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SBA Has Approved 43% of Shuttered Venue Grant Applications
Of those notified of their awards, 2,374 are live music venue operators or promoters and 734 are talent representatives. Live performing arts organizations have received 1,777 award notifications. In addition, the SBA has “come to a decision on eligibility” for another 5,902 applicants, which means they will soon be notified of their applications success, failure or need for revision. Monday’s numbers show the SBA has “decisioned” 86% of the total 15,026 applications submitted. The administration has another 11% of applications in review and 3% waiting to be reviewed. As of midday Monday, the SBA has disbursed $3.3 billion in federal funding to venues, promoters, talent agencies, zoos, museums and movie theaters since May 26. Another $1.7 billion has...
Jennifer Lopez, Concord and Skydance Team to Adapt Classic Musicals for TV, Film
The A-list actor and musician will have an option to star in one of the forthcoming productions. Concord, Skydance and Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions (co-run by Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas) have teamed to co-develop original film/TV projects based on Concord’s theatrical catalog of musicals, the companies announced Monday (July 12). Representing a wide array of classic and modern theatrical catalogs, Concord controls works by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Lin-Manuel Miranda, George & Ira Gershwin and many more. Nuyorican Productions’ Lopez, Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina will act as executive producers for the projects from the partnership along with Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Bill Bost and Concord’s Sophia Dilley and Scott Pascucci. Lopez will ...
Stadium Concerts Are Back: Inside Garth Brooks’ Huge Show at Las Vegas’ ‘Death Star’
Brooks took great pride in being a post-pandemic trailblazer, embracing the challenge of delivering a pivotal show for both fans and the industry. “To every musician out there, all I can say is get back in the game because it’s the greatest feeling in the world,” Brooks said during the concert, at one point getting on his hands and knees to thank the audience. The 28-song set, which is a continuation of what fans saw on his derailed 2020 tour, had Brooks and the crowd in a perpetual two-hour state of elation. He banged through all his hits and a few monumental covers including Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” Bonnie Tyler’s “Mom” and George Strait...
Sony Music Publishing to Represent AC/DC, Vanda, Young and Wright Catalogs
Additionally, the music publishing giant strikes a worldwide deal to represent the song catalog of Harry Vanda, George Young, and Stevie Wright. “We are pleased to join forces with Alberts to deliver new opportunities for AC/DC and Vanda, Young and Wright,” comments Sony Music Publishing chairman and CEO Jon Platt. David Albert and the Alberts team, he continues, “are leaders in shaping Australia’s modern music culture, and our shared ethos will be powerful in sustaining the global impact of these iconic catalogs.” AC/DC signed with the family-owned Alberts back in 1974 and they’ve been back in black ever since. The Rock Hall-inducted band has released 17 studio albums, including 2020’s Power Up, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, their third leader. With that LP, AC/DC bec...
Virgin Music Forges Label Services Pact in Brazil With WorkShow
Under the new partnership, Universal says WorkShow has signed sertanejo duo Henrique & Juliano, which is bringing their entire catalog spanning their nine-year career. The act, which has 13.2 million subscribers on YouTube had the top streaming track in Brazil in 2020, “Liberdade Provisória,” according to IFPI. The act was already a WorkShow management client and was signed to Som Livre. The deal underscores the interest that sertanejo, Brazil’s pop-country genre, has continued to generate among the majors. With artists like Jorge & Mateus dominating streaming charts in Brazil, in April Sony Music Entertainment spent about $255 million to acquire Som Livre, the country’s third-largest label and leading sertanejo imprint, from Grupo Globo. The deal, which followed an intense bidding...
Tencent Music Spared From Forced Sales in China Regulatory Crackdown
The government action is part of a broader attempt by Beijing to regulate its domestic technology sector, which grew rapidly after years of relatively little regulation. Since last December, regulators have fined 11 companies, including Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba and ByteDance, for failing to disclose past acquisitions and investments. News of the regulatory fines sent shares of Tencent Music Entertainment on the New York Stock Exchange down more than 10% on Wednesday and Thursday to $12.69 a share. Shares of other Chinese tech companies listed in the U.S., including JD.com, Alibaba and Pinduoduo, also slid. (TME rebounded slightly on Friday, up 1.5% to $12.88.) Still, despite the sweeping penalties enacted, the lack of forced divestitures seemed to allay investor concerns that Tencent Music ...
