Snoop Dogg, one of the defendants looking to dismiss a $107 million lawsuit filed by Lydia Harris. Photo Credit: Bruce Baker

A federal court has officially ordered a stay in Lydia Harris’ $107 million lawsuit against Snoop Dogg, Universal Music, Death Row Records, and several others.

Judge David Hittner just recently signed off on the defendants’ stay request pending the resolution of their respective dismissal pushes. We covered one of those pushes in late April, when Snoop Dogg and Death Row urged the court to toss the suit and to label the pro se plaintiff a vexatious litigant.

Long story short, Harris is the ex-wife of Death Row co-founder Michael Harris and, following Snoop Dogg’s 2022 acquisition of the label, says she’s owed big for her purported stake.

That’s despite the $107 million default judgement that a court ordered Suge Knight to pay her years back. (Knight is behind bars on a voluntary manslaughter conviction.) Per Harris, strategic bankruptcy maneuvering and asset-concealment efforts prevented her from collecting the sizable sum.

As noted, however, Snoop and his team are refuting the position in no uncertain terms. Meanwhile, attorney David Kenner, also a defendant, is himself urging the court to toss the suit for failure to state a claim – as are Universal Music, Lucian Grainge, and Jimmy Iovine in a different motion yet.

And at least as of early May, Harris was looking to bring even more defendants into the fold.

“Plaintiff now seeks leave to file a Supplemental and Amended Complaint to add the following defendants: Marion ‘Suge’ Knight, [attorney] Dermont Givens [sic], and [hip-hop label exec] Alan Grunblatt,” she wrote at the time.

“These individuals are believed to have played a central role in orchestrating fraudulent Bankruptcy fraud in addition to the contrived pretrial summary judgement filings,” proceeded Harris.

It’s against this backdrop that Judge Hittner granted the above-mentioned stay request.

Though the corresponding order doesn’t dive into the precise reasons for approval, it does note that a previously scheduled pretrial conference is on ice while the dismissal motions play out.

As things stand, we’ll have to wait and see where said motions go from here; related updates hadn’t made their way into the docket at the time of writing. Also silent on the overarching suit is Harris, who has already addressed the case in lengthy interviews.

But she doesn’t seem to have publicly weighed in as of late. Plus, her Instagram profile appears to have been set to private.

A live performance from Pusha T as part of Clipse. Photo Credit: Ben Sisto

Let the Drake v. Universal Music fallout continue: According to Pusha T, execs at the major’s Def Jam subsidiary urged him to censor a Kendrick Lamar guest verse on Clipse’s forthcoming album. The ‘request’ ended up blowing up the label deal.

The decidedly interesting tidbit emerged in a new GQ interview with both Pusha T and his brother Malice, who are set to release Let God Sort Em Out as Clipse next month. The duo’s first album since 2009, this Pharrell Williams-produced project was initially expected to drop via Def Jam/UMG.

As described by Pusha, Def Jam approved of the album – save a Kendrick Lamar guest verse on “Chains & Whips.” The way Pusha tells the story, despite his public remarks about difficulties getting the touring Lamar into the studio, the recording process wrapped a while ago.

But after the Lamar-Drake showdown took center stage – and fueled an ugly lawsuit between the latter rapper as well as Universal Music – UMG was hesitant to release the track (and the album) if it contained Lamar’s lines.

How hesitant, you might ask?

Though Pusha says the relevant bars aren’t direct or even indirect shots at Drake, Def Jam allegedly pushed him to “censor” the guest appearance. Evidently, he was unwilling to do so – hence last week’s announcement that Let God Sort Em Out would become available through Roc Nation.

In fact, besides allowing Clipse to find a new professional home, Def Jam also let Pusha (who himself had a comparatively small Drake beef years ago) walk from his solo contract, per the interview.

However, “allowing” and “let” don’t necessarily paint a full picture here. In a separate sit down, Pusha manager Steven Victor elaborated that Clipse had coughed up a seven-figure sum to exit the contract.

Translation: the Drake showdown is having a very real effect on Universal Music’s releases and artist contracts. With the high-stakes battle still in full swing – Team Drake closed out May by pushing back against UMG’s dismissal motion – it’ll certainly be worth keeping the point in mind moving forward.

(Side note: Lamar reportedly removed several Drake attacks from “Euphoria” as well, Top Dawg’s Terrence “Punch” Henderson revealed earlier in 2025.)

Running with the important idea (and the possible implications for not just future diss tracks, but all rap efforts), Drake’s attorneys are adamant that “Not Like Us” actually caused the public to believe that their client is a pedophile.

