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United Kingdom

A teenager who stabbed three young girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England was sentenced Thursday to more than 50 years in prison for what a judge called “the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime.”
Judge Julian Goose said 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana “wanted to try and carry out mass murder of innocent, happy young girls.”

Goose said that he couldn’t impose a sentence of life without parole, because Rudakubana was under 18 when he committed the crime.

But the judge said he must serve 52 years, minus the six months he’s been in custody, before being considered for parole, and “it is likely he will never be released.”

Rudakubana was 17 when he attacked the children in the seaside town of Southport in July, killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. He wounded eight other girls, ranging in age from 7 to 13, along with teacher Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, a local businessman who intervened.

The attack shocked the country and set off both street violence and soul-searching. The government has announced a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop the killer, who had been referred to the authorities multiple times over his obsession with violence.

Defendant disrupts the hearing

Rudakubana faced three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder and additional charges of possessing a knife, the poison ricin and an al-Qaida manual. He unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges on Monday.

But he wasn’t in court to hear sentence passed on Thursday.

Hours earlier he had been led into the dock at Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England, dressed in a gray prison tracksuit. But as prosecutors began outlining the evidence, Rudakubana interrupted by shouting that he felt ill and wanted to see a paramedic.

Goose ordered the accused to be removed when he continued shouting. A person in the courtroom shouted “Coward!” as Rudakubana was taken out.

The hearing continued without him.

Horror on a summer day

Prosecutor Deanna Heer described how the attack occurred on the first day of summer vacation when 26 little girls were “gathered around the tables making bracelets and singing along to Taylor Swift songs.”

Rudakubana, armed with a large knife, intruded and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.

The court was shown video of the suspect arriving at the Hart Space venue in a taxi and entering the building. Within seconds, screams erupted and children ran outside in panic, some of them wounded. One girl made it to the doorway, but was pulled back inside by the attacker. She was stabbed 32 times but survived.

Gasps and sobs could be heard in court as the videos played.

Heer said two of the dead children “suffered particularly horrific injuries which are difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature.” One of the dead girls had 122 injuries, while another suffered 85 wounds.

A teenager obsessed with violence

The prosecutor said Rudakubana had “a longstanding obsession with violence, killing, genocide.”

“His only purpose was to kill. And he targeted the youngest and most vulnerable in society,” she said, as relatives of the victims watched on in the courtroom.

Heer said that when he was taken to a police station, Rudakubana was heard to say: “It’s a good thing those children are dead, I’m so glad, I’m so happy.”

The killings triggered days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on incorrect reports that the attacker was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in the U.K. Some suggested the crime was a jihadi attack, and alleged that police and the government were withholding information.

Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators haven’t been able to pin down his motivation. Police found documents about subjects including Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs on his devices.

In the years before the attack, he had been reported to multiple authorities over his violent interests and actions. All of the agencies failed to spot the danger he posed.

In 2019, he phoned a children’s advice line to ask “What should I do if I want to kill somebody?” He said he had taken a knife to school because he wanted to kill someone who was bullying him. Two months later, he attacked a fellow student with a hockey stick and was convicted of assault.

The definition of terrorism

Prosecutors said Rudakubana was referred three times to the government’s anti-extremism program, Prevent, when he was 13 and 14 — once after researching school shootings in class, then for uploading pictures of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to Instagram and for researching a London terror attack.

But they concluded his crimes should not be classed as terrorism because Rudakubana had no discernable political or religious cause. Heer said “his purpose was the commission of mass murder, not for a particular end, but as an end in itself.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week the country must face up to a “new threat” from violent individuals whose mix of motivations test the traditional definition of terrorism.

“After one of the most harrowing moments in our country’s history, we owe it to these innocent young girls and all those affected to deliver the change that they deserve,” Starmer said after the sentencing.

Wrenching testimony from victims

Several relatives and survivors read emotional statements in court, describing how the attack had shattered their lives.

Lucas, 36, who ran the dance class, said that “the trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrendous.”

“I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died?” she said.

A 14-year-old survivor, who can’t be named because of a court order, said that while she was physically recovering. “we will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever.”

“I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward,” she said.

The prosecutor read out a statement from the parents of Alice Da Silva Aguiar, who said their daughter’s killing had “shattered our souls.”

“We used to cook for three. Now we only cook for two. It doesn’t seem right,” they said. “Alice was our purpose for living, so what do we do now?”

This story was originally published by The Associated Press.

Kasabian, Clean Bandit, Rag’n’Bone Man and more have been announced for Brits Week 2025, which will see a host of acts play intimate venues throughout London, Glasgow and Bexhill in February and March.
The concert series is organized in conjunction with the upcoming Brit Awards, which will will take place on March 1 at The O2 Arena in London. Nominees are expected to be announced in the coming weeks alongside news of this ceremony’s performers and host. 

Brits Week will kick off on Feb. 17 with Cat Burns performing at east London’s Moth Club and continues with shows from Joy Crookes, Rachel Chinouriri, Frank Turner, Nova Twins, Blossoms, Tom Walker, Soft Play and more. See the full run of shows below.

Trending on Billboard

The Brits Week concert series was first held in 2009 with all proceeds of the shows benefitting War Child, a charity that supports young people caught up in conflicts across the globe. Since 2009, the Brits Week concert series has raised ÂŁ7.4 ($9.02) million for the organization, according to a press statement.

Tickets for the events go on sale later this week, with a War Child presale taking place this Thursday (Jan. 16) before a general sale on Friday (Jan. 17) at 10 a.m. GMT.

