support so that, when they decide to speak out about what’s important to them, their message reaches the broadest possible audience and drives the greatest financial impact possible to the communities and concerns they are supporting.”
Hall adds that this goal makes label and distribution partners essential to ShowUp’s work.
“Providing a scalable platform for artists to raise awareness and engagement while delivering impactful, measurable results for causes they support enhances our value proposition in meaningful ways,” The Orchard president/COO Colleen Theis adds in a press release. “We are proud to partner with ShowUp to make advocacy and fundraising integral components of The Orchard’s client offering.”
“We all know ‘why’ this work is imperative, but many of us get lost at ‘what’ and ‘how,’” added ADA Worldwide president Cat Kreidich. “ShowUp helps answer these questions, and has been a valuable and practical starting point for our artists and teams as we all consider our potential for impact.”
Added Downtown Music Holdings chief commercial officer Tracy Maddux: “Activism is becoming an increasingly important part of how creators interact with their audience and the world around them. ShowUp provides them a platform to do this authentically and effectively and Downtown is a proud partner in helping make their voices heard.”
“Integrating the ShowUp platform allows our artists to seamlessly support the things that matter to them,” said EMPIRE chief product officer Stephen White. “When artists make these commitments, our artist teams have an incredibly powerful new marketing tool that not only drives advocacy and fundraising, but new channels of fan and streaming engagement. Everyone benefits.”
Downtown Music continues to reconfigure its business with the appointment of Emily Stephenson as its new president of publishing and Jedd Katrancha as chief commercial officer. Along with the new leaders, global president of Downtown Music Services, Mike Smith, has stepped down “to pursue several personal projects and to focus on his ongoing charitable work,” according to a press release. News of the leadership shuffle arrives just over a week after the company’s CEO, Andrew Bergman, wrote a letter to Downtown staff announcing a second round of layoffs, citing the “reorganization” of the company. Stephenson, who most recently served as the division’s vp of business operations, will now oversee all publishing efforts at Downtown Music, including client acquisition and business development, A&R, rights management and client services for the group’s publishing companies: Downtown Music Publishing, Songtrust and Sheer. She will be joined in these efforts by Jedd Katrancha, who was promoted to chief commercial officer of publishing. Katrancha will oversee business development, A&R and synch for Downtown’s publishing companies. – Kristin Robinson
ASCAP announced the 12 writer and 12 publisher members elected to serve on its board of directors for a two-year term beginning Saturday (April 1). In addition to ASCAP president/chairman of the board Paul Williams, writer members re-elected in the at-large field include composer/songwriter Jon Batiste; composer Richard Bellis; composer Bruce Broughton; songwriter/producer Desmond Child; composer Sharon Farber; writer vice chair composer Dan Foliart; songwriter/composer Michelle Lewis; composer/producer Marcus Miller; songwriter Jimmy Webb; and composer Doug Wood. Composer Alex Shapiro was re-elected in the symphonic and concert field. Meanwhile, the newly elected publisher director is Jon Singer (Spirit Music), while the publisher directors re-elected in the at-large field are Peter Brodsky (Sony Music Publishing); Bob Bruderman (Kobalt); Marti Cuevas (Mayimba Music); Keith Hauprich (BMG US); Dean Kay (Lichelle Music Company); Evan Lamberg (Universal Music Publishing Group); Leeds Levy (Leeds Music); Carianne Marshall (Warner Chappell Music); Mary Megan Peer (peermusic); and publisher vice chair Irwin Z. Robinson (Cromwell Music). James M. Kendrick of European American Music was re-elected in the symphonic and concert field.
Katie Soo was named chief business officer at live event ticketing platform DICE; she joins from educational subscription platform KiwiCo, where she served as chief marketing officer and remains as an advisor. In her role, Soo will oversee DICE’s consumer marketing, business-to-business marketing, fan experience, brand and creative, new growth initiatives and social and communications teams.
[PIAS] appointed Tom Keil as global head of dance and electronic/executive vp of A&R. Based in London, Keil joins the company from Ultra Music in Europe, where he served as general manager/vp of A&R. He can be reached at tom.keil@pias.com.
Business-to-business music and streaming solutions provider Tuned Global announced the hire and promotion of six team members to “supercharge” its business in Europe, according to a press release. Jonas Norberg, founder of DJ artificial intelligence company Pacemaker, was named the company’s head of AI and brings two members of his Pacemaker team with him: co-founder/chief technology officer Daniel Wallner and product development director Victor Garcia. Also hired were Daniel Kirby (as presales technical consultant) and Mateus Moura (as customer success manager), who will both work with Tuned Global’s senior vp/head of EMEA Rick Gleave to provide customers with technical support and insights. Lastly, Virginie Chelles was promoted to vp/head of marketing & communications; now located in France, she will work to boost the company’s growth in the territory.
Sounds and samples marketplace Splice hired Kevin Stewart as senior vp of engineering and David Ericksen as senior vp of product. Both will report to Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava. Stewart joins from Harvest and Ericksen joins from Adobe.
