La-La-Lawsuits: A Look Back on August’s Finest Litigious Moments

Florida rapper J.R. Bricks changed the name of his song “Waffle House” to “After the Party” after  he received a cease-and-desist letter from Waffle House, Inc.  Despite the title change, the Waffle House reference remains in the chorus.

Lady Gaga is being sued by Rebecca Francescatti who claims the singer and her producing partner stole her song, “Juda,” to create the hit “Judas.” The plaintiff says she introduced her song to her former bass player and a sound engineer who was working with Gaga.  How similar are the two tracks? You be the judge. “Juda” is available here.  Gaga’s “Judas” here.

As I wrote about in a previous post, Spotify was caught using some nasty cookies that track customers even after they’ve tried to delete the cookies. Now, the popular music streaming service that just launched in the U.S., is one of the latest targets of a class action over breaches in privacy laws stemming from their use of the cookies.

The Writers Guild of America filed a claim against Bring It On: The Musical on behalf of Jessica Bendinger, the screenwriter of the 2000 Universal film on which the new musical is based.  The confidential arbitration demand asserts that Beacon Communications Corp. and Beacon Communications, LLC are exploiting Bendinger’s dramatic rights in the cheerleader-themed Bring It On without her consent, in violation of the guild agreement’s “separated rights” provisions. It seeks damages and an injunction against Bring It On: The Musical, which is being coproduced by Universal Pictures Stage Productions, Beacon Communications and others.  Bendinger had been working on developing her own stage version of the story for the past six years and found out through the rumor mill that the show was being shopped without her involvement.

Dr. Phil and CBS have settled a lawsuit by Shirley Dieu and Crystal Matchett who alleged they were lured by promises of getting personal counseling from Dr. Phil himself, only to be locked during a 2007 filming of the show in a “mock house” on a sound stage and “forced to be in the same room with a completely naked live man while he exposed his entire naked body, genitals and all.”  Last January a California judge denied CBS’ anti-SLAPP motion and determined that the women showed a likelihood of success.  The details of the settlement have not been released.

August’s Notable Hirings, Firings & Promotions

Richard Palmese is leaving his post as EVP of Promotion at RCA Music Group.  Tom Corson, another longtime executive there, was named the label group’s president and chief operating officer.

David Bohrman, the former chief of CNNs Washington bureau, is now the president of Current TV.

David Foster will soon lead UMG-owned Verve Music Group.  He is expected to focus the label’s roster on adult contemporary music.

Rob Stevenson joins Universal Republic as Executive VP of A&R, reporting into CEO Monte Lipman and COO Avery Lipman.

Peter Edge has been named CEO of RCA Music Group, the umbrella group of RCA, J, Arista, and Jive.

RIAA president Mitch Bainwol has officially stepped down, moving away from the music industry to the position of chief executive at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.  Replacing Bainwol as chairman and chief executive will be Cary Sherman, the organization’s president since 2001.

Pandora named Steven Kritzman as Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales.

The Orchard has taken on former Random House executive Peter McCarthy as SVP of Marketing.

Philip Ginthör is now CEO of Sony Music Entertainment GSA (Germany, Switzerland and Austria).

Edgar Berger has been named President & CEO of International at Sony Music Entertainment.

Don Was is now Chief Creative Officer at EMI-owned Blue Note Records.

Ethiopia Habtemariam, an influential young executive from Universal’s music publishing arm, has been named Motown’s senior vice president.

Stephen White is the new President of Gracenote.

Clear Channel Radio promoted Tom Poleman to President of Clear Channel National Programming Platforms and moved  Michele Laven to EVP of Strategic Partnerships.

Eric Dingman was ousted from his role as leader of Classics at EMI.  David Kassler will become the Chairman of Classics and Amanda Cupples will function as the Chief Operating Officer for the Global Classics business, focusing on strategy development and global coordination.

TAG Strategic has just named Jeff Becker as VP Social Media and Brand Marketing.

Bruno Mars manager Brandon Creed is now an A&R consultant for Universal Republic and Island Def Jam Motown, reporting into group chairman Barry Weiss.

