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Ben Facey has exited Universal Music, a little more than six months after relocating to the United States from his native Australia.
An experienced major-label marketing executive, Facey has served as Executive Vice President, Global Marketing and Digital Strategy at Republic Records in Los Angeles since February.
Prior to that, he was Head of International Marketing & Media at Universal Music Australia from October 2014, and he held marketing posts at Foxtel and Warner Music before that.
An auto-reply from Facey’s email account confirms he is “no longer with the company” and directs inquiries to Jim Roppo, EVP/General Manager at Republic Records.
Facey was understood to be the subject of an internal investigation, news of which first emerged in late August on Beneath The Glass Ceiling, the Instagram account that’s been holding the music industry to account for bad behavior.
The reasons for Facey departure are unclear, and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing. A spokesman for Universal Music Group confirmed his departure from the company, and tells Billboard there is no further statement at this time. Roppo did not respond to requests for comment.
The latest development follows the launch of an independent investigation at Universal Music Australia, sparked by reports of inappropriate behavior from within its ranks. The Sydney Morning Herald reported multiple claims made against staffers, including allegations of bullying, harassment, racism, homophobia, discrimination, as well as more serious allegations of sexual assault.
The affiliate’s leader George Ash reportedly engaged Darren Perry at law firm Seyfarth Shaw to conduct the probe, informing staff on Friday, July 30 and encouraging them to raise concerns through the internal and external complaints channels. When asked for an update on that investigation, a spokesperson for the music major recently declined to disclose confidential personnel matters or comment on the status of any potential investigations, citing privacy reasons and corporate policy.
“Everyone deserves a workplace environment that is safe, inclusive, and respectful. We take seriously any claims of alleged misconduct which are brought to the company. All claims are reviewed promptly, thoroughly and objectively. If any misconduct is found, appropriate action is taken,” reads a company statement, issued Aug. 24 to Billboard.
“In light of the recent reports regarding sexual harassment and abuse, both from various corners of the Australian music industry and across broader society, we are committed to playing our part to advance real and constructive change and an industry that upholds the highest standards of professional respect, conduct and integrity.”
Terry McAuliffe is hoping to gain support from Taylor Swift fans in his race to become Virginia’s next governor.
The Democrat has purchased a series of digital ads that connect his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, to the sale of Swift’s master recordings, which the singer described as her “worst-case scenario.” Youngkin is the former co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, which backed the sale of Swift’s former label Big Machine Records to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings.
According to The Verge, McAuliffe spent five figures on the ad targeting voters who are fans of Swift and engage with content across Facebook, Instagram and Google. An ad reads, “Did you know that Republican candidate for governor, Glenn Youngkin, helped buy Taylor Swift’s masters out from under her when he was co-CEO of Carlyle Group?”
The ads also contain images of Swift and Youngkin and the hashtag #WeStandWithTaylor, which fans used to support the singer amid the controversy.
In 2019, Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group — and with it, the entire catalog Swift released via the Scott Borchetta-owned label — in a $300 million deal. Following the deal, Swift took to Tumblr to reveal that she learned about it “as it was announced to the world,” and the news reminded her of the “incessant, manipulative bullying” she “received at [Braun’s] hands for years.”
In a 2019 tweet, Swift asked The Carlyle Group to intervene after Braun and Borchetta, she claimed, prevented her from performing her music at the American Music Awards, where she was set to receive the Artist of the Decade award. She also said Borchetta and Braun had declined a request to use her older music and performance footage for the Netflix documentary Taylor Swift: Miss Americana.
“I’m especially asking for help from The Carlyle Group, who put up money for the sale of my music to these two men,” Swift tweeted at the time.
More than a year later, Braun sold the master rights to the singer’s first six albums to Shamrock Holdings. At the time, Swift revealed on Twitter that her team received a letter from the private equity company informing them that it had bought all of her music, videos and album art from Braun. “This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge,” Swift wrote.
Determined to own her music, Swift announced she would re-record her first six albums and has since released Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and will unveil Red (Taylor’s Version) in November.
Youngkin’s campaign spokesperson Christian Martinez told Axios of the Swift ads, “Terry McAuliffe has reached the stage of desperation in his campaign where he’s rolling out the most baseless attacks to see what sticks. It’s a pathetic fall that could only be achieved by a 43-year political hack.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to reps for Swift, McAuliffe and Youngkin.
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
Even as the concert industry faces a rocky return, Live Nation’s stock keeps growing to new highs.
The concert giant’s stock price topped $100 for the first time ever on Tuesday before dropping below the benchmark at close. On Wednesday (Oct. 6) it fared even better, hitting $101.09 during the trading day and finishing at $101.03. Wednesday’s closing values the company at about $25.2 billion.