“UMG’s theory is that all of this was ‘hyperbole’—a harmless joke that no reasonable person would take seriously because it was part of a ‘rap battle,’” Drake’s counsel summed up in the late-May filing.

“But UMG’s theory collides with the reality that the Recording’s false allegations of pedophilia, broadcast to the entire world via the most powerful music company, have proven to be toxic and indelible. In other words, UMG’s ‘just joking’ narrative runs headfirst into the concrete facts,” they continued.

Warner Music Group has brought its catalog to karaoke platform Singa. Photo Credit: WMG

Warner Music Group (WMG) is getting in on the karaoke action under a new deal with Singa, which has already added “a vast collection of original master recordings” from the major label.

WMG and the self-described “first truly digital streaming service for karaoke” unveiled their pact today. Extending to Warner Music proper as well as Warner Chappell, the agreement is Helsinki-headquartered Singa’s first with a major, the parties emphasized.

Now, the nine-year-old karaoke service, which offers a paid tier for $9.99 per month, is bolstering its existing library of 120,000 “soundalike” renditions with WMG’s “extensive catalog.” Besides the latter detail and the initially mentioned “vast collection” particular, the companies didn’t elaborate on the tie-up’s precise scope.

However, a cursory glance at the karaoke platform points to an all-encompassing WMG-catalog integration; the “Originals” section currently features releases from Cardi B, Linkin Park, Dua Lipa, and a variety of others.

And the ADA parent Warner Music further relayed that Singa has separate contracts in place “with publishers and indie labels.”

Shifting to compensation, WMG rather unsurprisingly opted against diving into hard terms. But the major went ahead and applauded “Singa’s investment in rights management technology,” which purportedly “ensures that all music use is transparent to rights holders.”

“The company has partnered with leading back-office service providers to develop usage tracking and revenue reporting tools, setting a new standard for industry accountability,” WMG indicated here.

In any event, a new revenue stream is (at least in theory) a new revenue stream, and WMG SVP of strategy and business development John Rees in a statement touted the resulting “opportunities for our artists and songwriters.”

“With this partnership, we’re ushering in a new era of karaoke where music becomes a more dynamic experience for fans,” weighed in Rees.

“This collaboration not only enhances the way people engage with music, but also creates valuable opportunities for our artists and songwriters, enabling them to reach more fans and unlock new revenue streams. Together, we’re paving the way for continuous innovation in music,” the 15-year Warner Music vet concluded.

Time will tell whether Singa can parlay the deal into separate unions with Sony Music and Universal Music. Bigger picture, Robert Kyncl’s comparatively tech-friendly Warner Music – which didn’t consider joining Universal Music’s since-resolved TikTok standoff – is apparently pulling out the monetization stops against the backdrop of slowing revenue growth.

All that’s certainly worth keeping in mind amid rumored settlement discussions between the majors and Suno as well as Udio. If the AI platforms and the individual labels are actually racing to hammer out licensing terms as reported – and that isn’t necessarily the case, we previously noted – WMG might be the first to seize an agreement.

VNYL’s Nick Alt and Emily Muhoberac, who have signed on as CEO and COO of Vinyl Me, Please, respectively. Photo Credit: Virginia Harold

Less than one month after entering liquidation, Vinyl Me, Please (VMP) has officially found a new owner and relaunched with a “remastered mission.”

The Denver-based vinyl-subscription club formally revealed the change of hands today. Now, Vinyl Me, Please is poised to keep on operating – albeit as a subsidiary of VNYL Inc., which operates a namesake vinyl subscription of its own.

Headquartered in Saint Louis and founded in 2014, VNYL curates records for its subscribers on a monthly basis. And while one vinyl-subscription service buying another seems like a solid fit, it’s also worth noting that VNYL counts Someday Capital partner Nick Alt as its founder.

Alt has signed on as CEO of VMP, with VNYL president Emily Muhoberac beginning as president and COO. As to where the just-purchased company goes from here, both execs underscored plans to start “rebuilding trust with longtime subscribers,” many of whom remain vocal about their unfulfilled orders.

“This isn’t about reinventing Vinyl Me, Please,” spelled out Alt, previously a Vimeo and Stem exec. “It’s about restoring its true form as the ‘Best Damn Record Club.’”

“Vinyl customers deserve a white glove experience and that’s far from what they’ve gotten recently,” added Muhoberac, who doubles as a partner at vinyl-focused lender Vinyl Capital Partners. “We intend to do that by getting back to the fundamentals of VMP with a great customer experience.”

Longer term, the higher-ups touched on plans to integrate VMP into their broader vinyl portfolio – with various subsidiaries zeroing in on particular consumer segments.

