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LONDON — Madison Square Garden’s plan for a “next generation” 21,500-capacity concert venue in London won another key endorsement this week when a planning committee approved the development, despite strong objections from residents and rival live events company AEG.
On Tuesday, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) granted MSG a 25-year advertising license subject to a five-year review. Now, London Mayor Sadiq Khan needs to approve the project — called MSG Sphere London — before work can begin. In rare instances, government ministers can also intervene and suspend planning applications.
New York-based Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG) first submitted plans for the venue in March of 2019. Since then, the company has encountered sustained opposition from councilors and residents who are concerned it will blight the area with noise and light pollution.
MSG is proposing to build the arena on a five-acre plot of land in Stratford, East London, adjacent to the Olympic Park and would be located just five miles away from the 20,000-capacity The O2 arena, the U.K.’s top grossing venue, which is operated by AEG.
The MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, under construction.
Courtesy Photo
The design of the MSG Sphere London mirrors the spherical crystal ball design of the MSG Sphere at The Venetian in Las Vegas — due to open later this year at a cost of $1.8 billion — and measures 90 meters (295 feet) tall by 120 meters (394 feet) wide. Its exterior will be covered in a programmable skin of more than one million LED lights, which will primarily be used for showing videos and advertising.
The LLDC had provisionally approved the venue last March, but the committee still needed to sign off on several aspects of the planning process, including MSG’s strategy for managing the Sphere’s controversial advertising display.
The proposed arena still doesn’t have a price tag, and MSG said in its most-recent quarterly earnings, filed in November, that there is no “definitive timeline” for its construction.
Opponents of the venue are calling on Khan to block the development. AEG says it was “dismayed” by the committee’s decision to give MSG Sphere London the go ahead.
“We call on the Mayor of London to uphold his election promise to do what’s best for Londoners, including the residents of [the London Borough of] Newham who are having this huge development forced on them, by directing refusal of the planning application,” AEG says in a statement.
AEG says MSG Sphere London’s LED illuminated exterior “was conceived for the heart of Las Vegas” and is “at a wholly unprecedented scale for London and totally out of keeping with the surrounding area.”
Campaign group StopMSGSphere, who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, and several local councilors have urged the Khan to quash the development, which would be MSG’s first venue outside of the United States.
Following the ruling, a spokesperson for MSG — whose portfolio includes New York’s Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the Forum in California — said the company ”remains committed to bringing MSG Sphere to London” and promised the venue would create “thousands of jobs and [generate] billions of pounds for the local, London and U.K. economy.”
MSG says it will provide blackout blinds to homes located within 150 meters (492 feet) of the new London arena and will run a telephone line for residents to register any complaints.
Should it get the go ahead, MSG Sphere London will be one of the U.K.’s biggest indoor concert venues with a scalable capacity of up to 17,500 seated, or 21,500 with a mixture of seated and standing. That exceeds the U.K.’s two biggest existing arenas, London’s The O2, which has a maximum capacity of 20,000, and Manchester’s AO Arena, which holds up to 21,000 people.
Construction is currently underway in Manchester on what will be the U.K.’s biggest indoor music venue, the 23,500-capacity Co-op Live being developed by the Oak View Group, which counts Harry Styles as an investor. It is set to open in December.
The Eastern European country of Belarus has adopted a law that essentially legalizes piracy of music and other forms of copyrighted entertainment, which could make it a hotbed for piracy well beyond its borders.
Under the law, which President Alexander Lukashenko approved in early January, copyrighted music, films and other audiovisual content originating from “unfriendly countries” can be used in Belarus without permission from rights holders.
The law doesn’t provide a list of “unfriendly countries.” But based on the Belarusian government’s previous statements, the legislation primarily targets Western nations, which slapped sanctions on Belarus following mass repressions of people for protesting the rigged presidential vote in 2020 and, more recently, because of Belarus’ support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Belarus has never been a major music market — it does not show up in the IFPI’s ranking of the 62 biggest markets — and the major global labels had traditionally run operations there from their Russian offices. Since the labels pulled out of Russia after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, they have also cut ties with Belarus. The country, which sits between Russia to the east and Ukraine to the south, backed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion last year by allowing Russia to launch part of its attack from Belarusian territory.
Despite its small stature in the music industry, analysts say that under the government’s piracy-permitting law Belarus could play an outsized role in spurring more global piracy.
“As Belarus is a very small music market — a rounding error in the global market — there will be little direct impact in terms of music revenues for western rights holders,” says Mark Mulligan, music analyst at MIDiA Research.
“What might be impactful though is whether piracy networks start to operate from Belarus, distributing globally but operating under the protection of Belarussian law.”
The music industry is already dealing with a spate of piracy networks based in Russia and surrounding countries that are distributing pirated content to other markets, sometimes on other continents. Among the best-known operations are the stream-ripping websites FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, run by Tofig Kurbanov, who reportedly lives in southern Russia.