After bottoming out in March 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic shut down concerts across the world, Live Nation stock has been steadily growing since. In February it hit its pre-pandemic levels and briefly flirted with $100, reaching $94.63 on March 3, before retreating below $80 as recently as Aug. 20.
As a practical matter, $100 is an arbitrary amount for a share price — the company was worth negligibly less when it closed at $99.83 on Tuesday — but it is a symbolic threshold for pausing to recognize how Live Nation has gained value in the last 19 months. Since that pandemic-era low of $32.30 on March 18, the company’s stock has gained 212.8%.
During the company’s Aug. 3 earnings call, president Joe Berchtold declared “the pocketbooks are open.” At the time ticket sales and attendance were “pacing faster than expected,” CEO Michael Rapino said. But even though Berchtold was referring to customers, he might have been more accurate to indicate investors interest in concerts’ return. Since then, the industry has seen high no-show rates and many concerts have experienced less-than-stellar ticket sales, but investors keep buying stock. Plus, Live Nation had 15 of the 20 top-grossing concerts of the summer and most of the top tours, as compiled by Billboard Boxscore from early reports of live music’s return. Its eight Dead & Company concerts grossed $16.5 million, second only to Bruno Mars. Zac Brown Band, Billy Joel, James Taylor and the Eagles were also among the top 10 tours.
Hitting an all-time high before touring fully resumes also speaks to what lies ahead. Many artists are aiming for a 2022 return to the road, including Billie Eilish, John Mayer and Alanis Morissette, and more are lining up for the following years. “We’re talking mostly about what to add now into ’23 and ’24,” Rapino said on Aug. 3.
In the second quarter, Live Nation posted revenue of $575.9 million, up 677% from the pandemic-scarred prior-year period, with a $127.3 million operating loss — and a 98% improvement from the first quarter. And now the company is back to making big acquisitions: on Sept. 13, Live Nation announced it will move ahead with a $444 million deal for Mexican promoter OCESA to be paid for with a $450 million common stock offering.
Chris Brown and Drake are the latest artists to be slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit over one of their hit songs — in their case, the 2019 single “No Guidance,” which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Florida’s Southern District, the complaint alleges that Brown, Drake and their various collaborators on the track (which was featured on Brown’s 2019 album Indigo and featured Drake) lifted various lyrical and melodic elements from “I Love Your Dress,” a 2016 song performed by plaintiff Braindon Cooper (performing as Mr. Cooper) and produced by co-plaintiff Timothy Valentine (credited on the track as Drum’N Skillz).
In the complaint, Cooper and Valentine accuse Brown, Drake and their “No Guidance” collaborators of stealing several elements from “I Love Your Dress,” including the lyrics from the hook — “she got it; she got it” in “I Love Your Dress” versus “you got it, girl; you got it” in “No Guidance” — as well as the primary scale degrees and a “distinctive sound effect,” described as “a pitch metronome-like click and a vocal effect through which portions of the primary vocal part appear to have been sped up to a high register and added to double/echo the primary vocal part.” According to the complaint, the plaintiffs consulted with “highly regarded musicology experts” to determine similarities between the two tracks.
“To be sure, any comparative analysis of the beat, lyrics, hook, rhythmic structure, metrical placement, and narrative context demonstrates that ‘No Guidance’ was copied or principally derived from ‘I Love Your Dress,’” reads the lawsuit, which was filed by attorney Neil Solomon of McLaughlin & Stern in West Palm Beach, Florida. The complaint notes that “I Love Your Dress” first became available to the public on SoundCloud in July 2016, nearly three years prior to the release of “No Guidance.” It was later included on Cooper’s 2019 EP My Life in Black & White.
Cooper, Valentine and Signature SKillz Entertainment (the company behind “I Love Your Dress”) are seeking actual and punitive damages, 50% of publishing and revenues derived from “No Guidance,” a complete accounting of all defendants’ financial records related to the song, pre- and post-judgment interest and attorneys’ fees.
“No Guidance” also reached No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, U.S. Adult R&B Songs and U.S. Rhythmic charts and received a nomination for Best R&B Song at the 2020 Grammys. The song’s official music video has garnered over 374 million YouTube views, while the complaint notes that its main hook and chorus have been used in advertisements for “various products and/or services.”
In order to establish a more direct line between Cooper and Valentine and the “No Guidance” team, the lawsuit notes that in early March 2019, Mic Tee — an A&R representative with close ties to Drake’s former label Cash Money Records and its associated artist management company, AMAG Collective — contacted Cooper, allegedly “to discuss Cooper’s musical talents.”
Following that conversation, Cooper sent Tee an email through his marketing agents with a link to My Life in Black & White. Tee then allegedly asked Cooper if he had any unreleased music to send — “presumably so that Mic Tee and/or his associates could use such music with minimal risk of subsequent infringement claims,” the complaint alleges. Though Cooper never sent any additional songs, he “became suspicious of the interaction” upon first hearing “No Guidance,” which was released in June 2019, several months later.
