In today's CMU Daily: Round Hill Music is being sued by sync agency Zync over a joint venture the two companies entered into in 2017. Zync alleges a number of contract breaches and bullying, as well as claiming that Round Hill’s platform was “utterly disorganised and inefficient”

One Liners: Big D Evans, Patrice Rushen, Broma16 deals; Ben Cooper to leave Bauer; Downtown financial services; Take That break AO Arena record; Co-op Live opens; AIM Awards submissions; Love To Be… festivals; new music from Berwyn, Kate Nash, John Grant, Colin Stetson, Bad With Phones, Cumgirl8, Mal Not Bad

Also today: Lucian Grainge dropped from Diddy sexual assault lawsuit; TikTok creators sue US government

Plus: Preview the Spanish artists playing The Great Escape

Zync accuses former business partner Round Hill of contract breaches, trademark infringement and executive bullying

Sync agency Zync has sued Round Hill Music over allegations of contract breaches, unjust enrichment, trademark infringement and executive bullying in relation to a former joint venture which began with a deal in 2017. 

The lawsuit, says Zync, addresses numerous “egregious” breaches of that agreement by Round Hill. That includes “gross misstatement” of the joint venture’s income and expenses, and a failure to stop the “bullying and mistreatment” of Zync’s leadership by Round Hill executives. It also claims that Round Hill failed to pay millions of dollars that were due to Zync under the agreement.

Things seemingly didn’t go well with the joint venture pretty much from the start once that 2017 deal was done. The lawsuit claims that it became “immediately apparent” that “key members of Round Hill’s leadership were rude, dismissive and oppressive”. It also says that Round Hill’s platform was “utterly disorganised and inefficient”.

“Indeed”, it adds, “Round Hill’s records and materials relating to its own assets were in such shambles that Zync was not even able to ascertain what works were included in Round Hill’s catalogue, let alone have adequate materials to be able to pitch and monetise them”. 

Zync launched as a music publishing and sync licensing company in 2002. Under the 2017 deal, Round Hill acquired Zync’s core business, including its client agreements and associated rights, although not the Zync brand and accompanying trademark. 

Round Hill and Zync - and Zync’s leadership team of Marisa Baldi and Sanne Hagelsten - then formed a joint venture that would sign new deals with artists and songwriters. It would also seek sync opportunities for the catalogues of music acquired by other Round Hill entities, including its investment funds. Baldi and Hagelsten would lead the new business, while Round Hill would provide back office support and handle the administration of the rights.

With tensions building between Zync and Round Hill, Hagelsten left the business in 2019. The lawsuit explains that her “frequent critiques” of Round Hill resulted in many Round Hill staff members treating her with “disdain and contempt”, which left her feeling “unwelcome”. 

A new deal was done to accommodate Hagelsten’s departure, with Baldi staying on to continue running the joint venture. 

The partnership continued through to 2022 but, Zync alleges, issues with Round Hill’s systems continued to negatively impact on the business. Meanwhile, other issues started to build around how Round Hill was accounting and reporting financial elements of the joint venture. 

Nevertheless, the lawsuit says that Baldi continue to work “in good faith” with Round Hill, “despite the erratic, bullying and passive-aggressive behaviour” shown to employees of both Zync and Round Hill - “especially female employees”, it notes - by executives “including Round Hill CEO, Joshua Gruss and COO Steve Clark”.

It also says that the Round HIll leadership team showed “indifference and apathy” when it came  to “fostering positive employee relations and engagement around cultural matters of concern”, including the Black Lives Matter movement and other “diversity, equity and inclusion practices”.

The joint venture finally came to an end in 2022. Under the terms of the 2017 agreement, Round Hill should then have drawn up a new deal to acquire the rights owned under the joint venture, and also in relation to the Zync brand, which was not part of the original acquisition. 

That led to a new dispute over the value of the deal. As negotiations dragged on, Zync then had further complaints over the continued operation of the joint venture and its use of the Zync trademark. 

The lawsuit accuses Round Hill of breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, conversion, unjust enrichment, unfair competition, trademark infringement and failures in accounting.

