Analysis News Anthropic trained its AI to rip off copyrighted lyrics, music publishers allege in escalating court battle UMG, 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 leadership Kyncl 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
Analysis Major record companies hate AI voice-cloning platforms that don’t pay. The one they hate most was created by a 20-year-old UK student. How the RIAA is tuning its legal attention towards a 20-year-old UK student who is making "quite a lot" of money from his AI site
Analysis DistroKid’s Bandzoogle buyout, Songtradr’s Bandcamp acquisition point to the power of D2C commerce (and a potential future battle for ‘superfans’) Why two deals announced in the last month are connected
Analysis OpenAI’s response to Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit shows music rightsholders could be in for a tough fight over copyright and AI OpenAI says a lawsuit over its use of copyrighted materials in training AI algorithms is based on an 'erroneous' understanding of copyright law
Analysis HYBE and Geffen want to globalize the ‘K-pop methodology’ – and launch the world’s biggest girl group. Will they succeed? They don't even have a name yet – but HYBE and Geffen's ambitions for their new girl group are sky high
Analysis Songwriters are worried about BMI’s private equity sale – and if it will hurt their royalties. What happens now? MBW has heard rumors from senior music biz figures that BMI has explored talks with a number of potential backers/suitors, with the latest name on the lips of the business being New Mountain Capital