More than two dozen record labels and the RIAA have pursued Kurbanov in the U.S. for copyright damages. Last February, a U.S. district judge in Alexandria, Va., approved an $82.9 million judgement against the Russian for circumventing YouTube’s anti-piracy measures and infringing copyrights of audio recordings. The court found that Kurbanov’s operation drew more than 300 million users from around the world to his sites in a single year. (Kurbanov says he plans to appeal.)
And in Brazil, Paulo Rosa, IFPI affiliate Pro Música’s president, told Billboard in 2021 that most of the fake streams being peddled to consumers in the South American country originate from hacker operations in Russia.
The Belarusian piracy law could nevertheless set an example for neighboring Russia, which for months has been considering a similar move to legalize copyrighted content from certain Western countries. Since the early 2000s, Russia has often followed the example of Belarus in strengthening authoritarian rule.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks during a press conference on December 19, 2022.
Contributor/GI
Before the war with Ukraine, Russia had the 13th-largest music market in 2020 with revenues of $328 million, a 58% bump from 2019; it was the fastest-growing market in the world in 2019 and 2020, according to the IFPI.
While Russia’s relations with the West are at their lowest point since Cold War, and many Western companies have left the country, the legalization of piracy would likely further isolate Russia — and could “set back the Russian music industry by decades,” one person at a global music company tells Billboard.
In recent years, Russia had made a substantial effort to shed its reputation as a place where piracy ran rampant. VK, the Russian analog of Facebook, which for years allowed users to share unlicensed music tracks on the platform, eventually cleaned up its act and signed license agreements with global majors a few years ago.
Now that the majors have left Russia, dozens of pirated albums have already been reappearing on VK, including recent releases from Taylor Swift (Midnights, on Universal Music Group’s Republic Records) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (Return of the Dream Canteen, on Warner Music Group’s Warner Records).
The legalization of piracy would certainly make it harder for Western streaming services to start operating in Russia again, says Mulligan. While Russia is still “earlier in its streaming development,” he says, “longer term it could become a significant market and at that stage Western rightsholders would want to ensure that their music is being paid for when it is being consumed at scale.”
New laws legalizing piracy would fly in the face of treaty commitments made by both Belarus and Russia. Both countries are signatories to the Berne Convention and other World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)-administered treaties.
“Suspending IP protection as Belarus is presently considering would violate its obligations under these WIPO treaties and would seriously dampen Belarus’ opportunities to become integrated into the global trade community and to secure [Most Favored Nation] status, or to further integrate with the [European Union], thus minimizing its economic opportunities in the long term,” says Neil Turkewitz, president of Turkewitz Consulting Group.
Also, “any actions legalizing piracy would destroy any chance of investment in local creative industries and would hurt local artists and their fans the most,” the IFPI tells Billboard in a statement. “Such actions would be in clear breach of international copyright law and trade agreements.”
Reservoir Media said on Thursday it signed publishing deals for the catalogs and future works of Indian rappers MC Altaf and D’Evil and the producer Stunnah Beatz.
The deals are the result of a 2020 joint venture launched by Reservoir and Gully Gang, the label and entertainment group founded by Indian hip-hop star DIVINE. Established to sign and develop talented new songwriters in India, Altaf, D’Evil and Stunnah Beatz’s songs have racked up more than half a billion streams, including on collaborations with DIVINE like “Mirchi” and “Disco Rap” and Gunehgar, an album released late last year.
Investments by music companies based in the United States in artists, publishers and distributors based in Asia and other emerging markets has been growing at a rapid clip in recent years, with the trend expected to grow in 2023 particularly in the area of catalog investment. Luminate cited the opportunities in emerging markets, driven by the continued growth of streaming subscriptions there, as one of the main reasons investor appetite for song catalogs is growing.
India is the 17th-ranked music market globally, and it generated revenues of $219 million in 2021, up 20% from 2020, with streaming revenue jumping 87%, according to IFPI’s Global Music Report.
Founded in 2007, Reservoir has made investing in emerging markets a key prong of its diversification strategy. With its partner PopArabia, an independent music company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, Reservoir acquired stakes in the Egyptian label 100COPIES, the Lebanese label and music publisher Voice of Beirut and signed publishing deals with Egypt’s Mohamed Ramadan, Lebanon’s Zeid Hamdan and Moroccan hip-hop star 7liwa.
Reservoir Founder and Chief Executive Officer Golnar Khosrowshahi said in a statement, “We’re proud to be ushering in these deals, which demonstrate Reservoir’s steadfast commitment to our ongoing emerging markets strategy. As we invest in these local acts and share them with global audiences, we are well-positioned to not only tap into their potential growth, but also help facilitate the flow of culture from East to West.”
Spek, Reservoir’s executive vice president of international and emerging markets and founder of PopArabia, described MC Altaf, D’Evil, and Stunnah Beatz as three artists “at the heart of some of India’s biggest rap music today.”
Chaitanya Kataria, Gully Gang chief executive officer, said he was “excited that (MC Altaf, D’Evil and Stunnah Beatz) will gain access to new global opportunities with support from Spek and Reservoir.”
