Nine sites that were selling fraudulent streams have been taken offline, according to IFPI and Music Canada.

IFPI, the worldwide recording industry association, and Music Canada, a trade group that represents major Canadian labels, filed a legal complaint with the Canadian Competition Bureau against the sites, accusing them of selling false plays and streams to manipulate streaming service data. The nine connected sites, the most popular of which used the domain name MRINSTA.com, have since gone offline (though you can still see them via the Wayback Machine).

“Streaming manipulation has no place in music,” stated Lauri Rechardt, the IFPI’s chief legal officer. “Perpetrators and enablers of streaming manipulation cannot be allowed to continue to divert revenue away from the artists who create the music.”

As streaming has grown in popularity, so have efforts to game platforms’ royalty models. Vancouver-based fraud detection software company Beatdapp estimates that as many as 10% of music streams are fake. Fake streams are often generated through streaming farms, which use bots to automatically stream particular songs and boost their stats.

Canada recorded 145.3 billion streams in 2023. – Rosie Long Decter

Warner Music Canada’s Head of A&R Leaves to Start New Management Company, SWING

It was only January of this year that Victoria, B.C. pop-funk act Diamond Cafe announced his signing to Warner Music Canada. Now, George Kalivas, the man who signed him, is breaking off on his own to manage him — and building a whole new company around the artist.

SWING is launching as a Toronto-based management company with Diamond Cafe as its first artist, though Kalivas says the eventual plan is to “evolve into a full-service record label in no time.” 

Kalivas started in marketing at Warner Canada seven years ago, handling domestic artists signed to the label and international releases signed to subsidiaries like Atlantic and 300. But he had “one foot in A&R,” he says, which became official two years ago when Kristen Burke became label president.

His first signing was Crash Adams, a Canadian pop duo known for viral TikTok trends. After the joint launch of 91 North Records by Warner Canada and Warner India, Kalivas helped sign the label’s second artist, AR Paisley. A long-simmering Canadian rapper, Paisley hit the top 10 of the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 this year with “Drippy,” a posthumous collaboration with the late Punjabi-Canadian superstar Sidhu Moose Wala.

But it was Diamond Cafe that made Kalivas realize the time was right to strike off on his own “I haven’t seen a triple threat artist like him — writer, performer and producer — in 15 years,” he says. “He’s next level.”

As publishing and song catalogs become a major money-maker in the music industry, artists like Diamond Cafe, who can work both in front of and behind the scenes, are being scouted heavily. For SWING, it’s enough to structure a whole new company around. – Richard Trapunski

Texas Songwriter Livingston Debuts on the Canadian Hot 100 With ‘Shadow’

Texas singer-songwriter Livingston is making a splash on the Canadian charts this week.

The 21-year-old has landed on the Canadian Hot 100 for the first time with his single “Shadow,” which debuted at No. 100. The ominous single, which finds Livingston warning about the dangers we pose to ourselves, shows off his belt and falsetto over keyboard stabs and jittery percussion. “Shadow” is also performing well on the iTunes charts and has gathered over 1 million YouTube views since its Mar. 7 release.

Livingston’s new album, A Hometown Odyssey, also found a spot on the Canadian Albums chart this week, debuting at No. 92. Livingston first gained popularity as a teenager on TikTok during the pandemic and signed shortly thereafter with Elektra Records. His website states that he “reclaimed his independence” from his major label deal a year ago. Hometown Odyssey is independently released.

Independence seems to suit Livingston well. Though he isn’t charting on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 or Billboard 200 yet, sometimes rising American artists — like Benson Boone — perform better in Canada before gaining steam in the United States. – Rosie Long Decter

Sam Holdsworth, former editor-in-chief and publisher of Billboard, died May 18 of a heart attack. He was 72.

Holdsworth, who was also co-founder of Musician magazine, was part of a consortium that bought Billboard Publications Inc. (BPI) in 1984 from the Littleford family in a move that led him to become Billboard’s publisher. 

The consortium was helmed by investor Boston Ventures and an internal BPI management group fronted by Holdsworth and Jerry Hobbs in a move that was seen as a non-disruptive way to keep BPI — which included Billboard, Musician and Amusement Business, among other titles — intact. Hobbs, who had served as executive vp of BPI and Billboard’s publisher, became president/CEO of the new entity, while Holdsworth became publisher of Billboard and then publisher/editor-in-chief. BPI had purchased Musician in 1981, which brought Holdsworth into the company.

