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BERLIN — GEMA, the German performing rights organization (PRO), today sued OpenAI for copyright infringement in Munich regional court, alleging that the technology company used without permission lyrics from songs to which GEMA licenses rights. This makes GEMA the first PRO to file such a lawsuit, although it controls some rights that U.S. societies do not. This also seems to be the first case involving only lyrics; the case does not involve recordings. In its announcement, GEMA described the suit as a “model action,” aimed at clarifying copyright law in Germany, and potentially all of Europe.
Since OpenAI offers copyrighted song lyrics in response to prompts, GEMA is alleging that the company trained its software on song lyrics that it has the rights to license, so it is suing the company for violations of the making available and reproduction right. (Making available is a right under European law that in this case is roughly analogous to the right of public performance, or in this case public display. It’s also alleging two infringing reproductions – one to ingest the lyrics for training purposes and another when they are output.) In the U.S., PROs do not control mechanical rights, so they would not have the standing to file such a lawsuit.
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So far, most of the music business lawsuits involving AI companies have been over the ingestion of recordings, although that by definition would also involve the underlying compositions. But OpenAI is already facing a considerable amount of litigation, including a putative class action from authors, a lawsuit from The New York Times, and one each from online publishers and other newspapers. The issue in the U.S. is whether or not copying to train an AI qualifies as a “fair use” exception to copyright law. The record label cases against Suno and Udio will involve the same principle.
European copyright law provides “exceptions and limitations” to copyright, rather than fair use, and the 2019 Copyright Directive allows text and data mining unless rightsholders opt-out. In this case, however, GEMA has opted out for all of the works it licenses. (GEMA does not license the lyrics for all the songs in its repertoire, but the lawsuit involves ones for which it does.) This lawsuit aims to clarify the law, and it has the support of some big German songwriters, as well as their publishers.
“Our members’ songs are not free raw material for generative AI systems providers’ business models,” said GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmüller in a statement. “Anyone who wants to use these songs must acquire a license and remunerate the authors fairly. We have developed a license model for this. We are taking and will always take legal action against unlicensed use.”
The lawsuit comes as rightsholders around the world are becoming more concerned about how AI will affect the value of their works, as well as how they should be compensated for how it is trained. At the end of September, GEMA presented a licensing model for generative AI software that would compensate songwriters and publishers. It has also sent letters to AI companies stating they must license GEMA works in order to use them.
Since OpenAI both operates servers and makes content available in Germany, it will presumably have to operate according to German law. This seems clearer than the U.S. system, where fair use often involves considerable uncertainty. However, European countries do not offer rightsholders the opportunity to collect damages as high as they can get in the U.S.
A representative for OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment.
SXM Music Festival will bring a sprawling crew of artists back to the beaches and hilltops of Saint Martin for the festival’s eighth edition in March.
The lineup for the 2025 fest includes house music pioneer Danny Tenaglia, techno globetrotter Nicole Moudaber, Afrohouse phenom Francis Mercier, U.K. progressive house stars CamelPhat, German house/techno legend Amê, house producer Layla Benitez and a crew of other house and techno artists from around the world, with additional artists to be announced in the coming months.
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The five-day fest, happening March 12-16, will also feature showcases from Defected Records, Israeli label Frau Blau and the New York label Indo Warehouse.
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Presale tickets for SXM 2025 go on sale Nov. 14, with general tickets going on sale the following day.
Founded by Julian Prince, SXM has happened on St. Martin since 2016 and typically draws attendees from more then 35 countries. The 2025 edition of the festival will once again take place in locations around the island, including a private villa, a Sunday morning sunrise party on the beach, and the annual Panorama Party that happens on the island’s highest hilltop. The event will also offer day trips including hikes and cultural excursions.
In 2017, after the island was devastated by Hurricane Irma — which left an estimated 95% of the French side of the island destroyed — SXM organizers collected more than $38,000 for the relief effort. The event was one of the few festivals to happen in 2020 before the pandemic shut down the live events space, and after a postponed 2021 event also due to the pandemic, returned to Saint Martin in 2022.
Along with music and partying, SXM focuses on leaving a small footprint and helping replenish the area’s natural environments via initiatives that include going paperless, saving energy with LED and solar lights, and eliminating plastic waste throughout the festival.
See the phase one lineup below:
SXM Festival
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Tencent Music Entertainment reported a 35% uptick in profit on Tuesday after the Chinese music streamer added 2 million subscribers over the third quarter.
