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The live business is a well-oiled machine, but sometimes unexpected events and legal matters can impact and profoundly shape the sector. Below are some of the major developments over the past year as featured in IQ‘s newest publication, the Touring Business Handbook, and what they could mean for the future of the business.
Shows starting late
What happened: Some acts made unpredictability their calling card and would start shows incredibly late and, because they ended incredibly late, they would break curfews and invariably get fined. Now consumers are starting to take things into their own hands. Two US fans filed a class action against Madonna for allegedly starting her three shows at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in December 2023 late, claiming a breach of contract with the audience who “had to get up early to go to work” the following day. The original suit also named the venue as a defendant.
What it means: Madonna and Live Nation responded and denied this was the case, insisting that due to a “technical issue 13 December during soundcheck” this was the only show affected. “We intend to defend this case vigorously,” they said. The case could quietly disappear or, if it reaches court and the claimants are successful, it could have profound implications for all other late-running shows by setting a major legal precedent. The concern is that fans could become ever-more litigious around different parts of the live experience.
“There is a clear move by both the public and legislators to put better safeguards in place around resales”
Ticket resale, scalping & bots
What happened: A number of major developments in major markets in 2023 are still unfolding in 2024. Six US senators introduced the Fans First Act in late 2023 aimed at delivering greater transparency for consumers around re-sales and greater accountability for bad actors in the space. This came after Taylor Swift fans in the US attempted to sue Ticketmaster for alleged “price fixing” around pre-sale tickets for Swift’s Eras tour.
Swift tickets were also a legal focus in Australia where in June 2023 the government in Victoria designated her shows at Melbourne Cricket Ground as a “major event” and therefore heavily restricted under Victoria’s anti-scalping laws. This snowballed into calls for tougher and unified national laws in Australia to clamp down on re-sales at inflated pricing and scalping.
In late 2023, FEAT (Face-value European Alliance for Ticketing) was looking to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) to clamp down on illegal ticket resales following the DSA introducing new measures from August that require large search engines to clamp down on illegal product listing. In Texas, following chaos as Taylor Swift tickets went on sale, state senators proposed new laws that would clamp down on ticket-purchasing bots and this was signed into law in May 2023.
What it means: There is a clear move by both the public and legislators in different markets to put better safeguards in place as well as tougher measures in action around re-sales. For now, no change in national legislation has been pushed through in the US or Australia, but this could only be a matter of time unless the ticketing sector moves to better and more robustly self-regulate here. The developments in the EU could have much wider repercussions with regard to takedown notifications for secondary ticketing sites.
“Artists need to be incredibly aware that mass lawsuits could prove controversial and damage their public image”
Touring crew treatment & allegations of harassment
What happened: In September 2023, clothing designer Asha Daniels accused Lizzo and members of her team of creating an “unsafe, sexually charged workplace culture” for members of her touring production. A spokesperson for Lizzo called the harassment suit filed by Daniels “a bogus, absurd publicity stunt” and in December, Lizzo’s legal representatives moved to have the lawsuit dismissed.
What it means: It is impossible to speculate at this stage if the case will make it to court and, if so, which way the judgement would fall. Regardless of the merits (or not) of the suit, it raises important issues about safeguarding and welfare for contracted workers on tour.
Counterfeit merchandise
What happened: The perennial issue of counterfeit merchandise was brought into sharp relief in 2023 when lawyers acting for Luke Combs targeted multiple individuals for selling unauthorised merchandise. Nicol Harness was among those targeted for having sold 18 tumblers (featuring Combs’s name and face) she had made herself. Combs found out about the $250,000 suit against Harness (who is disabled), and said it “makes me sick,” insisting her name was dropped from the suit against rogue operators and he also sent her $11,000 by way of apology.
What it means: The issue of fake merchandise has long been an issue for musicians, beginning with people selling counterfeit and unlicensed goods on the street outside shows and then the process becoming industrialised on online sites such as eBay, Etsy, Redbubble and more.
This has echoes of the first waves of legal action against filesharers in the early 2000s and the PR backlash when individuals were being targeted. Artists need to protect their merchandise business but will also be incredibly aware that mass lawsuits could prove controversial and damage their public image.
“The issue of free speech and if/how it crosses the line into hate speech is a complex and contested area”
Hate speech, censorship & show cancellations
What happened: Three very different cases but they collectively raise complex debates about artists holding/ expressing certain views and engaging in certain behaviour and how that runs into calls for censorship of cancellation.
In early 2023, Roger Waters said he would take legal action against city authorities in Germany who threatened to cancel several of his shows in Germany, accusing Waters of antisemitism (a charge he denies). Waters subsequently won his battle to stage his shows in Frankfurt in May 2023.
In summer 2023, authorities in the Mexican state of Chihuahua banned acts from performing songs live that contain what are deemed to be misogynistic lyrics. Those who do could face fines of 1.2m pesos (circa £54,661).
Finally, in summer 2023, Matt Healy of The 1975 caused a political storm at the Good Vibes festival in Kuala Lumpur when he kissed bass player Ross MacDonald on stage. After just seven songs, the band were ordered to end their performance and the rest of the three-day festival was pulled after an “immediate cancellation directive.” The band pulled their upcoming shows in Indonesia and Taiwan while Malaysian authorities banned them from performing in the country.