“As publisher, Sam had a wonderful calming influence on all around him in an otherwise stressful publishing environment. I’ll always appreciate the faith he showed in me and his willingness to delegate crucial tasks to his trusted management team,” Ken Schlager, who served as managing editor under Holdsworth, tells Billboard.

“He and Jerry Hobbs brought Billboard into a new era,” says Adam White, who was Billboard‘s editor-in-chief when Holdsworth became publisher, before leaving in 1985 and then coming back as international editor in 1989. “For that alone, he should be remembered.”

Holdsworth and his childhood friend, Gordon Baird, founded Musician magazine in 1976. “He was the brains and taste and I was the mouth and energy…Our early days as a magazine for school music programs were so rocky, until Sam proposed a sharp left turn after our first year to jazz and rock,” Baird wrote in a piece published Monday (June 10) in Massachusetts’ The Gloucester Times. The two had met in Gloucester 70 years earlier as tots, as their mothers were best friends. 

With its new direction, Musician quickly became a must-read for music aficionados and artists alike and was able to attract top-notch music journalists who appreciated the trust Holdsworth gave them to steer their own pieces. “Sam was able to cajole them in to writing major pieces at a fraction of the price [that Rolling Stone paid writers],” Baird continued. “The photogs followed. Musician took off. Readers came to us, record company publicists came to us, Paul McCartney came to us, Springsteen, Michael Jackson, George Harrison, Bono, Clapton and Steely Dan came to us to be interviewed. Sam’s formula was the music first and the lifestyle a distant second.” 

When BPI approached Holdsworth and Baird to buy Musician, “Sam was totally visionary and bargained for half the purchase price in Billboard stock,” Baird added.

 “At that time, I was responsible for the growth and development of Billboard and its numerous ancillary products,” Hobbs says. “After a lunch in NYC, we quickly decided the fit would be a good one and in early 1981 our partnership began when Billboard Publications acquired [Musician]. Little did we anticipate our relationship would be so fruitful, exciting and long-lasting. Moreover, that it’d evolve into a lifelong personal friendship.”

Hobbs had found the perfect partner to help realize his goal of acquiring and expanding BPI to include not only music properties but also those devoted to film and theater as well as art and design. “During my first year working with Sam, his talents, personality and entrepreneurial spirit became apparent,” Hobbs says. “I realized I’d need a partner to help orchestrate a deal, raise the funds and execute on a plan we would develop to take the business forward.”

Hobbs and Holdsworth’s plan changed how Billboard moved forward with a model that still works today. “We were keen to develop data to complement and expand the information we would gather for our publications and the audiences we served,” Hobbs says. “In effect, we would utilize Billboard as the model for our new venture. Unlike most other B2B publishers then who were mainly dependent on advertisers for their revenue, we wanted to create and own products and services that our audiences would be willing to pay for to receive.”

In 1994, Dutch publisher VNU acquired the American titles, at which point Holdsworth left Billboard and moved with his family to New Mexico. He later became part of an investment group led by JP Morgan Partners. One of their acquisitions was Ryko Corporation, which included the Rykodisc label; Holdsworth oversaw the company until Warner Music Group bought it in 2006. “He was very good at looking beyond the past and around the corner,” says Baird, who talked to Holdsworth hours before he died. “He was also good at being the in right place at the right time for some of those label buyouts and sales, some of them came to him.”

Holdsworth continued to work with investments, as well as paint and write, from his farm in Silver City, N. Mex. He was working on the farm when his heart attack occurred. At the time of his death, he was managing director of Sword, Rowe and Company, a New Jersey-based investment banking and Mergers & Acquistions firm, according to his LinkedIn profile.

As Hobbs says, Holdsworth possessed a rare blend of both creative and business acumen and had a discerning eye. “‘Sam was, indeed, a Renaissance man. He exhibited an alluring blend of the mandatory characteristics: authenticity, creativity, curiosity and resilience, the sine qua non elements that draw people in,” Hobbs says. “And he never confused the most with the best.”

Survivors include Holdsworth’s wife, Betsy, and his three children. 

The blockchain group that sued Martin Shkreli to stop him from releasing Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is itself now selling the famed one-of-a-kind album to the public. But the deal comes with one small catch: buyers can’t actually listen to most of it.

