Analysis News TikTok’s parent ByteDance has locked down AI-music patents in the US – as its researchers develop a model trained on 257,000 hours of songsTikTok's AI music ambitions are bigger than you think...
Analysis Warner Music Group and Denis Ladegaillerie’s tussle over buying Believe is hotting up – as France’s SEC equivalent gets dragged into the drama.Believe's board is turning to France's equivalent of the SEC to decide whether Denis Ladegaillerie's actions are approved or otherwise
Analysis News Apple fined nearly $2bn in EU over ‘abusive’ app store rules for music streaming services – and it could potentially be on the hook for more damagesApple plans to appeal the decision
Analysis News Universal Music Group is acquiring a stake in Complex – via a takeover focused on ‘superfans’ and e-commerceEarlier this month, Robert Kyncl, CEO of Warner Music Group, confirmed that WMG is in active discussions to sell two of Complex's long-time rivals
Analysis UK government confirms it has no intention to adopt ‘equitable remuneration’ payout model for on-demand music streamingThe UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published the findings from its research on the potential economic impact of introducing a so-called 'Equitable Remuneration' model (ER) for artists from streaming in the country
Analysis News Anthropic trained its AI to rip off copyrighted lyrics, music publishers allege in escalating court battleUMG, Concord and ABKCO allege that Anthropic's AI chatbot is still spitting out copyrighted lyrics, despite Anthropic's claim to the contrary
Analysis With ‘superfans’ in their eyes, could the major record companies now rally behind Spotify in its ‘app tax’ battle with Apple?Why a careful balancing act is required by the majors as their own priorities become entangled in Spotify and Apple's fight
Analysis News A year after he took charge as CEO, Robert Kyncl has quietly transformed Warner Music Group’s leadershipKyncl has hired multiple execs from his former employer, Google/YouTube; others have been handpicked from Disney, Instacart, Mastercard, and Justworks
Analysis News Merck Mercuriadis seems willing – currently – to trade in his ‘call option’ at Hipgnosis Songs Fund. So why is the company’s board offering to ‘bribe’ potential bidders with a £20 million bung in an attempt to offset it?Yesterday, this saga took a turn for the bizarre
Analysis The EU’s AI act is a vital piece of legislation for the music industry – but what does it actually say?Rightsholders won a few battles, and lost some, in the EU's world-leading draft AI law
Analysis Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s board is concerned over Citrin Cooperman’s latest valuation of the company. What’s it going to do about it?Hipgnosis Songs Fund delayed its results today. Why did it do it - and what does it really mean?
Analysis Sony Music’s artists aren’t involved in YouTube’s new voice-cloning AI experiment. Not unrelated: Google’s recent filing with the US Copyright Office.MBW Explains: On 'fair use', Sony Music, YouTube's AI experimentation and the US Copyright Office
Analysis Believe has developed software that detects AI-made music with 98% accuracy. What might this mean for the future?Believe's "AI Radar" could help the streamer and music distributor establish itself as a "responsible" user of AI technology.
Analysis News Deezer’s ‘artist-centric’ model now has a new ‘user-centric’ element which, despite not really being ‘user-centric’, is quite a clever idea.MBW Explains: Digging into what Deezer's latest addition to 'artist-centric' really means
Analysis News BMI will pay songwriters and publishers a smaller portion of its revenues as a for-profit company – while upping its own margin from 10% to 15% of collections. Will its members tolerate this change?New revelations from Michael O'Neill shows that BMI is planning to increase its retained revenues by a third