Several huge acts have performed at Brits Week over recent years, including Ed Sheeran (2022), The 1975 (2023) and Coldplay (2016).

In December, Luton-born musician Myles Smith was announced as the recipient of The Brits’ Rising Star award for 2025, which tips rising stars for future success. Smith beat out competition from Elmiene and Good Neighbours to scoop the prize. Previous winners include Adele (2008), Sam Smith (2014) and most recently The Last Dinner Party (2024).

Brits Week 2025 lineup:

February 17 – Cat Burns – London, England @ Moth ClubFebruary 18 – Joy Crookes – London, England @ Islington Assembly HallFebruary 20 – Rachel Chinouriri – London, England @ OmearaFebruary 21 – Frank Turner – London, England @ 93 Feet EastFebruary 24 – Nova Twins – London, England @ OmearaFebruary 25 – Kasabian with Blossoms – London, England @ O2 Shepherd’s Bush EmpireFebruary 28 – Clean Bandit and Friends – London, England @ The PalladiumMarch 3 – Tom Walker – Glasgow, Scotland @ King Tut’s Wah Wah HutMarch 4 – Soft Play – London, England @ Village UndergroundMarch 5 – Rag‘n’Bone Man – Bexhill, England @ De La Warr Pavilion

LONDON — The British government has launched a public consultation into the ticketing industry, including the heavily criticized use of dynamic pricing for popular tours, as part of wider efforts to stop music fans from “being fleeced” by “greedy ticket touts.”
The 12-week consultation was announced by the Department for Business and Trade and Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Friday (Jan. 10). It sets out a range of measures to transform the U.K.’s secondary ticket market, including a proposed cap on the price of ticket resales and new legal regulations for ticket platforms around transparency and the accuracy of information they provide to fans.

“From sports tournaments to Taylor Swift, all too often big events have been dogged by consumers being taken advantage of by ticket touts,” said business secretary Jonathan Reynolds in a statement. “These unfair practices look to fleece people of their hard-earned income, which isn’t fair on fans, venues and artists.”

Trending on Billboard

Government ministers are additionally reviewing pricing practices across the entire live events business, including the use of dynamic pricing by primary vendors whereby prices surge based on demand.

The use of dynamic pricing for concert tickets came to the fore in the U.K. in September when it was used on the U.K. and Ireland legs of Oasis’ Live ‘25 reunion tour, prompting hundreds of complaints from fans after tickets unexpectedly soared from around £150.00 ($200) for standard admission to £355.00 ($470) without prior warning.

The angry consumer backlash was accompanied by fierce condemnation from British politicians, including the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, who called the “vastly inflated” prices “depressing to see.”

Soon after, the U.K. competition regulator launched an investigation into Ticketmaster examining whether the Live Nation-owned company broke consumer protection laws and engaged in “unfair commercial practices” by failing to notify ticket buyers in advance about the price rises. Ticketmaster has consistently stated that ticket prices are set by the artist team and event organisers, not itself.

Starmer had previously vowed to cap resale prices on secondary ticketing platforms, such as Viagogo and StubHub, in the run up to July’s election win.

According to the Competition and Market Authority (CMA), around 1.9 million tickets were sold through secondary platforms to British consumers in 2019, accounting for between 5% and 6% of all tickets sold that year. Tickets sold on secondary sites are typically priced more than 50% higher than their face value, reports CMA, which estimated the U.K. secondary ticketing market to have been worth around ÂŁ350 million ($430 million) a year pre-pandemic.

“For too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices,” said Nandy announcing the three-month-long consultation, which closes April 4.

The government said it was seeking views from live industry stakeholders and music fans on a number of proposed measures designed to make ticket resales fairer and more transparent.

They include capping the price of resale tickets at up to 30% above face value and banning resellers from listing more tickets than they can legally buy on the primary market. These measures would disincentivise industrial scale touting, said the government.

Ministers are also proposing to pass tougher regulations for ticket resale companies and issue tougher fines for offenders. At present, the maximum fine that can be issued by Trading Standards against companies that breach ticketing sale rules is ÂŁ5,000 ($6,100). The consultation will investigate whether this cap should be increased.

The primary ticketing market is also under scrutiny with ministers calling for evidence on whether fans are protected from “unfair practices,” including the use of new technologies and dynamic pricing. 

Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer protection organization Which?, said the government must use the consultation “to regulate the industry properly, ensure ticket resales don’t exploit fans and decide when the use of dynamic pricing is unfair and shouldn’t be allowed.”

As in other countries, the practice of dynamic pricing is commonly used in the U.K. by travel companies, taxis and hotels, but it has only been fleetingly used in the British touring market with Oasis’ comeback tour – which is being jointly promoted by Live Nation, SJM Concerts, MCD and DF Concerts – marking its most high-profile roll out for live music concerts in the United Kingdom and Ireland so far.

The British government’s probe of the ticketing business is the latest attempt by authorities to tackle the persistent issue of large-scale ticketing touting in the U.K.

In 2021, watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded its long-running investigation into secondary ticketing platforms by making a series of recommendations to government on how to fix the sector. Those recommendations were rejected by the then Conservative government, but now form the basis of the Labour Party’s proposals.  

There has also been a number of investigations by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) into secondary sites, with a particular focus on Viagogo.

When reached for comment, a Viagogo spokesperson insisted the company will “continue to constructively engage with the Government and look forward to responding in full to the consultation and call for evidence on improving consumer protections in the ticketing market.”

