In today's CMU Daily: Lawyers working for the victims of the Astroworld tragedy are pushing for the first trial to come out of it to be livestreamed. One argument put forward is that the trial will be relevant to the hundreds of other victims currently suing organisers of the festival, and it would be impossible for them to all get into the courtroom

One Liners: Warner Chappell x ReverbNation; NEC x AXS; Britney Spears, Prince, Drake, TikTok legal news; Oak View London arena; Radio 2 listeners choose favourite Abba track; Janet Jackson, Craig David tour news; new music from The Chainsmokers, Emilíana Torrini

Also today: Blackstone keeps the Hipgnosis saga going by outbidding Concord; Cox sues insurers for refusing to cover costs of BMG legal battle; R Kelly fails to have sexual abuse ruling overturned; Kanye West hit with second discrimination lawsuit

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Astroworld victims want first trial to be livestreamed

Victims of the Astroworld tragedy want court proceedings to be livestreamed when the first of hundreds of lawsuits gets to trial next month. There has also been further back and forth regarding discovery in these cases, with a dispute over what evidence amassed during the Astroworld police investigation should be shared with lawyers working on the civil litigation. 

“The devastating scale of the events at Astroworld, combined with the involvement of high-profile defendants, has generated significant national attention and a legitimate public demand for transparency and accountability”, a letter from lawyers representing the victims states, according to Billboard. “By livestreaming the trial, the court will demonstrate its commitment to open and accessible proceedings, fostering public trust and confidence in the judicial system’s handling of this consequential matter”. 

Ten people died and hundreds more were injured when a crowd surge occurred during the 2021 edition of the Houston-based, Travis Scott founded and Live Nation promoted Astroworld. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed, by the families of those who died and those who were injured. 

The judge overseeing the cases, Kristen Hawkins, instigated a wide-ranging gagging order early on, which means there has been minimal reporting as all the litigation has progressed. There have been plenty of motions for summary judgement and various court sessions, but those involved in the cases haven't been able to provide commentary in public. If, however, the trial was livestreamed, that would put everything very much in the media spotlight. 

Aside from the public interest argument, the lawyers asking for the livestream also note that the first trial, which centres on legal claims from the family of one of those festival goers who died, Madison Dubiski, will be relevant to those involved in the hundreds of other Astroworld lawsuits. It would be “impractical” for all those people to attend the court to watch the proceedings in person. 

Presumably anticipating some of the objections Hawkins might raise to the livestream plan, the letter insists that any recording of the trial could be “conducted unobtrusively, with minimal disruption to the trial process”, and that the judge would be able to “pause or terminate the broadcast if necessary to preserve order or to protect sensitive information”. 

Elsewhere, lawyers have been debating what evidence gathered during the police investigation into the crowd surge incident should be made available to the victims and their legal teams. Hawkins appointed a former judge, Terry Jennings, to consider that particular question.

There is a 22TB file of data that was collated by the Houston Police Department before a grand jury concluded that there was not a case for pursuing a criminal action against those involved in organising Astroworld 2021. Some defendants and other parties not involved in the civil litigation have asked for some of that data to not be made available to lawyers as part of the discovery process of all the lawsuits. 

On Friday, according to Law360, there was a session to discuss the data. Jason A Itkin, a lawyer working for the victims, said that while much of the Houston Police Department's big file has been turned over during the discovery process, the victims' lawyers need to see all 22TB of the data to figure out what they are missing. 

Itkin also reckons that some defendants haven't voluntarily turned over all the required documents as part of the discovery process. “There is nothing that should be standing in the way of us getting documents that we know should have been produced but haven't”, he added. 

Some of that 22TB of data came from the iCloud accounts of people working on the festival. A warrant was issued that obliged Apple and a number of phone companies to grant police access to communications and data from those people that had been sent or created between 22 Oct and 7 Nov 2021. 

However, for various reasons, police got lots of back-up data from way outside those dates. Lawyers representing the festival workers argue that the data from outside the defined time period should not be made available as part of discovery. 

Jennings didn't make any rulings on the matter on Friday, but he did encourage parties to try to reach an agreement themselves.

