Decibel and Docket

On this episode of the Decibel & Docket podcast, Decibel News founder Dave Brooks and entertainment attorney Michael Seville step outside live entertainment to dig into Anthropic’s S-1 filing ahead of its anticipated IPO. Then they head to Los Angeles probate court, where Paris Jackson is challenging Michael Jackson estate executor John Branca’s request for more than $100 million in fees. But first, Dave shares his unhinged thoughts on 'You Can See Everything'Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes FilmThe show opens with Dave’s review of You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder’s three-hour nonfiction film about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans. Dave found it compelling but too long. He says it left him less sympathetic to Holmes, who he argues still refuses to take responsibility and blames the media, including Amanda Seyfried’s portrayal of her in The Dropout. The hosts also discuss why the film may not qualify as a documentary for Oscar purposes, and why Dave sees it as a film about truth and relationships more than a documentary.Anthropic’s S-1: Revenue, Losses and Risk FactorsThe main segment breaks down Anthropic’s IPO prospectus. Brooks walks through the headline numbers: $16.3 billion in revenue for the first half of 2026, a net loss of roughly $80 billion driven mostly by non-cash fair-value changes on convertible debt, and a $42 billion compute facility with Broadcom.Then the hosts turn to the filing’s unusually stark risk disclosures, including:Model misalignment and deception, including testing in which frontier models resisted shutdown“Runaway” risk from using Claude to build future Claude models faster than safety work can keep upCatastrophic liability the filing says could exceed the capacity of the entire global insurance marketA dual-class share structure that gives founders majority voting control, alongside a Long-Term Benefit TrustSeville, a trial attorney, explores how assumption of risk and other legal doctrines might apply to AI liability. He compares the moment to nuclear non-proliferation treaties and credits Anthropic for its transparency and for pushing back on the Defense Department. Brooks counters with climate change as a cautionary tale of global inaction and questions why public shareholders should trust a structure that concentrates control with founders. Neither host plans to buy into the IPO.Paris Jackson vs. John BrancaIn the final segment, the hosts examine Paris Jackson’s probate filing, first reported by Billboard. She alleges that Branca is seeking more than $100 million for two years of work without proper accountings, after missing his own September 15 deadline to file complete financials for 2023 and 2024. She wants the court to cut his compensation from 15% to 10% of the estate’s gross entertainment income, applied retroactively.Seville explains the difference between executor fees and management fees, why the lack of a comprehensive trust has kept Michael Jackson’s estate in probate court for more than 15 years, and what an earlier $625,000 clawback ruling means for the fight. His takeaway for listeners: get a trust, whether or not you’re wealthy.

Who gets paid when a meme goes viral? Can Washington, D.C. legally cap what you pay for a resale concert ticket? And did the Milwaukee Brewers waste a decade of fan goodwill on the eve of their World Series run? Dave Brooks, editor and founder of Decibel News, and entertainment attorney Michael Seville break it all down on this episode of Decibel & Docket.Tiptoeing Into a Legal Gray AreaWe open with the viral “tiptoeing in my Jawwdinz” dance, a meme built on RiFF RAFF’s 2014 track that even reached the end zone when Jacksonville Jaguars players broke it out during their game against the Texans at Wembley Stadium. AI-generated versions featuring politicians, superheroes and celebrities are everywhere, and paid apps now let users face-swap anyone into the dance for about $10. Under current U.S. law, purely AI-generated footage can’t be copyrighted, so who actually profits? Mike walks through RiFF RAFF’s options: chase the AI platforms in court, or ride a streaming surge and a possible career revival. We also look at how label licensing deals with TikTok and YouTube may already be sending him fractions of a cent per post.The Resellers Sue D.C.The National Association of Ticketing Professionals (formerly the National Association of Ticket Brokers), joined by Maryland resellers ASC Ticket Company and Stagefront Tickets, has filed suit in federal court against the District of Columbia over the RESALE Act, short for Restricting Egregious Scalping Against Live Entertainment. Signed by Mayor Muriel Bowser in August and taking effect January 1, the law caps concert and theater ticket resale at 110% of the original price, fees included. The plaintiffs leave alone the all-in pricing rules, the ban on speculative tickets and the new $25,000 bond licensing requirement. Instead they aim six counts at the price cap: vagueness over geographic reach, Dormant Commerce Clause violations, equal protection and economic protectionism claims, and an argument that the D.C. Council exceeded its authority under the Home Rule Act.Mike explains how the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross reshaped extraterritoriality arguments, why plaintiffs include long-shot claims to open doors in discovery, what it takes to win a preliminary injunction, and whether D.C. could fix a vagueness problem by amendment. We also cover the legislative history, including the committee vote that briefly stripped the cap before the Council restored it, the support of NIVA, NITO and I.M.P., and why similar caps in the UK and Ontario haven’t produced the doomsday scenarios resellers predicted. Plus: why are tickets regulated when houses and used cars aren’t?The Brewers Brew-Ha-HaIn 2015, during a 68-94 season, the Brewers sold 1,000 engraved brass “Timeless Tickets” at $1,000 each, good for the best available seat at any future home game, World Series included. Now that Milwaukee has made the Fall Classic, holders say they were offered standing room and 400-level seats while the get-in price on the secondary market sits around $2,600. Team president of business operations Rick Schlesinger has admitted a mistake and offered a fix: fans who registered in time keep their World Series seats and their Timeless Ticket. Mike weighs in on the “subject to availability” fine print, what damages a lawsuit could realistically recover, and the PR win the team left on the table. Plus, comparisons to the Knicks and Clippers.Bonus: Dave on his Puck scoop that Jay-Z will headline the Super Bowl halftime show in LA, and the possibility of a Fugees reunion.