Since Iranian uprisings against the country’s oppressive regime began last fall, one silver living is that the music of Iranian artists is being noticed and listened to by a global audience.
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Two of these artists, producers AIDA and Nesa Azadikhah, have curated Woman, Life, Freedom, a 12-song compilation of original electronic music from female Iranian artists released on Friday (Jan. 20) via Apranik Records, founded in 2022 as a response to the protests.
“Woman, Life, Freedom” is the slogan for this movement, which began upon the murder of 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, by the country’s morality police on Sep. 16, 2022. The global outpouring from around the globe in the wake of these protests have has found its way into all art forms, with music arguably at the forefront.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s punishment of its people through imprisonment, sentences and executions — including that of high-profile individuals such as rapper Toomaj Salehi — is motivating artists to create. Featuring female Iranian producers TK SarrSew, MENTRIX and Sharona Lico as well as AIDA and Azadikhah, Woman, Life, Freedom ranges in style from electro to breaks to techno, ambient and experimental. The tracks are bold and unapologetic, with topics and inspiration wholly tied to the current situation in Iran.
AIDA and Azadikhah represent the far ends of the Iranian population spectrum. AIDA is an Iranian producer living abroad, with her international perspective and strong roots to her ancestral country both reflected in her music. A DJ/producer who’s equally skilled in playing traditional Iranian instruments, Azadikhah lives in the capital city of Tehran, creating within the confines of a regime which believes in the silencing of women, particularly in song.
“The theme of this collection is power, defiance, and ferocity and can be heard across all of the tracks,” AIDA and Azadikhah share in a statement. “This is the energy with which Iranian women continue to push for freedom. We dream of a future where women and girls can openly and safely practice, grow, and shine within arts, especially electronic music.”
Proceeds from the not-for-profit compilation will benefit charities aimed at helping women who are struggling in Iran. The first of these Iran-based organizations specifically aids women and children recovering from domestic violence, addiction, homelessness and societal distress.
Listen to and purchase Woman, Life, Freedom via Bandcamp.
Brazilian powerhouse singer-songwriter Ludmilla has inked a new management deal with WK Entertainment and Central Sonora. The alliance arrives after she won a 2022 Latin Grammy for her album Numanice #2, and after making history as the first Afro-Latina artist to reach one billion streams on Spotify.
“[This deal] is a very important step in my career,” Ludmilla tells Billboard Español. “WK Entertainment/Central Sonora, together with my company Sem Querer Produções, will add structure and they will assist in enhancing my musical work, which is my focus. I am very happy and excited about this partnership and I am sure it will yield many results.”
Together, the teams will work to further amplify Ludmilla’s global artistic development. Central to this growth is Central Sonora’s CEO Cesar Figueiredo, who is leading this new stage in the artist’s career. He will oversee all management functions of the project. Walter Kolm, who is the founder and CEO of WK Entertainment and WK Records, will also provide support while helping develop key relations for Ludmilla’s continued growth.
“Ludmilla reflects the true sonority that exists in Brazil today. She is ready to conquer the world by exploring our Brazilian culture,” Figueiredo said in a statement shared with Billboard Español. “Our alliance began a few years ago as a friendship and has since blossomed, giving us the opportunity to finally work together professionally. It is truly an honor for me as a manager to represent a highly regarded and iconic artist such as Ludmilla.”
“This is a phase in my career that is very diverse and different from anything I’ve ever done, a phase that accompanies my current state and the work I propose, which has 100 per cent my truth and [aligned with] my artistic vein,” the artist adds.
With her propulsive pop and funk formula, Ludmilla has become a force to be reckoned with in her native Brazil and beyond. And her ever-expanding fan base further testifies her rise to prominence — she currently has 28.8 million followers on Instagram and 10.5 million on Twitter. The singer-songwriter navigates stylistic configurations with ease, whether she’s soulfully singing an R&B ballad (“Quem é Você”), spitting some funky carioca bars (“Tic Tac”) or charming listeners with sweet samba songs (“Maldivas”). Her gritty trap features equally intrigue, like on “Tanto Faz.”
“I think of funk as an agent of change, especially in the lives of so many peripheral people who don’t have opportunities,” she says. “Funk embraces and elevates, it makes is claim our place in the world.”
Ludmilla is poised to drop her next singles “Sou Má,” featuring funk MCs Tasha and Tracie, as well as “Nasci Pra Vencer” on Feb. 2. “The lyrics [to the latter trap song] tell my story, which is similar to the story of those who come from a place without [economic] gains, but with talent and hard work, we can reach places we never thought possible. It’s about me, but it’s also about others who I hope feel represented,” she says.
Last week, Billboard Español exclusively announced WK Record’s Brazilian operational expansion, which began quietly running last year. It will function to develop the careers of local talent with global appeal, while creating international opportunities for them.
“I am delighted to welcome Ludmilla to our family of artists and join her in this exciting new journey, in partnership with Central Sonora,” Kolm stated. “Our companies look forward to amplifying Ludmilla’s career around the world and to consolidate [her] position as one of Brazil’s top artists.”