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ONE LINERS

Britney Spears, Prince, Drake + more

DEALS

Warner Chappell has agreed a partnership with the BandLab-owned ReverbNation to provide publishing services to the platform’s users. "By joining forces with Warner Chappell Music, we'll open new doors for the ReverbNation community, creating even more opportunities for artistic growth”, says BandLab CEO Meng Ru Kuok. “This partnership not only unlocks additional potential avenues for artistic development and innovation, it also bridges the gap between emerging talents and established industry platforms, allowing a new generation of artists to find their voice and place in a continuously adapting and expanding landscape”.

NEC Group has announced a new ticketing partnership with AXS for two of its arena venues, Resorts World Arena and Utilita Arena Birmingham. “We want to make every customer’s experience brilliant, from the moment they think about buying a ticket, to the experience they have at our venues, and every interaction beyond”, says NEC Group CEO Mel Smith. The deal basically sees AEG-owned AXS take over the operations of NEC’s own ticketing unit The Ticket Factory. It will also see AXS open a new base in Birmingham. 

LEGAL

Britney Spears and her father Jamie Spears have settled a legal dispute stemming from the end of the singer’s conservatorship in 2021 - which saw him seeking compensation for acting as conservator and asking her to cover his legal fees. "Although the conservatorship was terminated in November 2021, her wish for freedom is now truly complete”, said the musician’s attorney Mathew Rosengart in a statement. "As she desired, her freedom now includes that she will no longer need to attend or be involved with court in this matter”. Terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, but TMZ reports that she will pay the $2 million for legal fees that her father had been pushing for.

A legal dispute over the management of the Prince estate continues. Earlier this year L Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer - the music industry executives involved in Prince Legacy, one of the businesses that manages the estate - filed a lawsuit against some of the late musician’s family members in a disagreement over how the company is run. In the latest court hearing on Friday, the four family members being sued asked for the case against them to be thrown out on the grounds that it is “unconscionable and unreasonable”.

Drake has taken down his Kendrick Lamar diss track ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’, which featured lines by AI-generated Tupac and Snoop Dogg clones, following legal threats from the Tupac estate. 

TikTok has removed a ‘task and reward programme’ from its TikTok Lite app in Europe after the European Union launched legal action over its potential addictiveness. The EU said that there may have been a breach of the Digital Services Act, because the feature was launched in France and Spain without any risk assessment on the potential mental health impacts on young people of the feature. It offered rewards for carrying out activities on the app.

LIVE BUSINESS

Oak View Group boss Tim Leiweke has been talking about his company’s plans to build a new arena venue in London. “If you guessed Hammersmith, it would be a good guess”, he told The Telegraph. “We’re pretty focused on a particular site. We’re excited about the site”. The interview presumably took place before Oak View’s new Manchester arena Co-op Live had a disastrous first week. Leiweke has also given an interview about that with the Manchester Evening News.

ARTIST NEWS

BBC Radio 2 listeners have voted ‘Dancing Queen’ as their favourite Abba song. "’Dancing Queen’ is one of those songs that just makes you happy every time you hear it and still gets any dancefloor full to this day - a guaranteed singalong”, says presenter Gary Davies, who will unveil the full top 30 in a special programme on 11 May. “Thank you Radio 2 listeners for crowning such a brilliant track your ultimate Abba song”.

GIGS & FESTIVALS

Janet Jackson has announced UK tour dates in September and October this year, including a performance at The O2 in London on 28 Sep. Tickets go on general sale on Friday. 

Craig David has announced a UK arena tour in February 2025. The run will finish with a show at The O2 in London on 20 Feb. Tickets go on general sale on Friday. 

RELEASES

The Chainsmokers have released new single ‘Friday’ featuring Fridayy. Why not play it this Fridayyy?

Emilíana Torrini has released ‘Miss Flower’, the title track of her new album, which is out on 21 Jun.

Blackstone upstages Concord with $1.30 Hipgnosis Songs Fund bid

As expected Blackstone has trumped Concord’s $1.25 per-share offer to gobble up the Hipgnosis Songs Fund - or SONG - in an announcement circulated at 7am this morning.

