Seventeen cartoon renditions of Taylor Swift — wearing pink sunglasses, posing in her purple Speak Now dress, posing in a “Not A Lot Going On At the Moment” t-shirt — are stamped onto an Amazon page for a 24-piece cupcake-topper set. “Our Singer cake decorations are made of high-quality food-grade cardstock,” reads the description. “Can be applied safely!” The $12.99 birthday party set, listed by the brand wgzftrys, which is headquartered in Guangdong Shen, China, is among the hundreds of Swift products available on Amazon — some bearing the megastar singer’s name and likeness, others using “TS” or a generic Taylor-ish young-blonde-woman image. They’re mostly illegal bootlegs, according to music industry sources — a form of international intellectual property rights infringement that costs clothing, electronics, toy and sporting goods companies billions of dollars annually. In 2023, U.S. Border and Customs Protection seized nearly $2.8 billion in copyright-infringing goods shipped from multiple countries — most prominently China, Turkey and Canada. Jeff Jampol, CEO of Jam Inc., which manages the estates of the Doors, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane and others, says that his lawyers serve “dozens and dozens” of cease-and-desist orders monthly to suspected bootleggers on a variety of e-commerce sites and other webpages who cost artists roughly $20,000 to $50,000 for every $1 million in annual t-shirt sales. Trending on Billboard “In terms of how much money we lose, who knows?” says Steve Culver, president of Dreamer Media, a Nashville merchandising company that works with Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Melissa Etheridge and others. “It’s just so easy to set up an Amazon store — if you get shut down, you just put it back up again.”  Reps for Swift and her label, Republic Records, didn’t respond to requests to comment for this story as they prepare to release her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, on April 19. But music merch companies have been battling this kind ofonline bootlegging for years, and they say the problem is getting worse. In 2021, Global Merchandising Services, citing rampant Motörhead trademark violations and counterfeiting, filed a lawsuit against 278 companies that “employ no normal business nomenclature and, instead, have the appearance of being made up.” These online stores sell knock-off t-shirts and other products, according to the suit, and each seller is “likely to cause and has caused confusion, mistake and deception by and among consumers.” “It’s a game of Whack-a-Mole, and it’s a constant every day,” says Barry Drinkwater, executive chairman for the 15-year-old merchandiser, which handles products for Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden, Niall Horan and others. He estimates that the company issues “hundreds of thousands” of takedown notices annually: “All we can do is keep on top of it and spend some dollars,” he adds Swift’s popularity is so immense that companies everywhere have co-opted her name, likeness and song titles to market and sell products big and small, from a Royal Caribbean International cruise for Swifties to “Tayl-gating” donuts to Swift flashing double middle-fingers on a t-shirt sold on eBay to the more than 1,000 Swift-themed items on handmade retailer Etsy. “There’s definitely bootleg and unauthorized stuff sold on Etsy, too,” says a representative for a major artist. “But are you going to go after the person who makes a necklace? No, you don’t want to be that guy.” The Swift-branded knock-off products on Amazon — clearly different than those sold on her official store — include pillows, socks, pantyhose and keychains. A 14-piece friendship bracelet set, sold for $12.98 from GOIPKO, lists several of her albums and “I ❤️ TS”; a “Tay Tay Cheerleader Costume” for women, priced at $32.99 from Mokkin, bears the initials “TS.” A knit hat with the Nirvana logo (but not the Nirvana name), sold by a China-based company, goes for $9.99, while a pair of purple “Best Gaga Ever” socks, from the Chinese store ZJXHPO, is $14.99.  