To further establish that the “No Guidance” team had access to “I Love Your Dress,” the complaint adds that during the time that “No Guidance” was being written and recorded, Brown was “in regular and close contact” with Cash Money founder Bryan Williams (a.k.a. Birdman) in their work as co-producers and co-stars on the feature film She Ball.
“Additional social and business-related connections between and among Mic Tee, Cash Money Records, AMAG, Brown, and Drake abound,” the complaint continues, “and further discovery will likely support the assertion that Defendants had access to and actually heard the Work, then incorporated key elements of it when creating No Guidance.”
Later in the complaint, Cooper and Valentine say they notified the defendants of their alleged infringement and demanded monetary relief in a letter sent through their lawyers on Dec. 15, 2020, but claim the letter was ignored.
“The Complaint filed by our office speaks for itself, and we would encourage anyone who is interested to read the allegations set forth in the Complaint in their entirety,” says McLaughlin & Stern attorney Chester Ostrowski, who is representing Cooper and Valentine in the case, in a statement sent to Billboard. “The thrust of the Complaint, however, is that Defendants copied Plaintiffs’ original song, I Love Your Dress, in various material respects. Plaintiffs’ song was recorded and published first. Defendants had access to it, and we believe the evidence will show that they knowingly and willfully copied and used significant portions of it, without consent, in creating the infringing song, No Guidance. In Plaintiffs’ view, when taken together, the similarities between the two songs cannot be a mere coincidence. Artists and producers should be properly credited with and compensated for the works that they create, in whole or in part; that is all Plaintiffs are looking for here, and they eagerly await their day in court.”
Sony Music Entertainment, which distributed “No Guidance” and is also named as a defendant in the suit, declined to comment for the story.
The other defendants named in the suit are Brown’s production company Chris Brown Entertainment (a.k.a. Culture Beyond UR Experience), songwriter-producer Anderson Hernandez (a.k.a. Vinylz), songwriter-producer Joshua Louis Huizar (a.k.a. J-Louis), songwriter-producer Travis Darelle Walton (a.k.a. Teddy Walton), songwriter Nija Charles (a.k.a. Nija), songwriter Tyler Bryant (a.k.a. Velous), songwriter Michee Patrick Lebrun (a.k.a. Che Ecru) and songwriter-producer Noah Shebib (a.k.a. 40).
Also named are publishing companies Songs of Universal Inc., 1damentional Publishing, Mavor & Moses Publishing (d.b.a. Roncesvalles Music Publishing), Sony/ATV, Vinylz Music Group, JLouisMusic and Songs of Amnija; and Brown’s record label RCA Records.
After a nearly yearlong saga of back-and-forth allegations between Diplo and a woman who’s accused him of, among other things, the distribution of revenge porn and intentionally giving her a sexual transmitted disease, the producer has spoken out on the situation.
In an Instagram post Wednesday (Oct. 6), the artist born Thomas Wesley Pentz tells his side of the story, writing, “It was my goal to never address a stalker…She was an obsessed fan of mine, and after I relinquished all contact with her, it appears that her only purpose in life has been to disrupt my work, my business, harass me and my close friends and attack me and threaten my family.”
In the lengthy post, the producer goes on to recount the interactions he had with the woman via text and in person, noting that she “was not a minor when I had conversations or sexual intercourse with her.” He also shares images of extensive messages sent to him by the woman, along with images of racist and degrading messages sent to Jevon King, the mother of Pentz’s third son, who was born in May 2020. He also notes that many of the woman’s own messages to him contradict accusations she has made against him. (Read the complete post below.)
Diplo goes on to say that a private detective hired by his team to investigate the woman found that she has a previous restraining order against her in Florida and that the Florida judge who issued this restraining order noted that the woman exhibited dangerous behavior.
He also notes that while the woman hired attorney Lisa Bloom (the daughter of famed women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred), Bloom later dropped her as a client when Pentz’s legal team made it clear that they would not pay the woman any of the millions of dollars he says she was demanding. (Lisa Bloom’s office did not immediately respond to Billboard’s request for comment.)
“This is so frustrating and embarrassing,” Pentz writes at the end of the post. “I am not this person and I won’t be extorted by anyone no matter how stinging the press can be. Even over the past two years I’ve never been bothered by these rumors, if anything it has made me stronger and smarter, all of my friends and partners have never questioned me and that was what has been important to me. The people in my life know me for who I really am. I will continue to do everything I can to end this in the most respectful way but I will not give in to lies and harassment.”
This post comes on the heels of Tuesday’s news that the Los Angeles city attorney’s office is considering criminal charges against Diplo related to allegations of sexual misconduct allegations made by the woman in the fall of 2020.
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