Wienerworld // Social Media and Marketing Assistant (London/Hybrid)

FEAT // Junior Policy Officer/Industry Liaison (Remote/London)

Ninja Tune // Marketing Assistant (London/Hybrid)

Erased Tapes Records // Label & Production Manager (London)

ICE Licensing // Senior DSP Audit & Assurance Manager (London)

ICE Licensing // DSP Audit and Assurance Manager (London)

Today's music business news

TOP STORY

Lyrics can be used as evidence in Young Thug gang trial, judge rules

The judge overseeing the ongoing criminal case involving Young Thug has ruled that prosecutors will be able to use some of the rapper's lyrics when the proceedings get to trial later this month, albeit on a conditional basis.

Judge Ural Glanville will allow seventeen sets of lyrics from songs performed by Young Thug - real name Jeffery Williams - and other co-defendants in the case to be presented as evidence in court. Albeit "depending upon - or subject to - a foundation that is properly laid by the state or the proponent that seeks to admit that evidence".

Williams was charged in the US state of Georgia in May last year - alongside fellow rapper Gunna and 26 others - with numerous counts of racketeering.

Prosecutors allege that the rapper co-founded a gang that went on to commit murders, shootings and carjackings, which he then bragged about in his tracks and music videos. The case against Williams and five others will get to court at the end of this month.

The use of lyrics - usually rap lyrics - in criminal cases has become increasingly controversial in recent years. It is argued that using a defendants creative output as evidence in court breaches that person's freedom of expression.

Concerns have also been expressed that juries are prone to assume that rap lyrics in particular are more rooted in reality when, of course, any events they describe may be exaggerated or entirely made up.

New rules were introduced in the state of California last year restricting the use of lyrics in criminal trials and there have been calls from the music industry for similar restrictions to be put in place across the US. Warner Music divisions Atlantic Records and 300 Entertainment, which work with Young Thug and Gunna, have been particularly vocal on this issue.

Williams' legal rep Brian Steel obviously raised all of the concerns around the use of lyrics as evidence before Glanville made his ruling. He also pointed out that Williams doesn't even write all of the lyrics he performs. But the judge was not persuaded by those arguments.

According to AP, the prosecution countered that free speech protections under the First Amendment of the US Constitution did not apply because the defendants are not be prosecuted for their lyrics. The rapped lines, they added, prove the existence of William's gang, the behaviour of gang members and William's status as gang leader, meaning that they "are party admissions" that "happen to come in the form of lyrics".

ONE LINERS

Beyonce, Daft Punk, The National + more

APPOINTMENTS

Booking agency Wasserman Music has appointed Brad Goodman as Senior Vice President, Sam Barlett at VP Casinos/Performing Arts Centres, Taryn Haight at VP Strategy for Electronic Music, and Guy Mason as Legal Counsel. "Since the launch of Wasserman Music in 2021, we have always put a premium on our culture and on super-serving the artists we have the honour to represent around the world”, says EVP and Managing Executive Lee Anderson. "The addition of Brad, Sam, Taryn and Guy helps us continue to strengthen our organisation and solidify our place as the premiere global music representation agency”.

RELEASES

Beyonce has released the trailer for her ‘Renaissance’ concert film, which will hit cinemas on 1 Dec.

Daft Punk have released the drumless version of ‘Motherboard’ from the upcoming drumless version of their ‘Random Access Memories’ album.

Girli has released new single ‘Nothing Hurts Like a Girl’ and announced that her new album ‘Matriarchy’ will be out on 17 May 2024.

Formerly one half of MS MR, alexmaax has released new single ‘Openended’. The song, he says, “is about a close friendship that dissolved as we each drew different lessons about who we wanted to be during the isolation of the pandemic. My friend suddenly moved away without really telling me, prompting a period of deep heartbreak and self-reflection as I tried to make sense of what had gone wrong”.

Persher (aka Blawan and Pariah) have announced that they will release their debut album ‘Sleep Well’ on 23 Feb. Out now are two new singles: ‘Sleep Well Night Time Forest Rain’ and ‘Elemental Stoppage’.