Responding to the public consultation, a spokesperson for Ticketmaster U.K. said the company was “committed to making ticketing simple and transparent” and supported plans to introduce an industry-wide resale price cap.

“We also urge the government to crack down on bots and ban speculative ticket sales,” said the U.K. arm of Ticketmaster, which has capped resale prices to face value on its platform since 2018. StubHub did not respond to a request to comment.

Adam Webb from U.K. campaign group FanFair Alliance called the government’s proposed measures “potentially game-changing” and highlighted the success of other countries, including Ireland, in passing legislation that has effectively banned ticket scalping. “The U.K. simply needs to follow their example,” said Webb.

LONDON — Hit albums by Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Sabrina Carpenter helped music sales in the United Kingdom reach a record high in 2024, exceeding the peak of the CD era in both revenue and volume for the first time, according to year-end figures from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA). 
Overall music spending in the U.K. grew to £ 2.4 billion ($3 billion) last year, a rise of 7.4% on 2023 and comfortably surpassing the previous high of £2.2 billion ($2.7 billion at today’s currency rates) back in 2001 when Dido, Robbie Williams and David Gray were topping the British album charts.

Trending on Billboard

Driving the growth was a 7.8% year-on-year rise in paid-for streaming revenues, which climbed to just over £2 billion ($2.5 billion). Vinyl sales were up 10.5% to £196 million ($245 million), while CD sales were more-or-less flat with 2023 — when revenues increased for the first time in two decades — at £126 million ($157 million). Download sales fell 3.2% to £41 million ($51 million).

The biggest selling album in the U.K. last year was Taylor’s all-conquering The Tortured Poets Department with just under 784,000 equivalent sales, including almost 112,000 vinyl purchases, which also made it 2024’s biggest-selling vinyl album.

Behind Swift in the year-end U.K. album charts was The Weeknd’s The Highlights, followed by Carpenter’s sixth studio set Short N’ Sweet. Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” was the year’s number one single, topping the British charts for seven weeks and selling 1.9 million equivalent units, the London-based organization reported Wednesday (Jan. 8).

Streaming now makes up 88.8% of music sales in the United Kingdom, a marginal 1.1% rise on 2023’s figure and more than double streaming’s share of the U.K. market six years ago, according to labels trade body BPI, which published its preliminary year-end listening figures last week.

BPI reports that just under 200 billion music tracks were streamed in the U.K. last year, up 11% on 2023’s total, with the equivalent of 201 million albums consumed across streaming, CD and vinyl sales, a year-on-year rise of 9.7%. Streaming alone generated the equivalent of 178 million album sales in 2024, says ERA.

ERA and BPI both use Official Charts Company sales data as the basis for their reporting, although the two organizations take different approaches to measuring the vitality of the recorded music business. ERA’s figures are based on retail spending in the U.K. alongside information provided by streaming services and label trade income, whereas BPI’s analysis measures music consumption levels. Both trade groups will publish their full annual reports later in the year.

The historic low point for the U.K. music industry came in 2013 when rampant piracy and a fast-eroding physical market saw sales fall to just over £1 billion (£1.2 billion in today’s currency). Since then, sales have more than doubled.  

“2024 was a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume,” said ERA CEO Kim Bayley in a statement. She called last year’s retail sales figures “the stunning culmination of music’s comeback” and triumphantly declared: “We can now say definitively – music is back.”

According to ERA, combined physical sales totaled £330 million ($412 million) in the U.K. in 2024, up 6.2% on the previous 12 months, with CD and vinyl sales accounting for nearly 14% of music revenues. The benefits of such a “mixed physical-digital ecology” is key to the music’s industry’s revival, said Bayley.  

“We continue to believe that digital and physical channels are complementary and vital for the health of the entertainment market overall,” she said.

Overall, revenues across the U.K. entertainment market – comprising of music, video and games retail sales – were up 2.3% on 2023’s total to a record high of £12 billion ($14.9 billion), marking the 12th consecutive year of growth and an eighth successive all-time-high.

Of the three sectors, the growth of recorded music sales outpaced both video (comprising of video-on-demand subscription services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and DVD sales) and games, but music remains the smallest of the three entertainment industries in revenue terms.

Video was the largest sector with revenues growing 6.9% year-on-year to ÂŁ5 billion. Games sales totaled ÂŁ4.6 billion, down 4.4% on 2023 but still nearly twice as large as the recorded music business.

ERA has been reporting on the U.K. entertainment industries since 1999 when music, video and games sales totaled ÂŁ4.1 billion ($5.1 billion).

LONDON — Proposed changes to U.K. copyright law that would allow tech companies to freely use songs for AI training without permission threaten to place the country’s status as a “world music power” at risk, record labels trade body BPI has warned.
In 2024, hit records by Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Coldplay and Taylor Swift helped lift the United Kingdom’s streaming market to a record high with just under 200 billion music tracks streamed across the 12 months, up 11% year-on-year, according to year-end figures released Tuesday (Dec. 31) by BPI.

Overall recorded music consumption across streaming and physical album sales rose by a tenth (9.7%) on 2023’s total to 201 million equivalent albums, marking a decade of uninterrupted growth, reports the organization, which represents over 500 independent record labels, as well as the U.K. arms of the three majors: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.

Trending on Billboard

However, the success of the U.K. music business is being challenged on multiple fronts, including intensifying competition from other global markets and proposed regulations around the use of artificial intelligence (AI), says BPI.