Ludmilla is currently working on an eclectic album which, she mentions, will span genres like pop, R&B, funk, trap and more.
A court in India has ordered internet service providers to block access to 20 sites that were used to illegally download audio and video streams in India from platforms like YouTube, the IFPI says.
The civil ruling, published in the High Court of Delhi on Jan. 12, was the first such action in India to tackle the practice of stream-ripping, one of the country’s most rampant forms of piracy. The 20 blocked sites collectively received nearly half a billion visits last year from users based in India, according to the IFPI, which coordinated the action with the Indian Music Industry (IMI) on behalf of Sony Music India, Universal Music India and Warner Music India.
The labels told the court that the “rogue websites” were providing services in which copyrighted content on various platforms, primarily YouTube, could be downloaded in mp3 or mp4 format by copying the link in the space provided in the websites. Because the details of the websites’ real administrators are masked, the plaintiffs’ lawyer argued it would be impossible for them to pursue the websites in separate proceedings regarding individual copyrighted content.
Justice C Hari Shankar, who wrote the order, directed India’s government to issue a notification calling upon the various Internet service providers to block access to the websites in India. (The court order reviewed by Billboard says there are 18 defendants, but IFPI says the decision targets 20 infringing websites and more than 50 urls.)
In India, websites are regularly blocked on the basis of copyright infringement using Section 69A of the Information and Technology Act 2000 (as amended in 2008), Information Technology Rules 2009 and civil procedure rules, the IFPI tells Billboard.
“We welcome this decision and the strong message it sends to operators of stream ripping sites, wherever they may be based, that we are prepared to take the appropriate action against them,” Frances Moore, IFPI’s chief executive, says in a press release.
“Given that it’s the first time a website blocking order has been granted against stream ripping websites, this precedent is an important step in the right direction for the Indian recorded music industry,” Blaise Fernandes, IMI’s president and CEO, says in the same release.
Digital music has been leading the way in the rapid growth of India’s music market, which booked $219 million in recorded music revenues in 2021, up 20.3% from 2020. Streaming, which grew by 22.5% in 2021, now represents 87% of total trade value in the 17th-largest music market, according to IFPI’s Global Market Report.
But the IFPI notes that a study last year found that India still has a rate of piracy more than twice that of most major music markets, with 73% of internet users using unlicensed or illegal methods to listen to music, compared to a global average of 30%. Intellectual property rights theft “is like a cancer,” Fernandes wrote in a 2020 op-ed. “You need both palliative care via social messaging, as well as chemotherapy via the Indian Penal Code or laws that keep up with the needs of India’s digital requirements.”
Beyond India, the recording industry has stepped up efforts to crack down on stream-ripping websites. Courts and authorities in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Ecuador, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Peru, Russia and Spain have all issued decisions over the last few years ordering service providers to block customers’ access to such websites, the IFPI says.
U.S. music companies have also battled stream-rippers, who are often based outside the country. In a case brought by more than two dozen record labels, a U.S. magistrate judge in Alexandria, Va., recommended in December 2021 that the operator of two Russian stream-ripping sites, Tofig Kurbanov, pay $82.9 million in damages for circumventing YouTube’s anti-piracy measures and infringing copyrights of audio recordings.
Kurbanov’s piracy operation drew more than 300 million global users to the sites from October 2017 to September 2018 alone, the court said. (U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton accepted the $82.9 million recommendation last February. In March, Kurbanov told the court he would appeal the judgement.)
As the streaming market has grown globally, the IFPI has also helped coordinate court and police actions to shut down sites peddling fake streams in major recording markets like Brazil and Germany, which are artificially juicing the success of songs and albums.
In France, the fifth-largest music market, a study released this week by a French government organization found that one billion streams — or between 1% to 3% of all streams in the market — were fraudulent in 2021. The report, which analyzed data from Spotify, Deezer and Qobuz, notes that “the methods used by fraudsters are constantly evolving and improving,” and that “fraud seems to be getting easier and easier to commit.”
More than 1 billion music streams in France — or between 1% and 3% of all streams in the country — were detected to be fraudulent in 2021, according to a report released this week by a French government organization that analyzed data from Spotify, Deezer and Qobuz.
If the report’s number were to hold true for the worldwide music market — which the IFPI valued at $16.9 billion in 2021 — that would mean approximately $170 million to $510 million of streaming royalties are being misallocated globally. This is roughly in line with a 2019 estimate of $300 million lost to streaming fraud cited during Indie Week.
The Centre national de la musique (CNM), an organization created by the French government in 2020 that operates under the Ministry of Culture, found that fraud is widespread in France, the fifth-largest music market, to a sobering degree: “Irregularities are spotted” on both major-label and independent releases, national and international albums, old catalog and fresh new singles alike, the CMN says in its 56-page study. “The methods used by fraudsters are constantly evolving and improving,” it notes, “and fraud seems to be getting easier and easier to commit.”
The genres which had the highest percentage of fraudulent streams detected in the CNM’s report were background music (4.8% on Deezer) and non-musical titles (3.5%). While the raw number of fraudulent streams detected was highest in rap — the most popular genre in France — that represented just 0.4% of overall plays in the genre on Spotify and 0.7% on Deezer.