Some of these products brazenly use the artists’ names and likenesses, while others are more ambiguous. Regarding a t-shirt with an “It’s Me Hi I’m the Birthday Girl It’s Me,” intellectual property attorney Michael N. Cohen says, “It invokes a Taylor Swift lyric, but it is modified, so is it transformative enough? Possibly.” A Swift representative could send a take-down notice, in which case Amazon could answer that question – or, in the case of a lawsuit, a jury could decide. (Several companies listing these kinds of Swift products on Amazon did not respond to interview requests by email, although one seller responded “sorry” and another wrote, “Sorry. We are not interested in it.”) Amazon declined interview requests, but a representative cited its intellectual property policy for sellers, which prohibits violating the rights of “brands or other rights owners” and advises consulting a lawyer. Amazon has algorithms that suss out unauthorized or illegal products posted by sellers, but they can take time to detect and take down, especially if they’re ambiguous, like a t-shirt image that somewhat resembles Taylor Swift containing words that somewhat recall lyrics from her songs. Since 2020, according to the company, Amazon has spent $1.2 billion and employed 15,000 people to combat counterfeit and fraud on the site, and “valid notices of infringements submitted by brands” have declined 30% despite overall sales growth at the company. Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit is the department responsible for removing “bad actor accounts,” according to the company’s website. Retail apparel bootlegging — as opposed to the separate problem of unauthorized t-shirts sold in concert parking lots — has increased over the last 15 years, Jampol says. During that period, three-dimensional printers have become more sophisticated and enabled the print-on-demand industry. “One of the barriers to entry for doing apparel is, ‘I’ve got to have five designs and four colors each both for men and women, in extra-small, small, medium, large, extra-large,’ then have a place to store it,” he says. “Now, with print-on-demand, I can put out 5,000 designs in 182 colors, and when somebody orders an extra-small in pink, of this style, I just print it.” The bootleg merch is prevalent on many retail sites, including “fake e-commerce storefronts,” as the Motörhead suit alleges, which counterfeiters have set up to match artists’ official websites. With reputable retailers like Amazon, artists can file takedown notices — but it helps, Cohen says, for artists to trademark their names in advance. “Whatever platform it is, they’ll do their own formal review and make a decision whether to take it down,” Cohen says. “That’s why filing is so critical. That proves there’s validity. Amazon and platforms like that want to see: ‘Do you have the registration number?'” In the United States, solo artists and bands have “trademark rights” for their names and likenesses, so they can send cease-and-desist letters or file lawsuits against unauthorized merchandisers. The process is trickier in a different territory. “You can own rights in one country, but not in another country,” says Douglas Masters, an intellectual property attorney in Chicago. “It’s a big world.” And even for artists who are aggressive about pursuing international copyright infringers, “People are sometimes hard to find,” Masters adds. That’s why Gene Simmons, bassist for KISS, contacts his management company roughly every other day to flag an infringer on the band’s trademarked merch. “Gene is online all the time and comes up with more of them than anybody,” says Doc McGhee, the band’s manager. “It certainly is a big problem. We go after them. We have a team of lawyers. It’s just stealing.”

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Looking for a setting spray that goes the distance? Whether you plan to brave Coachella’s desert temperatures or another outdoor music […]

HipHopWired Featured Video CLOSE It’s been a minute but we’re back with an update to our running Baes & Baddies segment where we feature some of the most beautiful women we’ve discovered on social media. Our latest feature is the beautiful Nyla Green and she has curves and curls that’ll certainly turn heads for sure. We don’t know much about Nyla Green but she’s been making moves on Instagram and other spaces across social media with her fun and flirty Reels and various looks that she shares on her pages. What we can share is that she’s got quite a nice movement happening on X (formerly Twitter) and many of those visuals are a lot more revealing than what she shares on IG. Nyla Green also has an active OnlyFans page and we’re pretty sure things get more risque over there. Other details about Ms. Green is that she’s sporting a 34KK bra but it’s not just the top portion that would get attention, if you catch our drift. As we put together the gallery, we’d like to say that if you venture into the lovely model’s other digital haunts, you’re bound to see a lot more than you bargained for but we don’t think those in seek of such treasures will be disappointed by what they discover. For now, please enjoy our latest Baes & Baddies feature, Nyla Green, and hit the link in the bio on her Instagram page for all the other spaces she’s occupying. — Photo: @nylagreen_ / Instagram