Spiritmuse Records // Label Manager (London Hybrid)

Your Culture // Campaign Management Assistant (Brighton)

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

Downtown Music, Take That, AIM Independent Music Awards + more

DEALS

Reservoir has acquired the royalty rights and songs catalogue of late hip hop producer-songwriter Big D Evans - real name Deon Evans - best known for his work with Tupac. “Big D Evans was a key creator behind the music of one of the biggest hip hop artists of all time”, says Reservoir’s Global Creative Director Donna Caseine. “The music Big D and Tupac created together shaped hip hop into a genre capable of reflective social commentary, collectively inspiring fans and other artists to this day”.

Warner Chappell has signed a publishing deal with jazz musician Patrice Rushen. “It’s been wonderful to feel the energy and support of a company whose respect for music is matched by the progressive perspectives and ideas which serve to protect music-makers”, he says. “I look forward to the celebration of my existing catalogue as well as the creation of new collaborative projects and songs”.

Music licensing hub Broma16 has signed a new licensing agreement with YouTube and partnered with three new collecting societies - ANCO in Moldavia, SIIP in Uzbekistan and KAZAK in Kazakhstan. “We’re delighted to be expanding our international reach with YouTube”, says CEO Vladimir Philippov. "Together with the new society deals, this shows how we are continuing to expand to become more relevant at the global level”.

APPOINTMENTS

Bauer Media Audio UK’s Chief Content & Music Officer Ben Cooper has announced his departure from the company after four years. “I've had a fantastic time at Bauer winning new audiences in new ways, with record breaking listening figures, including the industry changing success of Ken Bruce and Greatest Hits Radio”, he says. “It’s been a privilege to have led my talented team through a time of huge change, of renewed creative ambition, and exciting innovation, and we are in a strong position for me to hand over the baton”.

LABELS

Downtown Music has launched an artist and label financial services division called Downtown Royalties & Financial Services. It will be led by founder of Curve Royalty Systems Tom Allen - Downtown having acquired Curve in January 2023. “Tom’s leadership at Curve has already elevated the industry standard for royalty management and financial services”, says David Driessen, Chief Business Officer at Downtown Music. “His expertise will be crucial as he guides this new division at Downtown”.

LIVE BUSINESS

Take That have become the first act ever to play 50 shows at the AO Arena in Manchester. They achieved this milestone thanks to the nearby Co-op Live arena’s failure to open, meaning that their planned residency there had to be moved. “We’re delighted that we’ve been able to celebrate Take That’s 50th Show at the AO Arena, right here in the heart of the action”, says General Manager Jen Mitchell. “Not only do we enjoy having the band here, we love hosting their fans and making every moment memorable”.

Co-op Live did finally open last night, with Elbow becoming the first band to headline a show there. And I’m sure everyone let out a sigh of relief when it was over.

AWARDS

The AIM Independent Music Awards will return to London’s Roundhouse on 17 Oct. Submission are now open if you want to put yourself (or someone else) forward. “We’re incredibly honoured to give emerging and established independent superstars a platform, as well as shine a light on the pioneering minds driving the whole industry forward”, says AIM interim CEO Gee Davy. “With the free-to-submit and publicly voted categories, everyone can be a part of the AIM Independent Music Awards”.

GIGS & FESTIVALS

House music promoter Love To Be... is launching its own festival in Harrogate this summer to mark its 30th anniversary. Headlined by Roger Sanchez, it will take place on 14 Sep. It will also support local suicide prevention charity The Ostrich Foundation. 

RELEASES

Berwyn has released new single ‘I Am Black’. 

Kate Nash has released new single ‘My Bile’. Her new album ‘9 Sad Symphonies’ is out on 21 Jun.

John Grant has released new single ‘All That School For Nothing’. His new album ‘The Art Of The Lie’ is out on 14 Jun. 

Colin Stetson has released new single ‘The Love It Took To Leave You’, the title track from his latest album, which will be released on 13 Sep. 

Bad With Phones has released new single ‘Drive’. His debut album ‘Crash’ is out on 12 Jul. 

Cumgirl8 have released new single ‘Quite Like Love’. 

Mal Not Bad has released double A-side single featuring the songs ‘Come On/Hard Times’ and ‘Mustang’ featuring Junaco. Both tracks are taken from her debut album 'This Is Your New Life', which is out on 9 Aug.

Universal removed as defendant on explosive Diddy lawsuit

The producer suing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs over allegations of sexual harassment and assault, Rodney ‘Lil Rod’ Jones, has removed Universal Music and its CEO Lucian Grainge as defendants on his lawsuit. The major has been scathing of its inclusion in the list of defendants and very critical of Jones’ lawyer Tyrone Blackburn.

