Industry veteran Michael LoBiondo has joined Warner Chappell Music as head of business development, the company announced on Wednesday. Based in Los Angeles and reporting to CEO Guy Moot and global CFO David Woirhaye, LoBiondo’s role will include identifying and executing acquisitions and partnerships for the publisher’s songwriters and song catalog.
LoBiondo most recently worked at artist development company mtheory, whose roster includes A$AP Rocky, Twenty One Pilots and Major Lazer. Prior to mtheory, he spent a number of years as senior director at WCM’s parent, Warner Music Group, where he supported the 2013 acquisition of Parlophone Label Group and a number of Series A music technology investments. He began his career as an analyst at Goldman Sachs.
“Michael brings with him a wealth of experience in music and business development from both the recorded and publishing sides of the business,” said Moot and COO Carianne Marshall in a joint statement. “With music becoming increasingly more global, his wide-ranging expertise will be instrumental in helping us execute big picture deals such as catalog acquisitions and partnerships with emerging technology companies.”
LoBiondo added, "Warner Chappell is committed to building long-term value for its songwriters while fostering a collaborative, forward-thinking culture for its team. With increased activity around catalog acquisitions and new digital platform licensing, the company is ideally positioned to further capitalize on opportunities in the market and I'm excited to contribute to the growth of the company.”
LoBiondo arrives at a time of accelerated growth for Warner Chappell, which saw its revenues grow 15.7% to $192 million during its second fiscal quarter.
LoBiondo added, "Warner Chappell is committed to building long-term value for its songwriters while fostering a collaborative, forward-thinking culture for its team. With increased activity around catalog acquisitions and new digital platform licensing, the company is ideally positioned to further capitalize on opportunities in the market and I'm excited to contribute to the growth of the company.”
LoBiondo arrives at a time of accelerated growth for Warner Chappell, which saw its revenues grow 15.7% to $192 million during its second fiscal quarter.
NEWS
No matter what you thought of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, there was only one undisputed winner by the end of it all: the reaction community in the worlds of streaming and YouTube. Your favorite content creators broke down the bars, reacted to all the most shocking moments, and helped this showdown become one of hip-hop's most culturally significant and resonant moments in a long time... For better or worse. See, the battle's technically not over yet, but only because the 6ix God's idea of victory is clearly quite different. In his federal defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group – his label – for releasing K.Dot's "Not Like Us," he named various content creators who allegedly helped boost the track's widespread popularity and, as a result, its supposedly defamatory nature.
Furthermore, the specific allegation that Drake brings up in this highly controversial lawsuit is that UMG "whitelisted" copyright claims for YouTubers, streamers, etc. concerning "Not Like Us." This means that they would be able to monetize their content without facing a copyright claim from UMG over "Not Like Us," and this isn't really an allegation because various creators have backed this up. But a few important (alleged) caveats that people are talking about online need to be clear. First, "whitelisting" supposedly happens on behalf of a record label behind a song like the West Coast banger, and UMG is instead the distributor of that track. Secondly, as rapper and online personality ScruFaceJean brings up as seen in the post below, tracks like "Push Ups" were also "whitelisted" by its team.
Along with Jean, many other of your favorite content creators spoke out against this Drake lawsuit. Zias! and B.Lou, for example, spoke with their lawyer about the possibility of countersuing for emotional distress, as they found the Toronto superstar's accusations and his implication of them very disturbing and misguided. NoLifeShaq also dragged The Boy through the mud, calling him "soft" and positing that, whether "whitelisting" happened or not, they would react to "Not Like Us" accordingly as they did to his own tracks.
In addition, it's important to bring up that many others fans have pointed to how Drake excitedly used streamers to generate hype and reaction clips for his own diss tracks against Kendrick Lamar. The most direct example is with Kai Cenat, whom he texted to "stay on stream" before dropping "Family Matters." Ironically, the Twitch giant appears in this clowned-upon defamation lawsuit as an example of what the OVO mogul's accusations and implications are. And one more thing: there is no direct link between monetization and algorithmic boosting on sites like YouTube. With all this in mind, content creators seem to feel almost insulted at the idea that they only reacted to the two biggest rappers in the world beefing with each other because one of them would allow them to make money. If Drizzy knew the first thing about the reaction community, maybe he wouldn't have included this...