VMP will cater to collectors “seeking premium audio experiences,” for instance, with the VinylBox unit selling to “millennials balancing aesthetic and specific collection needs.” VNYL proper, for its part, will dial in on “Gen Z / Alpha seeking affordable curated vinyl for new turntables.”

“Our philosophy is simple: not every collector is the same,” Alt summarized of the approach. “Some customers want a Blue Note Anthology box set. Others are counting the days until the new Reneé Rapp LP drops. We’re building different clubs to serve different types of listeners—with pricing and curation that actually match their needs.”

Time will tell how the more carefully tailored model performs. Overall, despite vinyl’s years-running commercial resurgence, recent data has pointed to a possible growth slowdown.

Though it probably goes without saying, this potential slowdown is having a comparatively significant impact on smaller players like VMP and Qrates, to name a couple. The latter is still out of commission “due to unforeseen financial difficulties,” the relevant website shows.

Lizzo, who’s once again firing back against a harassment lawsuit from her former touring dancers. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

Lizzo is firing back against the marathon sexual harassment lawsuit she’s facing from several former touring dancers, maintaining that the conduct in question is protected speech.

That interesting position came to light in a new appeal from Team Lizzo, which is specifically challenging a prior decision allowing some of the dancers’ claims to proceed.

By now, most are at least generally aware of the years-old allegations against the singer, who’s looking to ride a comeback out of the cancellation waters. Not helping the effort are the ongoing sexual harassment claims and a distinct case spearheaded by another ex-tour employee.

It’s worth clarifying that fashion designer Asha Daniels submitted the latter suit to a federal court in September 2023. We promptly covered the action – alleging sexual harassment, racial harassment, assault, and more.

In the complaint, Daniels also said she’d witnessed tour employees mistreating dancers while on the road with Lizzo. And long story short, this federal suit, despite a partial dismissal in December 2024 and a subsequent lack of media coverage, is still in motion.

The December order tossed the complaint against a payroll-company defendant – which wound up causing the case to be “erroneously closed” with regard to all defendants.

In mid-April, the court acknowledged the administrative misstep, underscored that the claims against Lizzo’s Big Grrrl Big Touring “remained unresolved and pending,” and tentatively teed up a December 1st jury trial.

Bearing the details in mind, the dancers themselves first sued Lizzo in 2023, and their state-level action, likewise partially dismissed last year, is currently making its way through the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

We’ve already broken down their claims – chief among them allegations of sexual harassment. This refers in large part to an alleged episode wherein Lizzo purportedly pressured her dancer employees to attend a strip-club afterparty of sorts in Amsterdam.

There, the team members were allegedly exposed to and compelled to participate in a series of decidedly work-inappropriate activities, we reported nearly two years ago.

Enter Lizzo’s initially mentioned First Amendment defense and push to dismiss the case.

As quoted by Billboard, the artist’s legal team is arguing that the suit represents “‘an attack on Lizzo’s First Amendment right to perform her music and advocate for body positivity,’” with the above-described strip-club shenanigans allegedly constituting components of “‘Lizzo’s creative process.’”

“‘There’s no disagreement that Lizzo held these outings as a necessary part of her creative process,’” the dismissal motion reportedly spells out.

It probably doesn’t need reiterating, but there’s plenty of distance between the plaintiffs’ position (the outing was both extremely inappropriate and not quite optional) and Lizzo’s stance.

As to where things go from here, the presiding judge has scheduled a status conference for July 16th. Regardless of how the legal battles play out, it’s safe to say they aren’t exactly benefiting Lizzo’s comeback, including reported plans for a fresh album later in 2025.

TikTok for Artists has officially launched in more than 25 countries. Photo Credit: Kelly Sikkema

TikTok for Artists, the video-sharing app’s “all-in-one music insights platform,” has officially set sail in the U.S., Brazil, Japan, and more than 20 other countries.

ByteDance-owned TikTok announced the formal rollout of Artists today, weeks after scoring a SoundCloud “Add to Music App” partnership. Available via certified Artist accounts, the newer offering is said to compile data (views, posts, engagements, etc.) down to the song level.

Additionally, one can tap Artists to monitor the performance of individual posts (including everything from likes and shares to completion rates and comments), with a collection of “daily-updated analytics dashboards” part of Artists to boot.

Perhaps most importantly, Artists further charts audience demographics, among them age, gender, and language, TikTok relayed.

In theory, the details could enable TikTok-focused acts to better tailor on-platform strategies and possibly off-platform efforts.

