News Emma Robinson upped to VP, Partnerships at Merlin amid series of senior promotions Merlin has also promoted four additional members of its Partnerships team: Shannon Bradley, Alice Moss, Daniele Yandel, and Simon Marcel.
Analysis Navigating the AI music deluge: a call for responsible streaming practices Jorge Brea is CEO of Symphonic, one of the industry’s most successful independent distribution platforms, says the global music business must come together to enforce standardized policies around AI music…
News Sunita Kaur named President, Asia, for Universal Music Publishing Group Kaur will oversee the company’s operations across the continent
News TikTok trumpets Temper City’s viral ‘Self Aware’ as SoundOn expands services for US indie artists and labels The track has surpassed 150m streams on Spotify and has been used to soundtrack more than 6.4m videos on TikTok
News Musixmatch says LyricFind’s antitrust claim ‘without merit’ as rival files second amended complaint LyricFind first sued Musixmatch in March 2025
News Official: UMG rejects Bill Ackman’s $64B takeover bid Universal Music Group has rejected Bill Ackman's takeover offer.
News From Bolloré urging UMG to reject Ackman’s $64B bid to Gamma’s lawsuit to unmask the creators of two smear sites… it’s MBW’s weekly round-up The biggest headlines from the past few days...
News Jay Moore appointed Chief Investment Officer at Too Lost Moore will lead the indie distribution and services platform's investment strategy
News YouTube will now automatically detect and label AI videos – even when creators don’t disclose it The platform said it is rolling out "new internal signals" to identify AI-generated content, starting in May 2026.
News Bolloré urges Universal Music Group to reject Bill Ackman’s $64B takeover bid "We think the price is not there at all," Bolloré told shareholders.
News HYBE’s Weverse appoints Zooil Yang as President as superfan platform enters ‘next phase of growth’ Yang most recently served as CEO of AXZ, the Kakao-spun-off company that operates South Korea's Daum portal.
News Ed Sheeran leaves Warner Music Group after 15 years – and 170 million albums sold The singer-songwriter revealed in a newsletter to fans that he parted ways with Atlantic Records and Asylum Records last month.
News Udio’s licensed AI music app will be called Starstruck, with four creation modes for fans (Report) Starstruck will offer four modes for users to interact with music from opted-in artists and songwriters: Cover, Reimagine, Remix and Create.
News Universal Music Group and TikTok strike new multi-year licensing deal — with expanded AI protections for artists and songwriters Global deal will also see TikTok and UMG work together to remove unauthorized AI-generated music from the platform
Interviews Warner Music COO, Armin Zerza: Music is under-monetized, under-digitized, and ripe for ‘years of productivity’ Zerza appeared at the JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference on Wednesday (May 20)