Music Business Worldwide

Spotify x UMG = AI

Spotify x Live Nation = tickets

Armin Zerza is confident

Sulinna Ong exits Spotify to join U2 management team alongside Irving and Jeffrey Azoff

U2 have appointed Sulinna Ong as a Management Partner, after more than seven years at Spotify, where she most recently served as Global Head of Editorial & Curation, Music

News

Live Nation challenges US antitrust verdict, as states call for Ticketmaster sale

Company argued in court filings last week that the result was "against the clear weight of the evidence"

News

Sony Music moves to add more than 30,000 copyrighted recordings to its lawsuit against Udio

Sony Music now alleges that Udio "copied and ingested" 30,442 copyrighted works into its generative AI models.

News

The Black Label, the studio behind the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, just raised $80M with investment from Tencent Music

Bloomberg reports that the deal values The Black Label at 1 trillion won (approximately $660M)

News

Kakao’s Melon, Tencent Music, and Line Music to launch unified K-pop chart that pools streaming data from South Korea, China, and Japan

Melon will upload congratulatory video messages from artists including NCT Taeyong, Le Sserafim, ALPHA DRIVE ONE, and AND2BLE ahead of the launch.

News

Ticketmaster expands into the Philippines through SM Prime partnership

SM Ticketmaster will partner with third-party venues, promoters and other ticketed experiences across concerts, sports and live events.

News

Stability AI’s Julian Parker, a key researcher behind Stable Audio, joins Spotify’s ‘artist-first AI’ team – days after streamer’s landmark UMG remix deal

Parker's announcement of the move arrived less than 24 hours after Spotify and Universal Music Group unveiled landmark licensing agreements for AI-powered covers and remixes

Analysis

Drake ties Taylor Swift for most Billboard 200 No. 1 albums among solo acts and sets new ARIA chart record with triple drop

"Iceman" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 on May 30, giving the rapper his 15th chart-topper and matching Taylor Swift's tally among solo acts.

News

Spotify x UMG = AI

Spotify x Live Nation = tickets

Armin Zerza is confident

Sulinna Ong exits Spotify to join U2 management team alongside Irving and Jeffrey Azoff

Live Nation challenges US antitrust verdict, as states call for Ticketmaster sale

Sony Music moves to add more than 30,000 copyrighted recordings to its lawsuit against Udio

The Black Label, the studio behind the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, just raised $80M with investment from Tencent Music

Kakao’s Melon, Tencent Music, and Line Music to launch unified K-pop chart that pools streaming data from South Korea, China, and Japan

Ticketmaster expands into the Philippines through SM Prime partnership

Stability AI’s Julian Parker, a key researcher behind Stable Audio, joins Spotify’s ‘artist-first AI’ team – days after streamer’s landmark UMG remix deal

Has Warner Turned A Corner?

Live Nation faces calls for another competition investigation as UK lawmakers flag live music market dominance

Ed Sheeran leaves Warner Music Group after 15 years – and 170 million albums sold

Spotify and major music DSPs on alert as Canada triples streaming tax to 15%

Udio’s licensed AI music app will be called Starstruck, with four creation modes for fans (Report)

Warner Music partners with GZ Media to show unsold vinyl records can be recycled without compromising sound

Drake ties Taylor Swift for most Billboard 200 No. 1 albums among solo acts and sets new ARIA chart record with triple drop

From Spotify and UMG’s landmark AI deal to Shamrock’s $813M raise… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-up

Activist Artists Management promotes Anna Kolander to Partner

P!NK, Julian Bunetta, and Harvey Mason jr. among honorees at NMPA’s 2026 Annual Meeting

Paul McCartney to host global TikTok LIVE Q&A ahead of new album release