In today's CMU Daily: US politicians say they were contacted by TikTok users in the country last week begging them not to ban the app in the country - although mainly because it locked them out until they did so, it is claimed. This comes as proposals to force Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the app or lose access to the US are fast-tracked through Congress

One Liners: New Academy Music Group CEO; Satellite414 promotion; PRS Foundation launches UK music export hub; The Oscars; Rina Sawayama “can’t release another album under my current conditions”; Slipknot teases new drummer announcement; new music from Girls In Synthesis

Also today: Tributes pour in as promoter Vince Power dies; Lizzo has been allowed to keep her $5 million fee from a cancelled festival; Vinyl added to the UK’s Office For National Statistics’ consumer price index; Epic Games declares victory against Apple as EU's Digital Markets Act comes into force

Plus: Setlist podcast on Apple’s €1.8 billion EU fine

TikTok insists it isn't forcing Americans to phone politicians as ban proposal gets fast-tracked in Congress

TikTok has been accused of forcing some of its US users to call their representatives in Congress about the proposed new law that could see the social media app banned in the country. That's just not true, TikTok insists, though it has been encouraging its users to put pressure on political decision makers, telling them to phone their representatives. 

TikTok and its owner ByteDance are likely going into lobbying overdrive given just how fast the new legal proposals seem to be passing through Congress. 

They were only introduced into the House Of Representatives last week, were immediately passed unanimously by a relevant committee, and will now go before the full House for a vote this week. That said, utilising its users as a campaign tool doesn’t seem to be working for TikTok, which will likely have more success trying to block the proposals through the courts on free speech grounds. 

"This effort by ByteDance validated the Congressman's concerns", a spokesperson for representative Neal Dunn told the BBC, when asked about the flood of calls the Florida-based Congress member has received from TikTok users. 

"American phones were geolocated and TikTok users were locked out of the platform until they called their members of Congress”, they said. “ByteDance weaponised the app against America and that is exactly why the Congressman supports this measure". 

The office of South Dakota representative Dusty Johnson added, "We've gotten calls from people who are angry and screaming; some people who are asking kindly if TikTok is going to be banned; and some have said TikTok wouldn't let them on the app without calling their [representative]".

TikTok has been sending US users a notification urging them to "call your representative now" about the proposals, known as the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The TikTok app seemingly provided users with a direct link for calling their local representatives. However, those who said use of the app was conditional on making a call seemingly missed the two options that were provided for dismissing the notification. 

The act, if passed, would give China-based ByteDance six months to sell TikTok, otherwise distribution of the app would be banned across the US. It's the latest in a number of proposals to ban TikTok based on fears that the Chinese government has access to US user-data via ByteDance. TikTok has repeatedly denied that is the case, insisting US user data is stored on US-based servers managed by US company Oracle. 

The proposals were passed unanimously by the House Energy And Commerce Committee on Thursday, after which House Majority Leader Steve Scalise declared, "I will bring this critical national security bill to the House floor for a vote next week". US President Joe Biden is also a supporter of the bill, telling reporters on Friday, "If they pass it, I'll sign it". 

Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump - despite having also tried to ban TikTok when President - has criticised the latest moves, mainly on the basis the ban would give more power to the real enemy, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta. "If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business", he wrote on his own social platform Truth Social. "I don't want Facebook, who cheated in the last election, doing better. They are a true enemy of the people!"

Some wondered if that would negatively impact the bill’s bipartisan support, but the Republicans remain on board and the proposals still seem to be gaining momentum in Congress ahead of the planned vote this week. Indeed, the bill is seemingly being fast-tracked for a full vote because it is felt there is overwhelming support for the proposals. 

TikTok’s lobbyists and lawyers are obviously pulling out all the stops to try and scupper the planned new laws, which would still need to be passed by the Senate. Rallying users is part of that, obviously. But, according to the BBC's report, that particular tactic - while resulting in a flood of phone calls - isn't having the desired effect. Partly because too many people are basically saying "TikTok told me to call you" or, even worse, "TikTok forced me to call you". 

Meanwhile, TikTok’s lawyers will be brushing up on their First Amendment arguments, hoping that - should it pass Congress - the act could still be stalled in the courts on free speech grounds, as happened with Trump's ban and attempts to outlaw TikTok in the US state of Montana. 

The act's supporters in Congress say the proposals have been carefully worded in a way that circumvents free speech issues, but plenty of legal experts reckon, despite those efforts, there is still a solid argument that the proposed ban is unconstitutional.

AEG Europe // Strategy And Insights Analyst (London)

AEG Presents // Tour Accountant, International Touring (London)

Kilimanjaro Live // Event Coordinator (London Hybrid)

Horizon is CMU's new weekly newsletter - published each Friday - that brings you a hand-picked selection of early-stage career opportunities from across the music industry.