In a new filing with the court, Blackburn said that, having read Universal’s response to his client’s lawsuit, he had “concluded that there is no legal basis for the claims and allegations that were made against the UMG defendants”. Therefore he asked the court to dismiss those claims with prejudice, meaning that Jones will not be able to file any new proceedings based on those allegations.

According to Billboard, Universal lawyer Donald Zakarin welcomed the move, but issued another harsh rebuke of Blackburn. Stating that Jones’ attorney had been told from the start that “there was no basis, not legal and not factual, for the claims and accusations that were alleged”, Zakarin wrote, “the UMG defendants should never have been named in any of these complaints and we should never have been required to make motions to dismiss the complaints in this action”.

Jones worked with Combs on 2023’s ‘The Love Album’, which was released in partnership with Universal. The producer’s lawsuit makes a stack of allegations against Combs and his associates, including the core claims of sexual harassment and assault, as well as describing various other criminal activities. It is one of a number of lawsuits accusing Combs of sexual misconduct.

Among the allegations made against Universal and Grainge were that the company sponsored and the CEO attended listening parties at Combs’ LA home where sex workers and underage girls were present, and the drinks of female guests were routinely drugged. 

“Grainge knew or should have known that Mr Combs was drugging the attendees through laced bottles of DeLeon Tequila and Ciroc Vodka”, the lawsuit stated. "As a sponsor of these events, defendant Grainge had a duty and obligation to ensure that sex workers and underaged girls were not present, and that Mr Combs was not spiking the alcohol with date rape drugs”. 

In its initial response to the lawsuit Universal denied all the allegations made against the company and its executives, while claiming that Blackburn had failed to fulfil his legal duties to assess the validity of those allegations before filing his client’s lawsuit.  

“A licence to practice law is a privilege”, Universal’s court filing added. “Mr Blackburn has misused that licence to self-promote, gratuitously, falsely and recklessly accusing the UMG defendants of criminal behaviour. Mr Blackburn has conducted no good faith inquiry into the facts, instead pleading only demonstrably false conclusions”. 

Approved: The Spanish Wave at The Great Escape

Spain is taking centre stage as this year’s lead country partner at The Great Escape. Spearheaded by The Spanish Wave, a programme of events will comprise two artist showcases and panels focusing on the Spanish music industry. There will also be parties and industry receptions sponsored by official Spanish partners.

“Spain is showing it is a strong and important industry and scene, and the Spanish Wave is showcasing the most fresh, young, exciting talent and future export acts”, says Head of The Spanish Wave, César Andión. “We have always been an exporting country, but now it is coming in waves year after year with new acts being discovered worldwide and I hope The Spanish Wave has lots to do with that since we always try to bring young and cool acts overseas”.

“We are a super diverse country in culture, languages, landscapes, backgrounds and we always try to have the largest and most diverse line ups from all over the country, diversity in genres, languages, styles, but always quality and export first and male/female balance”, he adds.

Turning to the acts playing the Spanish showcases, he goes on, “At The Great Escape we are presenting Mavica from Murcia, Sila Lua from Galicia, Mujeres from Catalonia, Depresion Sonora from Madrid, Divorce From New York from San Sebastian and others that are mixed international like The Gulps with Spanish, British, Italian members, LaLa Hayden who is English-Catalan and Ona Mafalda who is Bulgarian, Spanish, English. Hope all pros and fans that discover them in this edition will be surfing the Spanish Wave from now on”.

“It’s very exciting to think there is a great wave of young people creating with no genre barriers, urban electronica meets rootsy flamenco meets pop and also post punk meets disco, and we just want the world to discover and enjoy this new breed”.

“We have been working with TGE for years bringing our Showcase & Fiesta and it was about time we were lead country at one of the most important showcase festivals and conferences around the world”, he concludes. “Because it's the place to discover new music and future stars with a big and important attendance of professional  delegates, agents, festival bookers, labels, media and great fans. So being lead country is super important for us, it's a huge opportunity and we are delighted to be on the spotlight in 2024 as Spain is on its hottest moments regarding new acts coming through”.

As Andión says, nine emerging artists are set to grace TGE this week as part of The Spanish Wave lineup, showcasing the crème de la crème of upcoming Spanish talent, with a majority female line-up. 