CNM’s report appears to be the first country-wide investigation of streaming fraud. “We’re happy with the effort by the CNM and the French government as a whole to look into this and take it seriously,” says Morgan Hayduk, founder and co-CEO of Beatdapp, a Canadian company that provides fraud detection software to streaming services, labels, and distributors. “This issue deserves the weight and attention that they gave to it.”
CNM’s report comes with several caveats, however. The organization’s data does not include information from Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon, who declined to share information about fraud on their platforms. According to a recent estimate from MIDiA Research, those three services account for slightly more than 35% of global streaming subscriptions. (MIDiA did not share country-level figures.)
In addition, Hayduk says, the report only looks at country-level data. This means it does not account for VPN usage that allows fraudsters to mask their country of origin.
Bad actors committing streaming fraud often “rotate through multiple countries redirecting traffic constantly,” says Andrew Batey, Beatdapp’s other co-CEO. “It’s not uncommon when we find fraud cases to see 15 devices spreading plays across 30 countries.” To catch that, he says, “you need a global view.”
Fraudulent streams, once defined by former Napster executive Angel Gambino as “anything which isn’t fans listening to music they love,” have become a major topic of music industry concern in Germany, France and Brazil. That’s because undetected fraudulent streams can impact market share calculations and divert money from honest artists.
The countries have taken different approaches to combat this fraud. The IFPI led a legal effort to shut down German websites that offered streams for cash starting in 2020. The organization made the case that manipulating play counts allows artists to create a false impression of popularity, ultimately misleading consumers and violating Germany’s Unfair Competition act.
In Brazil, law enforcement worked in conjunction with Pro-Música, IFPI’s Brazilian affiliate, to shut down 84 stream-boosting sites in the country in 2021. Prosecutors there argued that sites that offered fraudulent streams were violating Brazil’s Consumer Defense Code and treated the activity as a criminal act.
Brazil’s coordinated effort — dubbed Operation Anti-Doping — determined that the fraudulent streams were actually being generated outside of Brazil, illustrating the limitations of a single-country approach to fraud reduction. “No company in Brazil has the technology to make these fake streams,” Paulo Rosa, Pro-Música’s president, told Billboard in 2021. “This technology comes from websites hosted in Russia.”
The U.S. industry has historically appeared less bothered by streaming fraud — or at least less willing to acknowledge its existence publicly, with executives and streaming services reluctant to discuss the subject. This may be starting to shift, however. At a Music Biz panel in May, SoundCloud vp of strategy Michael Pelczynski noted that the current streaming ecosystem is rife with “very prevalent fraud and abuse,” and that this activity has “cultural ramifications.” When undetected fraudulent streams “start influencing the way we measure the success of music, we are literally supporting inauthenticity,” Pelczynski said.
The CNM appeared heartened by the fact that, since the summer of 2021, it has seen “the growing mobilization of platforms, distributors and producers” worried about fraud, resulting in the creation of “dedicated teams” and the outlay of increased resources to battle “manipulation.”
But there remain several key challenges when attempting to tackle fraud. The lack of transparency from some streaming platforms, and the inability to push toward assembling a comprehensive global data set, means that the scale of the problem is still unknown.
What’s more, as the CNM points out, it’s nearly impossible to punish those engaged in fraud because they are rarely identified. The penultimate section of the report lays out potential legal remedies that could be used to fight fake streams in France — if authorities were able to prove that bad actors violated laws related to illegal hacking or unfair business practices. They include fines of up to 300,000 euros ($324,000) and prison sentences of up to five years for perpetrators.
The CNM pledged to release a follow-up report in 2024.
All Quiet on the Western Front leads this year’s BAFTA nominations with 14 nods, which puts it in a tie with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) as the most-nominated non-English language film in BAFTA history.
The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All at Once are tied for second place in overall nominations this year with 10 nods.
All three of these films are nominated for best original score. Volker Bertelmann scored All Quiet on the Western Front; Carter Burwell scored The Banshees of Inisherin and Son Lux scored Everything Everywhere All at Once.
The other nominees for original score are Babylon (Justin Hurwitz) and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (Alexandre Desplat).
All five of these scores were among the 15 scores shortlisted for Oscars on Dec. 21. Oscar nominations will be announced on Tuesday Jan. 24.
Desplat is a three-time winner for original score at the BAFTA Awards — for The King’s Speech (2010), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and The Shape of Water (2017). Only two other composers have won three or more awards in this category in the history of the BAFTAs. John Williams leads with seven wins, followed by Ennio Morricone with six. Hurwitz won in this category at the BAFTAs six years ago for La La Land.
Bertelmann referenced All Quiet’s strong showing in a statement: “I am deeply honored to be nominated for a BAFTA, especially in connection with such a well-crafted and meaningful film. The collaboration with [director] Edward Berger gave me the freedom to work on a score without compromise. I am very thankful for that. Congrats to Edward, the producers and the entire team on their 14 nominations.”