TME reported net profit for the third quarter of RMB1.71 billion ($244 million), and total revenues of RMB7.02 billion ($1 billion)–increases of 35.3% and 6.8% respectively from the third quarter last year. Music subscription revenue grew by more than 20%, which offset the continued decline in social entertainment services revenue TME has seen for more than a year.
“This quarter’s robust music subscription performance, with better-than-expected net subscriber additions and an expanding ARPPU, highlights the effectiveness of our balanced approach to achieve growth, which is important to drive paying user base expansion in the coming years,” TME’s chief executive officer Ross Liang said in a statement.
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TME added 2 million new paying users during the third quarter to bring its total number of subscribers to 119 million, which drove a 4.9% expansion of the company’s monthly average revenue per paying user (ARPPU). That metric now stands at RMB 10.8 ($1.50). Music subscriptions revenue grew to RMB3.84 billion ($547 million) representing 20.3% year-over-year growth.
The company’s gross margin — the percentage of company revenue that remains after expenses are taken out — rose to 42.6% from 35.7% in the year-ago quarter, thanks to increased revenues from subscriptions and advertising.
Notably, TME said its number of SVIP subscribers — a premium tier that costs five times more than the regular version — topped 10 million in the quarter ending Sept. 30.
Tencent Music executives said partnering with Galaxy Corporation this quarter for K-pop icon G-Dragon upcoming tour boosted its content offerings with audiences.
G-Dragon released his first single in seven years, “POWER,” in October ahead of his tour of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.
TME’s stock was trading at $10.46, down 9.48% at 10:25 a.m. in New York. TME’s stock has declined by nearly 18% in the past month, but is still up 19.7% year to date.
Dua Lipa will not perform in Jakarta on Saturday due to what the singer is calling “a safety issue with the staging.” On Friday (Nov. 8), the pop star posted a message on her Instagram Story saying that “I am heartbroken to share that I won’t be performing in Jakarta this Saturday, November 9. I […]
Billionaire hedge funder and Universal Music Group board member Bill Ackman called for UMG to move its stock listing and legal headquarters to the United States from Amsterdam after violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans overnight in the Dutch capital. Amsterdam’s Mayor Femke Halsema said fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were attacked and “pelted with […]
At the end of the summer, A$AP Rocky released a music video that quickly took over the internet. The video for the song “Tailor Swif” was described as a surreal dream journey. However, anyone familiar with Soviet art, lifestyle, fashion, cinematography and aesthetics will notice many interesting references in the work. The video was filmed in Kyiv, Ukraine, just months before the war began. A particularly intriguing aspect is that the production company behind the video, shelter.film, is based in Kyiv. The company is co-founded and led by Albert Zurashvili, who is from Georgia. It’s even more notable that shelter.film now operates out of Georgia, continuing to work on numerous international projects.
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Recently, shelter.film received several prestigious awards for A$AP Rocky’s music video at the renowned Ciclope Festival. The project was among the winners in five categories, including the Grand Prix in the music video category.
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Billboard Georgia interviewed Albert Zurashvili, who shared insights about shelter.film and the experience working on A$AP Rocky’s “Tailor Swif” video. shelter.film was founded five years ago in Kyiv, with a vision established by Zurashvili. He explains that the talented professionals, who are now part of the shelter.film team, helped him bring this vision to life. Today, Gena Shevchenko and Marina Karmolit are his partners, and together they manage shelter.film. The company launched on April 1, a date that led many to believe it was a prank. “We were too busy launching the project to look at the dates,” says Zurashvili.
The core team at shelter.film consists of six members, and since its founding, it has grown into one of Ukraine’s most well-known production companies. Its international portfolio includes work for several leading brands, such as Chanel, Coca-Cola and Samsung. Now, shelter.film is operating worldwide with offices in Kyiv, Tbilisi and Brussels and is constantly exploring new horizons for their clients.
Despite its service-oriented business model, shelter.film is part of the creative industries, known for its innovative and artistic approach. In today’s advertising landscape, competition is incredibly fierce, with impressive videos being produced daily. Brands consistently launch creative campaigns that capture attention. Even in this competitive environment, shelter.film has carved out its own niche. A signature style runs through their work, showcasing that its creators treat advertising as a form of art. The shelter.film team aims to produce projects that leave a lasting impact on society.
