J-pop superstars JO1 rolled up to Pinz Bowling Kitchen + Bar in Brentwood, Calif. recently to toss a few strikes and one wild gutter ball as part of the Billboard‘s “Takes Us Out” series. After putting the fear into host Tetris Kelly by revealing that two of the 11-man group’s members are ringers — with previous impressively high scores of 230 and 180 — they rock-paper-scissore’d to see how the members would be split up for the fierce bowl-off.

Team Ruki leader Ruki Shiroiwa was up first, begging Kelly not to put pressure on him by reminding the host, “hey, we’re on the same team!” Taking the non-traditional approach of not putting his fingers in the bowling ball’s holes, Ruki casually threw a strike like it was no big deal. (Watch the full interview with the band above.)

Then came the actual hard work.

Asked what his favorite part was of recording the band’s recent EP, Handz in My Pocket, Ruki busted a few smooth moves and exclaimed, “dancing!” while showing Kelly some of his signature choreo.

Keigo’s turn started off with a “Japanese joke” when he pretended to drop the ball and then proceeded to knock down nine out of the ten pins. Then, when it was his turn to talk about the Handz EP, he enthusiastically proclaimed his favorite part to be “music!,” while picking the ballad “Just Say Yes” as his track of choice. He picked up the spare, by the way.

Singer Sho Yonashiro added that the best part of performing the new songs was getting to play the tunes for fans all over the world, redeeming his first gutter ball by knocking down seven pins. Avowed “indoor” member Junki Kono added that he and his bandmates were “so honored” to be in Los Angeles, tagging their 2023 hip-hop jam “Trigger” as his favorite track to perform live.

And then things went sideways, as Sukai Kinjo got so pumped up before his turn by throwing air punches and kicks that he hurled the ball into the next lane. “You’re not supposed to be fighting the pins. They’re not your enemy, we’re friends,” Kelly reminded Kinjo as he gave another run at a proper roll.

The men then sat down for some chicken fingers, wings and sliders and talked about what an honor it was to win favorite Asian artist at the recent MAMA awards. They said it was a great honor to win and to be at the show with their peers and fans and to share their success this year at their recent Jam Week event at the Tokyo Dome, where they hosted seven days of listening parties and special events for their JAM fanbase.

With the whole world freaking out about KPop Demon Hunters, Kelly asked the group what it feels like to be associated with the K-pop genre while also being J-pop standard-bearers. “We are in the middle, of K-pop and J-pop and we can create a new JO1 pop,” they explained. “It is like a pioneer. This is a chance to get a new thing.” What makes JO1 different from their peers is their live performance style, which expands on their music videos by being more “crazy and energetic.”

This weekend JO1 will be the first J-pop band to ever perform at the the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball in Los Angeles at the Intuit dome alongside Alex Warren, Conan Gray, Jessie Murph, The Kid LAROI, Reneé Rapp, the singers behind the KPop Demon Hunters fictional band HUNTR/X and more. And while they’re pumped to perform, JO1 are also fans and they said they’re psyched to see Zara Larsson take the stage after watching her perform at the Dallas Jingle Ball earlier this month.

The value of global music copyright has nearly doubled over the past decade, reaching an all-time high of $47.2 billion in 2024, according to a study conducted by Pivot Economics founder and former Spotify chief economist Will Page. That’s up from some $25 billion in 2014, and encompasses revenue from record labels, publishing and songwriting around the world, showcasing the value of musical works on a global basis.

Page’s analysis comes with the help of IFPI, CISAC and ICMP, as well as a MiDIA survey of over 250 publishers and direct contributions from rights holders and streamers, according to his paper. Within that $47.2 billion figure, Page breaks it out as $29 billion from labels (up 5%), $13.6 billion from songwriter collective management organizations (up 8%) and $4.6 billion from direct publisher revenues (down around 1%), with the overall figure growing 5.2% year over year. Yet overall, growth has slowed; from 2022 to 2023, for example, the value of global copyright had grown 11% year over year, compared to the 5.2% growth this year.

