Music Business News: North America

From Suno’s BMG breakthrough to Live Nation’s counterfeit crackdown… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-up

The biggest headlines from the past few days...

California’s 10% ticket resale price cap dies in Senate committee, as StubHub’s state lobbying spend hits $3.4M this year

A companion ticketing measure, AB 1349, was released from suspense at the same hearing and can now proceed to a Senate vote.

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Ronald Isley and Rudolph Isley’s estate end court fight over The Isley Brothers trademark

The dismissal with prejudice bars Rudolph Isley's estate from bringing the same claims again.

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Bill Ackman, who called Universal Music ‘one of the best businesses we have ever owned’, steers clear of music in Pershing Square stock-buying splurge

Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square has disclosed six new stock investments in its first quarterly shareholder letter as a publicly listed company. None of the six is a music company. The new positions in Visa, Mastercard, Netflix, S&P Global, Intercontinental Exchange, and Alcon were disclosed in a letter published on Wednesday (August 12). Pershing Square Inc. … Continued

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Suno launches Studio 2.0 with MIDI support, an AI chat bar… and no download limit

Suno claims that "Grammy-winning artists" have used Suno Studio in the past to "make chart-topping hits"

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Ticketmaster launches connected app in Google’s Gemini, a day after the AI assistant passed 1B monthly users

Ticketmaster said eligible events are surfaced automatically based on relevant fan searches, with no additional implementation required from clients.

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After Universal and Merlin deals, Spotify inks agreement with Kobalt for AI-powered ‘fan-made’ covers and remixes

It is the first deal for the tool with a music publisher outside Universal Music Group.

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Virgin Music Group appoints Syaheed MSBI as Vice President of AMEA region

Syaheed joins from Believe to oversee Virgin’s operations across Africa, the Middle East and Asia