Universal Music Publishing China Hosts All-Female Writing Camp with She Is The Music
June’s all-women camp marked She Is The Music’s first songwriting camp outside the U.S. and connected some of UMP China’s most promising women writers with songwriters from several other countries, including the U.S., Mexico, South Korea and Australia. According to USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative, which surveys the number of women represented on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts, only 12.6% of the songwriters and just 2.6% of the producers behind 2020’s hottest tracks were women. Stats like these are the driving force behind She Is The Music, which was founded to try to increase these numbers, both on the U.S. charts and abroad. So when UMP China reached out to She Is the Music to propose a collaboration last year, Michelle Arkuski, She Is the Music’s executive director, was...
Songwriter J.R. Rotem’s Catalog Acquired by Swiss Investment Entity MusicBird AG
Though MusicBird AG’s purchase of Rotem’s catalog is the entity’s first foray into song catalog acquisition, company chairman Jonas Anker promises the new deal is just the beginning for his team. “This is the first of many planned acquisitions,” he said in a recent statement, adding the sale is a “great way to kickstart” the company’s endeavors. “We’re honored that J.R. Rotem entrusted his amazing song collection to us.” Rotem added, “Like every songwriter, my songs are a precious part of me. So I am gratified that my songs have found a nurturing home with MusicBird.” Rotem was represented by Guy Blake, partner at Granderson Des Rochers, LLP. MusicBird AG was represented by the company’s head of music Sanji Tandan and Kendall Minter of Taylor English Duma, LLP. Tandan said the acquisition ...
Copyright Office Recommends MLC’s Distribution of Pre-2021 Unmatched Royalties Not Occur for 5 Years
The MLC was created by the Music Modernization Act (MMA) to collect mechanical royalties from digital services and create a database matching recordings to rights owners. It is also tasked with collecting the right ownership information for each song and maintaining a database so that the correct rights owners and songwriters receive proper payments. Before the MLC was created and launched on Jan. 1 2021, this process was handled by the digital services and their consultants and resulted in some $424.3 million in unmatched royalties. Those funds have since been turned over to the MLC for distribution. The MLC must first try to match those royalties with the rightful owners of those songs, and it has three years to do so, according to the MMA. After that, if the correct rights owners can’t ...
Inside Track: How the Music Business Is Preparing to Return to the Office
Katovsky explains that BMG tested its return-to-work plan at its offices in Sydney, Australia, where COVID infection rates were low until recently. After surveying its global staff, Katovsky says that moving forward, the majority of BMG’s employees will be permitted to work from home two days per week. “We’re eager and excited to get back into the office, but we’re also pragmatic about that, and accept that we’ll have to make changes along the way,” he says. Meanwhile, a source says Sony Music has told its employees that, moving forward, the company plans to support more flexibility regarding working from home, and Triple 8 Management founder George Couri says the company’s employees, who are based in Nashville and Austin, Texas will have the option to work at home for part of the week. “A...
Dua Lipa Sued for Posting Paparazzi Photo of Herself to Instagram
Integral Images is seeking $150,000 in damages or, alternatively, “an award of actual damages and disgorgement of all of Defendant’s profits attributable to the infringements,” whichever is larger. It is additionally asking for an order enjoining Dua Lipa from further acts of infringement, as well as litigation costs and attorney’s fees. A screen grab of Lipa’s alleged use of the photo, which shows the star standing in line at an airport while wearing an oversize hat, is included as an exhibit with the complaint. Integrated Images claims the photo was taken just a few days before Lipa posted it to her account with the caption, “I’ll be living under big fluffy hats until further notice.” Representatives for Lipa and Integral Images did not immediately return Billboar...
One Year In: Tour Photographer Catherine Powell Bought a House, Is Hitting the Road With Dan + Shay
When COVID started, none of us knew that a year later we’d still be in this. [In] March last year, everyone was kind of like, “Prepare for three months off, and then come summer we’re gonna be back on the road,” or “Come fall we’re gonna be back on the road.” So I formatted [my online print store to sell my photographs] in a way where it was only open for like six weeks or something like that — it got me through those months that I planned on not being on the road and a little past that. And then I was like, “Aww sh–, I should have done this for longer.” But it is what it is. Unemployment would go up and down in terms of, some weeks we got that bonus and that was great and that could fully keep me afloat, but then when that ...