In a statement, Son Lux, the composer of Everything Everywhere All at Once, said: “Our heads are spinning and our hearts are full. Thanks to BAFTA for this honor, to Daniels [directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] for their boundless vision and trust, and to each and every member of the EEAAO [Everything Everywhere All at Once] family for inspiring us beyond words.”
The BAFTAs do not have a best original song category.
In other nominations of interest to the music community, Austin Butler was nominated for leading actor for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in Elvis, and Brett Morgan’s David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream is up for documentary.
These are the first BAFTA nominations for Butler, Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Brendan Fraser (The Whale) and Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once), among others.
Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical family drama The Fabelmans received just one BAFTA nomination, for original screenplay – on which Spielberg collaborated with Tony Kushner. Sarah Polley’s Women Talking was shut out entirely.
In the best director category, four of the six nominated directors are first-time nominees in that category: Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King); Todd Field (Tár), Kwan and Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once) and Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front).
Actors Hayley Atwell and Toheeb Jimoh announced this year’s BAFTA nominations via a live broadcast from BAFTA’s London headquarters on Thursday (Jan. 19). This year’s awards will be presented at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, Feb. 19.
Here’s the complete list of BAFTA Award nominations.
Original score
All Quiet on the Western Front – Volker Bertelmann
Babylon – Justin Hurwitz
The Banshees of Inisherin – Carter Burwell
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Son Lux
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio – Alexandre Desplat
Best film
All Quiet on the Western Front – Malte Grunert
The Banshees Of Inisherin – Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin Mcdonagh
Elvis – Gail Berman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Patrick Mccormick, Schuyler Weiss
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang
Tár – Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan
Leading actress
Cate Blanchett – Tár
Viola Davis – The Woman King
Danielle Deadwyler – Till
Ana De Armas – Blonde
Emma Thompson – Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All at Once
Leading actor
Austin Butler – Elvis
Colin Farrell – The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser – The Whale
Daryl Mccormack – Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Paul Mescal – Aftersun
Bill Nighy – Living
Supporting actress
Angela Bassett – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Hong Chau – The Whale
Kerry Condon – The Banshees of Inisherin
Dolly De Leon – Triangle of Sadness
Jamie Lee Curtis – Everything Everywhere All at Once
Carey Mulligan – She Said
Supporting actor
Brendan Gleeson – The Banshees of Inisherin
Barry Keoghan – The Banshees of Inisherin
Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere All at Once
Eddie Redmayne – The Good Nurse
Albrecht Schuch – All Quiet on the Western Front
Micheal Ward – Empire of Light
Director
All Quiet on the Western Front – Edward Berger
The Banshees of Inisherin – Martin Mcdonagh
Decision to Leave – Park Chan-wook
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Tár – Todd Field
The Woman King – Gina Prince-bythewood
Original screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin – Martin Mcdonagh
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
The Fabelmans – Tony Kushner, Steven Spielberg
Tár – Todd Field
Triangle of Sadness – Ruben Östlund
Adapted screenplay
All Quiet on the Western Front – Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell
Living – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Quiet Girl – Colm Bairéad
She Said – Rebecca Lenkiewicz
The Whale – Samuel D. Hunter
Film not in the English language
All Quiet on the Western Front – Edward Berger, Malte Grunert
Argentina, 1985 – Santiago Mitre, Producer(S) Tbc
Corsage – Marie Kreutzer
Decision to Leave – Park Chan-wook, Ko Dae-seok
The Quiet Girl – Colm Bairéad, Cleona Ní Chrualaoí
Documentary
All That Breathes – Shaunak Sen, Teddy Leifer, Aman Mann
All The Beauty and the Bloodshed – Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, John Lyons
Fire of Love – Sara Dosa, Shane Boris, Ina Fichman
Moonage Daydream – Brett Morgan
Navalny – Daniel Roher, Diane Becker, Shane Boris, Melanie Miller, Odessa Rae
Animated film
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio – Guillermo Del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar, Alex Bulkley
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On – Dean Fleisher Camp, Andrew Goldman, Elisabeth Holm, Caroline Kaplan, Paul Mezey
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish – Joel Crawford, Mark Swift
Turning Red – Domee Shi, Lindsey Collins
Casting
Aftersun – Lucy Pardee
All Quiet on the Western Front – Simone Bär
Elvis – Nikki Barrett, Denise Chamian
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Sarah Halley Finn
Triangle Of Sadness – Pauline Hansson
Cinematography
All Quiet on the Western Front – James Friend
The Batman – Greig Fraser
Elvis – Mandy Walker
Empire of Light – Roger Deakins
Top Gun: Maverick – Claudio Miranda
Editing
All Quiet on the Western Front – Sven Budelmann
