September 4, 2025

The Pitch - August 2025

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The Pitch newsletter is a monthly update of legal issues and news affecting or related to the music, film and television, fine arts, media, professional athletics, eSports, and gaming industries. The Pitch features a diverse cross-section of published articles, compelling news and stories, and original content curated and/or created by Arnall Golden Gregory LLP’s Entertainment & Sports industry team.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton

AGG News

Anthropic’s Great Book Heist: Do the Ends Justify the Means When It Comes to Training AI?

Robin Hood, the legendary antihero, is beloved for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. But what if he stole from the rich and then gave to his own bank account, with the explicit intent of writing checks to the poor at some undefined future date . . . is this an equally redeemable act?

(Source: Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, August 26, 2025)

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Industry News

‘Give a Little Bit’ of Those Royalties: Court Says Supertramp Frontman Must Share Publishing

Former Northwestern football head coach Pat Fitzgerald has settled his wrongful termination lawsuit against the university, two years after he was fired amid a hazing scandal that engulfed the football program and drew national scrutiny. In a statement released August 21 through his attorneys at Winston & Strawn, Fitzgerald maintained he was falsely portrayed as having ignored inappropriate and abusive behavior within the team. He said he agreed to the settlement to “relieve my family from the stress of ongoing litigation” and added he was “satisfied” with the terms. Neither side disclosed the terms of the agreement, but it is possible the financial considerations of the deal could surface in a future court filing or tax return.

(Source: Billboard, August 21, 2025) [Subscription required]

(Source: Sportico, August 21, 2025)

BMI and the Radio Music License Committee have reached a settlement to resolve three years of litigation over the licensing rates that will be paid by nearly 9000 radio stations to songwriters and publishers – a deal that BMI is calling “a historic rate increase.” According to court filings, the new deal will see rates paid by radio stations jump from 1.78 percent of revenue under the old agreement to 2.14 percent, then slowly increase to 2.20 percent by the end of the term. The deal is retroactive to January 2022 and will run until January 2029.

(Source: Billboard, August 19, 2025) [Subscription required]

ASCAP and the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) have reached a settlement to end their lawsuit over the licensing rates paid by thousands of radio stations, the groups said Monday (Aug. 18). Hours after rival BMI announced it had reached such a deal with RMLC, ASCAP said that it, too, had settled its own parallel lawsuit against the radio group. Like BMI’s statement, the announcement from ASCAP said the deal had secured substantially higher rates for songwriters and publishers.

(Source: Billboard, August 19, 2025) [Subscription required]

Janine Gosselin started her entertainment industry career in Los Angeles, but it really took off when she moved to Georgia. Now that’s where it’s dying. Throughout the 2010s and early 2020s, the 62-year-old script supervisor had more work than she could handle and earned as much as $200,000 annually. She sat alongside the directors of huge Marvel Studios productions like “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” ensuring every detail stayed consistent between takes. Marvel is one of many Hollywood companies that have shot in Georgia to take advantage of the state’s generous production tax credits. It made nearly two dozen superhero movies and TV shows in the Atlanta area.

(Source: The Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2025)

The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against a Maryland-based ticket resale company on August 18, alleging that the company broke federal law to obtain hundreds of thousands of tickets to Taylor Swift‘s Eras tour and other major concerts and scalp them for millions of dollars in profit. In the lawsuit, filed in federal court on Monday and reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, the FTC alleged that Key Investment Group violated the Better Online Ticket Sales Act — better known as the BOTS Act — to work around Ticketmaster’s ticket purchase limits and obtain nearly 380,000 concert tickets between November of 2022 and December of 2023. The company spent about $57 million for the tickets and resold them for about $64 million.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, August 18, 2025)

Having built the largest TikTok account among U.S. companies, with more than 50 million followers, ESPN will bring all its vertical short-form video knowhow to its own app later this week. An in-app feed (with a name to be announced) will offer a mix of highlights, reactions and user-generated content, sitting alongside a daily, personalized (and yes, vertical) version of SportsCenter that will launch as a beta product on August 21.

