rights organizations
JON BATISTE,
Christos Badavas
EXECUTIVE VP/GENERAL COUNSEL,
SESAC MUSIC GROUP
Last summer, Badavas helped secure SESAC’s purchase of the digital rights collection agency Audiam from Canadian rights management group SOCAN. The acquisition helped SESAC expand beyond its core business and, according to Badavas, enhanced its “ability to claim, track and report YouTube royalties, streaming mechanicals and Canadian digital mechanical royalties for its songwriters, composers and music publishers.” Audiam, which launched in 2013, has collected
$140 million for songwriters and publishers as of 2021, and its integration into the performance rights organization supports the growth of its “multirights, multiterritory global rights management business,” he adds.
Tim Dadson
GENERAL COUNSEL, SOUNDEXCHANGE
“One of the most pressing concerns is the need to update our laws to reflect the rapid change in the ways music is now consumed,” Dadson says. Last June, he and the SoundExchange legal team, assisted by outside counsel, won a royalty rate increase from the Copyright Royalty Board for sound recording artists and rights owners of 17% for ad-supported digital music services and 8% for subscription services. After nine years at the rights management nonprofit, Dadson was promoted to general counsel in September 2021, and he intends to advocate for even higher rates in his new role, “making sure both emerging and existing platforms are paying creators fairly not only in the U.S. but around the world.”
“We have a responsibility
— on behalf of our artists and songwriters — to protect their creativity while embracing new digital experiences.”
—JULIE SWIDLER
Kristen Johns
CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER,
THE MECHANICAL LICENSING COLLECTIVE
Johns is helping The Mechanical Licensing Collective transform and simplify how streaming and download services obtain all the necessary rights for musical works and accurately pay creators and rights holders. Created by the Music Modernization Act of 2018 to administer blanket mechanical licenses for digital service providers, The MLC distributed $280 million in mechanical royalties, and its membership doubled to 16,000 in its first year of operations. Perhaps as importantly, says Johns, it “provided unprecedented levels of transparency into data related to The MLC’s work.”
Clara Kim
EXECUTIVE VP/CHIEF LEGAL
AND BUSINESS AFFAIRS OFFICER, ASCAP
Though Kim notes that “the music business is still recovering from the pandemic,” ASCAP has deftly adapted: The PRO reported in March that its revenue collections in 2021 reached a historic high of $1.335 billion while it distributed $1.254 billion to songwriters and publishers — a 3.4% increase from 2020. Its members have thrived, too, highlighted by Jon Batiste earning an artist-leading 11 nominations at the upcoming Grammy Awards, along with eight for Justin Bieber and seven each for Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo. Still, the company continues to push forward, says Kim, adding that it “finalized a significant number of deals last year that will help to provide long-term income security for ASCAP members,” specifically focusing on agreements with major streaming, broadcast and audiovisual licensees.
Stuart Rosen
SENIOR VP/GENERAL COUNSEL, BMI
BMI’s legal team helped the performing rights organization and its affiliates navigate through “changing waters,” says Rosen, including the catalog sales boom, an explosion of new technology platforms and calls for greater data transparency. As businesses continue to recover from the impact of COVID-19, the music community at large has an obligation to “recognize its songwriters and composers have been hit just as hard, if not harder,” he adds, “and it’s our job to preserve the means for them to continue creating the music that fuels an entire industry.”
associations Danielle Aguirre
EXECUTIVE VP/GENERAL COUNSEL, NATIONAL MUSIC PUBLISHERS’ ASSOCIATION
Any upstart technology company that uses music to help build a user base can expect a call from the NMPA if it’s not paying royalties along the way.
Over the last 18 months, the NMPA negotiated settlements regarding past unlicensed royalties with the major players of a new generation of online entertainment services: social media apps TikTok and Triller; livestream service Twitch; and publicly traded gaming platform Roblox. “These deals have brought not only value to the music publishing industry,” says Aguirre, “but also helped develop new relationships and partnerships between publishers and some of these fast-growing digital platforms.”
Ken Doroshow
CHIEF LEGAL OFFICER, RIAA
For the RIAA, Doroshow executed a pair of high-profile copyright infringement cases on behalf of the labels that were initially filed while he was a partner at Jenner & Block. Each of the cases affirmed protections for copyright holders against digital infringement: The first, against the Russian stream-ripping site Kurbanov, awarded labels $83 million in damages; the second, against mixtape site Spinrilla, granted a summary judgment on the site’s liability. “In a time of constant innovation and a steady stream of ‘next big things,’ ” he says, “it’s more important than ever that all platforms and services that use and profit from music obtain the necessary licenses and pay rights holders and creators for their work.”
