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Aespa is gearing up to take the stage at New York City’s Governors Ball music festival this weekend, and they kicked off the fun over at Yankees Stadium.
Three members of the superstar K-pop group took the mound at the New York Yankees game against the Chicago White Sox on Friday night (June 9) to throw the first pitch. The girls were seen waving to attendees before Winter stepped up to the plate for an impressive throw.
Last year, the girls sat down with Billboard to discuss their recent successes. “Due to the pandemic, we didn’t have many opportunities to meet our fans in person, but ever since the COVID restrictions have loosened up, each and every opportunity spent with our fans and on stage is very precious to us. We have our own metaverse worldview which was able to gain a lot of attention since we were spending more time at home during the pandemic,” KARINA explained. “Many people learned about through online and gained a better understanding of our metaverse origin story and because we’ve made our debut during the pandemic, we cherish each and every opportunity more.”
The group is set to embark on a 14-date tour in the United States this summer, kicking off in Los Angeles at the Crypto.com Arena on Aug. 13, before making stops in Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston and more — concluding at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Sept. 5.
Watch Aespa throw the first pitch for the New York Yankees via Twitter below.
The owners of a small Palm Springs, Calif., venue are suing Marc Geiger and his company SaveLive, claiming the former WME agent deceived them into accepting an investment in their venue during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a ruse to take over the business without paying a fair price.
In a lawsuit filed May 25, Melanie Tusquellas and Elizabeth Garo allege that The Alibi, a 200-capacity venue and restaurant in Palm Springs, had fallen on hard times after the COVID-19 pandemic forced its temporary closure in 2020. Worried about losing their investment, the two felt relieved when they began discussions with Geiger late that year about a possible plan to save the venue.
Geiger had hoped to ink deals with The Alibi and dozens of other venues in need of financing during the pandemic, offering struggling facilities a capital infusion in exchange for 51% control of their business. About a dozen venues accepted the deal, SaveLive officials would later claim.
Geiger, a former global co-head of music at WME, would call the venture SaveLive — and with the help of business partner and former WME principal John Fogelman, he would go on to raise $135 million to invest in the venture.
The arrangement was appealing to Tusquellas — co-owner of the historic Edendale Grill & Bar and El Chavo Restaurant in Silverlake, Los Angeles — and Garo, a well-known L.A. talent buyer who had booked Spaceland, The Echo and The Echoplex and co-founded the Echo Park Rising Festival.
“Being able to partner with SaveLive is a dream come true,” Garo said in an April 2022 press release announcing the partnership between The Alibi and SaveLive. “Tusquellas and I can stay true to our roots knowing we have their full support,” Garo continued, adding, “It doesn’t hurt that we’ve known some of the people at SaveLive for years — we all came up through the business together.”
A key component of the agreement Geiger struck with Garo and Tusquellas, according to the women’s attorney, Miles Feldman, in the complaint, was that “SaveLive was committed to maintaining the character of the businesses with such existing owners continuing to have control of the operations.”
“Based on Geiger’s misrepresentations,” the complaint reads, Garo and Tusquellas sold a 51% ownership interest in The Alibi to a holding company controlled by SaveLive and contributed their remaining 49% interest to a second holding company controlled by SaveLive. Under the deal, Garo and Tusquellas would retain the liquor license for The Alibi through a business entity called 369 Palm Inc, which entered into an agreement with Geiger’s group to serve as The Alibi’s concessionaire.
“Shortly after 369 Palm sold a majority interest in The Alibi, Save Live’s true intentions became crystal clear,” Feldman wrote in the civil complaint. SaveLive officials allegedly “insisted that its accountant be responsible for keeping the financial books and records for the concessions business,” despite an agreement that the concessions business “would be run separately from SaveLive’s operation and booking of The Alibi.”
When met with objections, “SaveLive responded with personal threats and intimidation,” ultimately stifling “the resurgence of The Alibi, forcing it to close again in July 2022 less than four months after its grand re-opening,” the complaint reads.
After allegedly ignoring the concessionaire agreement and assuming control over food and beverage profits, SaveLive allegedly tried to force the women to sell their liquor license to SaveLive for only a fraction of its fair market value. When that failed, SaveLive officials allegedly used “repeated threats and intimidation” to try and force the women to transfer their liquor license to DLS Events, a concessionaire and bar service company that services Live Nation clients like the Palladium and the Wiltern in Los Angeles, along with 16 other venues under exclusive contract.
When Garo and Tusquellas refused, SaveLive shut down The Alibi and unsuccessfully attempted to trigger an option in the concession agreement forcing the sale of the liquor license. The shutdown of the venue, however, rendered the liquor license inactive, causing it to be surrendered to the California Alcoholic Beverage Control agency.
According to California law, the complaint claims, the liquor license for The Alibi “must be reactivated within one year; otherwise, the liquor license will be revoked, which would destroy the value of one of 369 Palm’s most valuable and prized assets.”