(Source: Sportico, August 19, 2025)

In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, tech company SportsBubble accuses ESPN and Disney of “stringing” it along in negotiations so they could steal trade secrets and launch Where to Watch, which SportsBubble contends is a “copycat” of its flagship product, WatchSports. SportsBubble v. Walt Disney Company et al. is the type of litigation that could become more common in the years ahead. Media and technology companies are exploring partnerships for reaching viewers moving from the legacy cable TV model toward streaming services. As SportsBubble points out, reliance on streaming can lead to a more fragmented experience for consumers who sometimes struggle to find where they can watch a game. Those explorations will often necessitate the sharing of proprietary materials.

(Source: Sportico, August 18, 2025)

Spotify has entered into a direct licensing deal with Kobalt, the companies announced on August 13, the latest of several music publishing deals the streaming service has secured in 2025. Spotify and Kobalt were light on details in their brief announcement, only confirming the deal is a multi-year agreement and that it would “deliver greater flexibility, efficiency, value, and protections to songwriters in the U.S.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, August 13, 2025)

While stories about megastar artists like Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé quickly selling out stadium tours have dominated the headlines this summer, this focus on acts performing at the highest rungs of the concert business has created a somewhat distorted view of the live music space. The reality is that only a few dozen artists at any one time are capable of selling more than 100,000 tickets, while most established live artists sell on average between 4,000 to 8,000 tickets per show. That’s led to a reset in terms of how the concert business views new venue construction. From the 4,500-capacity Pinnacle in Nashville to the 4,000-seat Wylie venue in Pittsburgh, Pa., Live Nation and AEG are currently building roughly 25 mid-sized venues in North America — effectively growing their portfolios of 2,000 to 7,000 capacity venues and theaters, many in smaller mid-sized markets, to service more fans and artists across North America.

(Source: Billboard, August 13, 2025) [Subscription required]

Are you a kid watching YouTube? The Google-owned platform is testing technology in the U.S. that can predict if you’re under 18 — and automatically add certain restrictions to your account. YouTube says the move is aimed at providing better protections for younger users. On Wednesday, it began rolling out an “age-estimation model” in the U.S. that uses AI to determine if someone is under 18, regardless of the birthday they’ve entered into their account.

(Source: Variety, August 13, 2025)

One of President Donald Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood is backing legislation aimed at extending the nation’s sole federal tax deduction for domestic film and television production. Jon Voight and his business partner Steven Paul called for the passage of the Creative Relief and Expensing for Artistic Entertainment Act (the CREATE Act) in statements on August 13 that also plugged one of their upcoming movies, which shot in L.A. Announced on Aug. 1 by two Democrats and two Republicans, the CREATE Act seeks to extend Section 181 of the Internal Revenue Code, which allows productions that shoot in the U.S. to deduct production costs sustained in the same year. The provision, which is otherwise set to sunset on Dec. 31, would be continue through 2030 under the Act.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, August 13, 2025)

Roku is dipping its toes in the paid streaming service space, but is entering within its own new niche. On Aug. 5, the company announced the launch of an ad-free streaming service, Howdy, for $2.99 a month. This makes it the cheapest major, general entertainment ad-free streaming service, far below the costs of Netflix, at $18 a month, or Hulu at $19 a month. At launch, it will offer close to 10,000 hours of content from Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery and FilmRise, including Mad Max: Fury Road, The Blind Side, Weeds and Kids in the Hall, alongside select Roku Original titles. That said, Howdy’s content is unlikely to rival the breadth of titles and the new content offered on other services. But Roku isn’t aiming to compete with them.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, August 12, 2025)

David Ellison, the new CEO of Paramount, pinned a major new deal for the media company he just took over. Paramount Skydance on August 11 announced a seven-year media rights agreement with TKO Group under which Paramount+ will become the exclusive home of all UFC events in the U.S. — pulling the mixed martial arts events from ESPN. Disney’s ESPN had secured a deal that, starting in 2019, featured the MMA promoter’s matchups on TV and pay-per-view in ESPN+.

