Universal Music Group In The News

AI and Protecting a Celebrity’s voice through Trademark

The following MBW op/ed comes from Music Attorneys Heidy Vaquerano and Cynthia Katz at Fox Rothschild.

From Universal Music’s $3.83B quarter to Suno’s German court defeat… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-up

The biggest headlines from the past few days...

Suno loses copyright infringement lawsuit brought by GEMA in Germany

AI music generator Suno has lost the copyright infringement lawsuit brought by German collecting society GEMA. The collecting society alleged that Suno used, stored and reproduced copyrighted music to train its AI tool without a license or payment to the rightsholders. Reuters reported on Friday morning (July 31) that the Munich Regional Court found Suno … Continued

Universal Music Group generated $3.83B in Q2, up 13.3% YoY – driven by Noah Kahan, BTS, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, and Olivia Dean

UMG published its fresh set of quarterly results on July 30

UMG’s new releases in India will go exclusively to paid streaming subscribers for first 72 hours

Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of UMG, announced the move on the company's earnings call on Thursday (July 30).

IFPI rolls out labels’ AI chart-eligibility rules across its global network of official music charts

IFPI has applied the framework to the charts it directly manages

Watch out, Suno: Google upgrades Lyria AI music model with ‘more realistic and emotionally nuanced vocals’

The model rolled out inside Google Flow Music, the company's AI song-creation platform.

‘True independents will become rarer and more valuable going into the next decade.’

The following MBW op/ed comes from Samantha Moore, President of Rostrum Pacific-owned distributor SpaceHeater.