International
Judge Recommends Russian Stream-Ripping Sites Pay $82.9M in Damages
A federal judge has recommended that the operators of two Russian stream-ripping websites pay more than $80 million in damages for circumventing YouTube’s anti-piracy measures and infringing copyrights of audio recordings. In a case brought by more than a dozen record labels, including UMG Recordings, Warner Records and Sony Music Entertainment, U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan said the sites operated by Tofig Kurbanov, a Russian national, should be shut down permanently via injunctions and that statutory damages of $50,000 be awarded for each of the 1,618 copyrighted works the sites infringed. Kurbanov operates www.FLVTO.biz and www.2conv.com, which the Fourth Circuit has previously recognized as “two of the most popular stream-ripping websites in the world and…among the most popula...
Ed Sheeran & Elton John Highlight International Holiday Hits on Global Charts
SZA scores the week’s highest debut on the Dec. 18-dated Billboard Global 200 as “I Hate U” arrives at No. 11. But Ed Sheeran and Elton John take top honors among new entries on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. survey, dashing in at No. 10 with “Merry Christmas.” The team-up, released Dec. 3, drew 29 million streams and sold 42,300 downloads worldwide in its first week (ending Dec. 9), according to MRC Data. The song’s streams break down to 69% (20.1 million) from audio platforms and 31% (8.9 million) from video services, largely thanks to its festive official video that also premiered Dec. 3. A 31% share might seem small for a song’s video streams, but it’s a rare high mark among holiday titles that mostly live on audio services, many of which predate the ’80s-era breakout of videos. Next ...
Sony Music, Anghami Form Arabic Record Label With a Global Scope
Sony Music Middle East and top Arab music streamer Anghami have teamed up to launch Vibe Music Arabia, a new joint-venture record label designed to support the Arabic artist community in Saudi Arabia and the Levant and wider GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) regions. The wholly independent label, which was first announced at MDLBEAST’s XP Music Conference in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia, this week, “will act as a creative, accelerator and educational hub” aimed at empowering Arabian musicians, songwriters, producers and content creators both regionally and globally, according to a press release. Music put out by Vibe Music Arabia will be released on all streaming platforms and services around the world in an effort to score breakthroughs for its artists in countries outside the Middle East. Taking t...
U.K. Introduces Vaccine Passports for Clubs and Venues
LONDON – New restrictions for nightclubs and music venues in England have been introduced to tackle a sharp rise in cases of the coronavirus omicron variant. Members of Parliament backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s controversial ‘Plan B’ measures on Tuesday (Dec. 14), with 369 MPs voting in favor of making COVID-19 vaccine passports a legal requirement to enter clubs and some concert halls, versus 126 against. The rules come into force on Wednesday, meaning that people aged over 18 in England will need to show they’ve either had two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine or proof of a negative test taken in the past 48 hours to enter a number of music venues, including nightclubs and indoor unseated venues with more than 500 people. Proof of vaccine status via an NHS Covid Pass is also needed fo...
2021 MAMAs: BTS Cleans Up, Aespa Debuts and NCT Dream, Itzy & Wanna One Deliver
The Mnet Asian Music Awards have come and gone for another year, and while one of the most prestigious music award shows in South Korea is always chock-full of exciting performances and plenty of idol worship, this latest event felt truly special. After the 2020 ceremony featured no live audience at all, it was obvious to all involved that the 2021 staging had to be bigger and more fantastic than ever… and thankfully, the show was everything it should have been. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news BTS wrapped the evening as the biggest winners, as they claimed all four Daesangs — artist of the year, worldwide icon of the year, song of the year (for “Butter”) and album of the year (for Be) — as well as just as may other prizes, bringing their total ...
Austria Poised to Loosen Online Copyright Restrictions — Will Other EU Countries Follow?
BERLIN — A spectre is haunting the European music business: The 2019 European Union Copyright Directive, intended to give creators and rightsholders more power to control the use of their content on online platforms, could instead create another set of problems. One of the pillars of the Copyright Directive was a provision that would hold online platforms responsible for unlicensed copyrighted material uploaded by users. In May, however, Germany passed a law implementing the directive with an exception that classified clips of under 15 seconds shared on online platforms like YouTube as “minor use,” presumptively allowing the use of the material without a license unless copyright holders specifically objected. Although the German law is contrary to both the text and the intention of t...
