Music NFT website HitPiece faces legal action for “flagrant IP infringement”

Britney Spears is speaking up! The singer is accusing her former business managers Tri Star Sports and Entertainment Group’s Lou Taylor and Robin Greenhill of “trying to kill” her. Threatening to pursue legal action after suffering mental and physical trauma.The iconic pop star says she is ready to sue the company, detailing her first encounter in 2008 with Taylor, who is chief executive officer, and Greenhill, who is company director, before she was involuntarily placed under the controversial conservatorship that same year.Britney took to Instagram to explain what happened, revealing that just “a week before they sent me away to that f—king place, TRI STAR invited me to their offices,” adding that they were trying to make her feel “special.”“I had lunch with Lou Taylor and Robin Greenhill ...

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBlackRock and Warner Music Group have invested $750 million, in partnership with Influence Media, to acquire music-rights catalogs from female and diverse artists, a source confirms to Variety.Rather than joining the fray pursuing catalogs of iconic, older white-male artists like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie, the female-led Influence, which was founded by Lylette Pizarro (formerly a partner at RPM GRP) and Lynn Hazan (formerly CFO and GM of Epic Records) is focusing on newer, active catalogs, and plans to work with the artists, which will retain a stake in their work.While companies like Hipgnosis Songs also have invested in what are called “shallow” (i.e. more recent) catalogs from contemporary hitmakers like Jeff Bhasker, this partnership has already invested $300 million in 20 catalogs, including Puerto Rican powerhouse songwriter-producer Tainy, known for his work with Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Rosalía, Shawn Mendes and Cardi B’s “I Like It.” The news was first reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Jon Batiste and Curtis Stewart – have been “mis-categorised”. Their objections have absolutely nothing to do with quality, but genre, say the musicians. They believe that “mistaken categorisation” jeopardises the credibility of the music industry’s highest honours.

Zoë Kravitz has given an update on the “vulnerable” new solo music she’s making with Jack Antonoff.The actress and musician previously told AnOther magazine back in October that she’d been recording with Antonoff “for a couple of years, on and off”.Speaking in a new interview with Elle, Kravitz has now spoken further about working with the Bleachers musician at Electric Lady Studios in New York.“It feels vulnerable, and it’s a little scary, but making music makes me happy,” Kravitz said about the project. Elle notes that the forthcoming music “explores love and loss, among other themes she’s still discovering”.Kravitz told AnOther last year that Antonoff is “a fantastic producer – he’s so good at really tapping into who he’s working with and not making it about him”.“Some producers want to make it about … like, ‘I’m going to put my sound on you’.

Sting is selling his music catalog, including hits he made with the Police and as a solo artist, joining a chorus of stars who are cashing in with investors who see value in licensing their songs.Universal said Thursday that its music-publishing arm bought the catalog, including “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne" and “Fields of Gold.” Financial terms were not disclosed.In recent months, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young and others who sold millions of albums to Baby Boomers have sold their recordings, songwriting catalogs or both. Buyers typically get the permanent right to use the artist's songs or recordings in commercials, movies, television shows and other formats.Prices are rarely disclosed, but music industry experts put Springsteen's sale to Sony Music Entertainment in December at $550 million and Dylan's deal the same month with Universal Music Publishing Group at between $300 million and $500 million.Sting, whose real name is Gordon Sumner, helped form the Police in London in the 1970s as its lead singer, songwriter and bass guitar player.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs long expected, Universal Music Publishing has acquired 17-time Grammy Award winner Sting’s career catalog of music. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but in recent months the artist was said to be seeking around $350 million.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid a streaming-spurred frenzy for music catalog rights, Multimedia Music has acquired film and TV scores from nine-time Oscar nominee James Newton Howard.

K.J. Yossman Iggy Pop and Paris-based contemporary music troupe Ensemble intercontemporain have been named the 2022 recipients of the Polar Music Prize.The Polar Music Prize, which was founded in 1989 by Swedish musician Stig ”Stikkan” Anderson, is one of the world’s most prestigious music awards.

HitPiece, a website accused of offering NFTs of songs, came under scrutiny on Tuesday after musicians accused it of minting the NFTs without their permission. NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital certificates of ownership that are stored in a database called the blockchain.

It’s not clear what the people received when they purchased an NFT — whether just an image of an album cover, or whether there was an audio file attached. Whatever it was, it wasn’t authorized by the artists, some of the artists are alleging.

website currently shows hundreds of what appear to be active auctions for NFTs tied to artists’ albums and songs, from prominent artists such as the Beatles, Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan to smaller independent acts.Several musicians who said they did not consent to their music purportedly being auctioned off as NFTs on the site slammed HitPiece on social media on the night of February 1. “Hey you stupid fucks,” tweeted Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz and Sad13.

The rapper Lil Yachty has sued Opulous – the music NFTs start-up launched by the founders of Ditto Music – accusing it of using his name and brand as part of launch communications, even though he had not agreed to get involved in the venture.In a lawsuit filed last week, the rapper – real name Miles McCollum – claims that while he and his management team had meetings with Opulous founder Lee Parsons and its Chief Marketing Officer Fernando Cruz in May last year, they never signed up to work with or endorse the NFT start-up.Opulous is a platform that encourages fans and investors to buy non-fungible tokens linked to new music being created by participating artists. Those NFTs provide fans and investors with a royalty right, so that they share in any future income generated by a track.