Setlist Podcast: Arena ticket levy by September, MPs demand

In this week's Setlist Podcast: Chris Cooke and Andy Malt discuss the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee recommending that a levy on ticket sales for large scale shows be implemented by September and that the government should instigate a VAT cut for grassroots music venues, plus the concerns surrounding the launch of a new SXSW festival in London.

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

TikTok creators file lawsuit against US sell-or-be-banned law

A group of eight TikTok creators have filed a lawsuit against the recently passed US law that will ban use of the short form video app in the country, unless its China-based owner ByteDance sells the platform by 19 Jan 2025. It follows a similar lawsuit filed by TikTok itself last week. 

The creators, their lawsuit explains, “come from different places, professions, walks of life and political persuasions”, but are nevertheless “united in their view that TikTok provides them a unique and irreplaceable means to express themselves and form community”. With that in mind, they “bring this lawsuit to preserve their First Amendment rights and the rights of countless others”. 

The TikTok targeting sell-or-be-banned law was passed by US Congress based on concerns that the Chinese government has access to TikTok user-data via ByteDance. 

Supporters of the act that introduced the sell-or-be-banned provision insist that the most likely outcome is a change of ownership at TikTok rather than a ban. But in its legal filing last week, TikTok went to great lengths to explain why a sale of TikTok, even just within the US, won't work. Which means the new law is, in fact, a ban. 

The new lawsuit takes TikTok’s insistence that a sale isn’t viable as a given. “The act bans TikTok unless its owners divest the platform in a manner that is infeasible, as the company has stated and as the publicly available record confirms”. 

Therefore, it goes on, “the act promises to shutter a discrete medium of communication that has become part of American life, prohibiting petitioners from creating and disseminating expressive material with their chosen editor and publisher - and from receiving such material from others”. And that violates the creators’ free speech rights under the First Amendment of the US constitution. 

The eight creators involved in the lawsuit are definitely a diverse bunch. Between them, they make videos about sport, baking, books, skincare, LGBTQ life, agricultural issues, biblical literacy and the rights of sexual assault survivors. As well as earning money via TikTok itself, one creator also promotes his music on the platform, while others promote their companies, including a cookie company and a skincare business. 

The lawyers leading on the case, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, are also involved in legal efforts to block the TikTok ban that was passed in Montana. The new lawsuit notes the previous attempts to ban TikTok in the US - both the Montana law and the ban former President Donald Trump attempted to instigate - which were also justified by concerns over user-data. But, the lawsuit states, “two federal district courts have found that such concerns do not justify a ban”. 

The data concerns are merely “speculative” anyway, the lawsuit then argues, and even if they weren’t, it says, “they could be addressed with legislation much more narrowly tailored to any purported concern”, instead of via an “extraordinary restraint on speech” that “undermines the nation’s founding principles and free marketplace of ideas”.

Op-ed: UK Music’s Director of Research Andy Edwards on the value of music creators’ economic data

UK Music has launched its annual This Is Music Creators’ Survey. The trade body’s Director of Research Andy Edwards explains how responses are used, both in contributing to its calculation of the music industry’s overall contribution to the UK economy and identifying key issues facing creators

UK Music first decided to start collecting economic data on the music industry in 2012. Governments produce data on the economy and various industry sectors to help estimate the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. Such data is highly influential, both at a national level and globally. The problem was the creative industries, and the music industry specifically, are badly served by the existing industry and occupational codes that are used to calculate the GDP. This meant that the music industry’s contribution to the economy was undervalued.

As UK Music’s Director of Research, it’s my role to work with industry to collate the data and information needed to quantify the annual Gross Value Added (GVA), exports, and employment figures for the music industry. In producing this report, I rely on numerous sources to pull the numbers together and make sense of the factors driving the music economy. One of the biggest challenges is quantifying the work of music creators, because it is such a vast, diverse group of individuals, including artists, musicians, vocalists, DJs, songwriters, composers, producers, and engineers. Individual creators can earn very different amounts and generate their incomes in many ways.

Every year UK Music runs the This Is Music Creators’ Survey as a critical means of gathering this information. We work with UK Music member organisations (AIM, BPI, FAC, Ivors Academy, MMF, MPA, MPG, MU, PPL and PRS for Music) to promote the survey. 

This data is then used to help model creators’ income and this contributes to a total GVA figure for the music industry.