More changes at Island Def Jam with layoffs including Garrett Schaefer (Bon Jovi, M Etheridge, Taio Cruz), Paul Resta (The Killers, Neon Trees, Noel Gallagher, Portishead, Noah and the Whale, Jon McHugh (head of Film/TV), JP Robinson (head of Creative) Sam Dailey (head of Phys Retail) and 30+ staffers.

Shortly following the layoffs at Island Def Jam, Sony Music Entertainment cut an estimated 25 employees, including Larry Kanusher (senior VP of business and legal affairs for global digital business), Tom Glaser (VP of sales and marketing research), and Linda Ury Greenberg (VP of consumer research).

Edgar Bronfman, Jr. is now Chairman of the freshly-acquired Warner Music Group, while Stephen Cooper will take on Bronfman’s former position of CEO.

And some news in lawyer-land…

The Directors Guild has moved David Dreyfus from associate general counsel. Tiffanie Baker has been promoted to assistant general counsel to fill his spot. The moves come a few days after the guild’s Russ Hollander, David Korduner and Bryan Unger were promoted to associate national executive directors.

A Tragic Week in Live Performance; Two Stages Collapsed, Lives Lost

On August 13th, due to extreme winds, the stage at the Indiana State Fair collapsed, killing five and injuring around 40 people.  The confirmed deceased are Indiana residents Alina Bigjohny of Fort Wayne, Tammy Vandam of Wanatah, and Glenn Goodrich and Nathan Byrd of Indianapolis, as well as Christina Santiago of Chicago.

Sara Bareilles, who had performed just prior to the accident, has released the following statement:

The accident at the Indiana State Fair felt like a bad dream.  The weather changed in a matter of minutes and the stage collapsed in a matter of seconds. We are shocked and saddened by this horribly tragic circumstance and we are all praying for those affected.  The emergency response was incredibly speedy and the people of Indiana as well as the crews from the show were beyond brave and working hard to help each other.  My heart aches for the lives lost or injured as well as their families.  We will do whatever we possibly can to help heal the hurt from this very sad day.

State Officials update the media and public on the tragedy at the Indiana State Fair through a press conference the following day:

Only five days later, another tragic accident occured at a live music festival, this time at Pukkelpop in Belgium, when a heavy storm uprooted a tree and slammed it into the main stage, causing its collapse.  Five are dead with over 50 people suffering injuries.

 

Show Recap: Charlene Kaye, Quintus @ Rockwood Music Hall

Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing Charlene Kaye play a last minute set at Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 1.  It was just Charlene on piano (and sometimes guitar) and a handful of special guests trickling on and off the stage.

Charlene’s new material is excellent, and I can’t wait to hear her new album.

One of the special guests was Darren Criss of Glee fame (he’s Kurt’s boyfriend Blaine on the show).

Here is a video of Charlene and Darren singing “Dress and Tie.”

Later on in the evening, I returned to Rockwood to see the band Quintus.  I hadn’t seen them play for probably 5 years, and it was a really solid show.  I love seeing bands when its clear they’ve played together for years.  These guys love to play with each other, and it comes across through their music.  I loved their new tunes (well, new to me at least) and can’t wait to check out the recorded versions.

After Quintus, on the way out, I listened to about a song of the next band.  I’m watching them play and noticing that something is a little off.  See if you can spot in this video what makes this band different from all other rock bands (at least all that I’ve seen) – warning: spoiler after the video.

Drumming with his BARE HANDS! Ouch! It hurts just watching it.

Vevo Partners with Rcrd Lbl

Via Digital Music News…

Most likely motivated by a desire to build up some indie cred, Vevo has finalized a content partnership with Rcrd Lbl.  The arrangement will consist of a featured Vevo video every Monday on the both the Vevo and Rcrd Lbl sites, in conjunction with a download of the track and/or remixes.

“With a high-quality video to view and a download to take along with you, it’s like a musical party with a downloadable goody bag that you can attend every Monday,” the company described the feature.  Musical party + goody bag sounds good to me!