The Banshees of Inisherin – Mikkel E. G. Nielsen
Elvis – Jonathan Redmond, Matt Villa
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Paul Rogers
Top Gun: Maverick – Eddie Hamilton
Production design
All Quiet on the Western Front – Christian M. Goldbeck, Ernestine Hipper
Babylon – Florencia Martin, Anthony Carlino
The Batman – James Chinlund, Lee Sandales
Elvis – Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy, Bev Dunn
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio – Curt Enderle, Guy Davis
Costume design
All Quiet on the Western Front – Lisy Christl
Amsterdam – J.R. Hawbaker, Albert Wolsky
Babylon – Mary Zophres
Elvis – Catherine Martin
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris – Jenny Beavan
Make up & hair
All Quiet on the Western Front – Heike Merker
The Batman – Naomi Donne, Mike Marino, Zoe Tahir
Elvis – Jason Baird, Mark Coulier, Louise Coulston, Shane Thomas
Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical – Naomi Donne, Barrie Gower, Sharon Martin
The Whale – Anne Marie Bradley, Judy Chin, Adrien Morot
Sound
All Quiet on the Western Front – Lars Ginzsel, Frank Kruse, Viktor Prášil, Markus Stemler
Avatar: The Way of Water – Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Julian Howarth, Gary Summers, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
Elvis – Michael Keller, David Lee, Andy Nelson, Wayne Pashley
Tár – Deb Adair, Stephen Griffiths, Andy Shelley, Steve Single, Roland Winke
Top Gun: Maverick – Chris Burdon, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Mark Taylor, Mark Weingarten
Special visual effects
All Quiet on the Western Front – Markus Frank, Kamil Jafar, Viktor Müller, Frank Petzoid
Avatar: The Way of Water – Richard Baneham, Daniel Barrett, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon
The Batman – Russell Earl, Dan Lemmon, Anders Langlands, Dominic Tuohy
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Benjamin Brewer, Ethan Feldbau, Jonathan Kombrinck, Zak Stoltz
Top Gun: Maverick – Seth Hill, Scott R. Fisher, Bryan Litson, Ryan Tudhope
Outstanding British film
Aftersun – Charlotte Wells, Producer(S) Tbc
The Banshees of Inisherin – Martin Mcdonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin
Brian and Charles – Jim Archer, Rupert Majendie, David Earl, Chris Hayward
Empire of Light – Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande – Sophie Hyde, Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski, Katy Brand
Living – Oliver Hermanus, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Kazuo Ishiguro
Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical – Matthew Warchus, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jon Finn, Luke Kelly, Dennis Kelly
See How They Run – Tom George, Gina Carter, Damian Jones, Mark Chappell
The Swimmers – Sally El Hosaini, Producer(S) Tbc, Jack Thorne
The Wonder – Sebastián Lelio, Ed Guiney, Juliette Howell, Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross, Alice Birch, Emma Donoghue
Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer
Aftersun – Charlotte Wells (Writer/director)
Blue Jean – Georgia Oakley (Writer/director), Hélène Sifre (Producer)
Electric Malady – Marie Lidén (Director)
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande – Katy Brand (Writer)
Rebellion – Maia Kenworthy (Director)
British short animation
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy, Cara Speller, Hannah Minghella
Middle Watch – John Stevenson, Aiesha Penwarden, Giles Healy
Your Mountain Is Waiting – Hannah Jacobs, Zoe Muslim, Harriet Gillian
British short film
The Ballad of Olive Morris – Alex Kayode-kay
Bazigaga – Jo Ingabire Moys, Stephanie Charmail
Bus Girl – Jessica Henwick, Louise Palmkvist Hansen
A Drifting Up – Jacob Lee
An Irish Goodbye – Tom Berkeley, Ross White
EE rising star award (voted for by the public)
Aimee Lou Wood
Daryl Mccormack
Emma Mackey
Naomi Ackie
Sheila Atim
The mayor of the northern French town of Amiens is appealing to pop star Madonna to loan them what they believe is a missing 200-year-old Neoclassical painting that disappeared from their museum during World War I.
But is Madonna’s version the genuine article, or a copy?
Brigitte Fouré, the mayor, says in a video that the oil painting the singer reportedly owns, called Diana and Endymion, was “probably a work that was lent to the Amiens museum by the Louvre before the first world war after which we lost trace of it,” according to a report in The Guardian.
Now Fouré wants the “Material Girl” singer to provide the artwork as a loaner to help Amiens’ bid to become the European capital of culture in 2028.
The painting, which depicts the Roman goddess Diana falling in love with Endymion, is thought to have been painted by Jérôme-Martin Langlois, and dates to 1822. After being commissioned by Louis XVIII to hang in the Palace of Versailles, it was acquired by the French republic in 1873, and was exhibited in Amiens at the Musée des Beaux-Arts – now the Musée de Picardie – beginning in 1878.
The Langlois went missing after the Germans pounded Amiens with bombs and artillery fire for 28 days in March 1917, destroying much of the city including part of the museum. The paintings were taken to safety, but after the war the Langlois was listed as “untraceable” and later deemed to have been “destroyed by the falling of a bomb on the museum,” the Guardian reports.
The painting — or one nearly identical to it — reappeared in 1989 at a New York auction where Madonna paid $1.3 million for it, more than three times its estimated price, says French newspaper Le Figaro.
