Category: Business

Prince’s Business Affairs Were Reported To Be Chaotic Before His Death

Prince’s business empire lacked control before his death, and now his relatives and lawyers are left scrambling to pick up the pieces.

Sources close to the singer tell TMZ he often switched up his team of advisers, especially if he didn’t like what they had to say. We’re told Prince lacked high powered attorneys with the kind of experience needed to sort out business affairs, and handle a music catalog like his.

Sources say Prince’s sister Tyka has been calling most of the shots since his death. However, even honchos at his label, Warner Bros Music aren’t sure where the rights to his songs will fall.

It’s also being said that reports of the singer’s fortune being close to $300 million are inflated, and it’s probably closer to half that. Still, it’s a ton of dough someone will have to control.

Paul McCartney is re-acquiring The Beatles’ catalog

Paul McCartney has begun the process of re-acquiring The Beatles’ catalog three decades after it was purchased by Michael Jackson.

As Billboard explains, the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 affords songwriters the ability to reclaim the publishers’ share of their songs. Of those songs written before 1978, songwriters can reclaim them after 56 years. The Lennon-McCartney catalog will qualify beginning in 2018.

“In order to reclaim publishing ownership of a song,” Billboard notes, “a songwriter must file with the U.S. Copyright Office, terminating the publishing anywhere from 2 to 10 years before the 56 years elapse, in order to obtain ownership of that song’s publishing in a timely manner.” Billboard reports that McCartney filed a termination notice for 32 Lennon-McCartney songs on December 15th, 2015.

McCartney is eligible to reclaim only his half of the Lennon-McCartney compositions, and only in the United States. In 2009, Yoko Ono agreed to a deal with Sony/ATV giving the company ownership of John Lennon’s half for the life of the copyright (70 years after the death of McCartney).

Incredibly, McCartney has never before owned the rights to a majority of the music he wrote as a member of The Beatles. The compositions were originally owned by Northern Songs, the publishing company established by Beatles manager Brian Epstein. Following Epstein’s death in 1967, Northern Songs was sold to ATV Music, despite efforts by McCartney and Lennon to purchase the company themselves.

In 1985, Michael Jackson famously purchased ATV Music after having a conversation with McCartney about the value of music publishing. McCartney considered Jackson’s purchase a betrayal of their friendship, as he knew of McCartney’s own desire to acquire the catalog. 10 years later, Jackson agreed to a merge ATV with Sony, relinquishing half of his stack in the process. Sony acquired the remaining 50% from Jackson’s estate earlier this month.

U2’s ‘Songs’ Arrives, But Giveaway Model Will Push Back Its Billboard 200 Debut

While U2 surprised the music world by releasing its new album, Songs of Innocence, today as a free download to iTunes Store account holders and for streaming on Beats Music, you won’t see it on the Billboard 200 albums chart for another month and a half.

Why not? Free or giveaway albums are not eligible for inclusion on Billboard’s album charts and do not count toward sales tracked by Nielsen SoundScan (which supplies data for Billboard’s sales-driven charts). The same sort of scenario played out in 2013 with Jay Z’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail album, which was given away to Samsung users, and, on occasion, when Google Play offers free downloads of select albums.

Once Songs of Innocence goes on sale beginning Oct. 14, it will then set its sights on Billboard’s sales charts. On that date, the album will be available in both standard and deluxe editions to physical and digital retailers, as well as on streaming services other than Beats. Until then, only current or new iTunes or Beats account holders will have access to the album.

Still, songs from the band’s new album, which is also being streamed through iTunes’ sister on-demand service Beats Music, could impact certain Billboard charts in the coming week. The set could see some of its tracks debut on the Streaming Songs or Hot Rock Songs charts, while the band itself could make a splash on the Social 50 tally (which tracks the most popular music artists across social networks).

In addition, the album’s lead single, “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone),” could arrive on various airplay charts, including Alternative Songs, where U2 has notched a record 39 hits.

U2 has earned seven No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, including its last two studio releases: No Line on the Horizon (issued in 2009) and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004).