Whether you're looking for your first job in music or you're ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster.

👉 Click through to see the current selection.

ONE LINERS

Academy Music Group, Slipknot, Rina Sawayama + more

APPOINTMENTS

Academy Music Group has hired Liam Boylan as its new CEO. He was previously CEO of Wembley Stadium. “I am THRILLED to step into the CEO role with AMG and its nationwide network of venues”, he says. "Opportunities like this one with AMG are exceptional and I look forward to enhancing a fantastic operation and to future growth with this outstanding company”. AMG’s best known venue, the Brixton Academy, is due to reopen on 19 Apr having been closed ever since the crowd crush that occurred there in December 2022. London police had urged the local council to revoke AMG’s licence, but councillors said the venue could reopen under AMG management subject to 77 conditions being met. 

Music PR firm Satellite414 has promoted Mo Sey to Senior Publicist. “I interned at Satellite at summer break during my first year of uni”, she says. “I wanted to do everything I could to be the best intern the company had so they couldn’t get rid of me. I guess it worked! I couldn’t work in a better environment. I’ve grown so much as a publicist and can’t wait to see what the future holds”.

FUNDING 

The PRS Foundation has launched a new UK music export website called UK Sounds, providing information for British acts about export support and showcasing events. “Music export is an incredibly important part of UK-based music creators’ careers and UK music exports generated £4 billion in 2022”, says Becci Scotcher, Senior Grants & Programmes Manager at PRS Foundation. “We recognise that for artists international support and information around exporting into different territories, while out there, could be easier to find if under one roof”. Check it out here. 

AWARDS 

The Oscars went ahead last night, awarding all films and that. There were music in film type prizes, which saw Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell take Best Original Song for ‘What Was I Made For?’ from ‘Barbie’, and Ludwig Göransson win best original score for ‘Oppenheimer’.

ARTIST NEWS 

Rina Sawayama has indicated that she will not release new music while still signed to Dirty Hit. Last year she called out The 1975’s Matty Healy for misogynistic and racist comments, noting that he owns a stake in the label. Now, speaking to The Independent, she says, “When it comes to new music I can’t release another album under my current conditions. I feel really trapped and don’t know what to do”.

Slipknot have shared an image of a broken drumstick, indicating that they are in rehearsals with their new drummer. They have still not announced the identity of the new band member, but all signs point to Eloy Casagrande, who recently left Sepultura shortly before the band announced a farewell tour.

RELEASES

Girls In Synthesis will release new album ‘Sublimation’ on 3 May. Out now is new single ‘Lights Out’.

Live industry veteran Vince Power dies, aged 76

PromoterVince Power has died, aged 76. 

Those paying tribute over the weekend included Paul Weller, who said that Power was “a good friend”, and Tanita Tikaram, who said, “Like many artists I owe so much to Vince. He gave me my first gig at the Mean Fiddler acoustic room attended by about three people but he made sure one of them was an important agent”.

Born John Vincent Power in Waterford, Ireland in 1947, he moved to London aged fifteen and worked a number of jobs before being inspired to enter the music industry after a trip to Nashville. He opened his first venue, Mean Fiddler, in Harlesden, North London, in 1982.

Originally showcasing Irish folk and country music acts, it eventually began putting on more mainstream artists. From there, Power founded the Mean Fiddler Group, buying up other venues in the city and later expanding into festivals. 

As well as owning venues such as the Astoria, The Garage and Jazz Cafe, and running the Phoenix festival from 1993 to 1997, the company became particularly well known as the promoter of the Reading Festival, which it acquired in 1989, adding sister event the Leeds Festival just over a decade later. In 2002, it also took a 20% stake in the Glastonbury Festival as the event struggled with licensing issues. 

Power sold his stake in the Mean Fiddler Group to Clear Channel (now Live Nation) in 2005, subsequently setting up new company Vince Power Music Group, which went into administration a few years later. He also set up another company, Music Festivals PLC, which floated on the stock exchange in 2011. 

Music Festivals ran the Hop Farm Festival in the UK and Benicàssim in Spain, and went into administration in 2012, with Hop Farm making massive losses and Benicàssim bringing in lower than expected profits. Power acquired both brands from Music Festivals, but was forced to cancel the 2013 edition of Hop Farm due to poor ticket sales. 

The following year Power was temporarily banned from promoting live events in the UK due to a dispute with PRS For Music, after it turned out that the 2009 to 2012 editions of Hop Farm had gone ahead without a licence from the collecting society. 

More recently, Power launched Irish music festival Feis in Liverpool and took over Camden venue Dingwalls, renamed The PowerHaus due to trademark issues, as well as a number of other small venues in London.