Within that, there are some trends Page picks out — perhaps most notably, that value is growing faster for publishers (up about 6% year over year) than for labels (up about 5% year over year). Page puts that down to the faded effects from the pandemic, during which streaming exploded, as well as the fact that while streaming volume continues to grow, streaming revenues are slowing. That’s largely due to more lucrative “rich four” markets — which he names as North America, Europe, Australia and the Asian collective of Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore — accounting for 87% of streaming revenue despite just 59% of streaming volume, while emerging markets see big volume increases yet modest jumps in revenue. That bucks conventional capitalism trends, but holds true across different regions, which he outlines in the report.

But the comparison to a decade ago raises other points that stand out, particularly “how it illuminates the causes and consequences of fair division — that is, the split between record labels and artists on one side, and songwriters, publishers, and their CMOs on the other,” Page writes. A decade ago, before streaming had truly taken over and while the industry was in the depths of its drastic downturn in sales and downloads, the publishing world was still bringing in record collections, bringing the global value of copyright between the two sides to a near 55-45 split in favor of labels and artists, close to parity. Streaming’s rise — and the resulting explosion of record label revenues — has tipped that scale back to 62-38 in favor of labels and artists a decade on.

Another notable trend: the U.S. market has gotten more dominant as copyright value has skyrocketed globally, not less. In 2011, the year Spotify debuted in the U.S., Page notes that the U.S. accounted for 27% of the share of global record label revenues, which at that time IFPI reported as $16.5 billion. In 2024, as record label value has doubled to $29 billion, the U.S. accounts for 38% of that figure — suggesting that the U.S. is not just still the most lucrative region in the world, but is becoming more so. “Make it there,” his report notes, “and you can make it anywhere.” He also dives into the trend of “glocalization” — local-language music succeeding on a global scale, a term he himself coined several years ago — and highlights particular success in markets like Denmark, Brazil and Korea as notable examples in different ways.

Yet the road ahead is not linear, and there are reasons for concern that the value will not double in another decade. The elephant in the room is the rise of AI, which will have effects on copyright value that are difficult to predict at the moment, given the uncertain legal and technological frameworks that currently exist. But other challenges to fully understanding the true value of copyright remain in the many gaps in global reporting that still exist, as well as potential slowdowns for publishers ahead that would mimic the one being experienced by labels now. 

While the NFL playoffs haven’t even started, the players in the entertainment surrounding Super Bowl LX in February are already drafted.

On Thursday (Dec. 18), Bay Area event producer Non Plus Ultra announced a pair of Super Bowl LX weekend shows at San Francisco’s Pier 80, 40 miles north of where the game is happening at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2026.

Calvin Harris and Diplo will both play Pier 80’s 200,000 square-foot Warehouse on Friday, Feb. 6, in a space that has been used for electronic music events since 2022 as part of the annual Portola festival. (The Warehouse is also hosting a pair of New Year’s Eve shows later this month with Skrillex and Four Tet and Swedish House Mafia.) The double-header with Diplo and Harris is being dubbed “The Lineup,” with tickets going on sale Friday, Dec. 26 at 12 p.m. PT, after a presale that begins at 11 a.m. PT.

The next day, Feb. 7, T-Pain and Sean Paul will also both play Pier 80 for a previously announced event being called “R&B and Ribs.” Tickets for this show are on sale now.

The NPU Live events brand officially launched earlier this year, producing a Khalid in Golden Gate Park in the fall along with events in Napa Valley. The company’s suite of venues includes San Francisco’s Midway, The Mint and the Palace of Fine Arts.

“For me, this is a full-circle moment,” Non Plus Ultra and NPU Live CEO Jordan Langer says in a statement about the February shows. “A life-changing moment in my career was producing a big event associated with the world’s most watched football game in Miami. Now, almost 20 years later that same occasion gives me the chance to showcase what the NPU Live brand is all about – unforgettable music and moments in extraordinary spaces.”

Of course, along with the flurry of events happening around the game, Super Bowl LX itself will feature a halftime show performance by Bad Bunny.