“Shooting videos is generally not too complicated these days. But bringing it to storytelling within commercials with a high-end cinematography or just ripping eye-candy art is somewhat not as easy,” says Zurashvili.
According to him, the company strives to express its creativity. For shelter.film, the process is more than just completing tasks and delivering projects—it’s something that each team member truly enjoys.
“We are blessed to have the opportunity to get involved in socially impactful projects,” Zurashvili says. “We always support new names and evolving talents, as true progress in our industry lies in people, not just tools. Working in international markets these days, we are still getting top Ukrainian specialists involved in every project (physically or remotely) to keep those gems of people around and on track.”
As mentioned earlier, shelter.film has collaborated with many leading companies across various industries. Advertising projects, by their nature, consider numerous client briefs. When we asked how the shelter.film team manages to preserve the artistic value of each commercial video, Albert Zurashvili responded.
“It may sound tall, but we’re doing everything possible to avoid compromises,” he says. “We’re not overpromising but over delivering and never under budgeting. So we’re pretty straightforward about that — we can do it best within the budget line or not. No one wants failures, and we can foresee and avoid them. It’s not just a reputational risk – it’s actual damage for specialists and the image of the country on a global stage as a destination for films and celebrities. So we’re not choosing between commerce and art, I’d say. We’re creating commercial art.
“In recent decades, Ukraine has become a well-known destination for major brands and artists to film their best projects. For that to happen, service production companies collaborating with extremely skilled specialists have put years of sweat and passion into proving that this is the way to do it. After years of hard work and establishing the highest level of service in Eastern Europe, along with the most experienced crew, we started to see significant income for the country through all those worldwide projects. Many talented directors and other creative professionals are eager to bring their work to Ukraine or Georgia, as the level of achievement they attain and the excitement and involvement of the crews are just incredible.”
Marina Karmolit, Albert Zurashvili and Gena Shevchenko of shelter.film photographed for Billboard Georgia.
Ninutsa Kakabadze
Despite numerous high-budget commercials and various projects, one of shelter.film’s standout achievements is the A$AP Rocky music video. The concept for the video was developed by directors Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia, a duo renowned for their work with many stars of the global music scene, including Coldplay, as well as brands like Nike and Apple. Shelter.film has previously collaborated with these directors on various projects, including a Dua Lipa music video.
“It was a freestyle of developing and polishing the details of every scene on the go in a short-term and extra-confidential manner,” says Zurashvili. “Most of the crew coming to the set were unaware of who we were shooting for and were surprised when they arrived. A few weeks later, A$AP and his gang arrived in town, and we spent a few amazing days in Kyiv shooting this crazy project, doing all the tricks possible, and filming it on a Kodak 16mm camera. Working with film is always exciting, as you don’t see the final result until the material is developed and scanned. It was an unforgettable experience.
“No need to mention there were tons of negotiations that took us more than half a year of constant discussion, but it was definitely worth it. One of the highlights for us is that we involved an incredibly talented Ukrainian director of photography, Denys Lushchyk, in shooting this music video.”
In one of the scenes of A$AP Rocky’s music video, a famous scene from the 1977 film Mimino, by Georgian director Georgiy Daneliya, is brought to life. As Zurashvili explains, this decision was made by the directors. “It’s a fantastic reference from Georgiy Daneliya and I’m happy we have it there,” mentions Albert. According to him, A$AP Rocky was deeply involved during both the filming and post-production stages, and the entire team worked to a high professional standard.
For the shelter.film team, visual communication is an art form and a unique way of telling a story. This approach is consistent whether they are working on a commercial advertisement or a music video. “Every art form, even if it’s commercial, has a timestamp,” Zurashvili says. “All great stories should be told. Art is about freedom of expression. I appreciate any brands and artists brave enough to be on the cutting edge of history. The loudness of your voice brings power and responsibility to those who trust and follow you. Positive change can happen only where there is responsible, kind, and intelligent dialogue. As I said, we’re happy to have our role in it and always contribute with full responsibility.”
South Korean K-pop giant HYBE said its net profit basically evaporated in the third quarter and total revenue slipped 2% after after the company earned less from concerts and saw reduced music sales, according to results published on Tuesday (Nov. 5).
HYBE’s net profit for the third quarter was 1.444 billion won ($1.05 million), a figure 98.6% lower than the third quarter of 2023 when the company reported of 99,690 billion won ($72.3 million). Total revenue for the third quarter of 527.9 billion won ($382.6 million).