US appeals court lets Lizzo keep $5 million from festival that never happened

A US appeals court has upheld a ruling that allows Lizzo to keep the $5 million she received from the COVID-cancelled LA Virgin Fest, which she was due to headline in 2020. Ellie Goulding and Kali Uchis - repped by the same agents - can also keep the million dollars they were collectively paid, after appeal judges accepted the artists' interpretation of a force majeure clause in their contacts with the festival. 

A force majeure clause sets out what happens if extraordinary circumstances - such as a global pandemic - impact on the delivery of a contract. 

When the COVID lockdowns forced festivals to cancel, many artists returned any fees they had already been paid because of those clauses in their contracts. But agents for Lizzo - who had already received her ridiculously high LA Virgin Fest fee in a deposit payment before the event - argued that an amendment made to the force majeure clause in her contract meant she could keep the cash. And the Californian appeals court agrees. 

Reaching that conclusion required the appeal court judges to undertake some slightly tedious and rather confusing analysis of the way the force majeure clause was worded in the Lizzo contract, and also those for the bookings of Goulding and Uchis. 

The WME negotiated contracts did include a basic provision about returning fees in a force majeure scenario, but then said "however, if the artist is otherwise ready, willing and able to perform, [promoter will pay the artist] the full guarantee unless such cancellation is the result of artist’s death, illness, or injury, or that of its immediate family". 

"The artists claim their right to the deposits is conditioned on them demonstrating they were 'ready, willing and able to perform' but for the occurrence of the force majeure event", the judges explained in their ruling. "[The festival] claims the artists’ right to retain the deposits is conditioned on a showing that the artists were 'otherwise ready, willing and able to perform' in spite of the occurrence of the force majeure". 

Don't spend too much time trying to figure any of that out. All you need to know is that the appeals court backed a lower court in concluding that the artists and their agents were interpreting the contract correctly and can therefore keep the money. 

WME didn't add the all important extra clause to their artists' contracts because of any premonitions that a global pandemic was incoming. 

Instead the agency wasn't convinced promoters of the LA Virgin Fest would be able to pull off the event in a market dominated by Live Nation and AEG. Although the festival was endorsed by the Virgin group, its main backers were Marc and Sharon Hagle, who made their money in the commercial property sector before getting involved in live entertainment. 

Such were the concerns about the event, WME would likely have advised Lizzo against committing to perform had the festival's promoters not increased their original offer of a $1.35 million fee to $2.5 million and then $5 million. Sharon Hagle, it seems, was a big Lizzo fan and really, really wanted her to perform. 

With a fee too big to decline, WME got its lawyers to work to provide some protection in the contract given the agency's concerns about the commercial viability of the festival. Having done so, Lizzo then got a very big pay day for doing nothing at all once the pandemic hit, while the backers of LA Virgin Fest are six million worse off than originally anticipated as a result of the COVID cancellation.

Setlist Podcast: Apple blames Spotify for €1.8 billion fine

On this week's show we discuss the €1.8 billion fine Apple has been ordered to pay by the EU following an investigation into claims of anti-competitive behaviour made by Spotify, and Live Nation's explanation of why everyone else in the music industry is to blame for rising ticket prices.

🎧 Click here to listen - or search for 'Setlist' wherever you normally listen

Popcorn, rotisserie chickens and lattes are out; air fryers, women’s sock and vinyl are in say ONS boffins

When did you last eat a whole rotisserie chicken or buy loose cut ham from a butcher? Not as recently as you bought music on vinyl I bet. Always on the money, the UK’s Office for National Statistics has joined the vinyl party, and will be monitoring prices from February incorporating vinyl records into the consumer price index for the first time since 1992.

Inflation has been a staple of headlines over the past couple of years, blamed by many in the UK on the double whammy of Brexit and COVID. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for some time, you’ve almost certainly seen headlines screaming that inflation is “out of control” or “soaring” or “spiralling”.

The Consumer Price Index - the UK’s primary measure of inflation - is a complex collection of goods and services, often referred to as the “basket of goods and services”, used to track inflation. 

“The virtual basket contains over 700 carefully selected items representative of the goods and services that consumers typically spend their money on”, says the Office for National Statistics. That basket of goods is updated each year following careful consideration by a team of economists and statisticians working for the ONS to give - in the words of Matt Corder, deputy boffin in charge of prices - “a fascinating snapshot of consumer spending”.

The most recent update pushed out today sees the return - for the first time since 1992 - of vinyl records. 

A quick flick through the list of things removed is like a little horror story of despair all of its own: hand sanitiser gel, sofa beds, rotisserie chickens, loose cooked ham, popcorn, lattes. Meanwhile, the things added are like a ready-made trip to Margate: wild bird seed, rice cakes, gluten free bread, women’s socks, air fryers and vinyl.

