\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Singer](\"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/69de71d8528cc690c26d1e01jpeg.jpg?w=1000\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSinger Justin Bieber watches the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning in Game 3 of baseball’s World Series, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/AP-Ashley Landis<\/p>\nJustin Bieber\u2019s performance at the Coachella music festival in California on Saturday included a nostalgic throwback to his early days of YouTube fame, as the Canadian star pulled up videos of his past hits and sang along.<\/p>\n
However, most of his set drew from recent albums \u201cSWAG\u201d and \u201cSWAG II,\u201d promoting speculation that the YouTube clips were the musician\u2019s way to get around restrictions on his right to perform his old music after selling the rights to his catalogue in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBieber must ask his ex-label for license to perform his old songs. By playing them off youtube and not \u201cperforming\u201d the songs, he finds a loop hole so none of the money goes to them,\u201d claimed an X post with more than a million views.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another X post claimed \u201cYouTube is literally the only way justin bieber is allowed to perform his old songs.\u201d Both posts now have a community note attached that indicate the posts are missing context.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A TikTok video with more than four million plays hinted that Bieber\u2019s Coachella performance \u201cmakes so much more sense\u201d with the realization he doesn\u2019t own his old music, with commenters speculating the catalogue sale affected his ability to perform his songs \u201cofficially.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE FACTS\u2028\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canadian entertainment lawyers say Bieber\u2019s YouTube singalong reflected an artistic decision, not any restriction imposed by the sale of his catalogue.<\/p>\n
Bieber sold the rights to his music catalogue, including hits like \u201cBaby\u201d and \u201cSorry,\u201d to music rights investment and management company Hipgnosis, now Recognition Music Group.<\/p>\n
The group owns Bieber\u2019s publishing copyrights, songwriter\u2019s ownership, master recordings and rights to his entire catalogue through 2021, in a deal that Billboard Magazine reported was worth an estimated US$200 million.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press reached out to Recognition Music Group but did not receive a response by publication.<\/p>\n
Mark Quail, a music and entertainment lawyer based in Toronto, called the claims about Bieber\u2019s Coachella performance \u201cfiction.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview Tuesday, he said Coachella would have secured a public performance licence from music licensing authorities, either the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers or Broadcast Music Inc. As a Canadian, Bieber is likely part of this country\u2019s equivalent authority, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, or SOCAN, which would have a reciprocal agreement with its U.S. counterparts.<\/p>\n
The licence ensures performers and writers get paid, Quail said.<\/p>\n
Paul Sanderson, a lawyer with Sanderson Entertainment Law in Toronto, said the publishing interests that Bieber sold to Hipgnosis were likely assigned to a performance rights organization that collects revenue when the songs are performed publicly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he or any other artist has the right to perform them in public, regardless of the duration of the songs,\u201d Sanderson said in an email. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Even if a company wanted to restrict the performance of an artist whose catalogue it owns, it would be difficult, because there are often competing rights when multiple songwriters are involved, Quail said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he did, I would say, has nothing to do with a licensing issue or not being able to play his songs. It\u2019s just not the way the business works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Quail said Bieber\u2019s YouTube-backed performance was an artistic choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy managed to create a performance that was incredibly human simply by being on his laptop on stage and using a screen to project what was going on on the screen, and the audience could see that. It was a really human moment,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 14, 2026.<\/p>\n
\u2014 With files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.winnipegfreepress.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Bieber\u2019s stripped-back performance at the Coachella music festival on Saturday saw the Canadian star focus on his recent albums, while he gave a nod to past hits by singing along to short clips on YouTube. Some social media posts claimed the clips were Bieber\u2019s way of getting around restrictions on his right to perform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2373288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2373287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Fact-File-Justin-Biebers-Coachella-performance-not-limited-by-catalogue.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2373287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2373289,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373287\/revisions\/2373289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2373288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2373287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2373287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2373287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}