Running with those points, TikTok today also confirmed the worldwide launch of Pre-Release. As its name suggests, Pre-Release (which first hit TikTok’s distribution service three years ago) allows acts to promote new projects on TikTok before they officially release elsewhere; TikTokers can save previewed works directly to Apple Music or Spotify.

Still facing an uncertain stateside future, TikTok has brought the overarching Artists to 26 nations: the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, the U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

But according to the app, TikTok for Artists will begin “rolling out in other countries soon.” In a statement, global head of music business development Tracy Gardner touted Artists’ perceived value and usefulness for talent.

“We built the platform to give artists transparent access to useful, actionable data about their music and their fans, to help them better engage with the TikTok community and supercharge their careers both on and off the platform,” the former Warner Music higher-up said in part.

In the bigger picture, despite the mentioned uncertainty surrounding TikTok’s U.S. future, the app isn’t hesitating to lean into music-world initiatives. Besides TikTok for Artists’ launch, of course, that includes pulling out the promotional stops for Miley Cyrus’ new album and moving forward with another “Global Live Fest” installment.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t too long ago that TikTok found itself embroiled in an ugly licensing showdown with today’s largest label. For this and adjacent reasons, many in the industry aren’t particularly concerned about the app’s stateside fate – especially with Reels and Shorts continuing to expand aggressively.

Rezonate Music Rights co-founders Tom Tyler (left) and Cam Blackwood. Photo Credit: Rezonate

Does the music IP arena have room for another investor? Rezonate Music Rights believes so, and it’s set sail with a $150 million war chest as well as a focus on producer catalogs.

Rezonate announced its official launch – and several already-wrapped plays – today. Founded by producer Cam Blackwood and former London Stock Exchange Group higher-up Tom Tyler, the self-described “leading solution for music producers rights acquisition” secured the $150 million tranche from Europe’s Bridgepoint Credit.

Under that investment, Bridgepoint took “a minority stake in Rezonate’s management company,” per the catalog buyer, which has offices in London and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, having evidently started pursuing deals ahead of its formal launch, Rezonate pointed to signed-and-sealed catalog agreements with producers Lorna Blackwood, Mark Crew, James Earp, and Jussi Karvinen (aka Jussifer).

Those professionals have credits on tracks released by Lewis Capaldi, Bebe Rexha, Kelly Clarkson, The Wombats, Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, and Demi Lovato, to name just some. And as Rezonate describes things, a number of additional catalog agreements are forthcoming.

“This partnership with Bridgepoint is a strong endorsement of Rezonate’s vision and the value we bring to music producers,” Blackwood and Tyler added in a joint statement. “With such substantial firepower we can significantly accelerate our growth plans and continue to set new standards in the industry, ensuring producers are at the heart of every decision we make.

“We are excited to bring a fresh and artist-aligned approach to the royalties space, starting with an incredible day-one catalogue that includes some of the most iconic tracks of the last four decades,” concluded Tyler and Blackwood.

Beyond straight IP purchases, Rezonate also offers “funding and mentorship to emerging talent,” producer-geared networking opportunities, and “accurate and transparent music catalogue valuations,” its website shows.

(On the valuation side, worth reiterating is that HarbourView last week tapped Sweden’s Chapter Two to “facilitate” a Rodney Jerkins IP buyout. Formerly Anotherblock, Chapter Two is now touting a collection of catalog-tech solutions.)

In the bigger picture, it’s safe to say that the catalog space remains flush with capital – even if the rights-acquisition game is more specialized than ever.

On the funding front, 2025’s first five months delivered blockbuster investments in the work of Notorious B.I.G. and others – not to mention sizable capital disclosures from Intercept Music, Pophouse Entertainment, GoldState Music, Raven Music, and more.

Regarding specialization, Duetti is zeroing in on indie rights, to name one example, while a film and TV joint venture is a seemingly significant component of DJ Khaled’s Influence Media catalog sale. Different players yet are opting to spearhead multifaceted deals at the intersection of emerging markets and regionally prominent IP.

Seated co-founders John Griffin (left) and David McKay, who’ve reacquired their company from Sofar Sounds. Photo Credit: Seated

Four years and change after selling to Sofar Sounds, Seated has officially been reacquired by its founders.

Seated co-founder and CEO David McKay, whose ticketing platform says it helps artists “gain fan insights and sell more” concert passes, announced the newly finalized deal in a brief blog post.

According to that message, the repurchase arrived as Somerville, Massachusetts-headquartered Sofar zeroes in “on their amazing global experiences business” under CEO Warren Webster, who came aboard in October 2024.