What it means: The political views as well as the lyrical output of musicians are under growing scrutiny. The issue of free speech and if/how it crosses the line into hate speech is a complex and contested area. The issue of actions on stage like that of Healy are clearly specific to the moral and political views of certain countries, but this is something all musicians need to be aware
of.
These are extreme examples but they raise difficult questions about how far artistic expression can go and if censorship is the best response or if it is the thin end of the wedge that could see even greater restrictions placed on what musicians can say.
More information about recent developments with tax, legal, insurance, currency, and immigration is available to subscribers in IQ’s Touring Business Handbook, found here.
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No fewer than nine countries, including democracies like Spain and Tunisia, used anti-terrorism and/or anti-extremism legislation to stifle freedom of expression in 2018, according to Freemuse’s latest State of Artistic Freedom report.
The State of Artistic Freedom 2019: Whose Narratives Count? analyses 270 cases of violations of musicians’ artistic freedom in 55 countries in 2018. The Copenhagen-based NGO identifies key challenges for artists’ freedom of expression, as well as violation patterns and trends, and calls for accountability for these violations.
Artistic censorship was practiced in at least 60 countries in 2018, affecting 1,807 artists and artworks, both musical and non-musical.
While the most hostile places to be a musician were Nigeria, Russia and Turkey – with those three countries accounting for around a third of all documented violations – Spain led the pack for musicians imprisoned for political ends, jailing no fewer than 14 artists, beating Egypt and China (six each), Turkey (four), Iran (three) and Russia, Malawi and Tunisia (all one).
The fourteen Spanish artists – all leftist rappers – were charged with “glorifying terrorism” under Article 578 of the Spanish criminal code. They include Pablo Rivadulla (aka Pablo Hasél), Miguel Arenas Beltran (aka Valtònyc) and 12 members of the collective La Insurgencia, with Arenas and Rivadulla additionally charged with insulting the Spanish state and royal family. Rivadulla will spend two years in prison, and was also fined €24,300.
Globally, a total of two musicians were killed, 16 were prosecuted, 36 imprisoned, 24 detained, six attacked, 31 persecuted, 44 sanctioned/fined and 14 received threats or were harassed, according to Freemuse’s research.
“The State of Artistic Freedom documents a pervasive human rights scandal involving counter-terrorism laws being used to silence artists”
Other notable musical violations in 2018 include:
Freemuse executive director Srirak Plipat says the State of Artistic Freedom 2019 illustrates the use of counter-terrorism legislation as a “troubling and growing method” of censoring musicians and artists.
“Freedom of artistic expression has been systematically restricted on illegitimate grounds both in the global north and south at alarming levels,” says Plipat, commenting on the report’s findings.
“The State of Artistic Freedom 2019 documents a pervasive human-rights scandal involving counter-terrorism laws being used to silence artists who criticise governments or question societal mainstream values.
Read the State of Artistic Freedom 2019 report in full here.
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There were 86 ‘serious violations’ of artistic freedom in music, including murders, abductions and imprisonments, worldwide in 2016, as the global industry came under attack from terror and state repression.
The alarming statistics come courtesy of Copenhagen-based NGO Freemuse, whose 2016 Art Under Threat report, released today, reveals the music industry was once again the target of more serious violations than any other artform (film, dance, literature, theatre, visual arts and mixed/misc.), and second only to film in ‘overall violations’, which also includes non-violent censorship.
Three people lost their lives in 2016 for musical activities: two musicians, Pakistani singer Amjad Sabri, who was killed by the Taliban, and Pascal Treasury Nshimirimana, shot by Burundian police, and a 15-year-old Iraqi boy, who was murdered by IS for listening to Western music.
In 2016, Freemuse registered 1,028 attacks – more than double 2015 – on artists in 78 countries, something the organisation says “continu[es] a worrying trend of artistic freedom increasingly coming under threat”.
Other music-industry casualties included those injured at a festival bombing in Ansbach, Germany, in July, Kurdish musician Kutsal Evcimen, who was sentenced to 11 months in prison for performing a song deemed insulting to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and K-pop artists and promoters, who faced an unofficial cultural boycott by the Chinese state.
The report also highlighted continued repression by Hany Shaker’s Musicians’ Syndicate in Egypt and its counterpart in Tunisia.
“With populists and nationalists on the rise globally, artists continue to play an important role in expressing alternative visions for society”
By country, Iran tops the list of the most serious violators, with 30 serious violations and nine incidences of censorship. As Freemuse notes, “artists are often charged with and sentenced for ‘insulting the sacred’, ‘propaganda against the state’ or ‘spreading depravity'” in a state where “music has landed in the middle of the battlefield between President Rouhani’s administration and the Supreme Leader [cleric Ali Khamenei] and his religious institutions, where permissions to hold concerts given by the Ministry of Culture are withdrawn by religious authorities.”
Behind Iran were, in order, Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, China, Russia, Malaysia, Syria, Tanzania and Uzbekistan.
Commenting on its findings, Freemuse executive director Ole Reitov says: “Populists and nationalists, who often portray human rights as a limitation on what they claim is the will of the majority, are on the rise globally. As this phenomenon rises, artists continue to play an important role in expressing alternative visions for society.
“In 2016, artists were censored, tortured, jailed and even killed for their creative expressions. Claims of defending ‘traditional values’ or ‘the interest of the state’ were, in many cases, driving arguments behind the violations. […]
“With populist and nationalist leaders questioning the universality of human rights, now is the time to document violations and use those facts to defend and amplify threatened artistic voices.”
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