Robert Downey Jr. Confirms The Future Of Iron Man 4

It was just last year that Robert Downey Jr. signed a contract extension with Marvel Studios, confirming him for appearances in both The Avengers: Age of Ultron and the inevitable Avengers 3, but one title that was left out of all the talks was any plans for Iron Man 4. Many took this as a sign that the number of Tony Stark solo films would be ending at three – and today new quotes have arrived that pretty much confirm that speculation.

“There isn’t one in the pipe. No, there’s no plan for a fourth Iron Man.” That was the rather blunt response that Downey Jr. gave to Variety recently when asked about the potential future of the successful comic book franchise. The actor is currently up at the Toronto International Film Festival promoting his new movie The Judge, which is the actor’s first dramatic film since 2009’s The Soloist.

Anyone who is in any way familiar with the history of contract talks between Robert Downey Jr. and Marvel shouldn’t be too surprised that the star’s stay as Tony Stark may not extend past The Avengers 3. As, statistically, the biggest draw in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Downey Jr. has long had an upper hand in negotiations with the company – to the point where he even got them to pay him $50 million for his work in The Avengers – a figure that he himself has confirmed. Because of these hardball tactics, there was a time when there was a possibility that the Oscar-nominee wouldn’t be in The Avengers 2 – and writer/director Joss Whedon even said that he wouldn’t do the movie without him. It’s not hard to see why Marvel might not be eager to jump back into contract extension conversations for an Iron Man 4.

Furthermore, while Downey Jr. was undoubtedly an extremely important player in the establishment of Marvel Studios as a blockbuster success, the company has been doing just fine making movies without him recently. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier currently stand as the two biggest domestic releases of the year, and both achieved their positions without Iron Man’s presence (provided you ignore the blink-and-you-miss-it photo of the character in the latter film). It’s true that Downey Jr. has appeared in all of the studio’s top four titles, but the comic book giant is learning how to achieve big things without the star’s presence.

So, if Iron Man 4 isn’t part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Three plans – what projects are coming up? In addition to Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man, the Russos’ Captain America 3, and Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2, they are also working on seven untitled projects that will be coming out between now and 2019 – three of which are all but confirmed to be Doctor Strange, Thor 3, and The Avengers 3. Will Iron Man’s presence be missed, or do you think Marvel can move on without him?

‘Big Bang Theory’ stars get huge raises, break stand-off

The stars of CBS’ The Big Bang Theory just got an explosive pay raise.

After their contract negotiations collectively delayed production of the top-rated CBS comedy, actors Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco have each made three-year deals with Warner Bros. TV to return to the show. Co-stars Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar are still in talks, but they are expected to strike deals as well. Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch received raises back in September.

Sources say that estimates first reported by Deadline are correct: Parsons, Galecki and Cuoco’s salaries will jump from their current earnings of $325,000 per episode to roughly $1 million per episode. They’ll also receive a bigger cut of the show’s lucrative syndication earnings on TBS. The renewal deals bring the show’s core cast in line with the hit’s current CBS deal—Big Bang has been renewed for three more seasons, bringing the show to its 10th year.

For CBS, the show is extremely lucrative, delivering an estimated $326,260 per 30-second spot — the highest ad rate for a non-sports program on broadcast. The most-recent seventh season finished with a slight ratings increase on the previous season, averaging nearly 20 million weekly viewers among total audience.

The contract negotiations held up the show’s eighth-season production for one week; the cast was also absent from the show’s Comic-Con panel last month. Generally, Big Bang Theory runs 24 episodes per season, and it’s currently unclear whether that number will remain unchanged. Big Bang will return to Monday nights this fall starting Sept. 22, then will move back to Thursday nights starting Oct. 30.

No ‘Big Bang’ until they work out the bucks

The Big Bang Theory delayed the scheduled start of Season 8 production Wednesday as actors and producing studio Warner Bros. discuss new pacts.

“Due to ongoing contract negotiations, production on The Big Bang Theory — which was originally scheduled to begin today — has been postponed,” Warner Bros. Television said in a statement.

Contracts for five of the top-rated comedy’s stars – Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar – expired after last season, and the actors and the studio have yet to agree on new salaries. Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch are signed.

At this point, the delay would not affect the CBS comedy’s Sept. 22 premiere date. Bang, which will start the fall season on a Monday, is scheduled to open with a one-hour premiere, leading into the series premiere of Scorpion. Bang will move to Thursdays in late October, after CBS’ Thursday NFL coverage ends.