(Source: Variety, August 11, 2025)

Park Chan-wook is among the deans of Korean cinema, famous for writing and directing “Oldboy,” among other films, and producing “Snowpiercer.” He also has a new film premiering later this month at Venice, “No Other Choice.” So when it was announced that Park and his writing partner, Don McKellar, had been expelled from the Writers Guild of America, it naturally raised a question about what it would mean for his career. “It has absolutely no impact on employability,” said Adam Levin, a partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp. “Neither the union nor the producers can discriminate against you based on your non-union status.”

(Source: Variety, August 11, 2025)

In 2023, when the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes shut down Hollywood for four months, seeking protection from, among other things, artificial intelligence (AI), many in India wondered why nothing of the sort was happening there. One of the concerns of the movement was how big studios were going to use AI to replicate likenesses of artists in ways that could be exploitative. The strike ended in a three-year agreement that guaranteed fair pay and included provisions that required performers to approve how their voices were used. Nothing of the sort has happened in India since. But there’s a small, niche section of the entertainment industry where the effects of AI are being intensely felt: the dubbing and voiceover sector. Gigs have already started to disappear. As for the nature of work, these are strange times in the Indian industry. If you are a dubbing artist, you may find out that your voice has been used in a film you’ve never worked on.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, August 7, 2025)

A major new court decision disposes of SoundExchange’s $150 million case against SiriusXM based on a judge’s finding that the royalties-collecting organization does not have the right to bring federal lawsuits, point blank. The Aug. 7 ruling from Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald is the first to weigh in on SoundExchange’s standing to file lawsuits as a means of enforcing royalty schemes. The organization, a nonprofit designated by the Copyright Royalty Board to collect royalties for artists, has been bringing these types of federal court actions for more than a decade against radio broadcasters like SiriusXM and music streamers such as Slacker and Napster.

(Source: Billboard, August 7, 2025) [Subscription required]

Ever since the NFL announced it was looking to sell NFL Network and other media assets, ESPN had been seen as one of the favorites to make a deal. Nearly five years later, a framework is finally in place. The NFL announced Tuesday night that it has entered into a nonbinding agreement with ESPN. Under the terms, ESPN will acquire NFL Network, NFL Fantasy and the rights to distribute the RedZone channel to cable and satellite operators and the league will get a 10% equity stake in ESPN.

(Source: AP News, August 6, 2025)

Last month, venue manager and developer Oak View Group (OVG) signed a $15 million non-prosecution agreement that allows the live entertainment giant to avoid liability for then-CEO Tim Leiweke’s alleged plot to rig bids for Austin’s Moody Center Arena. In the agreement, OVG promised the Department of Justice (DOJ) that it will cooperate in Leiweke’s criminal case, and it agreed to a set of facts about the alleged scheme. But there’s another, more unusual feature to the deal: OVG also stipulated in a two-page statement of facts that its venue management division, OVG360, steered clients to Ticketmaster in exchange for more than $20 million in undisclosed fees from the live ticketing giant.

(Source: Billboard, August 5, 2025) [Subscription required]

Music financing platform beatBread has secured another USD $124 million in credit and equity capital, in part to expand its program of advances. The company is capable of paying cash advances of over $10 million to independent musicians and labels. BeatBread said it will deploy the new $124 million in funds to expand its sales, marketing and product operations, in addition to providing more flexible funding to artists, writers, and independent label clients.

(Source: Music Business Worldwide, August 5, 2025)

The women behind Salt-N-Pepa, the history-making female hip-hop group, claim that Universal Music Group has removed some of their biggest hits from streaming platforms amid a legal battle. Cheryl "Salt" James and Sandra "Pepa" Denton said in a new interview with "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts that their fans are not able to hear some of their music amid the lawsuit, in which the singers claim Universal Music Group is allegedly denying them the rights to the master recordings of their early music, including hits like "Push It."

