Music Business Worldwide

From WMG swooping for Revelator to UMG’s €500 million share buyback program… it’s MBW’s weekly round-up

Music Business Worldwide — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 23:32:57 +0000

The biggest headlines from the past few days...

UMG and Believe settle lawsuit that alleged ‘industrial-scale’ copyright infringement of Universal’s music

Murray Stassen — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:47:27 +0000

Universal Music Group and Believe have settled the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the Paris-headquartered music company and its distribution platform TuneCore in late 2024. A Joint Stipulation of Dismissal With Prejudice was filed today (April 3) in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, confirming that all claims in the … Continued

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Dialled In Records launches in London focused on South Asian music in partnership with The Collective, part of Universal Music UK’s Island-EMI

Mandy Dalugdug — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:07:37 +0000

Dialled In Records launches with two acts: Pakistan-born producer and DJ Ahadadream, and Excise Dept, an India-based multidisciplinary collective.

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Wyclef Jean and Jaeson Ma’s D2C service OpenWav launches Snafu-backed indie artist financing platform

Murray Stassen — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:02:10 +0000

OpenWav says it can pay advances 'anywhere from the low five figures to the high seven figures'

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Meta touts Instagram as music superfan hub in new Luminate study

Mandy Dalugdug — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:51:45 +0000

Musicians who participate in Instagram's Activation program see their streaming numbers jump by roughly 10% in the week an activation launches.

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Rostrum Pacific’s FatBeats acquires physical distro company Traffic Entertainment Group, plus D2C store and label Get On Down

Mandy Dalugdug — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:03:53 +0000

The deal brings together three companies with a combined 50 years of experience in vinyl distribution, physical distribution, and premium catalog re-issues.

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Brian Miller appointed Chief Business Officer at TuneCore

Murray Stassen — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:49:42 +0000

Miller has served as Chief Revenue Officer at TuneCore for the last two years

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TikTok’s distro service SoundOn cracks down on manipulated audio via ACRCloud partnership to intercept unauthorized tracks

Mandy Dalugdug — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:18:44 +0000

ACRCloud’s Derivative Works Detection service uses audio fingerprinting to identify modified works

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SeatGeek launches ChatGPT integration, bringing ticket listings to OpenAI’s chatbot

Mandy Dalugdug — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:45:29 +0000

The ticketing platform says it's the first to bring both primary and resale inventory into OpenAI's chatbot.

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‘In today’s world, what does the word ‘manager’ mean? You’re really just sitting at the table with the artist.’

Dave Roberts — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:44:31 +0000

Culture Collective founder Jonathan Azu talks about his multi-hyphenate background, working with Grammy-winning artists, and where he wants to go from here…

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