CBS program chief Nina Tassler didn’t seemed particularly bothered that the contracts hadn’t been worked out when she spoke to TV writers at the summer press tour two weeks ago.

“When you have successful shows, you have renegotiations. We’re feeling very confident that everything will work out. These deals manage to get done somehow miraculously year after year,” she said.

Digital Music Takes a Dive as Record Sales Slip Again in 2013

Digital music sales, once believed to be the record industry’s savior after years of Napster-induced piracy, dropped for the first time since the iTunes store launched in 2003, according to new year-end data from Nielsen SoundScan. Track sales decreased 6 percent, despite massive hits such as Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (at nearly 6.5 million) and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” (6.1 million), while overall album sales, including CDs, were down 8 percent. Streaming services including YouTube and Spotify picked up some of the slack, increasing 32 percent, to more than 118 billion total streams, which, according to SoundScan, is the revenue equivalent of 59 million in sales.

The bleak way to view the massive streaming numbers is that YouTube, Spotify and the rest are cannibalizing digital-music sales — a trend that is likely to accelerate as Beats by Dre and YouTube prepare new services as early as this month. But YouTube’s built-in ad revenue and Spotify’s $10-a-month premium subscriptions are also helping artists and labels make up for lost sales. “We’re still not at that inflection point, or tipping point,” Tom Corson, president of RCA Records, home of Justin Timberlake, told Rolling Stone late last year, before the data came in. “We haven’t seen that moment, but we’re confident it’ll come.”

One potential reason sales slowed down so much in 2013 — Adele’s 21 finally dropped off the charts after more than two years of dominance. It sold more than 5.8 million copies in 2011, and another 5.2 million in 2012, and nothing picked up the blockbuster slack last year. Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience was the best-selling album, with 2.4 million copies; after that came Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP2 (1.7 million), Luke Bryan’s Crash My Party (1.5 million), Imagine Dragons’ Night Visions (1.4 million) and Bruno Mars’ Unorthodox Jukebox (not quite 1.4 million). It’s easy to blame streaming for these comparatively low sales, but 2013’s releases clearly weren’t as strong, minus Adele (whose album recently became the first to hit 3 million in digital sales) or Taylor Swift.

Every genre dropped significantly in album sales, with the exception of R&B (an increase in 1.2 percent, perhaps owing to Beyoncé’s surprise end-of-2013 release, which sold a total of 1.3 million) and hip-hop (which increased 2.2 percent, thanks to Eminem as well as Jay Z’s Magna Carta . . . Holy Grail, which hit more than 1 million in sales, not counting the millions of free copies Samsung packaged with its new smartphone over the summer). And even as the record business shifts from CDs to downloads to streaming, throwback vinyl sales continue to rise — LPs increased 33 percent in 2013.

Terrence Howard Blames Robert Downey Jr. For Getting Him Fired From ‘Iron Man 2’

Terrence Howard certainly hasn’t been quiet about his removal from the Marvel-verse and “Iron Man” series after the first hit film. Earlier this year he took a swipe at the comic studio for their dealmaking, in which actors sign for multiple pictures, but Marvel has the ultimate say on whether or not they’ll use them again. “…I didn’t know it wasn’t a mutually binding contract; it was only beneficial for them and they could bring me back or not. They can honor it or not,” he said about why he was replaced by Don Cheadle in “Iron Man 2,” where he was supposed to earn $8 million, an increase from the $4.5 million he took home for the first movie. But now he also points a finger at Robert Downey Jr., who he says suggested him for the superhero job in the first place.

“It turns out that the person that I helped become Iron Man, when it was time to re-up for the second one, took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out,” Howard said on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live.”

“We did a three-picture deal. That means you did the deal ahead of time—a certain amount for the first one, a certain amount for the second, a certain amount for the third. They came to me with the second and said ‘look, we will pay you one-eighth of what we contractually had for you, because we think the second one will be successful with or without you.’ And I called my friend, that I helped get the first job, and he didn’t call me back for three months,” Howard added. Ouch.

In case you’re wondering, Howard taking credit for RDJ getting the “Iron Man” gig is nothing new. In 2010, not long after “Iron Man 2” opened, a much more seemingly forgiving Howard had this to say to E!: “”For me to have recommended him, it means all the more so that I helped someone get to where they are supposed to go. Marvel and I are now talking about doing some other things. And Don Cheadle wanted to play that part before I wanted to play it, so everything is very well.”