GIGS & TOURS

The National have announced that they will play a show at Crystal Palace Park in London on 5 Jul next year. Support will come from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Kevin Morby and This Is The Kit. Tickets go on general sale on 17 Nov.

DIGITAL

Canva launches music library product

Online design platform Canva yesterday announced that it is "making it easy for its Pro and Education customers to access a new library of music clips featuring some of the world’s biggest artists", so to enable its users "to create more engaging content by incorporating their favourite songs into their design work".

The new functionality follows the announcement earlier this year of deals with Warner Music and indie label-repping Merlin. Canva says that its partnerships with the music industry mean that "customers can browse and embed more than half a million songs from a wide range of genres and artists" into content they create on the platform. Meanwhile, artists and labels can get their music "in front of millions of creators" while also earning royalties when their clips are used.

Says Canva's Head Of Content, Discovery And Print Silvia Oviedo: “Like visual communication, music is a universal language that serves as a powerful tool for self-expression. Adding popular music to Canva is a natural evolution of our vision to put the entire visual communication ecosystem under one simple platform. We’re THRILLED to give users a unique starting point, and make it easy for them to add great music into their work".

LABELS & PUBLISHERS

Hipgnosis Song Management appoints new finance and legal chiefs

Hipgnosis Song Management appoints new finance and legal chiefs The Hipgnosis Song Management company has announced two new senior hires, with Jon Baker appointed as General Counsel and Daniel Pounder becoming Chief Financial Officer.

Both previously worked at BMG alongside Ben Katovsky, who moved over to Hipgnosis as President and Chief Operating Officer last year.

Confirming the new appointments, he says: “I’m delighted to be working with Jon and Dan again. Both are exceptional executives who have a proven and highly successful track record in music acquisition, efficiently and effectively growing music businesses and ensuring that music catalogues enjoy the lasting success that they warrant and deserve".

Hipgnosis Song Management advises the two Hipgnosis funds that have been buying up lots of music rights, the publicly listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund and Blackstone-backed Hipgnosis Songs Capital. It also manages any music catalogues acquired by those two entities.

In his new role, Pounder will oversee HSM's finance and investment functions and the teams that deliver those services to HSF and HSC. Baker, meanwhile, will oversee the legal aspects of future catalogue acquisitions, as well as day-to-day legal and business affairs activities conducted on behalf of the two Hipgnosis funds.

Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis adds on the new hires: “It is always a priority for me to continually strengthen our executive leadership team to ensure we have the best institutional investment, finance and music capabilities and experience to deliver the next stage of development for Hipgnosis and our funds".

“This was the case starting with the appointment of Ben Katovsky as President and Chief Operating Officer one year ago”, he goes on, “and we’re delighted to welcome Dan and Jon to round out this process, particularly as this group of leaders have a proven successful chemistry of working together".

The new appointments come as HSF undertakes a strategic review following the recent continuation vote in which investors voted against continuation, forcing a reset of the way it operates. That review is seeking to allay the concerns of shareholders who have been increasingly critical about the Fund's board and also Hipgnosis Song Management.

LEGAL

Sarah Silverman lawsuit testing copyright obligations of Meta's LLaMA AI platform back in court

A US judge has indicated that he will dismiss much, although not all, of the lawsuit that has been filed against Meta by three writers - including comedian Sarah Silverman - over the tech giant’s generative AI platform LLaMA. The legal action is testing the copyright obligations of Meta when it uses existing content to train LLaMA.

Californian judge Vince Chhabria this week considered Meta's motion to dismiss outright most of claims made by the authors in their lawsuit, which was filed in July.

According to Law360, Chhabria told a legal rep for Silverman et al that he understood the core copyright infringement claim in the lawsuit - ie that Meta allegedly made copies of their books as part of the training process without licence.

However, the authors' lawsuit also makes various other claims of copyright infringement against Meta in relation to the development and use of LLaMA, and also accuses the tech firm of breaching rules in the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act around copyright management information.

On those other claims, Chhabria is less convinced by the arguments put forward by the authors and their legal team. Indeed, he said in court this week: "I understand your core theory of copyright infringement ... Meta used the books to train its program ... [but] your remaining theories of liability, I don't understand, even a little bit".