What if we’ve been measuring the wrong things all this time? Maybe inflation isn’t out of control at all and we just needed to pay closer attention to air fryers, bird seed and physical music formats. 

“The return of vinyl records shows how cultural revivals can affect our spending”, says Corder, displaying the levels of restraint typical for government statisticians. Kim Bayley, CEO of ERA, the trade group for entertainment retailers, is happy to push things a little further. It’s “an incredible milestone” she says, “marking the return to the mainstream of a format most people – including the music industry – had given up on”.

The BPI’s Jo Twist joins the celebration, saying, “It’s good to see the ONS once again including vinyl LPs in its measure of what people are buying around the UK”, going on to add, “It feels an entirely natural that vinyl should once more be seen as a popular indicator of how people are choosing to spend their hard earned money. CDs may not be far behind!” Steady on, Jo.

Neither - somewhat disappointingly - had anything to say about air fryers. A third of households in the UK apparently own an air fryer, and stats published by plastics-and-gadgets purveyor Lakeland in September 2023 said that air fryer sales had shot up 1175% year on year. 

Though they also claimed that “heated textiles” - throws and ponchos that you plug in and wear - were also soaring in popularity, so you might want to take their predictions with a pinch of salt. Or at least understand that what appeals to Lakeland shoppers may not represent the mainstream. Though, to be fair, that’s what they were saying about vinyl a few years ago too.

An Allied Market Research report says that the global market for air fryers might reach $1.9 billion by 2032 with a compound annual growth rate of 6.5% between now and then. That’s all very well, but how many times a year are you going to buy an air fryer, and how often does your favourite artist release a limited edition boxset double basket smart fryer? 

While vinyl sales haven’t increased quite as fast as air fryers, we can only hope. Recent stats published by ERA show that vinyl LP sales increased 17.8% year on year by value in 2023, and 11.8% by units sold. If we all pull together and try for a 1175% increase by this time next year we’d be shifting 76 million vinyl LPs, compared to this year’s 6.5 million. That would take UK vinyl LP sales to over £2 billion in the UK alone, which, frankly, makes the global potential of air fryers look fairly insignificant. 

For those eager to see the impact of the new choices, they’ve already been rolled into February’s inflation data. That will come out on 20 Mar. Like most people, we can barely contain our excitement.

Epic declares DMA victory after EU intervention forces speedy change in Apple policy position

The boss of Fortnite owner Epic Games declared on Friday that the European Union's Digital Markets Act has scored its "first major victory", after an intervention from the European Commission resulted in Apple back-tracking on a decision to block the gaming company from launching its own store on iOS devices within the EU. 

It comes amid disagreements between Apple and the likes of Epic and Spotify over what the tech giant needs to do in order to comply with the new EU laws. Epic, like Spotify, has been involved in a long battle with Apple over the impact of its App Store rules on in-app payments and communications, a battle which resulted in the Fortnite app disappearing from iOS devices. 

Earlier last week, as the new EU laws came fully into effect, Epic said in a statement, "Apple has terminated our developer account and now we cannot develop the Epic Games Store for iOS. This is a serious violation of the EU’s Digital Markets Act. We will continue to fight to get back on iOS!"

Then on Friday, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney tweeted, "The DMA went through its first major challenge with Apple banning Epic Games Sweden from competing with the App Store, and the DMA just had its first major victory. Following a swift inquiry by the European Commission, Apple notified the Commission and Epic that it would relent and restore our access to bring back Fortnite and launch Epic Games Store in Europe under the DMA law”. 

“A big win for European rule of law, for the European Commission, and for the freedom of developers worldwide to speak up", he added.

App developers like Epic and Spotify hope that the DMA will force changes to Apple's rules allowing them more flexibility when it comes to taking payments and communicating with users through their iOS apps. For its part, Spotify recently published a blog post bigging up the extra functionality it was planning for EU users once the DMA was in force. 

But then Apple announced how it planned to comply with the DMA which, Spotify said, meant it was no better off and that the promised new functionality wouldn't be able to go ahead. 

On 1 Mar, Epic and Spotify joined other app makers in signing an open letter to European Commissioner Thierry Breton stating, "We are very concerned that Apple’s proposed scheme for compliance with the Digital Markets Act ... will not meet the law’s requirements therefore inhibiting our ability to deliver the benefits of the DMA to consumers as soon as possible. There are a myriad of elements in Apple’s announcement that do not comply with the DMA". 

App developers will be hoping that last week's intervention regarding Epic's Apple developer account is a sign that the European Commission will be proactive in enforcing the DMA in a way that is useful to them. Suggesting that may indeed be the case, Breton tweeted on Friday, "I take note with satisfaction that following our contacts Apple decided to backtrack its decision on Epic exclusion. From day two, [the] DMA is already showing very concrete results!"