HYBE’s biggest release of the quarter was the debut album, SIS, from KATSEYE, a six-member girl group formed over the summer as part of The Debut: Dream Academy, which spent two weeks on the Billboard 200, the company said.
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HYBE’s direct revenue — which comes from its recorded music business, concerts, and things where artists are directly involved — fell by 15.5% to 323 billion won ($234 million). Revenue from its recorded music division declined by nearly 19% to 214.5 billion won ($155.5 million), while concert revenue fell nearly 15% to 74 billion won ($53.6 million). Revenue from ads and appearances rose by nearly 10% to 34.5 billion won ($25 million).
HYBE’s business lines that operate independently of their artists — like merchandising and sync licensing — performed much better, with revenue from artist-indirect involvement business lines rising by 32% to nearly 205 billion won ($148.5 million). Revenue from merchandise and licensing song rights rose by nearly 16% to 99 billion won ($71.9 million), contents revenue rose 64% to almost 80 billion won ($58 million) and fan club revenue rose by more than 23% to 26 billion won ($18.8 million).
The company’s operating profit margin saw significant improvement — up 4% — from the first quarter this year to 10.3% for the third quarter. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a measure of HYBE’s profit from its operations, fell by 16.4% to 81 billion won ($58.7 million).
HYBE has had an eventful few months. In July, the company appointed Jason Jaesang Lee as its new CEO and announced its “HYBE 2.0” growth strategy, which reorganizes the company, pushes a global expansion and focuses on tech-driven initiatives.
The company has also been embroiled in a dispute with Min Hee-jin, ex-CEO of the company’s label subsidiary ADOR — home to chart-topping girl group NewJeans — regarding HYBE’s claim that Min tried to take control of ADOR and NewJeans.
AXS, the AEG-owned ticketing company, on Nov. 4 announced the acquisition of a white-label ticketing company called white label eCommerce. The latter company, a Hamburg start-up founded in 2012 that has about 35 employees, currently sells tickets to festivals, sports events and some concerts, but not under its own name. White label eCommerce will become […]
Spinnin’ Records president Roger de Graaf is retiring, a representative for the label has confirmed to Billboard. De Graaf co-founded the Dutch label in 1999 alongside Eelko van Kooten, maneuvering it through several eras of electronic music and quickly evolving consumption models, from CDs to DSPs. “In the beginning, we wanted to become the No. […]
A new documentary series chronicling the rise and fall of Ace of Base, one of the biggest Swedish pop band exports of all time, following in the tradition of fellow Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers ABBA and Roxette, is coming this winter.
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Featuring unseen home movie footage and new interviews with members of the band, their business team, music executives, artists and cultural critics, Ace of Base: All That She Wants debuts in full Dec. 5 on Viaplay, a streaming service that hosts Nordic and European TV series and films.
The Swedish quartet — Ulf Ekberg and the siblings Jonas, Jenny and Malin Berggren — first saw success in America with “All That She Wants,” a No. 2 Hot 100 hit and Pop Airplay No. 1, but follow-up single “The Sign” rocketed them to the top of the Hot 100. It was a ubiquitous, era-defining, reggae-flavored dance-pop smash in the mid ‘90s, and remains the longest-leading No. 1 ever on the Pop Airplay chart (it dominated for 14 weeks in 1994).
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Ace of Base scored seven top 40 Hot 100 hits throughout the decade, including “Don’t Turn Around” (another Pop Airplay topper) from their U.S. debut album, The Sign, a repackaging of their European debut Happy Nation that topped the Billboard 200 when released by Arista. Naturally, Arista founder and industry legend Clive Davis is one of the interviewees in this docu-series, which also features sit-downs with Wyclef Jean, Nigerian-Swedish singer Dr. Alban (“It’s My Life”), the group’s manager, lawyer, A&R, bodyguard and one of their backup dancers to provide the full picture of their “warts-and-all” story. Ace of Base: All That She Wants also includes an interview with Billboard executive digital director Joe Lynch, i.e., the person writing this article.
In addition to their own hits, Ace of Base helped crack open the door for Swedish artists such as Robyn and The Cardigans to make inroads in the States — not to mention pop producers Denniz Pop and Max Martin, who would permanently shift the direction of commercial pop in America via their work with Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.
You can check out the trailer below and the full three-part documentary on Dec. 5.