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Taylor Swift Fights for Fairness: New Law Protects Musicians' Rights and Ends Exploitation in Music Industry #accountability #artistexploitation #artistrights #exploitation #faircompensation #industrypractices #masterrecordings #musicindustry #musicianprotection #musicianrights #recordlabels #TaylorSwift #TennesseeMusicModernizationAct #transparency #unfaircontracts

Taylor Swift Fights for Fairness: New Law Protects Musicians' Rights and Ends Exploitation in Music Industry #accountability #artistexploitation #artistrights #exploitation #faircompensation #industrypractices #masterrecordings #musicindustry #musicianprotection #musicianrights #recordlabels #TaylorSwift #TennesseeMusicModernizationAct #transparency #unfaircontracts

What started out as a genre of music that most people, including record labels executives scoffed at, Rap and Hip-Hop is now recognized as the world’s most influential genre of music. Most influential not just music wise, but culturally as well. Since its creation, Rap and Hip Hop has changed the way people dress, speak, and spiritually and artistically express themselves. It has brought all races of people together with the words and melodies of the songs created as it has its roots in both spoken-word and poetry. For many, listening to Rap and Hip-Hop was the first time they gained some insight into the plight, culture, and minds of Black Americans. However, despite Rap and Hip-Hop being unequivocally recognized as Black American creation, there is a major issue with diversity and equity within the music industry when it comes to Black artists. Especially when it comes to Rap and Hip-Hop. After scoffing at Hip-Hop as a genre of music, record execs quickly put things in places to deprive Black Americans of ownership and equity within the very genre of music they created only after seeing the enormous sums of money they could make. Black Americans that participate in the art hold little to no ownership of their music and the proceeds of it. Only but a few artists such as Jay-Z and 50 Cent own the rights to the master recordings of the music they created. Record labels especially nowadays control and own their artists masters and publishing. That’s on top of the lack of Black execs and managers at record labels. As it stands today, there has never been a Black owned distribution label. Artists are forced to sign 360 deals that take nearly all of the money from their actual record sales out of their pockets and the only money they truly make is by touring. We often see the term Diversity and Equity thrown around in the academic arena but rarely do we see it used in places where Black Americans have been robbed of inventions that often were not originally credited to them. If we truly are to start a conversation aboit Diversity and Equity, a good place to start would be asking why there is a lack of diversity and equity in a genre of music created by Black People themselves. #rap #hiphop #diversityequityinclusion #education #conversation

New Post: AI Music Companies Suno and Udio Hire Elite Law Firm for Copyright Battle With Major Labels - https://lnkd.in/gpZe5hqi - AI music companies Suno and Udio have hired elite law firm Latham & Watkins to defend them against lawsuits filed by the three major labels in late June, according to court documents. Filed by plaintiffs Sony Music, Warner Music Group (WMG) and Universal Music Group (UMG), the lawsuits claim that Suno and Udio have unlawfully copied the labels’ sound recordings to train their AI models to generate music that could “saturate the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete with, cheapen and ultimately drown out the genuine sound recordings on which built.” Related Breaking Down What's at Stake in Music's AI Lawsuits 07/11/2024 Latham & Watkins has already played a key role in defending top companies in the field of artificial intelligence. This includes the firm’s work to defend Anthropic against allegations of infringement levied by UMG, Concord Music Group and ABKCO last October. Latham represents OpenAI in all of its lawsuits filed by authors and other rights owners, including the case filed by the New York Times and a case filed by comedian Sarah Silverman and other writers. The Latham team is led by Andrew Gass, Steve Feldman, Sy Damle, Britt Lovejoy and Nate Taylor. Plaintiffs UMG, WMG and Sony Music are represented by Moez Kaba, Mariah Rivera, Alexander Perry and Robert Klieger of Hueston Hennigan as well as Daniel Cloherty of Cloherty & Steinberg. It is common for AI companies to argue that training is protected by copyright’s fair use doctrine — an important rule that allows people to reuse protected works without breaking the law — and it is likely this will become a core part of Latham’s defense of Suno and Udio’s practices. Though fair use has historically allowed for things like news reporting and parody, AI firms say it applies equally to the “intermediate” use of millions of works to build a machine that spits out entirely new creations. So far, both Suno and Udio have declined to comment on whether or not they have used unlicensed copyrights in their datasets. However, the music industry started to question what was in those datasets after a series of articles written by Ed Newton-Rex, founder of AI music safety nonprofit Fairly Trained, were published by Music Business Worldwide. In one of them, Newton-Rex said he was able to generate music from both Suno and Udio that “bears a striking resemblance to copyrighted music.” The lawsuit cites circumstantial evidence to support the labels’ belief that their copyrigh