The proposed AI guidelines were announced by the British government two weeks ago (Dec. 17) as part of a 10-week consultation on how copyright-protected content, such as music, can lawfully be used by tech companies to train generative AI models. Among them is a controversial new data mining exception that would allow developers to use copyrighted songs for AI training, including commercial purposes, but only in instances where rights holders have not reserved their rights.

BPI chief executive Jo Twist said the proposed opt out mechanism was the “wrong way to realise the exciting potential of AI” and places the U.K.’s music and creative industries at risk by allowing “international tech giants to train AI models on artists’ work without payment or permission.”

“The U.K. remains a world music power, but this status cannot be taken for granted,” said Twist in a statement accompanying Tuesday’s year-end figures. She said that in order to continue to thrive, the U.K. music business needs “a supportive policy environment that puts the focus on human artistry and enables continued investment in the next generation of British talent.”

Of the current generation, more than 20 British groups and solo acts topped the U.K. albums chart in 2024, although Charli XCX and Coldplay were the only homegrown artists in the year’s top 10 best-selling artist albums list, occupying the eighth and ninth positions with Brat and Moon Music, respectively. Veteran British American rock band Fleetwood Mac had the year’s seventh most popular album with their compilation 50 Years – Don’t Stop. 

Topping the year-end albums list was Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which has sold over 783,000 equivalent units since its release in April – the most for any artist release in a calendar year since 2017, reports BPI. The Tortured Poets Department was one of four albums by Swift to feature among the year’s 20 biggest titles alongside 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Lover and Folklore.

In total, female artists accounted for six of the top 10 and half of the 20 biggest selling artist albums in the U.K. last year with hit releases by Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo helping make it a landmark year for women.  

Female artists also spent an unprecedented 34 weeks at No. 1 on the United Kingdom’s official singles chart, largely driven by Carpenter, who spent 21 weeks at the top with her three hit singles: “Espresso, “Please Please Please” and “Taste.” The best-selling single in the U.K. last year was Noah Kahan‘s “Stick Season,” which topped the U.K. charts for seven weeks, followed by Benson Boone‘s “Beautiful Things.”

Vinyl helps physical album sales return to growth

In terms of formats, streaming now makes up 88.8% of music sales in the United Kingdom, a marginal 1.1% rise on 2023’s figure and more than double streaming’s share of the U.K. market six years ago, reports BPI.   

Meanwhile, physical sales experienced year-on-year growth for the first time since 1994 with vinyl and CD album purchases up 1.4% to 17.4 million units. Driving the resurgence in physical formats was a 17th consecutive annual rise in vinyl album sales which grew by just over 9% to 6.7 million units, marking a three-decade high.

The year’s most popular vinyl album was Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which sold more than 111,000 vinyl copies, followed by a 30th anniversary reissue of Oasis‘ debut Definitely Maybe. Other top-selling vinyl titles included Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft, Fontaines D.C.‘ Romance, The Cure‘s Songs Of A Lost World and Charli XCX’s Brat.

CD sales fell 2.9% year-on-year to 10.5 million units, representing a significant slowdown on the 19% drop recorded in 2022 and the almost 7% slide in sales experienced in 2023. Digital album sales dropped almost 6% to 3.3 million units.

BPI’s preliminary year-end report doesn’t include financial sales data. Instead, it uses Official Charts Company data to measure U.K. music consumption in terms of volume. The London-based organization will publish its full year-end report, including recorded music revenues, later this year.

The U.K. is the world’s third-biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of $1.9 billion in 2023, according to IFPI. It is also the second-largest exporter of recorded music worldwide behind the U.S.

Tougher competition from other international markets, including Latin America and fast-growing countries like South Korea, has seen the U.K.’s share of the global recorded music market shrink over the past decade, however.

In 2015, artists from the United Kingdom cumulatively accounted for 17% of global music streams, according to BPI export figures. That figure now stands at 10% with U.K. artists accounting for just nine of the top 40 tracks streamed in the country last year – the highest being “Stargazing” by Myles Smith at number 12.

“From Coldplay, and Charli XCX, to The Last Dinner Party, and Myles Smith, there were plenty of examples of U.K. music success stories in 2024. But there are also rising challenges for domestic talent in a rapidly changing and hyper-competitive global music economy,” said BPI’s Jo Twist.

“By meeting the growing global challenge head-on, tackling challenges around AI, copyright and streaming fraud, and encouraging consumers towards viable models, like paid streaming subscriptions, we can help to ensure that the value of British music is protected and that our industry can continue to grow and flourish at home and around the world,” she said. 

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Music Business Year In Review

A criminal investigation has been launched into suspected fraud at U.K. collecting society PPL after the organization discovered “suspicious activity” on a small number of member accounts.
PPL said one staff member had been dismissed following an internal investigation it carried out over several months earlier this year. The alleged crime is now being investigated by The Metropolitan Police, the CMO said in a short statement.

“We recently became aware of suspicious activity on a small number of member accounts. We immediately conducted an internal investigation, and one employee was dismissed,” said a spokesperson Thursday (Dec.19). The organization said it was “working with the limited number of impacted members to rectify accounts.”

PPL is the second largest of the United Kingdom’s two main collecting societies and licenses recorded music on behalf of labels and artists to U.K. radio and television broadcasters, as well as its use in bars, nightclubs, shops and offices.

Trending on Billboard

Last year, the 90-year-old organization — which has more than 110 neighboring rights agreements in place with international CMOs, including SoundExchange and the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) in the United States — collected revenues of £285 million ($356 million), its highest ever annual total. In 2023, PPL paid out £247 million ($309 million) to almost 165,000 performers and recording rights holders. 