Good Company Entertainment — the firm that manages Jake Owen and Daves Highway and also boasts the independent label GCE Records — added Anna Schaeffer, Amy Jackson, Parker Fowler and Liz Sledge to the team. Schaeffer joins as manager of art direction and social media strategies, Jackson (formerly at UMG) joins as manager of marketing & consumer strategies, Fowler (formerly at Triple Tigers) joins as associate manager and Sledge joins as executive director of the Jake Owen Foundation. Schaeffer can be reached at anna@goodcompanyent.com, Jackson can be reached at amy@goodcompanyent.com, Fowler can be reached at parker@goodcompanyent.com and Sledge can be reached at liz@jakeowenfoundation.org.
Charlotte Bwana was promoted to vp of marketing and brand strategy at Audiomack, where she will lead the execution of brand strategies and oversee promotional initiatives across Africa. She can be reached at charlotte@audiomack.com.
The Alliance for Women Film Composers elected new leadership and a new board, with Heather McIntosh and Allyson Newman elected co-presidents of the organization. They succeed Catherine Joy, who has served as president since 2021. Elsewhere, Esin Aydingoz was elected secretary and Thomas Mikusz was elected treasurer. The remainder of the board is comprised of Joy, Alexandra Petkovski, Chanda Dancy, Connor Cook, Daisy Coole, Ghiya Rushidat, Jenna Fentimen, Laura Karpman, Lili Haydn, Lolita Ritmanis, Mandy Hoffman, Nami Melumad, Starr Parodi and Stephanie Economou. The executive director is Raashi Kulkarni. The alliance also created the position of vp of outreach and inclusion and appointed Sharon Farber to fill the role.
Entertainment business management firm FBMM promoted Regina A. Bassett, Fred Ford, Jeff Jones and Emily Walker to associate business managers.
Shore Fire Media promoted four across the public relations agency’s New York-based teams. Ailie Orzak and Victorie Selce have each been elevated to account executive positions, while Mary Claire “MC” Miskell and Rachel Jacobs were upped to junior account executives.
Downtown Music Holdings announced layoffs across the company’s CD Baby, Downtown Music Publishing, Songtrust, and Downtown Music Holdings (DMH) divisions on Wednesday (March 22).
Downtown Music Holdings chief executive Andrew Bergman emailed staff early Wednesday to share the news. Notably, many of the lay offs affect those working in publishing roles. Neither the email, which was obtained by Billboard, nor a company representative would confirm how many jobs were affected.
Bergman also noted in the email that there are also “a number of cost-saving measures… underway” already at Downtown apart from the reduction in team size. The Downtown rep also declined to explain what these measures were.
The email labels this downsizing as “reorganization” that “harmonizes the past several years of strategic investments and divestitures.” As detailed in a recent Billboard profile of the firm, Downtown pivoted from a traditional publishing firm with 145,000 songs in its catalog to selling off all intellectual property in favor of repositioning as a service-focused company instead.
To further bolster their service offerings, in the last few years Downtown acquired CD Baby, FUGA, AdRev, Soundrop and DashGo, and then last September announced the combination many of its B2B services under the name “Downtown Music.” Downtown Music now includes staff from FUGA, Downtown Neighbouring Rights, AdRev and Downtown Music Services artist, label services and publishing administration units.
In October, Billboard reported that Downtown’s CD Baby and Soundrop had laid off 28 employees, citing “economic conditions” and “uncertain times” in a company-wide email from chief people officer Love Whelchel.
“This reorganization harmonizes the past several years of strategic investments and divestitures, better positioning us for the future by aligning our talent, resources, technology and services to meet the evolving needs of the music community while at the same time taking into account this period of economic uncertainty,” said a Downtown rep in a statement.
Read the full email to Downtown Music Holdings’ staff below:
Team,
Today we’re sharing some difficult news with all of you. Downtown’s management team has made the decision to reduce the size of our team in certain areas of the organization, specifically CD Baby, Publishing, Songtrust and DMH. Later this morning, we will be meeting with those employees and informing them that their roles will be impacted.
Along with reducing our team size overall and a number of cost-saving measures we have underway, we hope to be able to offer and place some impacted members of our team in other positions within Downtown that will give them a chance to apply their skills and expertise in new ways.
This reorganization harmonizes the past several years of strategic investments and divestitures, better positioning us for the future by aligning our talent, resources, technology and services to meet the evolving needs of the music community while at the same time taking into account this period of economic uncertainty.
We are committed to continuing to communicate about our plans, our business performance, and the results of these changes and remain accountable to all of you for the improvements and the long-term health and strength of our work at Downtown.
Our management, people, operations, legal and communications teams have made every effort to manage this process with as much thoughtfulness, consideration and empathy as possible. We will be meeting with all of you in the coming days to share more directly, plans for each division and will be ready to answer any questions you may have.
