Music Business News: North America

OpenAI, valued at $157bn and facing multiple copyright infringement lawsuits, says China’s DeepSeek may have used its data to train rival AI model without permission

DeepSeek spent far less money on developing a chatbot than US AI companies, but it may have done so by stealing OpenAI's IP

Influence Media Partners raises $360m in debt financing led by Goldman Sachs

BlackRock acted as a joint placement agent.

Spotify wins ‘bundling’ lawsuit, as court dismisses legal action brought by the MLC

Court grants Spotify's motion to dismiss the lawsuit

Brigitte Alanis promoted to Partner at music law firm King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano, LLP

Alanis' clients include Victoria Monét, Roddy Ricch, Malibu Babie, Alex Warren, Lil Skies, and Willie Jones, among others

BMI veteran Alison Smith to retire after 40-year career at the company

Shouvik Das to Lead Distribution, Publisher Relations & Administration Services Department

We talked with Anthropic’s Claude about The Beatles. Those copyright ‘guardrails’ seem to be working… pretty much.

Anthropic's Claude can still be tempted into referencing Beatles lyrics – but chatbot refuses to print them verbatim

Katie Welle promoted to President, Head of US A&R at Sony Music Publishing

Based in Los Angeles, Welle will report to Sony Music Publishing Chairman/CEO Jon Platt

Sir Lucian Grainge issues update on UMG’s L.A. wildfire relief efforts: ‘The road to recovery will be very long. We will be there every step of the way.’

UMG's CEO has pledged support for those impacted by the wildfires in Southern California