New Post: How Legal Issues Can Tank a Music Catalog’s Valuation — Even If It Brings In Millions Each Year - https://lnkd.in/g-DJ5AZY - Under normal circumstances, Sean “Diddy” Combs and R. Kelly would each own a valuable catalog of music rights, worth tens of millions of dollars apiece in a market of music investors hungry to purchase new prize assets. But because R. Kelly has been convicted of sex trafficking, sexual abuse and child pornography, while Combs is currently facing a reported federal sex trafficking investigation as well as several lawsuits alleging sexual assault, the only value each will likely get these days from those music assets is their annual income from sales and streams. That’s because corporations and private-equity music asset investors would be wary of buying either catalog if they were put up for sale, music-asset investors and traders say. As it is, Diddy owns his master recording catalog and his publishing — though they are under various identities, such as alter egos Puff Daddy, Diddy-Dirty Money and Love — which combined have generated about 147,000 album consumption units annually over the last three years. Billboard estimates that brings in about $2.4 million in master recording revenue, while the publishing from those recordings comes to about $600,000 annually. Combined, his share of that would come out to an estimated $2.625 million annually during that time period, which, if it attained a standard 16-times multiple, would work out to an estimated sale value of around $42 million. (For a detailed breakout on Combs, click here.) Related How Much Is Sean 'Diddy' Combs' Music Catalog Worth? 06/06/2024 Comparatively, the activity on R. Kelly’s catalog is more than twice that of Diddy’s, at an average of 315,000 album consumption units annually over the last three years. Unlike Diddy, however, Kelly doesn’t own his recordings or publishing catalogs, sources tell Billboard — or at least the music he created through 2010. The music he issued up to 2010 comprised about 90% of his U.S. activity last year, while music he released after 2010 — in which he may have an ownership stake — only generated about 10% of his catalog’s overall activity. Consequently, unlike Combs, Kelly likely gets a master recording royalty calculated as a percentage of revenue for his master recordings.  Billboard estimates that his catalog earned about $4.1 million in master recording revenue annually over the last three years, while the publishing revenue for songs on his albums comes out to about $2.3 million. Billboard further estimates his share of that is about $2.3 million, which if it obtai

Sony Reaches Blockbuster Deal for Michael Jackson’s Catalog. The richest music catalog deal to date would give Sony half of Jackson’s recorded music and songwriting rights, valuing the total collection at $1.2 billion or more. The recent announcement of Sony's deal to acquire Michael Jackson's catalog serves as a poignant illustration of the value of artists' creative assets and their associated rights. This landmark $1.2 billion deal underscores the critical importance of recognizing and protecting the intellectual property of musicians and producers in the music industry. This is why championing intellectual property protection in the music industry is vital. It serves as a generational investment and ensures future generations can continue to be inspired, uplifted, and transformed by the magic of music . It's a timely reminder for music executives lawyers/creatives to advocate for fair compensation and robust copyright protection to uphold the integrity and sustainability of artistic expression. #MusicIndustry #IntellectualProperty #CreativeAssets #entertainmentlaw

Check out this excellent recap of the JETLaw Symposium written by our very own Madeline Knight and Rachel Davis.