Days after suing the infamous Pharma Bro, PleasrDAO announced Thursday (June 13) that Shaolin was “finally being offered to the public” for just $1 — something of a shocking offer considering the album’s infamous contractual restrictions that say it cannot be widely released until the year 2103.

But the fine print was slightly less exciting: Buyers will only receive an “encrypted” version of Shaolin that they cannot actually listen to. The deal will instead unlock exclusive access to a five-minute audio “sampler” composed of pieces of five tracks; the rest of the album will remain sealed.

In a phone interview with Billboard on Thursday, members of PleasrDAO confirmed those limitations: “What people are being offered is the ability to own the encrypted album that they cannot listen to,” said Pleasr’s Leighton Cusack. “That will immediately unlock a never-heard-before sampler from the album created by the co-producer of the album.”

Rather than the limitations, Pleasr stressed the other unique element of its sale: Every time someone buys the album, the group says it will reduce the waiting period for the full album’s release by 88 seconds. “It creates this ability for people to decide how much they value music and if they want to have this music released faster or not,” Cusack said.

The sale of any amount of Shaolin, an album famous (and expensive) for its exclusivity, raises big questions. Even if Pleasr’s sale only allows buyers to hear five minutes of the album’s material, wouldn’t the widespread digital release flout Wu-Tang’s famed restrictions? How is it possible?

One possibility is that Pleasr, which bought the album from federal prosecutors after Shkreli forfeited it as part of his 2017 securities fraud convictions, was never subject to those same crazy restrictions in the first place. Another explanation could be that the people who imposed those rules — Wu-Tang rapper RZA and producer Cilvaringz — consented to the project. In social media posts, Pleasr said it had been “working with the original artists and producer” on the sale, suggesting Wu-Tang gave a green light to the project.

Reps for the Wu-Tang Clan did not return requests for comment on their involvement in the project. A press release from Pleasr on Thursday included a quote from RZA and Cilvaringz, but it was excerpted from a statement the duo had released a decade ago.

When asked directly if Shaolin’s stipulations were still in effect, or if the sale complied with those requirements, Pleasr representative Camilla McFarland declined to go deep into the details: “We can’t necessarily discuss the specifics of those agreements and where that all stands, but we can assure you that all of our activities and releases are fully compliant with the consent and blessing of artists and right holders involved,” she said.

Wu-Tang’s legendary album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. Though the group intended the bizarre trappings as a protest against the commodification of music, Shaolin later became the ultimate commodity. In 2015, Shkreli — already infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction for $2 million.

After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited the album to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. Pleasr then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for another $750,000.

When it was initially sold, Shaolin came with much-discussed stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103. Though the deal did permit for-profit listening events at museums and other small venues, it strictly forbade duplicating or otherwise exploiting Shaolin “for any commercial or other non-commercial purposes by any means today known or that come to be known during said time period.”

While Shkreli was certainly bound by those terms, it’s less clear if Pleasr was subjected to them when it purchased the album from prosecutors. The original 2015 deal contained a specific provision that, in the event the album was re-sold, the same kooky restrictions must be passed along to the new buyer. But it’s unclear if that requirement survived the album being forfeited as part of a criminal case.

Until Thursday’s digital sale, Pleasr’s use of the album had seemingly stayed within the bounds of the Wu-Tang’s restrictions, with only a series of small in-person events. Last month, the group announced an exhibit at an Australian museum, where fans would be able to “experience” certain songs. And this past weekend, it held a private listening event at the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City.

But the new sale would appear to clearly exceed those original rules. Copying the original CD into a digital format and then selling copies across the internet would hardly seem to fit the contract’s original approved venues: “Buyer’s home, museums, art galleries, restaurants, bars, exhibition spaces, or other similar spaces not customarily used as venues for large musical concerts.”

One obvious way for Pleasr to avoid the restrictions would be for the selling party that reached the deal with Shkreli to simply waive their rights to enforce the contract. In a copy of the original agreement attached to the recent lawsuit, the deal was signed by RZA (Robert Diggs) as the founder/chief executive of Wu-Tang Productions, Inc., and by Cilvaringz (Tarik Azzougarh).

When asked if such consent had been granted, Pleasr’s McFarland said: “At the end of the day, I’ll let [RZA] comment on any of that. But of course, we’ve been working with them in order to be able to bring this to life.”

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

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