Pandora is firing back at a lawsuit filed by the Mechanical Licensing Collective (the MLC) that claims the company has failed to properly pay streaming royalties, calling the case a “gross overreach” based on a “legally incoherent position.” The MLC — the group created by Congress in 2018 to collect streaming royalties — filed the lawsuit earlier this year, accusing Pandora (a unit of SiriusXM) of misclassifying the nature of its streaming service to avoid paying the kind of higher royalties owed by “interactive” platforms like Spotify. But in its first response to the case filed on Tuesday (April 16), Pandora calls the MLC’s lawsuit a “wild overreach” that “distorts the Pandora experience” — and one filed by an entity that is not even legally empowered to bring such cases. Trending on Billboard “The MLC … was intended to be a neutral intermediary charged with collecting and distributing royalties under the blanket license,” Pandora writes. “It is not authorized to play judge and jury over a streaming service’s legal compliance, nor was it created … to pursue legal frolics and detours such as this one.” Pandora’s lawyers also say the lawsuit is based on a “a legally incoherent position” that has never been raised by the music companies for whom the MLC is collecting royalties: “The MLC seems to think it knows something the entire music industry does not.” A rep for the MLC did not immediately return a request for comment. At the heart of the lawsuit against Pandora is the distinction between “interactive” platforms like Spotify or Apple Music, which allow users to pick their songs on demand, and “noninteractive” platforms that provide an experience more like radio. It’s a key dividing line since interactive and noninteractive services pay very different royalties under different systems. Though Pandora offers a premium tier with on-demand functionality, it has long treated Pandora Free — the core radio-like product that fueled the company’s rise in the late 2000s — as a noninteractive service, since it largely serves users a mix of songs based on their preferences. But in a February lawsuit, the MLC argued that Pandora Free had crossed the line into “interactive” status by offering so-called “Sponsored Premium Access” sessions, which allow users to briefly play specific songs in return for watching ads. As a result, the MLC argued that Pandora owed the same kind of royalties for Pandora Free as services like YouTube or Spotify pay. “Pandora provides even greater interactive access and functionality than these other ad-supported interactive streaming services,” the MLC wrote. “Despite the interactive functionality of Pandora Free, Pandora has failed to report in full Pandora Free usage to The MLC.” In Tuesday’s response, Pandora’s lawyers argued that the MLC’s lawsuit “badly distorts reality” by making a “blatant mischaracterization of Pandora’s offerings.” In their telling, the disputed “Sponsored Premium Access” sessions are merely brief previews of the company’s on-demand tier with “strict caps” on usage — not a wholesale feature that would “transform” Pandora Free “into an interactive service like Spotify or Apple Music.” What’s more, Pandora says that feature was explicitly negotiated with music companies, who have never once objected to it or argued that it required Pandora to “fundamentally change its approach to licensing.” “The MLC apparently thinks it knows better than the entire music publishing industry,” Pandora wrote. “Not only is the MLC operating far outside its administrative bounds, but it is also completely wrong on the law.” Speaking with Billboard on Tuesday, George White, senior vp of music licensing at SiriusXM and Pandora, echoed the claims made by Pandora in the legal response. “The lawsuit is really a gross overreach, especially when you consider that Pandora is such a well-known and well-established non-interactive music streaming service,” White said. “There are no checks and balances on the MLC. We believe that’s something, as part of the MLC redesignation, that the Copyright Office really needs to consider.” White was alluding to the Copyright Office’s ongoing “redesignation process” of the MLC — a five-year check-up required by Music Modernization Act to ensure that the organization is functioning effectively. The first-ever redesignation started in January and is set to wrap up later this year.

