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Kanye West gave the world a rare glimpse into the music industry‘s labyrinth of recording contracts last week when he tweeted out his own paperwork with Universal Music Group —and then lambasted those agreements as exploitative and unfair, demanding his copyrights be returned to him. As far as the actual …

When you think about Apple, your mind probably doesn’t go to “Beats 1 Radio.” The name itself makes the offering feel like a separate entity — something that isn’t important enough to be a part of the tech giant’s official brand. (The word “beat” also lends itself more, nowadays, to …

Since its launch four months ago, the Crew Nation Global Relief Fund — the charity established by concert and ticketing giant Live Nation Entertainment and its House of Blues Music Forward Foundation to aid unemployed live music workers affected by the pandemic — has raised $15 million to support about …

Boy, Tencent is smart. If you want to get a handle on just how smart, consider this: Last Thursday (July 9th), entertainment-and-electronics giant Sony Corporation announced it was buying a minority stake worth $250 million in Epic Games, maker of Fortnite. Epic recently nailed a $17 billion valuation, meaning Sony’s …

With concert tours almost completely shuttered through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic since March, some of the biggest acts in music — including the Eagles, Pearl Jam, Guns N’ Roses and Green Day — have received federal funding to support their crews for any current and future postponed tours, according to …

With many of the country’s independent concert venues in limbo — having been without business since March because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — over 600 major recording artists, including Dave Grohl, Neil Young, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, and Coldplay, have signed a letter to Congress …

Bravado, Universal Music Group‘s merchandise wing and one of the largest music artist merchandisers in the industry, is selling face masks as part of a new charity initiative to support struggling musicians and industry workers amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced on Friday. The new initiative, called We’ve …

At Workis a Rolling Stoneseries exploring how decision-makers in the fast-changing music business spend their hectic days — as well as what burgeoning ideas they’re keen to explore, what advice they’d give to industry newcomers, and more.Readearlier interviews here. When Justin Lubliner gets on the phone, he’s somewhere in the …

Lucian Grainge tested positive and was hospitalized for the novel coronavirus on March 15th. On April 6th, the CEO of Universal Music Group (UMG) — 2019’s most-successful music group in terms of market share — sent his company a note that he is now recuperating at home. “I apologize for …

“Being a musician in 2020 was already hard,” synth-pop singer-songwriter Caroline Rose says. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down all live music and touring for the foreseeable future, thereby drying up the primary source of income for the vast majority of working musicians. For countless touring artists …