Could a judge force Live Nation to sell Ticketmaster, and would fans be better off if it did? On this episode of the Decibel & Docket podcast, host Dave Brooks of Decibel News is joined by ticketing expert Randy Nichols, back by popular demand as guest co-host. They cover the Live Nation antitrust case, a resale industry lawsuit against Washington, DC’s ticket resale price cap, and a new Justice Department BOTS Act lawsuit against a ticket broker accused of spending more than $1.3 billion on tickets.What happens if Live Nation has to sell Ticketmaster?With 34 states and DC asking for a Ticketmaster divestiture and a remedies trial that could start as soon as February, Dave and Randy walk through the scenarios from Decibel News’ popular breakup article:A spinoff: Live Nation shareholders, led by Liberty Media, would own a newly listed Ticketmaster. Debt would likely move to the new company, which could push ticket fees up.A private equity buyout: A firm like Silver Lake or KKR, possibly partnering with Liberty, pays $10 to $15 billion. Ownership is clearly separated, but a debt-funded deal puts pressure on service fees, and Live Nation gets a huge cash pile.A strategic buyer: Spotify, Apple, Amazon, or Eventim buys Ticketmaster. Randy makes the case for Fanatics, which could expand Ticketmaster into college sports, merchandise, and trading cards. Dave warns that competitors like SeatGeek and AXS could end up facing a trillion-dollar company.The carve-up: A judge breaks Live Nation into pieces, like the railroads or AT&T. Dave calls it the “big dumb dream” that probably won’t survive the courts.They also debate whether a new owner should drop the Ticketmaster name. Randy argues that killing it would make StubHub the best-known brand in ticketing.Both hosts agree that none of these options is likely to lower ticket fees. Randy explains why politicians often legislate for the press release, and why ticket reform that helps fans but doesn’t hurt Ticketmaster struggles to get support.The resale industry sues over DC’s Resale ActOn October 14, a resale industry group backed by SeatGeek, Vivid Seats, Gametime, and TickPick sued the District of Columbia in federal court to block its Resale Act. The law, set to take effect January 1, caps ticket resale prices at 10% over face value and requires listings to show the original price. The plaintiffs make three arguments: that the law reaches beyond DC’s borders, that the cap makes resale unprofitable, and that the price disclosure rule is compelled speech under the First Amendment.Randy pushes back on all three. The UK already requires resale disclosures for buyers anywhere in the world, and face-value platforms like Cash or Trade and Tixel have shown the model can make money. The hosts also discuss why StubHub isn’t a plaintiff, why Vermont, Maine, and Ontario haven’t been sued over similar laws, and why the case may be a delay tactic aimed at the congressional staffers who buy tickets in DC.DOJ sues a San Diego ticket broker under the BOTS ActOn a referral from the FTC, the Justice Department sued a San Diego broker that allegedly got around ticket purchase limits on Ticketmaster and AXS for 83,000 events between 2022 and 2025. The broker allegedly spent more than $1.3 billion on tickets and made at least $120 million reselling them on StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, and Ticketmaster. The complaint describes borrowed identities, VPNs, virtual credit cards, SIM banks, overseas buyers in the Philippines, and an internal “error bible” for beating Ticketmaster’s limit warnings.Randy explains why the case matters. It is far bigger than the Key Investment Group case, it shows that billion-dollar ticket brokers are real, and it reinforces that the BOTS Act covers any method of getting around ticket limits, not only automated bots.Subscribe to Decibel News at decibel.news for more coverage of live entertainment, ticketing, and antitrust.