The offer, which is once again endorsed by SONG’s board, comes in at around 104p and is nearly double the stock’s lowest-ebb share price of 52.9p from early March. However, a key term of the offer is that Hipgnosis shareholders who want “to receive the cash consideration in Sterling” will have to elect to be paid in GBP rather than USD. It cautions that this payment will include a “deduction of any transaction or dealing costs associated with the conversion”, with the conversion being carried out “at the applicable market exchange rate on the latest practicable date for fixing such rate prior to the relevant payment date”. 

While Sterling and the US Dollar are generally relatively stable - and forward currency rates are pretty much in line with today’s rate - unexpected currency fluctuations could mean that shareholders end up with more or less if they opt to receive funds in GBP.

According to Blackstone’s statement the transaction is “currently expected to complete during the third quarter of 2024”. It further states that “the quality and strength of the music rights catalogues Hipgnosis has acquired and developed are complementary to Blackstone’s current holdings of comparable assets”, and that this “provides an exciting path forward” which will allow it to apply its “expertise in this space to further develop the potential of Hipgnosis’ portfolio”.

Part of that “further development” of the Hipgnosis portfolio may include integrating all the various Hipgnosis entities to “rationalise the corporate structure” of what would then potentially be an integrated Hipgnosis Group. That would include SONG itself, alongside Hipgnosis Song Management - the Blackstone-owned investment adviser to SONG - as well as Hipgnosis Songs Capital and Hipgnosis Songs Group. 

As part of this, they flag that - although they don’t necessarily anticipate it - there may be a resulting reduction in headcount at Hipgnosis Songs Group LLC, which currently employs 34 people and is “the only entity within the Hipgnosis Group that has employees”. 

The announcement makes a specific point of highlighting the “great importance” that Blackstone places on the “skill and experience of HSM’s management and employees and recognises the contributions they have made to the development of the Hipgnosis portfolio and the business”, before going on to say that they anticipate that “HSM will continue to be involved in managing the assets owned by Hipgnosis”. 

However, the asset management relationship between SONG - post-acquisition - and HSM will be “reconfigured”. As things currently stand, Blackstone intends to keep the current Hipgnosis Group offices in Tennessee, California, New York and London.

Following the announcement, SONG saw relatively high trading volumes over the course of the day, with 84.6 million shares changing hands - but with the price remaining relatively stable at 104.6p, a fraction above today’s USD/GBP spot rate. This suggests that the market may still see potential for higher offers, with sellers finding buyers at a price that is above the Sterling rate they would receive if Blackstone’s offer is accepted.

The obvious next step is yet another increased offer from Concord - and then potentially another counter from Blackstone. For both companies the deal is a fairly compelling prospect: for Concord, already the owner of Round Hill’s catalogue, it would consolidate its position in the music rights market. For Blackstone the motivation is double: more music rights, but also its acquisition avoids any prolonged, messy legal battle relating to HSM’s call option.

Cox Communications sues its insurers over costs of its BMG copyright dispute

Before US internet service provider Cox Communications was in court fighting a copyright lawsuit filed by the major record companies it settled a similar legal battle with BMG. We now have one final bust up related to that, in that Cox is suing its insurers for refusing to cover the costs it incurred as a result of the BMG case. 

In a legal filing last week, Cox said that it submitted to insurers Hiscox and ACE American Insurance a “timely” claim for “insurance cover for liabilities and costs incurred in connection with the BMG action”. Defendants “have denied coverage for the claim”, it added, and have not reimbursed the ISP for “any liabilities or costs” stemming from the BMG legal battle. 

The BMG v Cox litigation was an important test case. BMG accused Cox of failing to deal with repeat infringers among its customer base, paying only lip service to its own copyright policies. As such, the argument went, Cox should not be able to rely on the copyright safe harbour and could therefore be held liable for its customers’ infringement. 

BMG won the legal battle in 2015, being awarded $25 million in damages. The ruling was then overturned on appeal, but on a technicality relating to the way the judge had briefed the jury. Based on the actual judgement in the appeals court, it seemed likely BMG would win any second trial on the matter. An out of court settlement was then announced in 2018. 