(Source: ABC News, August 4, 2025)

The West Coast League’s Portland Pickles lawsuit against the Walt Disney Co. “has settled” after accusing the company of “trademark infringement in the animated series ‘Win or Lose’” on Disney+, according to Demi Lawrence of the PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL. The series centers on a softball team called the Pickles. According to the Portland team, Disney through the show “developed, marketed and sold merchandise bearing logos and themes that are substantially and confusingly similar to plaintiff’s Pickles marks.” These pieces of merchandise were sold online and by retailers such as Walmart, Kohl’s and Target (PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL, 8/1). In Portland, Brad Schmidt noted attorneys for the Pickles and Disney did not immediately respond to emails Saturday about the proposed settlement, including “whether the Pickles will be financially compensated or if Disney will continue using its own Pickle logo” (Portland OREGONIAN, 8/2).

(Source: Sports Business Journal, August 4, 2025)

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What Is a Stream Worth in 2025?

In MIDiA’s 2024 independent label survey, over half of the labels surveyed agreed that streaming is not a place to build artist fandom, and three-quarters agreed that it is time for a new model to run alongside streaming (source: MIDiA Research Independent Label and Distributor Survey 2024). Of course, streaming revenue is not an issue for everyone – larger labels stand to benefit the most from streaming’s pro rata remuneration model, but even they are unhappy with the current framework. As streams are not providing much financial value to the vast majority of artists, nor are they particularly helpful for building fandom, it is worth questioning the value of a stream in today’s climate. However, streams do still matter – as an indicator of artist success rather than a cause.

(Source: Hypebot, August 4, 2025)

Sony Music has filed a lawsuit against Napster over allegations that the streaming service owes more than $9 million in unpaid royalties — and has continued to illegally play the songs after Sony pulled the plug on their licensing deal. Napster — not the infamous turn-of-the-century file-sharing site but the small streaming service once known as Rhapsody — was acquired in March by Infinite Reality, a digital media and e-commerce company, for $207 million.

(Source: Billboard, August 4, 2025) [Subscription required]

They were shaggy and, to Ed Sullivan’s mind, under-shampooed, but the Rolling Stones cemented their arrival in the United States when they appeared on his variety show in October 1964, accompanied by screaming fans and aided by one Les Paul guitar in the hands of Keith Richards. Guitar buffs have tracked the instrument for years. Eric Clapton is said to have played it. Jimmy Page was photographed with it. Bernie Marsden of Whitesnake owned it. So it is perhaps no surprise that the 1959 Gibson — with its gleaming sunburst finish, mahogany body and maple top — would end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the gift of a collector who this year generously donated 500 vintage guitars.

(Source: The New York Times, August 1, 2025)

Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page and a songwriter have reached a settlement to resolve the latest lawsuit over the disputed credits to the band’s iconic song “Dazed and Confused,” according to new court filings. The agreement, filed in court Aug. 1, will quickly end a copyright case filed this spring by Jake Holmes, a songwriter who has claimed for years that he actually wrote “Dazed and Confused” and that Page simply performed it without credit or payment.

(Source: Billboard, August 1, 2025) [Subscription required]

Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, may have died, but it is almost certain his character’s legacy will live on. “Hulk Hogan has the potential to be a Marilyn Monroe, James Dean or Muhammad Ali. The potential is limitless,” said Ed Schauder, an attorney who represents celebrity estates including Yogi Berra and Josh Gibson and previously represented Joe Frazier’s, among others. “He transcended sports and changed the sport and was in the movies and did reality television and had an interesting life. He has massive, massive potential,” the attorney added on a phone call.Schauder, now special counsel at the law firm of Nason Yeager, was the licensing attorney at then-named World Wrestling Federation in the early 1990s, crafting licensing deals for WWE properties, including for Hulk Hogan vitamins—a deal that caused some stress after Hogan’s steroid use got attention, he said.