Ryan McWhinnie SENIOR DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AND LEGAL AFFAIRS, MERLIN
McWhinnie has been at the forefront of helping digital music licensing service Merlin expand its membership, including to new continents with deals in Africa with Boomplay; in India with JioSaavn, Spotify and Resso; and in Southeast Asia with JOOX and TREBEL. The Londonbased lawyer says that while the industry must continue to support the growth and diversity of streaming services, “it is also important that we continue to encourage innovation by making it easier for emerging verticals and business models to access music.” That includes generating incremental revenue through deals with social music platforms like Facebook, TikTok and Triller and with business-to-business platforms such as Soundtrack Your Brand.
talent and litigation Kenneth Abdo
EQUITY PARTNER, FOX ROTHSCHILD Paul Bowles
Cynthia Katz
Tim Mandelbaum Michael Reinert
Leron Rogers
Alex Threadgold
Heidy Vaquerano PARTNERS, FOX ROTHSCHILD John Rose
ASSOCIATE, FOX ROTHSCHILD
Fox Rothschild significantly expanded its music department after 2020. Equity partner Abdo is part of a hiring team at the firm that recruited attorneys from diverse backgrounds; Rogers, Rose and Vaquerano are among those who arrived in the past two years. Rogers renegotiated Kanye West’s recording agreement with Def Jam ahead of the release of Donda. Bowles counseled client A$AP TyY of the rap collective A$AP Mob on his distribution deal with AWAL. Katz and Mandelbaum represented Mötley Crüe in the sale of the band’s master recording catalog to BMG. She and Reinert advised the estate of Muddy Waters in managing his music catalog and a new administration deal for his publishing. Katz joined Threadgold in helping the digital music/video distributor Symphonic in closing a large round of financing, and she collaborated with Vaquerano in advising former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge on the sale of his master catalogs. She and Rogers advised Rick Ross on branding and equity deals with the wine and spirits company Sovereign Brands. Rose won dismissal of a defamation suit against Ross resulting from his autobiography, Hurricanes: A Memoir.
Gary P. Adelman
MANAGING PARTNER, ADELMAN MATZ Sarah M. Matz
PARTNER, ADELMAN MATZ
Lisa F. Moore
PRINCIPAL, MOORE PEQUIGNOT Andrew Pequignot
MEMBER, MOORE PEQUIGNOT
When Cardi B sued a YouTuber for waging a “malicious campaign” to hurt her reputation, the rapper turned to a team of four veteran entertainment litigators from two different firms to represent her. Defamation lawsuits are hard for celebrities to win, but Moore, Pequignot, Matz and Adelman pulled it off, securing nearly $4 million in damages for Cardi B. The win shouldn’t surprise anyone: Moore Pequignot is a well-known Atlanta entertainment boutique that has repped Offset and The Blind Boys of Alabama, while the New Yorkbased Adelman Matz has repped Migos, Khalid and A$AP Rocky.
Jenny Afia
HEAD OF LEGAL, SCHILLINGS INTERNATIONAL
London-based Afia, whose clients include Adele, Elton John and Johnny Depp, says the vast majority of her work has been “below the radar” — stopping the media from publishing intrusive and false stories about her clients. She led the team that won a landmark privacy case for Meghan Markle against Associated Newspapers and successfully defended her victory on appeal. She also advised on battling defamatory allegations published about a Grammy Award-winning client in the media, resulting in an apology and removal of the contested content. The most pressing concern she sees in 2022: “a potential World War III.”
Lisa Alter Katie Baron
PARTNERS, ALTER KENDRICK & BARON
Alter Kendrick & Baron advised Primary
The ASCAP team, including attorney CLARA KIM, celebrated the Grammy nominations of the performing rights organization’s members, including
who leads the field with 11 nods.
Wave on how to pour some sugar on its long-standing partnership with Def Leppard with a deal in January that gave the music publisher additional stakes in the band’s publishing and master royalty income. Alter has guided deals in the past 12 months collectively worth more than $2.5 billion, including the representation of Primary Wave on its acquisition of assets from the estate of James Brown and publishing/master recording catalogs of iconic artists and writers that include Stevie Nicks, Luther Vandross, America, Gerry Goffin, Chris Isaak, Patrick Leonard, Olivia Newton-John, The Four Seasons and Culture Club. She was music counsel to Hybe on its merger with Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings and advised both Reservoir Media Management in its acquisition of Tommy Boy Music and BMG Rights Management in purchasing the ZZ Top music catalog. With rising interest by private equity in music assets, Alter counsels several equity investors and financial stakeholders in the industry.