On this episode of Decibel & Docket, journalist Dave Brooks, founder of Decibel News, and entertainment attorney Michael Seville cover three music business stories: Zach Bryan’s free speech stand at Gillette Stadium, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino’s new $60 million-a-year contract, and the U.S. Copyright Office’s new inquiry into streaming fraud and AI-generated music.Three weeks after New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft had Macklemore removed from Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour for saying “Free Palestine” on stage, Zach Bryan wore a Free Palestine shirt at Gillette Stadium. Kraft said and did nothing. Dave and Mike argue that the difference comes down to money. Bryan set a stadium attendance record, and Brooks says canceling him would have cost millions and created a PR disaster. Dave traces Bryan’s streak of defiance: his Navy background, his 2023 Oklahoma arrest, his public fights with Ticketmaster and his habit of treating pressure as a dare. Their conclusion is that venue owners’ “principles” often depend on box office numbers.Live Nation Entertainment doubled Michael Rapino’s target pay to $60 million a year through 2031. With a $20 million signing grant, the package is worth about $320 million over five years. Dave breaks down the structure:Cash: about $20 million, made up of a $3 million salary and a bonus tied to adjusted operating income, a non-GAAP metric.Stock: about $40 million in equity, with performance shares tied to Live Nation ranking in the top quarter of the S&P 500 and the stock rising toward roughly $290 a share.Rapino-friendly terms: time-based vesting, the ability to lock in payouts after two years, and vesting at target if he is pushed out.Mike, an attorney, says the headline number is not unusual for a public-company CEO. The accelerated vesting clauses are what stand out, along with Live Nation paying for Rapino’s own lawyers to negotiate against the company. With Ticketmaster facing a remedies phase after a federal jury found Live Nation illegally monopolized ticketing and overcharged fans, the hosts ask what the board’s fiduciary reasoning was. They also ask how a $60 million CEO payday looks to fans priced out of concert tickets for artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Zach Bryan. Mike closes with salary negotiation advice: successor contracts built on proven results give you the most leverage.The U.S. Copyright Office has opened a Federal Register inquiry into fake streams, bot farms and AI-generated tracks that pull royalties from the fixed payout pools on Spotify and other streaming services (DSPs). Dave points to Deezer’s report that up to 85% of streams on AI-generated music were fraudulent. He also warns that the DSPs may not want the scrutiny, because fraudulent streams inflate the user engagement metrics Wall Street rewards.Mike sees the inquiry as a first step that could produce a factual record for Congress and the courts. The hosts discuss:the Michael Smith streaming fraud prosecutionwhether one case should drive new lawsa private right of action that would let artists sue fraudstersa duty-of-care standard for streaming platforms, compared with ISP liability protectionshow to pay royalties on AI music that can’t be copyrightedThey also cover why the Copyright Office sits under the Library of Congress, and how Register Shira Perlmutter kept her job after the Trump administration tried to fire her.Listen to Decibel & Docket on Spotify and YouTube, and subscribe to Decibel News at decibel.news for coverage of live entertainment, ticketing, antitrust and music law.

On this episode of the Decibel & Docket podcast, entertainment journalist Dave Brooks (founder of decibel.news) and entertainment attorney Michael Seville cover Hollywood power, AI copyright litigation, and the latest turn in the Live Nation–Ticketmaster antitrust case.The episode opens with Endeavor and WME chief Ari Emanuel's new book, Roll the Calls. Dave explains the Hollywood practice of "rolling calls," where an assistant lines up phone calls back to back so a power broker never waits, a habit Emanuel says fills 200 to 300 calls a day starting at 4 a.m. Dave calls the audiobook, narrated by Bob Odenkirk, one of the most unfiltered Hollywood memoirs he's read, full of score-settling and built around two themes: rage as a motivator and Emanuel's lifelong struggle with dyslexia.Dave quizzes Michael with true-or-false stories from the book, including Larry David officiating Emanuel's 2022 wedding in Saint-Tropez and clashing with Elon Musk, a young Emanuel's standoff with CAA's Michael Ovitz, the Entourage character Ari Gold, returning Saudi investment after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, and his infamous email war with Irving Azoff.The main segment examines the August 28 federal lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California by Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell against Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI chatbot. The publishers allege Anthropic used more than 20,000 songs, including lyrics and sheet music for hits like "All I Want for Christmas Is You," "Eye of the Tiger," "Livin' on a Prayer," and "Hallelujah," to train its large language models. Unusually, the suit also names CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann personally.Michael explains why this case is different from AI-generated music suits: the claims focus on how the material was acquired. The complaint alleges content came from pirate sources such as Library Genesis and the Pirate Library Mirror via torrenting, and from scraping licensed lyric sites. It brings four counts: direct and contributory copyright infringement by torrenting, direct copyright infringement, and removal of copyright management information.The hosts discuss the earlier Bartz v. Anthropic authors' case before Judge William Alsup, which found training on copyrighted works could be fair use but acquiring them through piracy was not, and which ended in a $1.5 billion settlement, the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history. The publishers seek up to $150,000 per work in statutory damages. Anthropic calls the suit recycled allegations and maintains AI training is transformative fair use. Michael also explains why related AI copyright cases could be assigned to a single judge to avoid conflicting rulings.The final segment returns to the Live Nation antitrust case. Twenty states plus Washington, D.C., led by Colorado, are asking Judge Arun Subramanian to order Live Nation to turn over records of how it negotiated its settlement with the Department of Justice. Under the Tunney Act, the judge must decide whether that settlement serves the public interest.The states want negotiation records (including texts and any White House involvement), how the 13 amphitheaters in the deal were chosen, internal compliance plans, and why the settlement reappoints the monitor from the 2020 consent decree. Michael covers attorney-client privilege, in-camera review, sovereign immunity hurdles in getting federal records, and why lobbyists and private-sector players may be fair game. He also explains how the judge could treat the DOJ settlement as a floor and add remedies, and why he now believes a Ticketmaster divestiture is more likely than he first thought.