The first feature is retro-indie-pop band the Cults’ track “Go Outside,” a clear departure for Vevo away from its most hit up videos (Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, Pitbull, Beyonce, etc).

Spotify Responds…

As I discussed in a previous post, label group Century Media recently pulled its catalog of music out of Spotify, based on the argument that artists aren’t properly compensated from the uses.

Today Spotify released a statement to Digital Music News in response:

We are sorry that Century Media have opted not to offer its music to their fans through Spotify. Spotify has one of the biggest music libraries in the world – of over 15 million tracks – and is committed to offering our users the widest possibleselection of music across artists and genres from around the world.

Spotify was launched out of a desire to develop a better, more convenient and legal alternative to music piracy.  Spotify now monetizes an audience the large majority of whom were downloading illegally (and therefore not making any money for the industry) before Spotify was available.

Spotify is now generating serious revenues for rights holders; since our launch just three years ago, we have paid over $100 million to labels and publishers, who, in turn, pass this on to the artists, composers and authors they represent. Indeed, a top Swedish music executive was recently quoted as saying that Spotify is currently the biggest single revenue source for the music industry in Scandinavia.

Spotify is now also the second single largest source of digital music revenue for labels in Europe (IFPI, April 2011). Billboard reported in April that Spotify territories saw an average digital growth rate of 43% last year. By contrast, neighbouring countries (without Spotify) saw only 9.3% digital growth.

We are very proud of the positive contribution that Spotify makes towards growth in the music industry.

More Problems for Spotify

As if Spotify hasn’t already had a bad enough month, label group Century Media announced yesterday that it was pulling its catalog from the service.  My days of listening to metal and hardcore seem to have passed, so I doubt I’ll personally suffer from the removal of the content; however, this may be the start of a trend among indie labels, if others also feel that they aren’t being appropriately compensated for Spotify’s use of their music.

Here is the official statement:

While everyone at the label group believes in the ever-changing possibilities of new technology and new ways of bringing music to the fans, Century Media is also of the opinion that Spotify in its present shape and form isn’t the way forward. The income streams to the artists are affected massively and therefore that accelerates the downward spiral, which eventually will lead to artists not being able to record music the way it should be recorded. Ultimately, in some cases, it will completely kill a lot of smaller bands that are already struggling to make ends meet.

At the same time, Century Media also believes that Spotify is a great tool to discover new music and is in the process of reintroducing their bands to Spotify by way of putting up samplers of the artists. This way, fans can still discover the great music released by the label.

Physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active. Artists are depending on their income from selling music and it is our job to support them to do so. Since the artists need to sell their music to continue their creativity, Spotify is a problem for them. This is about survival, nothing less, and it is time that fans and consumers realize that for artists it is essential to sell music to keep their heads above water.

Obviously, it is ultimately up to the music fan and consumer how they access their music, whether it is buying, streaming or stealing. There needs to be awareness, though, that how you will consume your music has direct consequences for the artists, who we are all trying to support.

 

Statement from Independent Labels Devastated by the London Riots

The following is a statement released today by the Association of Independent Music in response to the London rioters who burned the the Sony DADC distribution warehouse in Enfield on August 8.

You may have heard that the London riots have caused the destruction of a warehouse in North London housing many of the UK’s independent labels and artists. All the stock has been destroyed by fire. 

This will lead to much hardship for the artists and labels affected. What music fans can do to show their support for the indie label community, and help them survive this disaster is to buy a digital download of an album from any one of the digital retailers in the UK, as well as going to their local record store while stocks last. 

This way, the labels will be able to remanufacture their CD’s and vinyl more quickly, to resupply the record shops who are also affected by the riots. 

Alison Wenham, Chairman and CEO of AIM, the UK’s Trade Association for the Independent Music Industry: “This is a disaster for the music community, but with the fans’ help, labels and artists will survive. Please show your support for the music community by buying a digital album from an independent label today”.

The Association of Independent Music (AIM)

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