(Source: Sportico, July 31, 2025)

Hollywood is looking at a new subsidy for films and TV shows, this time from Wisconsin, which joins a slew of other states that have implemented or expanded tax credit programs for productions in a tit-for-tat race to host the entertainment industry since 2021. Gov. Tony Evers signed a state budget earlier this month that will create a film office and a 30 percent transferable credit for movies and TV shows. Under the program, $5 million will be handed out to productions annually until at least 2027.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, July 31, 2025)

Michigan artist is suing the New Orleans Pelicans for a 2024 photo shoot that allegedly stole from what he argues are his copyrighted artworks. Tyrrell Winston, of Franklin, Michigan, filed a 19-page complaint in the United States District Court Eastern District of Michigan, as obtained by The Times-Picayune via his attorney, Jayaram Law. The filed complaint comes after Winston said the Pelicans ignored a cease-and-desist order from his legal team in October 2024. Former New Orleans Pelicans wing Brandon Ingram sits in front of a grid of deflated basketballs. Winston, born in California, is known for his sculptures of deflated basketballs, arranged in "precise grid compositions," according to the complaint and his social media pages. In 2024, the Pelicans posted photos that featured Dejounte Murray, Brandon Ingram and Daniel Theis posing in front of a grid of deflated basketballs.

(Source: Nola.com, July 31, 2025) [Subscription required]

A Miami businessman is suing global pop star Chris Brown. Kris Izquierdo is the founder of Breezy Swim, an event he launched in 2018, and Breezy Bowl, which is a runway fashion show he began producing in 2023. “It’s something that is different than any other runway show and Miami Swim Week,” he said. “We have models from all over the world. Our trademark slogan is ‘Everybody is a Bikini Body.’ It’s something that’s really had an impact here in Miami.”

(Source: WPLG Local 10 News, July 30, 2025)

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is taking legal action against ticket resellers for violation of the BOTS Act seeking “tens of millions of dollars” in penalties. Ticket scalpers frequently use ticket buying bots, multiple accounts under pseudonyms, and other strategies to purchase concert and other event tickets for resale on platforms like StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek. The FTC has been looking into ticket resale separately from a Department of Justice investigation of Live Nation, Ticketmaster, concert promotion, venue management and primary ticketing.

(Source: Hypebot, July 29, 2025)

Warner Bros. will include the Warners film and TV studios, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max, and the TCM cable channel; Discovery will include the former Discovery and Turner linear channels, including TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Food Network, and HGTV. It will also include the company’s international TV channels, and the Discovery+ streaming service.

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter, July 28, 2025)

A sports agent who represented Pete Rose during the latter part of his life has petitioned a Nevada state court to confirm the validity of a licensing agreement he claims was executed with the baseball legend in March 2023. The agreement purportedly grants the agent authority over all licensing and endorsement deals involving Rose’s name and likeness after his death.

(Source: Sportico, July 28, 2025)

Live Nation-affiliated Founders Entertainment announced the cancellation of the 4th annual Soundside Music Festival. “It’s our understanding that this year’s lineup was drawing a lot fewer attendees than we have seen in the last few years. And that may have had an impact on the decision to cancel,” Thomas Gaudett, chief administrative officer for Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim told the Connecticut Post.

(Source: CelebrityAccess, July 26, 2025)

Hallwood Media has signed imoliver — dubbed in a press release as the top-streaming “AI music designer” on AI music platform Suno — to a record deal, marking the first time a traditional label has signed an AI music creator to such a deal, it was announced July 24. To kick off the deal, imoliver will be releasing “Stone,” a song originally released on Suno, to all streaming services on Aug. 8. To date, the song has more than 3 million streams on Suno, a powerful and controversial platform that can generate songs at the click of a button. Given that some streaming services, including Spotify, still do not have any AI music-specific policies in place, imoliver is expected to generate streams like any other artist, unless he breaks other rules like impersonation, spamming, or artificial streaming.

(Source: Billboard, July 24, 2025) [Subscription required]

Pandora isn’t required to fork over extra royalties for streaming comedy routines by Robin Williams, Lewis Black and others, according to a new report in a closely-watched lawsuit over how comedians are paid by digital platforms. The report, made public on July 22, says the comedians gave Pandora an “implied license” to the spoken-word material in their sets — the jokes themselves — by allowing the company to stream sound recordings of their comedy shows for years without protest.

(Source: Billboard, July 24, 2025) [Subscription required]

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Robert Schumann

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