Record industry sources tell Billboard that the suspected embezzlement is believed to have involved an individual or individuals posing as recording artists who were not registered as PPL members and then fraudulently claiming royalties on their behalf.

Billboard understands that PPL discovered the scheme when the real artists tried to register as members earlier this year. Sources say that the fraudulent royalty claims are believed to have taken place over a number of years, possibly as far back as 2016, with the fraudulent transactions believed to total around £500,000 ($625,000).  

PPL said it was unable to comment on the case while a criminal investigation is underway and declined to answer questions on when it discovered the suspicious activity, the timeframe of the alleged offense or whether the impacted member accounts relate to U.K. artist members or overseas partner CMOs. The Metropolitan Police has been approached by Billboard for details. 

The criminal investigation into suspected embezzlement at PPL comes as the music business battles on multiple fronts against fraudulent activity and rampant copyright infringement on a global scale.  

In November, Universal Music Group (UMG), ABKCO and Concord Music Group filed a lawsuit against Believe and its distribution company TuneCore, accusing them of “massive ongoing infringements” of their sound recordings, seeking $500 million in damages (Believe refutes the claims). One month earlier, TikTok cited issues with “fraud” as its reason for walking away from renewing its license with Merlin, a digital licensing coalition representing thousands of indie labels and distributors. 

There have also been several high-profile cases against individuals accused of defrauding streaming platforms, rights holders and collection societies in recent years. 

In 2022, two men in Phoenix, Arizona pled guilty to claiming $23 million worth of YouTube royalties from unknowing Latin musicians like Julio Iglesias, Anuel AA, and Daddy Yankee despite having no actual ties to those artists. 

More recently, a North Carolina musician was indicted by federal prosecutors in September in the first ever federal streaming fraud case. Prosecutors allege Michael Smith used two distributors to upload “hundreds of thousands” of AI-generated tracks, and then used bots to stream them, earning him more than $10 million since 2017.

To try and curb the rise in fraudulent activity the music business has been ramping up its efforts to stop money being illegally siphoned out of the royalty pool. 

Last year, a coalition of digital music companies, including distributors including TuneCore, Distrokid and CD Baby, as well as streaming platforms Spotify and Amazon Music, launched the “Music Fights Fraud” task force. The past 12 months have additionally seen Spotify and Deezer change their royalty systems to include financial penalties for music distributors and labels associated with fraudulent activity.

LONDON — The music business is calling on the U.K. government to robustly protect copyright and “safeguard against misuse” by technology companies in any future regulations governing the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
On Tuesday (Dec. 17), the British government launched a 10-week consultation on how copyright protected content, such as music, can lawfully be used by developers to train generative AI models.

The proposals include introducing a new data mining exception to copyright law that would allow AI developers to use copyrighted songs for AI training, including commercial purposes, but only in instances where rights holders have not reserved their rights. Such an opt out mechanism, says the government proposal, gives creators and rights holders the ability to control, licence and monetize the use of their content – or prevent their works being used by AI developers entirely.

The consultation also recommends new transparency requirements for AI developers around what content they have used to train their models and how it was obtained, as well as the labelling of AI-generated material.

Trending on Billboard

Policymakers will additionally seek views from stakeholders on the protection of personality and image rights, and whether the current legal framework provides sufficient protection against AI-generated deepfake imitations.  

“Currently, uncertainty about how copyright law applies to AI is holding back both sectors from reaching their full potential,” said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in a statement announcing the consultation. “It can make it difficult for creators to control or seek payment for the use of their work, and creates legal risks for AI firms, stifling AI investment, innovation, and adoption.”

The government said that its proposed changes to copyright law will give clarity to AI developers over what content they are legally allowed to use when training generative AI models and “enhance” creators’ ability to be paid for the use of their work.

Before any new exceptions to copyright law can be introduced, further work would need to take place to ensure transparency standards and the mechanisms for rights holders to reserve their rights are “effective, accessible and widely adopted,” said DCMS.

“This government firmly believes that our musicians, writers, artists and other creatives should have the ability to know and control how their content is used by AI firms and be able to seek licensing deals and fair payment,” said Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, in a statement. “Achieving this, and ensuring legal certainty, will help our creative and AI sectors grow and innovate together in partnership.”

The start of the government’s long-awaited consultation on AI policy comes amid heightened lobbying from both the creative and technology industries. On Monday, a coalition of rights holders, including record labels, music publishers and artist groups, came together to call for copyright protection to be at the heart of any U.K. AI legislation.

The newly formed Creative Rights in AI Coalition, whose members include U.K. record labels trade body BPI, umbrella organization UK Music and the Music Publishers Association, wants policymakers to draw up AI laws that permit a “mutually beneficial, dynamic licensing market” built around “robust protections for copyright.”

The creative industries coalition said any future AI legislation must ensure accountability and compliance from AI developers and tech companies, who it said have thus far been exploiting copyright protected works “without permission, ignoring copyright protections and clear reservations of rights.”

The U.K. creative industries generated around £125 billion ($158 billion) for the country’s economy last year, according to government figures, with the music industry contributing a record £7.6 billion, up 13% year-on-year, of that total, according to UK Music research.

The U.K. is the world’s third-biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of $1.9 billion in 2023, according to IFPI. It is also the second-largest exporter of recorded music worldwide behind the U.S.