Madonna is an avid art collector known to have a collection worth an estimated $100 million, People magazine has reported. It includes Frida Kahlo’s My Birth (1932), one of only five painting she created while in Detroit; an extensive collection by Polish Art Deco painter Tamar de Lempicka; and Pablo Picasso’s Buste de Femme à la Frange (1938), which she paid almost $5 million for at Christie’s in 2000.
In 2015, a sharp-eyed curator from Amiens spotted the Langlois painting in the background of a photograph of Madonna at her home that was published in Paris Match magazine.
The painting Madonna bought is reportedly one inch (three centimeters) smaller than the artwork that disappeared from Amiens and was unsigned and undated, leading experts to wonder if it is the original — or a copy.
The museum has lodged legal action against “persons unknown” for the theft of the painting, the Guardian reports. But Fouré, the mayor, says the town doesn’t dispute that Madonna acquired the work in a “perfectly legal auction.”
The singer “bought it and she owns it,” the mayor says. “I’m not asking her to give it to us but to allow us to borrow it for just a few weeks so people here can see it.”
Fouré would welcome a visit by Madonna to Amiens, a town best known for textiles and its gothic cathedral, and as the birthplace of French President Emmanuel Macron.
“It would be amazing to have her come here but I can’t imagine it happening,” she says. “Still, now everyone is talking about Amiens!”
Billboard reached out to Madonna’s team, which had no comment.
LONDON — A U.K. Parliament committee is calling on the British government to address the “pitiful” returns that many artists and creators earn from music streaming and says it should develop and implement a “wide-ranging national strategy for music.”
A report from The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee published Friday (Jan. 13) urges the government to take a “more proactive strategic role” in the music industry to help ensure creators and performers receive a greater share of streaming revenue.
The report doesn’t go into detail about what form an overarching national music strategy would take. But it nevertheless recommends it be developed and overseen by the DCMS and looks at the impact of new digital technologies on musicians, songwriters and composers, as well as the U.K. industry’s potential for growth.
Taking such an approach could help address many of the issues caused by the government’s current approach to policymaking for the music business, which sees policy and trade negotiations handled by multiple different government departments and, says the report, is “too scatter-gun to be effective.”
The DCMS Committee’s recommendations come 18 months after it published a damning report in July 2021 on the economics of music streaming that called into question the major record labels’ dominance of the industry — and how they leverage that market power at the expense of artists, songwriters and independents. It concluded by saying that the global streaming model is unsustainable in its current form and “needs a complete reset.”
In response to that report, the U.K. competition regulator carried out a market study review of the record business. It ended in November with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) surmising that low returns from streaming “are not the result of ineffective competition” between the three major labels — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
The British government has also set up a number of working groups — led by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and made up of industry stakeholders — to look at issues raised in the Parliament probe, including problems around transparency and metadata.
Reviewing the progress that has been made since July 2021, the DCMS committee commended the government and IPO for the work and research it has undertaken but said that more still needs to be done on core issues, such as creators’ share of streaming royalties.
In particular, the committee recommends the IPO establish working groups to look specifically at remuneration and performer rights, with greater involvement from government officials and ministers. It also says there needs to be greater transparency around membership of the working groups, agendas and deadlines, none of which are currently made publicly available.
“Over the last 18 months the Government has made some welcome moves towards restoring a proper balance in the music industry, but there is still much more to do to ensure the talent behind the music is properly rewarded,” Damian Green MP, acting chair of the DCMS Committee, said in a statement.
Green says too many musicians and songwriters are frustrated at receiving “pitiful returns” from streaming and says the government “now needs to make sure it follows through on the work done so far to fix the fundamental flaws in the market.”
The committee has also requested that the three major labels provide it with evidence of the royalties they have distributed to legacy artists under the various unrecouped advances programs introduced over the past two years.
Sony Music Group was the first to announce, in June 2021, that it would start paying royalties to artists with unrecouped advances from pre-2000 record deals. Warner Music Group followed in February 2022 and Universal Music Group in March 2022.
A spokesperson for the DCMS committee says that while it has no formal powers to compel businesses to provide them with information, businesses are expected to comply with the request. The government now has two months to respond to the committee’s recommendations and outline any actions it will be taking. (The DCMS committee, which is made up of 11 members of Parliament, is responsible for monitoring the policies and practices of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and its associated bodies, including the BBC.)
Responding to Friday’s report, David Martin, CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition, and Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, said they “wholeheartedly” welcomed Parliamentary support for improved remuneration and contractual rights.
“Our organizations are in complete alignment with other creator bodies on the need for greater fairness, transparency and remuneration.” Martin and Coldrick said in a joint statement. “These issues are not going away, and neither are we.”
A spokesperson for U.K. labels trade body BPI thanked the committee for highlighting “the positive steps that the industry has taken” since its original 2021 report but cautioned against any calls for sweeping government reforms.
“At a time when the global music market is more competitive than ever,” the spokesperson says, “public policies must be firmly rooted in driving sustainable growth across the entire U.K. music ecosystem.”