In a subsequent discussion about those other claims, the judge implied that - while he is likely to dismiss them from the lawsuit in their current form - he might accept revised and much more narrowly defined versions of the claims if submitted in an amended complaint.

Although this is not a music case, any litigation around the copyright obligations of generative AI platforms are relevant to music companies. The lawsuits should provide some clarity about the extent to which AI companies must secure licences from the music industry when making use of existing recordings and songs in order to train their models.

Beyond the technicalities that were discussed in court this week, Meta will defend itself from the core copyright infringement claim in this case by insisting that training an AI model with copyright protected works is 'fair use' under US law, so a licence is not required from the copyright owner. The authors - like the music industry in music AI cases - will fight back strongly against that defence.

DIGITAL

Amazon cuts jobs in its music division

Amazon confirmed earlier this week that is has started cutting jobs in its music division. According to Reuters, employees in Europe, North America and Latin America are affected by the downsizing and were informed about the job cuts on Wednesday.

Like most big tech companies, Amazon has significantly reduced the size of its workforce over the last year, with previous redundancies affected more than 27,000 employees.

Confirming the new cuts in the firm's music division, an Amazon spokesperson said: “We have been closely monitoring our organisational needs and prioritising what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses. Some roles have been eliminated on the Amazon Music team. We will continue to invest in Amazon Music”.

LEGAL

Linkin Park sued by early bassist

A bass player who performed with Linkin Park before they found fame is suing the band, claiming involvement in “more than 20 songs” that they have released - the bulk of them rarities that appeared in a 20th anniversary box set of their debut album ‘Hybrid Theory’.

Kyle Christner says that he has never received any payment for his work, despite claiming that one of the band’s managers contacted him about the box set to acknowledge that he was due royalties from some of the songs.

In the lawsuit, Christner says that he was a member of the band in 1999 and played with them at a showcase for Warner Music, which resulted in them being offered a record deal. However, he says, he was “abruptly” fired in October that year without explanation.

Although only with the band for a short time, he says he made contributions to numerous early songs and many tracks that featured his playing were included in the 2020 ‘Hybrid Theory’ box set. One track, ‘Could Have Been’, has since had almost a million plays on YouTube alone.

Christner claims that, when one of Linkin Park’s managers contacted him in April 2022, he was told that he was owed royalties for three demos that were included in the box set, as well as the six song ‘Hybrid Theory’ EP, which was originally released in 1999.

That prompted him to go and check the tracklists for the box set and he found that his work actually featured on “more than 20” songs. When he informed the manager who had contacted him of this, he says, they “went dark”.

Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda has acknowledged Christner’s involvement in the band in the past. In one Twitch livestream in 2020 he said that a bass solo he played on ‘Could Have Been’ was “gnarly”. Although on another occasion he played down Christner’s involvement, saying that he had just played “a couple of shows”.

The musician is calling on the courts to determine authorship and ownership of the songs to which he claims to have contributed, and to then award him backdated royalties, interest and legal costs.

AND FINALLY

Dua Lipa does reverse disappearing act

Dua Lipa is back then. If she was ever gone. I don’t think she was. But she’s going to release a new album, that’s what I mean. She’s not put out one of those since 2020, when she emerged as the queen of lockdown. And now she has a new song out, called ‘Houdini’.

Details on the new album are sparse. Pretty much non-existent. But we do know that the core team of co-writers, alongside Lipa herself, are ‘New Rules’ co-writer Caroline Ailin, PC Music’s Danny L Harle, Adele collaborator Tobias Jesso Jr, and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker. So I’d say that bodes well.

Out now, ‘Houdini’ was written by all of that lot, and was produced by Harle and Parker.

“This track represents the most light and freeing parts of my singledom”, says Lipa. “’Houdini’ is very tongue in cheek, exploring the idea of whether someone is really worth my while or if I’ll ghost them in the end”.

“You never know where something may take you, that’s the beauty of being open to whatever life throws your way”, she adds. “I’m looking forward to sharing that feeling of defiant bliss with my fans”.

“A lot of this album was written in those joyous moments of absolute chaos and how I moved through the world with lightness and optimism of whatever the outcome may be”, she concludes.

Now, here’s the video for ‘Houdini’.