“Without proper control and remuneration for creators, investment in high-quality content will fall,” said the coalition, which also includes the Association of Independent Music (AIM) and British collecting societies PRS for Music and PPL, as well as trade groups representing photographers, illustrators, journalists, authors and filmmakers.

“Just as tech firms are content to pay for the huge quantity of electricity that powers their data centres, they must be content to pay for the high-quality copyright-protected works which are essential to train and ground accurate generative AI models.”

In a separate statement, BPI CEO Jo Twist said the organization was looking forward to working with the government on developing its AI policy but said it remains the BPI’s “firm view” that introducing a new exception to copyright for AI training “would weaken the U.K’s copyright system and offer AI companies permission to take – for their own profit, and without authorisation or compensation – the product of U.K. musicians’ hard work, expertise, and investment.”

“It would amount to a wholly unnecessary subsidy, worth billions of pounds, to overseas tech corporations at the expense of homegrown creators,” said Twist in a statement. She went on to say that opt-out schemes in other markets similar to what is being proposed by the U.K. government have been shown to increase legal uncertainty, “are unworkable in practice, and are woefully ineffective” in protecting creators’ rights.  

The government’s recommendation to introduce a new copyright exception for AI training is an idea that it has floated before – and received strong push back from the music industry to. In 2021, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) was heavily criticized by artists, labels and publishers for suggesting a new text and data mining (TDM) exception that would have allowed AI developers to freely use copyright-protected works for commercial purposes (albeit with certain restrictions).

Those proposals were quietly shelved by the government the following year but progress on any U.K. legislation governing the use of AI has been slow to arrive. In contrast, the 27-member block European Union, which the United Kingdom officially left in 2020, passed its world-first Artificial Intelligence Act – requiring transparency and accountability from AI developers – in March.

Meanwhile, other major music markets, including the United States, Japan and China are advancing their own attempts to regulate the nascent technology amid loud opposition from creators and rights holders over the unauthorized use of their work to train generative AI systems.

Earlier this year, the three major record companies – Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — filed lawsuits against AI music firms Suno and Udio alleging the widespread infringement of copyrighted sound recordings “at an almost unimaginable scale” Sony Music and Warner Music have additionally issued public notices to AI companies warning them against scraping their copyrighted data.

More recently, in October, thousands of musicians, composers, actors and authors from across the creative industries – as well as all three major record labels – signed a statement opposing the unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI. The number of signatories has since risen to more than 37,000 people, including ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, all five members of Radiohead and The Cure’s Robert Smith.

LONDON — As international president of Oak View Group (OVG), Jessica Koravos has a clear vision of how she wants the U.S.-based facility management and development firm to grow its already rapidly expanding global business. 
“We’re trying to be the best venue operators, offering the best entertainment experiences in the world,” she says confidently. “That’s what our goal is.” 

Just over six months ago, OVG’s long-planned pivot to international markets took an embarrassing stumble with the repeatedly delayed launch of Co-op Live – the United Kingdom’s biggest indoor music venue and the firm’s first major project outside the United States. 

When the official opening for the 23,500-capacity arena, located in Manchester, was pushed back by three weeks following a series of highly publicized delays — including part of a ventilation system falling from the roof just prior to a show by rapper A Boogie wit da Hoodie – Co-op Live became the butt of jokes on social media and generated a slew of negative headlines.  

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“It looked worse in the media than it felt on the ground,” reflects Koravos, half a year on from the venue’s troubled launch. “In the grand scheme of things, when you have been working on a project for five years, spent £400 million ($505 million) on it and it’s three weeks late, there’s a long-term perspective that says: ‘This is not the end of the world.’ When you look at it in the context of other big infrastructure projects in the U.K. I don’t think it’s going to go down in history anywhere on the list of problematic deliveries.”

Co-op Live eventually opened its doors May 8 with a headline show by local rock group Elbow. Since then, the venue has quickly become established as a key destination in the European touring circuit, selling over one million tickets and staging over 60 shows to date, including stopovers by Pearl Jam, Nicki Minaj, Liam Gallagher, Keane, Janet Jackson, Charli XCX and the Eagles‘ five-night sellout run – the group’s only U.K. dates on its farewell tour. 

A general view of the Co-op Live arena as Elbow performs the inaugural live show at Co-op Live on May 14, 2024 in Manchester, England.

Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage

In November, Co-op Live hosted the MTV European Music Awards (EMAs), featuring performances from Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Tyla and Busta Rhymes, which had a global digital reach (excluding broadcast) of over 7 billion, according to the venue’s post-event analysis. Upcoming shows at the arena include Paul McCartney, Slipknot, Cyndi Lauper and Sabrina Carpenter.   

Co-op Live is one of seven new arenas that OVG has built and opened in the last two years, including the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, UBS Arena in New York and Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, Calif. The fast-growing firm, co-founded in 2015 by former AEG CEO Tim Leiweke and ex-Live Nation chairman Irving Azoff, which operates more than 400 buildings globally, also has arenas under development in Nigeria, Canada and Wales, and is “actively looking” for opportunities to further expand its global footprint, says Koravos. 

This fall saw the launch of a new division, OVG Stadia, headed by Chris Wright, dedicated to growing the company’s global stadium business. Its remit includes identifying international markets to develop and build new multi-purpose stadiums, as well as expanding OVG’s roster of stadium clients, which includes London’s Wembley Stadium, Scotland’s Murrayfield Stadium, Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego and the historic Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas. The company is additionally pursuing arena development and partnership opportunities in the U.K., Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

“That showcase of Co-op Live is very helpful and we have a lot of other cities [around the world] now saying, ‘Can we have one of those?’” says London-based Koravos, who served as president of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group and formerly held senior roles at AEG Live and AEG Europe before joining OVG. 