Peter Anderson
PARTNER, DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE
Davis Wright Tremaine’s past and present clients include The Weeknd, Max Martin, Gwen Stefani and Lil Nas X, as well as the three major-label groups. In October, Anderson scored a major victory for The Weeknd and Martin when a federal appeals court ruled that their song “A Lonely Night” did not infringe the copyright of another tune written by two British songwriters in a case initially filed in 2019. Looking ahead, Anderson says, “a major concern and something being litigated now is whether Copyright Act statutory termination rights apply to recording contracts, allowing recording artists to claim ownership of a vast number of master sound recordings.”
Christian Barker
EQUITY PARTNER, SHACKELFORD BOWEN MCKINLEY & NORTON
Lauren Kilgore
PARTNER, SHACKELFORD BOWEN MCKINLEY & NORTON
By 2021, just one year after joining the firm, former artist manager Barker had signed songwriter and producer clients to nearly every Nashville publisher, brokering deals totaling more than eight figures. His biggest wins include landing TikTok breakout Warren Zeiders a recording contract with Warner Records — in what Barker says was a record-setting level in country music history for a new artist. With veteran clients like Bryon Gallimore and Paul Overstreet, Barker is closely watching the evolution of rights management. “We are going to see a future that’s ripe with tokenization of intellectual property,” he says, “where every songwriter has the ability and know-how to be in tune with real-time ownership and valuation of their assets.”
Andy Bart
PARTNER/CO-CHAIR, CONTENT, MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT PRACTICE, JENNER & BLOCK Previn Warren
PARTNER, JENNER & BLOCK
On behalf of the major music groups and other members of the RIAA, Bart led the team that won a summary judgment in November 2020 on liability in a copyright infringement case against hip-hop mixtape site Spinrilla. On behalf of SoundExchange and other music industry clients, Warren helped lead a Jenner & Block team that last June obtained a significant rate increase from the Copyright Royalty Board for royalties paid by ad-supported and subscription digital music services.
Richard Baskind
PARTNER, SIMONS MUIRHEAD BURTON
London-based Baskind worked on the acquisition, led by his partner Alasdair George, of a substantial interest in the recorded music and publishing assets of Ace Copyrights by Cosmos Music, the oldest independent music company in Scandinavia. The ACE catalog includes some 9,000 recordings and 3,000 songs, including titles by Etta James and B.B. King. The firm’s client list includes Nick Cave, Alan Walker and Tion Wayne, and Baskind says he sees a “significant opportunity within the creative industries” in the rapid development of Web3, but notes that “comes with the concern around regulating and managing this growth on behalf of all.”
David Beame
Brian Mencher
FOUNDING PARTNERS, BEAME & MENCHER
Beame and Mencher represent artists and producers Andrew Maury (Shawn Mendes, Mika, Olivia O’Brien) and Mod Sun, who co-steered Avril Lavigne’s seventh studio album, Love Sux, and co-wrote/directed the upcoming film Good Mourning With a U with longtime collaborator Machine Gun
Kelly. The firm also works with Global Citizen, the international advocacy organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty. A safe and sustainable return to live events is a paramount issue for the industry, says Mencher, who served as the chief legal architect — managing COVID-19 protocols, artist/talent contracts and insurance issues — for Global Citizen’s Vax Live concert in May 2021.
“These deals [by the NMPA] have helped develop new relationships between publishers and some of these fast-growing digital platforms.”
—DANIELLE AGUIRRE
Jill H. Berliner Ray Garcia PARTNERS, RIMON
While the law firm declines to cite specific clients, Garcia says Rimon represents a number of Grammy-winning artists,
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees and entertainment entrepreneurs, as well as an independent record company, providing clients “with a virtual business affairs department.” Garcia also says the firm has recently advised clients on cases including Soundgarden’s lawsuits with the estate of Chris Cornell and Nirvana’s dispute with fashion designer Marc Jacobs and Spencer Elden, the man who appeared as a baby on the cover of the band’s Nevermind album.
and law partner worked on the acquisition by Scandinavia’s Cosmos Music of Ace Copyrights, including recordings by ETTA JAMES.
Joshua Binder Jeremy Mohr
Paul Rothenberg PARTNERS/CO-FOUNDERS, ROTHENBERG MOHR & BINDER
A new publishing deal for songwriter Jon Bellion and a hot Super Bowl ad with Frito-Lay for longtime client Charlie Puth were just two of the agreements Rothenberg guided during the last year. The firm runs point for top executives, songwriters and artists — among them Andra Day, Chloe x Halle, Jazmine Sullivan, A$AP Ferg and Marshmello. “When I started in the industry, it was often more lucrative to have written the hit than performed it,” Rothenberg says. “But now, anything connected to the master [recording] is paying higher. We must address equitable compensation for songwriters.” He also predicts that boons in catalog sales and streaming will continue: “If it’s a stream of music, somebody is selling it.”
