Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s Weekly Round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW’s Round-up is exclusively supported by BMI, a global leader in performing rights management, dedicated to supporting songwriters, composers and publishers and championing the value of music.
This week, Bloomberg reported that BMG Rights Management is in discussions to acquire Concord, in a deal that would bring together two of the world’s biggest independent music companies. The potential transaction could be worth up to $7 billion, according to the report.
Also this week, Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO Music filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, seeking more than $3 billion in potential statutory damages over alleged infringement of more than 20,000 songs.
Meanwhile, Sony Music Group is forming a $2 billion music rights-buying joint venture with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC.
Elsewhere, Spotify announced it paid out more than $11 billion to the music industry in 2025, while Deezer revealed it is now receiving over 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day and is moving to license its AI-detection technology to the wider music industry.
Here are some of the biggest headlines from the past few days…
1. BMG IN TALKS TO ACQUIRE CONCORD (REPORT)
BMG Rights Management is reportedly in discussions to acquire Concord, in a deal that would bring together two of the world’s biggest independent music companies.
Bloomberg broke the news on Thursday (January 29), reporting that the potential transaction could be worth up to $7 billion. Billboard separately reported that the company could sell for more than $6.6 billion, citing its own sources close to the negotiations.
BMG is a division of German media giant Bertelsmann.
2. UMG SUES ANTHROPIC FOR $3BN OVER ‘BRAZEN’ COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT OF 20,000+ SONGS
A coalition of music publishers has filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, and it’s a big one.
The companies, including Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO Music, are seeking more than $3 billion in potential statutory damages over alleged infringement of more than 20,000 songs.
The complaint, filed in the Northern District of California, represents a dramatic escalation from the publishers’ first lawsuit against Anthropic, which was filed in October 2023 and covered around 500 works with potential damages of around $75 million.
In a statement provided to MBW, the plaintiffs said: “We have been compelled to file this second lawsuit against Anthropic because of its persistent and brazen infringement of our songwriters’ copyrighted compositions taken from notorious pirate sites.”… (MBW)
3. SONY LAUNCHES $2B MUSIC RIGHTS ACQUISITION JV WITH SINGAPORE’S GIC
Sony Music Group is forming a music rights-buying joint venture with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC Pte. Bloomberg reports that GIC and Sony plan to invest $2 billion to $3 billion in the venture.
According to Bloomberg, Sony and GIC plan to pursue “high-quality, marquee music assets across a range of genres”. ”
As a long-term investor, GIC seeks to be a creative and flexible capital partner to strategic industry leaders like Sony,” Girish Karira, head of the sovereign fund’s integrated strategies group, said in a statement… (MBW)
4. SPOTIFY SAYS IT PAID OUT OVER $11BN TO THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN 2025
Spotify announced it paid out more than $11 billion to the music industry in 2025, which it says is “the largest annual payment to music from any retailer in history”.
The streaming giant previously paid out “a record” $10 billion to the music industry in 2024 and $9 billion the prior year.
The latest figure, revealed in a blog post by Spotify’s Head of Music, Charlie Hellman, represents year-over-year growth of more than 10% and brings the service’s all-time payouts to nearly $70 billion… (MBW)
5. 60,000 AI TRACKS HIT DEEZER DAILY AS PLATFORM MOVES TO LICENSE DETECTION TECH TO WIDER MUSIC INDUSTRY
Deezer is now receiving over 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day – and is moving to license its AI-detection technology to the wider music industry.
The Paris-headquartered streaming service revealed the new figures on Thursday (January 29), confirming that synthetic content now accounts for roughly 39% of all music delivered to the platform daily.
The 60,000 figure marks another significant jump from the 50,000 tracks Deezer reported in November, the 30,000 in September, and the 10,000 it disclosed when it first launched its AI detection tool in January 2025.
A year on from that launch, Deezer says it has detected and tagged over 13.4 million AI-generated tracks on its platform – and is now making its detection technology commercially available… (MBW)