Ballooning construction costs means “it’s easier said than done,” she cautions, “but we’ll find a way.” 

Koravos declines to discuss Leiweke’s publicly stated aim of building a new music arena in London, saying only that there are “announcements to come in the U.K. and continental Europe.” 

In the meantime, Oak View Group is looking to grow its share of the live music business by making its full suite of venue services, including hospitality, management, booking, marketing, facility development and sponsorship sales, available to non-OVG affiliated venue owners and third-party operators in Europe, like it already does in the U.S.  

To support the rollout, OVG International has bulked up its executive team with recent appointments including former Co-op Live interim general manager Rebecca Kane Burton as executive vice president of venue management and Michalis Fragkiadakis as vice president of hospitality strategy, responsible for driving forward OVG’s food and beverage business following last year’s acquisition of U.K.-based hospitality provider Rhubarb Hospitality Collection. They will be supported by Sam Piccione, international president of sales, Alex Reese, commercial and brand strategy director, and Gary Hutchinson, vice president of booking and commercial partnerships. 

“We take pride in the fact that we think about third party business in the same way that we think about our own,” says Koravos. She points to OVG completing “$5 billion worth of naming rights and sponsorship [deals] in the last three years” as evidence of the “industry-leading expertise” that it is offering to venues and live music businesses. Current venue service clients outside North America include football clubs Birmingham City FC, Real Betis and AS Roma, Manchester-based arts venue Aviva Studios and Lloyd Webber Theatres. 

“There are lots of facilities, arenas and stadiums all around Europe who would like to host concerts and that’s something that we’re trying to help to see if we can open up more markets for music internationally,” says Koravos. “Our goal is not to win all the contracts and to be everywhere. It’s to be with the right partners that share our values.” 

LONDON — The United Kingdom’s music industry is at a “tipping point” due to increasing competition from other international markets and the threat posed by unregulated generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), the head of umbrella organization UK Music has warned.
In 2023, the music industry contributed £7.6 billion ($9.6 billion) to the country’s economy, up 13% from the previous year, according to the organization’s annual This Is Music study, which measures the economic impact of the U.K. music industry across all income streams including live, record sales, publishing, merch, brand endorsements and public performance revenue for UK based music creators and rights holders. 

Huge grossing U.K. tours by Beyonce, Burna Boy and Harry Styles helped drive the record economic contribution, said UK Music, which bases its calculations upon the gross value estimates of money generated through music sales, concerts, recording studios, touring and music tourism — roughly equivalent to pre-tax profits and salaries.

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However, despite strong appetite for British artists and songs, the country’s music market is facing several significant challenges that threaten its continued prosperity, says UK Music. It identifies increasing competition from other international markets, tough financial conditions for grassroots artists and music venues, as well as the potential risks posed by generative AI on music creation as the biggest dangers to the sector.

According to export figures released earlier this year by U.K. labels trade body BPI, artists from the United Kingdom now cumulatively account for less than 10% of global music streams, compared to 17% in 2015. BPI says the U.K.’s declining share of the global music market is partially down to it facing tougher competition from fast-growing international markets such as Latin America and countries like South Korea.

The U.K.’s grassroots live sector is also battling a number of well-documented financial hardships with around 125 small capacity music venues closing in 2023 and more 350 currently at risk of closure, according to the Music Venue Trust (MVT) charity. Additionally, this year has seen 60 U.K. music festivals either postpone, cancel or close due to rising costs, slow ticket sales and poor weather, says the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF).

“We are now at a tipping point, and if the problems we face are not addressed then future growth cannot be guaranteed,” said UK Music chief executive Tom Kiehl in a statement on Wednesday (Nov. 20).

Kiehl said that without tougher regulation “the wild west” of generative AI could further undermine the U.K.’s long-held status as the world’s second biggest exporter of music behind the United States. Kiehl is calling for the British government to press ahead with implementing laws that protect artists and rights holders from AI developers using copyright protected works to train their systems without permission.

UK Music also wants to see ministers establish a legislative framework that will require tech companies to clearly identify AI created music and keep records of works that have they have ingested, akin to what the European Union introduce earlier this year in its AI Act.

Other areas where UK Music said urgent action was needed to maintain the market’s growth in the face of heightened international competition was in music education and the live industry. The organization is urging the Labour government to press ahead with its previously proposed cap on secondary ticket resale prices, as well as secure a cultural touring agreement with the EU that will allow visa-free touring for musicians and crew.

In a statement, U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy called the country’s music industry “a real British success story” that is “vitally important” to driving overall economic growth. Nandy said she was committed to ensuring that the government works with the music industry to build upon its current success for years to come.

“By supporting vital grassroots venues, introducing new secondary ticketing protections for fans and ensuring all children can access high quality music education in schools, we can help the sector go from strength to strength in the future,” said Nandy.

According to figures released earlier this year by U.K. labels trade body BPI, global superstars like Styles, Adele and Ed Sheeran helped British music exports climb to a record high of £775 million ($974 million) in 2023 based upon estimated label trade revenue — the highest annual total since BPI began analyzing labels’ overseas income in 2000.

UK’s Music’s This Is Music study uses a different methodology to report on export revenues, which it says climbed to a record high of £4.6 billion ($5.8 billion) in 2023, up 15% year-on-year. That export figure is based upon gross income generated overseas by British music companies and creators, including recorded music, publishing, brand endorsements, merchandise sales, international touring by homegrown artists and foreign visitors attending U.K. gigs and festivals (so-called music tourism).