You may not think of Buddhist philosophy and Huey Lewis as the same time very often, but it works for him when considering The Heart of Rock and Roll, the jukebox musical inspired by the song catalog of his band, the News. “Y’know, Zen Buddhists say you need something to love, something to hope for and something to do — so for me, thank God for this show,” Lewis tells Billboard from New York City. The musician has been residing in the Big Apple to help prepare the musical comedy — which was first staged during 2018 in San Diego — for its April 22 opening at Broadway‘s James Earl Jones Theatre. “This is, like, bonus time for me,” he continues. “It wasn’t something I’ve ever aspired to. I never thought about having a Broadway show. But it’s been a real kind of gift for me and a blessing for me because I don’t have anything else. It’s given me a creative outlet since I lost my hearing.” Trending on Billboard Lewis revealed his hearing struggles back in 2018, after he was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, an inner-ear disorder that’s rendered him unable to sing with the band, scuttling any hopes of live performances for a group that was a dependable annual fixture on the touring circuit. And, Lewis reports, things have not been getting any better. “My hearing’s collapsing,” he laments, although he’s still fighting via a variety of therapies and a recent ocular implant. The News dug into its vaults for a new album, Weather, in 2020, but his creative focus has been The Heart of Rock and Roll, which has been in previews since March 29. A love story and comedy in which the lead character, Bobby (portrayed by Corey Cott), grapples with his continuing rock n’ roll dreams within a comfortable corporate life, was written by Jonathan A. Abrams from a story he crafted with Tyler Mitchell of Imagine Entertainment. Brian Usifer arranged the songs for the stage. “He sort of reimagined all the songs in kind of a wonderful way,” Lewis explains. “Rearranging them is more what he did, although more than that because he sort of zigs where the song zags and stays away from our version of things. It’s very interesting, and it’s gratifying to see the songs live this other life. You’re kind of happy for the songs, really.” Some of the lyrics have been changed — with permission and buy-ins, Lewis says — “to push the story forward.” But he was conscious of maintaining a balance between the songs’ stage life and their original versions. “It’s a balancing act; you don’t want to lose the credibility of the songs,” Lewis says. “That’s one of the problems these jukebox musicals have. In the old days, you write for a musical, and then those songs became popular when Sinatra or Dean Martin or somebody covered them. Nowadays, they’re wrapping whole shows around popular songs. But one of the reasons that’s happening is you need recognizability to open these shows, ’cause it’s so competitive.” The idea for The Heart of Rock and Roll came up during a conversation with Mitchell’s in-laws, who are Lewis’ neighbors in both Montana and Ross, Calif. “They had me over for dinner for my birthday, and Tyler was there as well, and we started talking about Mamma Mia, ’cause I love Mamma Mia,” Lewis recalls. “And [Mitchell’s father-in-law] said to him, ‘You should do a musical on Huey’s music.’ I didn’t know about this at the time, but Tyler was a huge fan. He knows our music really well. He knows the lyrics better than I do! So he and Jonathan Abrams printed out all of our lyrics and put ’em on the wall and they immersed themselves, and this story emerged. They came to me with their very first draft, and it was very good. “Of course, that was seven years and nine drafts ago,” he adds. “It’s only gotten better.” Lewis says the show has changed “significantly” since its 2018 stagings at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. “There are probably four new songs, some different scenes,” he notes. The story is set in the ’80s, which Lewis says allows it to “poke fun at Sony Walkmans and cassettes, a bunch of material there.” And while it’s not biographical in any way, there are elements of the book that related to Lewis’ own life. “It’s actually got a lot of parallels, even though the story is not about me at all, or my band,” Lewis says. “Bobby’s 28, the same age I was when I formed Huey Lewis and the News. We’d been playing in bars for 12 years, and I had [the band] Clover that didn’t work out. So [the News] was my last shot, probably, at the ripe old age of 28, 29.” Lewis drew on that to write the musical’s sole original song, “Be Somebody,” with Usifer and News bandmate Johnny Colla. “Barry [Edelstein], the director in San Diego, said it’s customary in a musical to have the lead character sing a song early in the show, which articulates all of his or her aspirations, hopes, goals, etc.,” Lewis says. “Bobby’s got a day job, so I understood the anxiety he felt. So we wrote a song in which I kind of channeled that stuff a bit. I sang the melody, verse chords and words into my iPhone. Johnny tweaked the chorus, demoed it up, and Brian wrote the bridge chords. “It’s fun to write for characters,” Lewis adds. “It’s liberating. You don’t have to write something that’s true to yourself. You can write for the character, and that fosters creativity.” A Broadway cast album has already been recorded, according to Lewis, and is currently being shopped for a label deal. He’d love to record a News version of “Be Somebody,” too, but is uncertain about his ability to sing it. Regardless, the other News members will be on hand for a celebration April 19 in New York, and during his red carpet moments, Lewis will be sporting a new suit courtesy of good pal Jimmy Kimmel and his wardrobe director for Jimmy Kimmel Live! “We’re texting, and he said, ‘I’m buying you a suit for the premiere,'” says Lewis, who hosts Huey’s ’80s Radio for Apple Music. “I said, ‘That’s strange … Where did you get the notion to buy me a suit? Is it the fact that you’ve seen me in those same two suits I wear all the time, over and over?’ And he nods his head, ‘Yep.’ [laughs] That’s a friend, right?”