Jason Boyarski PARTNER, BOYARSKI FRITZ
Boyarski Fritz celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2021, but the boutique entertainment firm has remained focused on the future. Its label work involves steering NFT initiatives for Timbaland’s Beatclub, negotiating catalog sales for songwriter-producers Tainy and Louis
Bell, and deals for the estates of Prince and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White. “Music catalog valuations have reached their highest levels in modern-day history, garnering a massive appetite from private equity and public markets globally,” Boyarski says, but inflation and rising interest rates could result in more supply than demand. The litigator encourages creators to choose their partners and strategies wisely to ensure that their music remains top of mind. “Music is art,” he says, “not a commodity.”
John Branca
David Lande
David Byrnes
PARTNERS, ZIFFREN BRITTENHAM
Branca has long served as the co-executor of the Michael Jackson estate and has helped secure a number of lucrative deals for the late pop singer. The firm steered the deal for a music biopic with Lionsgate and Bohemian Rhapsody producer Graham King; the launch of MJ: The Musical, which debuted on Broadway in February; and the post-pandemic return of Michael Jackson One — the long-running Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil production set to Jackson’s music. The firm’s focus in 2022 and beyond remains to support “social justice and accountability and truth on social media,” says Branca.
William J. Briggs II PARTNER, VENABLE
Venable’s clients include Stevie Wonder, Snoop Dogg, Migos and Gucci Mane. Briggs notes that many artists today “have been sued or have had claims made against them for copyright infringement arising from social media posts. Many have found pictures of themselves [online] and have simply reposted those photographs on their social media accounts. Those posts have been the subject of copyright infringement claims by paparazzi, who often claim entitlement to damages greater than a license fee they could obtain for the photograph. We have resolved a number of these claims.”
Jo Brittain Simon Esplen Chris Gossage Gavin Maude John Reid Steven Tregear PARTNERS, RUSSELLS
“How to reconcile the competing claims of record companies and artists to a share of the digital income pot” is the most pressing issue facing the music business, says Tregear. The firm’s notable clients include Coldplay, Roger Waters and the estates of George Michael and Prince. The Russells music team also helped close one of the year’s biggest deals, advising Kobalt on the sale of its Kobalt Music Royalty Fund II — comprising over 62,000 copyrights — for $1.1 billion to investment companies KKR and Dundee Partners in October.
Vernon Brown
PRESIDENT/CEO, V. BROWN AND COMPANY
Brown, the longtime attorney for Cash Money and its co-CEOs Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams, believes artists need to find more ways to generate money. “From my view, the vast majority of artists make no money,” he says, “and the most pressing issue for them is figuring out how to create alternative streams of income.” Founded in 1992, V. Brown and Company continues to help both veteran artists and younger acts including Erykah Badu, Dodgr and ATL Jacob.
Ed Buggé
PARTNER, HERTZ LICHTENSTEIN YOUNG & POLK Jamie Young
NAMED PARTNER, HERTZ LICHTENSTEIN
YOUNG & POLK
Young played a key role in the mediation and settlement of legal actions involving the estate of Tom Petty, “which included creating a business operation and establishing a management and business management team, while continuing to respect Tom Petty and his legacy,” he says. Young also represented Stevie Nicks in the sale of a portion of her music publishing catalog to Primary Wave. Buggé is an adviser to Apple on key music issues and acts as head of business affairs for the creative services company Platoon, including key artist deals in the United States, the United Kingdom and Africa. He has advised artist clients like Jaden Smith, Brent Faiyaz and Joshua Bell “on equity holdings in some of the industry’s most successful disruptive businesses and tech startups,” he says.
Richard Busch
PARTNER IN THE LITIGATION SECTION/HEAD OF THE ENTERTAINMENT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECTIONS, KING & BALLOW
Busch — whose clients include Marvin Gaye’s family (for whom he won the “Blurred Lines” copyright infringement case in 2015) — continues to work to ensure “that owners of intellectual property, and most notably writers of musical and literary compositions, are not only licensed but paid properly.” In addition to pursuing a claim against Spotify on behalf of Eight Mile Style — co-owner, publisher and administrator of some
250 songs by Eminem — he filed suits
RICHARD BUSCH is representing Eight Mile Style, co-owner, publisher and administrator of some 250 songs by EMINEM.