On the back of the precedent set in the BMG v Cox case, the majors started suing various ISPs for copyright infringement. That included Cox. The majors won that case in 2019, subsequently being awarded a billion dollars in damages. That said, an appeals court, while agreeing that Cox was liable for contributory copyright infringement, recently overturned the mega-damages, which now need to be reassessed by a lower court. 

Back to the insurer dispute, Cox argues that its insurance policies with both Hiscox and ACE were meant to cover any claims arising from an intellectual property dispute relating to its “media activities”. The insurers actually declined to pay up all the way back in 2015 and 2016. Since then Cox says it has been seeking to reach an agreement with the insurance firms, but - having failed to do so - has now decided to go legal.

R Kelly fails to overturn Chicago conviction

The Seventh Circuit Appeals Court in the US last week declined to overturn R Kelly's second conviction for sexual abuse. 

Kelly was seeking to overturn a 2022 ruling in the Chicago courts in which he was found guilty of three charges of enticing minors to engage in criminal sexual activity and three more in relation to his filming of that sexual abuse of children. The conviction resulted in a 20 year prison sentence. 

Lawyers working for the musician argued that an old statute of limitations in Illinois should have been applied in his case, because the incidents took place before the law was changed in 2003. Under the old system, for sex crimes against children, the statute of limitations barred prosecutions after a victim’s 25th birthday. Under the current system the statute of limitations extends throughout the life of the victim.

Appeal judges said last week, “The law does not support Kelly’s position. As a threshold matter, it is not unconstitutional to apply a newer statute of limitations to old conduct when the defendant was subject to prosecution at the time of the change, as Kelly was in 2003”. Which is to say, Kelly's victims were under 25 at the time the law changed, meaning the longer statute of limitations applies in this case. 

Other issues raised by Kelly's representatives in relation to his convictions in Chicago were also rejected. Kelly's attorney Jennifer Bonjean told reporters, “We are disappointed in the ruling, but our fight is far from over”, vowing to take the matter to the US Supreme Court. 

The convictions in Chicago followed the separate criminal case in New York in 2021, where Kelly was found guilty of running a criminal enterprise in order to access and abuse women and teenagers.

Setlist Podcast: Hipgnosis v Hipgnosis - the saga continues...

In this week's Setlist Podcast: Chris Cooke and Andy Malt discuss the bidding war compounding the latest in a long line of dramas at Hipgnosis, the faltering start for Manchester’s new Co-op Live arena and more.

🎧 Click here to listen - or search for 'Setlist Podcast'

Second discrimination lawsuit for Kanye West and Donda Academy

Kanye West and his Donda Academy have been hit with a second discrimination lawsuit, this time from a former security guard at the school. Benjamin Provo claims that he was fired for refusing to cut off his dreadlocks.

The lawsuit says that Provo worked for the Donda Academy for six months, during which time he was subject to and witnessed various forms of discrimination against the educational institution’s black employees, stating that “Kanye frequently screamed at and berated black employees”.

“It is this hostile work environment created by Kanye West that resulted in Provo finding himself at the epicenter of a campaign of discrimination, harassment and retaliation as a result of being an unapologetic black man, and a follower of the Muslim faith”, says the lawsuit, according to Law360. 

“As a result, Kanye and members of his management team required Provo to choose between these critical aspects of his self-identity and financial stability. Indeed, at the direction of Kanye, Provo was given the ultimatum, cut his hair or be fired”.

Provo says that during his time in the job, he noticed that white employees were treated better than black staff, including in the way that they were spoken to and how much they were paid. 

He says that West also made various statements expressing disdain for the black community, and said that no staff at the school should own works by black leaders like Martin Luther King Jr or Malcolm X. 

“Misguided by the belief that he is omnipotent, Kanye has and continues to act without fear of impunity, spewing hostility and hatred toward various religious groups within the general public and toward the employees who report to him”, says the lawsuit.

Provo says that he expressed concerns about how he and other staff were treated while still in the job, but noticed that when he did so his pay was docked. He is suing for discrimination, emotional distress, negligence, breach of contract and wrongful termination.

The legal team representing him recently filed another discrimination lawsuit on behalf of another former Donda Academy employee. Last year two other lawsuits were filed against West’s school, both from teachers who raised various health and safety concerns, including that windows were not glazed because West “did not like glass”.