Garo and Tusquellas are suing SaveLive and Geiger for breach of contract, interference and fraud. They are asking for punitive damages against SaveLive, a cancellation of the concession agreement and a preliminary injunction forcing SaveLive to reopen The Alibi.
Geiger declined to comment on the lawsuit and the allegations.
Film piracy increased by 38.6% last year, according to anti-piracy tech company Muso, and by 2027 the streaming video on-demand business could lose $113 billion annually from content theft, per an April report from research firm Parks Associates. With video piracy “on the rise,” as video technology provider Synamedia recently claimed, could the threat trickle down to music?
More than two decades since a Napster-led peer-to-peer file-sharing movement gutted the music industry, piracy just isn’t a hot topic in the music business like it used to be. It’s not even a mildly common topic. When discussing threats to the business, music executives are more likely to discuss newer, less-defined issues, such as generative artificial intelligence technology that re-creates the vocals of an artist without their permission. At the 2023 Music Biz conference, the closest the discussion got to piracy was a panel on streaming fraud, the practice of artificially boosting a track’s streaming count to take a larger share of royalties. A decade ago, conferences were places for creators and rights holders to air their frustrations about infringing content found on YouTube, search engines and elsewhere.
Piracy in music is not, however, gone. According to research firm MusicWatch, 55 million people in the U.S. obtained unauthorized music through a variety of means in 2022 — TikTok, peer-to-peer platforms, stream-ripping sites, mobile apps and transferring files on flash drives, among other means. One out of 10 U.S. internet globally users accessed music through file-storage lockers like Dropbox, according to MusicWatch. Muso claims music piracy increased in 2022 and tracked more than 15 billion visits to music piracy sites last year – with 7% coming from the U.S., ranking the country third behind Iran and India. A 2021 IFPI report titled Engaging With Music showed 30% of people surveyed in 21 of the world’s leading markets had used illegal or unlicensed methods to listen to or download music that year, and 14% had accessed music on unlicensed social media platforms.
While piracy is consistent and unending, it has become far easier to stomach since global music industry revenues started to rebound in 2015. After eight straight years of growth — with more gains for the foreseeable future — nowadays most consumers use legal digital platforms that offer licensed content. Some of them may access unlicensed music, but hundreds of millions of them are paying subscribers to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and other on-demand platforms. Even more consumers use ad-supported streaming options such as Spotify, YouTube and Pandora.
Some of the music piracy that does exist has taken on a different form today, where illegal activity takes place on the social media apps and streaming sites that are valuable partners to record labels. While YouTube and TikTok are filled with licensed music, they also contain unlicensed music uploaded by their users. “It’s a thin line — you can’t treat TikTok like LimeWire but we know there are a lot of files there that shouldn’t be there,” says MusicWatch principal Russ Crupnick. But it helps that labels have good relationships and a direct line of communication with these platforms. Two decades ago, the record industry’s main deterrent was a public education campaign and lawsuits against file-sharing services — and their users. Since the most pernicious offenders operated outside of the U.S. and the European Union, the legal challenges played out over many years.
The intent behind piracy has changed, too. In the years following Napster’s debut, peer-to-peer file-sharing “was gluttony without action” and people didn’t listen to 80% of the music they downloaded, says Crupnick. “It was like going to the salad bar, piling up a plate and eating two olives. Today it’s different.” Now, people are more purposeful and targeted when downloading unlicensed music. With so many legal options available for licensed music, some people search online for unreleased, hard-to-find music to add to their collections — then listen to the artists’ more common catalogs at Spotify or Apple Music.
Aside from the success of streaming services, music’s saving grace against piracy was probably the end of exclusive content. While early in the streaming era, music toyed with this strategy, offering exclusive releases to different platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal as they competed for customers, by 2016 those largely ended. Video on-demand streaming, however, has not evolved beyond this — and in some ways it’s only gotten worse. Netflix transformed video streaming by licensing other companies’ content. Now, the industry norm is to create content in-house to differentiate yourself from other video streaming platforms.
According to Muso, “releases being increasingly exclusive to a large number of legal subscription platforms” are one factor behind the continued rise of film and TV piracy. That scarcity encourages consumers to either cancel a SVOD service once they view their desired content or seek out the content on illegal sites. That trend was exacerbated during the pandemic by studios’ decisions to release motion pictures online while movie theaters were closed. Expensive live sports put cost-conscious consumers in a similar situation. Some SVOD platforms carry live sports — Amazon Prime has Thursday Night NFL Football, Apple TV+ has Major League Baseball — but being both a cord cutter and a serious sports fan can be costly.