K-Music to the World: How to Enjoy Korea Through Virtual ‘K-Vibe Festa’
For the past two years, lockdowns and travel bans have resulted in it being almost impossible to visit other countries. As the world resets and the global COVID-19 pandemic recedes, tourism is tentatively returning to some regions, but if you’re not yet ready to hop on a plane to South Korea, that’s all right, because with the K-VIBE FESTA, South Korea can come to you, virtually. A multi-element experience that is built on the increasingly popular idea of a metaverse, the Korea Tourism Organization’s K-VIBE FESTA campaign is themed around the idea of “Come Play With Korea” and features a variety of different experiences for people to engage with in digital realms. The overall theme of the K-VIBE FESTA is for international fans to explore and enjoy all that South Korean pop culture and trad...
UK Streaming Reform Bill Put On Ice After House of Commons Debate
LONDON – The British government said Friday that it recognizes there is a problem around the low rates of pay some artists and performers receive from music streaming — and refused to rule out legislating change if the industry can’t work together to find its own solutions. “We want a fair streaming environment in which the U.K. music industry can thrive and artists are properly rewarded,” George Freeman, a Conservative government minister, said during a four-hour debate in the House of Commons over a bill that seeks to reform music streaming payouts. The Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians) Bill failed Friday to progress to the next stage of the legislative process as proceedings overran. That means the bill remains on the agenda of Private Members’ bills to be debated by MPs ...
Netease Cloud Village Stock Slips 2.5% Following Hong Kong IPO
Chinese music streaming company Cloud Village finally had its initial public stock offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday (Dec. 2) after postponing its plans in August amid a Chinese regulatory crackdown. Investors’ initial reaction was underwhelming as Cloud Village’s share price closed at 199.90 Hong Kong dollars ($25.66), about 2.5% below the 205.00 Hong Kong dollars ($26.31) IPO price. Tech giant Netease spun off the company, which runs NetEase Cloud Music, in an offering of 16 million shares — 7.7% of the outstanding shares — that raised 41.5 billion Hong Kong dollars ($421 million). NetEase gained approval for the spin-off on Aug. 2 but delayed the listing indefinitely about a week later after Beijing’s tightening regulations brought attention to publicly traded Chinese...
UK Watchdog Orders Meta/Facebook to Sell GIF Platform Giphy
The United Kingdom’s antitrust watchdog has blocked Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy and ordered the social network to sell off the GIF-sharing platform, saying the deal hurts social media users and advertisers by stifling competition for animated images. The Competition and Markets Authority said Tuesday that the deal would let Facebook “increase its already significant market power” by denying or limiting other platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs and driving traffic to Facebook-owned sites. It has noted previously that there’s only one other big provider of GIFs, Google’s Tenor. The regulator also was concerned that the deal removed potential competition from the U.K.’s 7 billion pound ($9.3 billion) display advertising market, of which Facebook controls half. It’s the first time the watchdog...
Canadians Are Now Hitting 2 Billion Weekly Audio Streams
Canadian consumers are now streaming more than two billion on-demand audio streams per week — a new benchmark for the country’s music industry. For the third consecutive week, Canada hit the two billion-streams mark in the week ending Nov. 25, according to MRC Data. The total 2.047 billion streams were up 15.9% from the same period last year. Two billion on-demand streams in Canada are worth about 777,500 Canadian dollars ($610,000), according to an estimate by performing rights organization SOCAN provided to Billboard based on a quarterly average earnings of 0.000389 Canadian dollars ($0.000305) per stream. (“Keep in mind this is an average that considers many platforms each with their own variables,” a SOCAN representative stated. “This n...
UK Proposes Law Demanding Record Labels Pay Artists More for Streams
LONDON – The U.K. government has proposed a law requiring record companies to pay musicians and songwriters a bigger cut of revenue from music streams on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, a move that would bring streaming closer in line with radio and television broadcasts in the country. The Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians) Bill was published Wednesday (Nov. 24) and will be presented to Parliament on Dec. 3. The Bill would obligate record companies to pay performers ‘equitable remuneration’ when music is streamed. A similar statutory right already exists in the U.K. for TV and radio broadcasts, where performers receive 50% of the revenues distributed by the collecting society PPL, with the rest going to record labels and publishers. If a version of equitable remunera...