Well, clearly those Marvel plans aren’t happening—Howard has since claimed they tried to kill his career—and the actor is leaving the ultimate judgement on RDJ to the man above. “Oh, I love him. God’s going to bless him,” he said.

Blockbuster’s Last Movie Rental: ‘This Is the End’

The company rented out its final title on Saturday after announcing that it is closing its roughly 300 remaining stores by early 2014.

Blockbuster, which announced last week that it is closing its remaining 300 or so stores, has rented its final movie, and it’s a fitting title: This Is the End.

The Seth Rogen apocalyptic movie was rented Saturday at a store in Hawaii, according to a tweet sent out by the company.

Blockbuster had previously announced that Saturday would be the final days for rentals.

Owner Dish Network announced last week that the formerly dominant video rental retailer would close its 300 stores and distribution centers by early 2014 and end its DVD-by-mail service. The company said that franchised stores will stay open.

“This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment,” said Joseph P. Clayton, Dish president and CEO. “Despite our closing of the physical distribution elements of the business, we continue to see value in the Blockbuster brand, and we expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings.”

Dish, which acquired Blockbuster in 2011 with a $320 million auction bid, said that the brand will continue. Digital products include its streaming service Blockbuster On Demand and Blockbuster @Home TV package.

Album Sales Nosedive as Cruel Summer Rolls On

After more than a decade of online piracy, record-store closings, major-label layoffs and superstar artists abruptly turning independent, the record industry may have finally hit bottom this summer. At the end of July, U.S. albums sold just 4.68 million copies, the lowest weekly total since Nielsen SoundScan began keeping track in 1991, and for the first time ever, labels sold fewer than 5 million albums in each of five straight weeks. The dismal sales strongly suggest growing streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora and YouTube have begun to cut into CDs and download sales. “We’re in a transition,” says Daniel Glass, president of Glassnote Records, home of Mumford & Sons, Phoenix and others. “Streaming is up. The economic model is not there today, but it will be there.”

Some in the music business have blamed the poor recent sales on factors outside of Spotify and other streaming services, with which they’ve made multimillion-dollar content deals in recent years. These factors include low catalog sales, a reluctance to price more titles at $5 or lower and a lack of hot new albums this summer. (“Blaming the release schedule is like blaming the weather,” rebuts Carl Mello, a senior buyer for New England music chain Newbury Comics. “There are always records connecting. There are always songs of the summer.”) But Jim Caparro, former president of Island Def Jam Records, is one of many who believe streaming services are cannibalizing digital sales via iTunes, Amazon and other online stores. “The idea of unlimited access to everything for one fee a month is a very attractive proposition, and the subscription services are doing a good job,” he says. “The record companies have to re-engineer themselves [around subscription services] to continue to be relevant and profitable.”

It’s perhaps no coincidence that the downbeat record-business news comes in the same summer that rock stars have ripped on Spotify and Pandora for not providing enough compensation. Last month, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich pulled their Atoms for Peace album Amok from Spotify, citing unfairly low revenues. “If people had been listening to Spotify instead of buying records in 1973, I doubt very much if [Pink Floyd’s] Dark Side [of the Moon] would have been made,” Godrich said. “It would just be too expensive.” A Spotify executive, however, predicted artists and label payments would grow from $500 million to $1 billion by the end of 2013.

The record industry has been struggling to “compete with free” since the late Nineties, when Napster emerged to show music fans a different way to consumer music than buying it on expensive CDs. Spotify’s free-with-ads and $10-monthly-premium models show one method of doing this; super-cheap Amazon deals such as the recent one-day, 99-cent sale of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream album show another; and Jay Z’s Magna Carta . . . Holy Grail giveaway for Samsung smartphone customers last month point to a new model for superstar artists.

“I’m from the school of embracing the technology to find that wider audience,” says Glass, whose band, Mumford & Sons, streamed 8 million copies of Babel and sold 600,000 copies in its first week last fall. “Our business is up. Ticket sales are great. Our groups are thriving. We can’t afford to have a dying model.”