Sincerely,
AB
Additional Reporting by Dan Rys
Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) appointed Shirin Foroutan as senior vp and GM of Universal Music Publishing Europe, succeeding Simon Baker — who will continue in a senior management capacity at the company — in the role. Based in London, Foroutan will work closely with the company’s European managing directors as well as C-suite leadership in Santa Monica while reporting to UMPG COO Marc Cimino. She was previously vp of creative at BMI.
Downtown Music Holdings promoted Manan Vohra to chief technology officer, Harmen Hemminga to vp of product and services strategy and Gareth Mellor to vp of global marketing and communications. The Amsterdam-based Vohra was previously chief technology officer at Downtown subsidiary FUGA but will now lead product and technology strategy for the parent company. Also based in Amsterdam, Hemminga’s new role is an elevation from his previous role of head of partnerships and strategic projects at FUGA. In his new position, he will be responsible for identifying and creating strategic product, services and business tracks within the Downtown Music vertical. Mellor’s previous role was also based at FUGA, where he worked as global head of B2B. He will now oversee the marketing efforts for Downtown’s portfolio of businesses.
Decentralized music community and discovery platform Audius named Shamal Ranasinghe chief business officer, a newly created role. Ranasinghe will oversee the company’s relationships with the music industry, taking the lead in developing new innovations as well as reporting, analytics and other tools to empower artists, labels and rightsholders. He arrives at Audius from SiriusXM/Pandora, where he served as vp of product management, catalog and creators. He has been an advisor to Audius since 2018.
Wasserman Music promoted seven members of its global team to agents. They include responsible agents Eli Gelernter, Logan Handelsman, Lindsay McDowell and Yitzi Peetluk; fairs & festivals agent Jess Bumsted; and tour marketers Mary Kate Carragher and Kaela Ismael. Elsewhere, Sara Pullman was elevated to vp of operations and Chappel McCollister was upped to senior vp of business development. Gelernter can be reached at egelernter@teamwass.com, Handelsman can be reached at lhandelsman@teamwass.com, McDowell can be reached at lmcdowell@teamwass.com, Peetluk can be reached at ypeetluk@teamwass.com, Bumsted can be reached at jess.bumsted@teamwass.com, Carragher can be reached at mcarragher@teamwass.com, Ismael can be reached at kismael@teamwass.com, Pullman can be reached at spullman@teamwass.com and McCollister can be reached at cmccollister@teamwass.com.
Prescription Songs/Amigo Records GM Ashlee Gibbs was promoted, adding director of operations to her title. In her expanded role, Gibbs will oversee administration of the company’s offices in Los Angeles and Nashville. She can be reached at ashlee@prescriptionsongs.com.
The Syndicate promoted Amy Tremmel to senior vp of marketing & events, Brendan Bourke to vp of publicity and Joe McGinnis to vp of radio promotion. Tremmel can be reached at amy@thesyn.com, Bourke can be reached at brendan@thesyn.com and McGinnis can be reached at joe@thesyn.com. All three work out of the company’s Weehawken, New Jersey office.
Mayowa Arogundade was named creative director at multidisciplinary media company EVGLE, which houses a record label, production company, clothing brand, publishing division and investment arm. In the role, Arogundade will lead EVGLE’s big-picture initiatives, creating a strategy and brand imprint for the company. He has worked with Roc Nation, Red Bull Records, OVO Sound, Kelly Rowland, Saweetie and more. Arogundade can be reached at mayowa.a@evglemusic.com.
Warner Music Nashville promoted Brianna “Bri” Small to director of digital content strategy & partnerships, a newly created role spanning the interactive, publicity and business development departments. Claire Russo was promoted from coordinator of interactive marketing to fill Small’s previous role of manager of interactive marketing.
Music and technology company Too Lost opened a Hollywood office to better serve its expanding client base on the West Coast and hired Aldo Davalos to serve as the company’s new head of business development. Davalos, formerly the head of A&R at Dim Mak Records and Publishing, was most recently on Migos‘ management team. Elsewhere, former Create Music Group executive Dan Mody was named head of A&R and Courtney Young (Create Music Group, Dim Mak Records) has been named head of label services; both will work out of the Hollywood office. Additionally, Too Lost hired Conner Davis to serve on its leadership team out of the company’s New York City headquarters. Davis was previously at beatBread and Universal Music Group.
Nick Barrie was hired as talent buyer at The Bellwether, a 1,600-capacity venue from Another Planet Entertainment and Michael Swier of Teragram Presents that’s slated to open in Downtown Los Angeles this spring. Barrie will lead a team charged with bringing a variety of music and entertainment to the venue, described as a music room, private event space and restaurant/bar. He’s worked for Another Planet since 2005 when he was hired as a security guard at the company’s San Francisco venue The Independent. Barrie can be reached at Nick@thebellwetherla.com.
Independent publisher Minds on Fire hired Tom Currie as A&R manager. Based in London, Currie will sign new talent and bring creative and promotional opportunities to the company’s existing songwriter roster. He was most recently head of DJ promotions at music promotions company Your Army. Currie can be reached at Tom@mindsonfire.co.uk.
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