To be sure, the recorded music industry continues to fight piracy on numerous fronts. In 2019, the RIAA said it was monitoring more than 200 stream-ripping sites. The organization maintains information about piracy on its “Resources & Learning” page that defines and gives examples of music piracy. And the RIAA continues to battle piracy in the courts. In 2021, a U.S. judge ordered two Russian stream-ripping services — which had more than 300 million global users over a 12-month period from 2017 to 2018 — to pay more than $80 million in damages in a case brought by more than a dozen record labels. Last year, the RIAA announced a partnership with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center that formalized a partnership on anti-piracy efforts. It still employs a chief content protection officer to lead those and other efforts.
Mostly, the music industry’s approach to piracy has worked. During the 2000s and 2010s, executives placed their bets on streaming platforms to raise the industry from the post-Napster rubble. Subscription services would make it so easy to access giant catalogs of music, they predicted, that piracy would be seen as an inferior experience. They were right. Streaming has succeeded in making legal options, by and large, more attractive than illegal ones. Music piracy can’t and won’t be eliminated, but it’s being managed and labels don’t have to share Hollywood’s headache.
Jimmie Allen has been dropped by his record label BBR Music Group, the company confirmed to Billboard, just hours after a second woman sued the singer for sexual assault.
“BBR Music Group has dissolved its relationship with Jimmie Allen, he is no longer an active artist on its roster,” said the label in a brief statement sent to Billboard. Variety first broke the news of BBR’s move and the second lawsuit Friday (June 9).
BBR Music Group had earlier placed Allen on suspension after he was previously accused of repeated rape and sexual harassment by a “Jane Doe” who had worked as a day-to-day manager at the singer’s former management company, Wide Open Music. In the wake of that May 11 allegation, Allen was also placed on suspension by his booking agency, UTA, and his then-management company, The Familie; while his public relations company, Full Coverage Communications, stopped working with him altogether. He was additionally dropped from the performer lineup at CMA Fest.
Allen has strongly denied the allegations from the first lawsuit, calling them “false” and vowing to “mount a vigorous defense” and “take all other legal action necessary to protect my reputation.”
In the suit filed Friday, an unnamed woman accused Allen of battery, assault and invasion of privacy. She claimed that after meeting Allen on a flight, she agreed to meet him in Las Vegas in July 2022. Among other claims, she alleged that while having sex with Allen in his Las Vegas hotel room, he ejaculated inside her without her consent and secretly filmed the encounter.
The woman further claims that, after being unable to fully delete the video from the sleeping Allen’s phone, she left with it and booked a new flight back to her home in Sacramento, where she reported the incident and turned the phone over to the local police department. The Sacramento police subsequently reported it to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, though Billboard‘s request for any public records linked to the report, submitted to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police through an online portal, was not immediately fulfilled.
The attorney who filed both cases, Elizabeth A. Fegan, said in a statement to Billboard that the new claims represented a “distinct pattern of behavior” by Allen and said she had “heard from others who share similar experiences.”
Allen’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment on the second lawsuit. UTA and The Familie did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether their status with Allen had changed following the new charges.
Allen’s career had been on an upward trajectory since his first single for BBR, “Best Shot,” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart in 2018. He scored two subsequent No. 1s with “Make Me Want To” and “Freedom Was A Highway” (with Brad Paisley), while “Down Home” reached No. 2. BBR was working Allen’s newest single, “Be Alright,” to country radio last month when the first lawsuit was filed, but stopped working it after the label suspended Allen. It reached No. 57 before quickly falling off the chart.
Your Friday Music Guide is here and we’ve got new music from Rosalía, Sam Smith & Madonna, BTS and more! The internet is torn after hearing the news that Kelis and Bill Murray may be dating, Selena Gomez confirms her relationship status, and Shakira and Lewis Hamilton may be heating up! And more!
Tetris Kelly:
We’ve got a fresh crop of new bops for your Friday music guide from the women of Latin and country to the boys of K-pop. We’ve got you covered. We’re telling you who’s single and who’s boo’d up. As we finish off our five K-pop girl groups you should know, we let you know who’s headlining LA’s black pride concert and hang out with our latest cover star. It’s Friday, June 9. I am so excited for Pride weekend. It’s gonna be Mariah Carey and Megan Thee Stallion. But we gotta get into the new music. So let’s start with talking about a fresh new track as Rosalía takes her Spanish style to Tokyo with two years utilizing Japanese instruments on the new track.
Tetris Kelly:
There’ll be more music in our Friday music guide throughout the show, but for now, let’s jump into our top story. Selena, Drake, Shakira, & Kelis. Birds are chirping and love in the air as we give you relationship updates in the world of music. Let’s dive in. Apparently Kelis’ milkshake brought Bill Murray to the yard as the 43 year old is reportedly dating the 72 year old Ghostbusters actor. The internet is ablaze as Bill was spotted watching Kelis’ set at mighty hoopla festival in London and Shakira and her rumored new boo Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton are getting cozy. People sources are saying it’s fun and flirty, and they’re spending time together and in the getting to know you stage.
Watch the full video above!