The total number of people employed in the U.K. music industry grew 3% year-on-year to a record 216,000 full-time equivalent posts, reports UK Music.

LONDON — The British government is calling on the live music industry to introduce a voluntary levy on stadium and arena tickets sold in the United Kingdom “as soon as possible” to “safeguard the future of the grassroots music sector.”
“We believe this would be the quickest and most effective mechanism for a small portion of revenues from the biggest shows to be invested in a sustainable grassroots sector,” said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in a report published Thursday (Nov. 14).

Earlier this year, a cross-party committee of MPs said a new levy on arena and stadium tickets was urgently needed to stem the tide of small grassroots music venue closures in the United Kingdom.

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According to the Music Venue Trust (MVT), the number of grassroots music venues (defined as limited capacity venues regularly staging live music) in the U.K. declined from 960 to 835 in 2023, a fall of 13%, representing a loss of as many as 30,000 shows and 4,000 jobs. 

Responding to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report on the grassroots live music sector, published in May, the government said Thursday that it was “deeply concerned” with the rate of venue closures and that “a small industry-led levy within the price of a ticket” would benefit the U.K.’s live music system “as a whole.”

The government said it wanted the voluntary levy to come into effect “as soon as possible” so that it could be applied to arena and stadium music shows taking place in 2025. How the funds raised will be used to support small and low-capacity music venues should be clearly explained to ticket buyers, said the government. 

“We urge the live music industry, and in particular the biggest commercial players who will have the biggest impact on the success of an industry-led levy, to act and to do so swiftly,” said DCMS.

Exactly what form such a levy on arena and stadium shows will take is still to be determined. While there is broad support throughout the U.K. live music industry for a voluntary levy, some promoters would prefer that it is applied on a case-by-case basis and stakeholders are divided on whether the levy should be included within the ticket’s price or as an additional fee on top of the face value of the ticket.

The size of venue the levy would be applied to and its cost/rate is also yet to be decided, although the Music Venue Trust has previously called for a ÂŁ1 levy ($1.26) to be applied to arena and stadium shows above 5,500 capacity, excluding festivals. Discussions are currently taking place between live executives around what charitable body should collect, manage and distribute proceeds from the fund.

In a statement, Jon Collins, chief executive of live music industry umbrella organization LIVE, said driving forward “an industry-led solution to the challenges currently being experienced by venues, artists, festivals and promoters remains our number one priority.”

The idea of a voluntary arena tickets levy to support the grassroots music sector is one that has already received support from several high-profile U.K. artists and organizations.

In September, Coldplay announced that it would be donating 10% of the band’s proceeds from their 2025 dates at London’s Wembley Stadium and Hull’s Craven Park stadium to the Music Venue Trust.

Other acts backing the initiative include rock band Enter Shikari, who donated ÂŁ1 from every ticket sold on its February U.K. arena tour to the trust, and Sam Fender, who has pledged to do the same on his forthcoming U.K. dates. This year, Halifax-based venue The Piece Hall became the first U.K. venue to give ticket-buyers the option to donate to the charity.

A similar scheme to support grass roots music creation exists in France, where a statutory 3.5% levy on the gross value of all concert tickets sales goes into a central fund administered by the Centre National de la Musique (CNM), France’s public agency for the music industry.

“This is the beginning of a way forward,” Kwame Kwaten, director of artist management company Ferocious Talent, whose roster includes Blue Lab Beats, Hak Baker and Caitlyn Scarlett, tells Billboard.

“If [the levy] happens, it will at least begin the process of addressing something that has been left out to dry with humongous consequences, especially at the kind of levels that we have to operate at before an artist gets to the arena, stadium level, which is where 80-90% of [touring] artists are,” says Kwaten, who gave evidence to the CMS committee during the inquiry.

“We are standing at a massive crossroads,” he says, “and we have now got a chance to do something about it.”

In a statement, CMS Committee chair, Dame Caroline Dinenage, said she welcomed the government’s recognition that “swift action on a levy is needed from the bigger players who pack out arenas and stadiums,” but warned that “the lack of a firm deadline for movement risks allowing matters to drift.”

“Without healthy roots, the entire live music ecosystem suffers,” said Dinenage, who is calling for government ministers to set a clear deadline for the industry to act. If no significant progress is made within six months, she said the CMS committee will hold another hearing with representatives of the U.K. live music industry.

“Every week I hear from music managers trying to do the impossible and bridge catastrophic shortfalls in their artists touring budgets,” said Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of U.K. trade body the Music Managers Forum (MMF), in a statement. Coldrick says it is “imperative” that the music industry comes together to establish a ticket levy on “all large-scale live music shows” to support smaller scale touring artists. “The current situation is untenable,” she says.

The U.K. government’s support for an arena ticket levy is the latest in a long line of Parliament-led interventions into the music industry that have taken place in recent years, including a nine-month probe into the music streaming business and a subsequent review of the sector by the U.K. competition watchdog.

More recently, authorities have turned their attentions to the live industry. In September, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into Ticketmaster over its much-criticized use of dynamic ticketing for Oasis‘ reunion tour, which prompted hundreds of complaints from fans and fierce condemnation from British politicians.

The British government has also said it would be looking into the practice of dynamic pricing for music concerts as part of its consultation into the secondary ticketing market, which is due to begin in the coming weeks.