“Seated has achieved remarkable growth under Sofar Sounds’ ownership these last four years, becoming a vital partner to some of the biggest artists in the world,” Webster said in a statement to DMN. “We’re proud to have been part of that story, and as Sofar focuses on meeting the increasing demand in our communities for live experiences, we’re thrilled that Seated will continue to grow with its founders at the helm.

“At Sofar we are ramping up our efforts to bring even more people together through unforgettable live music experiences in unexpected places, as well as comedy, dance, art, food, wine and more. Our communities around the world are looking for more access to community and culture, and Sofar aims to deliver when it’s needed the most,” the former Atlas Obscura CEO concluded.

Eight-year-old Seated opted against publicly disclosing the transaction’s financials. But it did mention a number of its artist users – among them Ed Sheeran, Brandi Carlile, and Jelly Roll – and tout its operational vision as a standalone entity.

“This re-acquisition gives us the flexibility and focus to go deeper,” McKay summed up. “We’re doubling down on what we do best – building great software for artists to own their ticketing, capture and activate their fan data, and grow meaningful relationships with the people showing up to their shows.”

Of course, at the intersection of ticket-pricing concerns and a growing superfan emphasis, the highlighted objectives are even more relevant now than they were when Sofar bought Seated.

At least from the outside looking in, the process of splitting Seated from Sofar doesn’t appear to have been too involved. Worth reiterating here is that the parties at the time of their February 2021 deal clarified that Seated would “keep operating their services independently.”

On the personnel front, Billboard indicated that McKay will remain at the helm of the once-again-independent company, with CTO and fellow co-founder John Griffin also staying aboard. Per its LinkedIn profile, Seated has between two and 10 employees (with some claiming roles at both the business and Sofar).

In the bigger picture, following recent years’ avalanche of music-space acquisitions, Seated isn’t alone in selling back to its founders and original owners.

Likewise part of the list are ROSTR and Absolute Label Services (which Utopia Music offloaded in February and July 2023, respectively) as well as SoundBetter and Soundtrap (sold by Spotify in October 2021 and June 2023, respectively), to name a few.

The major labels, Suno, and Udio are reportedly negotiating possible settlements in their copyright infringement disputes. Photo Credit: Sebastian Herrmann

Nearly one year after suing Suno and Udio for copyright infringement, the major labels are reportedly exploring possible settlements with the gen AI music platforms – including a licensing and compensation framework.

Rumblings of the potential resolution discussions just recently entered the media spotlight. At the time of writing, however, neither the majors nor the AI-platform defendants had publicly addressed the matter; Suno and Udio didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for publishing.

But according to Bloomberg, the settlement discussions are ongoing, with the majors pushing for licensing fees and “small” equity interests in the AI upstarts. Additional details are few and far between, though the same source claimed that the talks “are happening in parallel.”

This doesn’t exactly come as a surprise given the cases’ considerable overlap and the fact that both Udio and Suno have tapped Latham & Watkins for representation. (Udio is also repped by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.)

That said, it’s unclear whether there’s weight to the same report’s indication that the dual negotiations are “creating a race of sorts to see which” AI company will settle first.

To state the obvious, preventing (extremely) protracted courtroom confrontations can bring inherent advantages.

Here, avoiding even bigger attorneys’ fees would certainly qualify as one such advantage. Meanwhile, the majors would have the opportunity to invoke the resulting terms in licensing talks with other AI platforms, and Suno as well as Udio would put an end to an apparently thorny discovery process.

“Given the complexity of the case, the number of discovery requests at issue—to date, over fifty RFPs from each side— and the number of Plaintiffs and Asserted Works, this process has been a complex one that has required careful attention and compromise on both sides,” counsel for Udio and the majors summed up in an early May update.

Plus, “the parties spent several months negotiating the protocols that govern Plaintiffs’ inspection of Udio’s source code and training data,” they wrote.

With all this said, the settlement “race” description doesn’t necessarily paint a full picture of the situation. Most significantly, Suno and Udio remain adamant that their training processes constitute fair use.

As broken down by DMN Pro, the central argument is deceivingly strong from a legal perspective, and litigation wins aren’t guaranteed for the majors should the cases play out. In other words, it’ll be especially interesting to see whether the rumored back-and-forth resolves the cases and sets the stage for different AI licensing models throughout the wider industry.

Matt Blackhouse, ATG Entertainment-operated Swansea Building Society Arena’s new venue director. Photo Credit: ATG

Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of May 30th, 2025.

If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com. And, keep track of all the latest music industry hires here.

TouchTunes

TouchTunes has hired Brightcove vet Scott Levine as CEO.

SOCAN

SOCAN members have elected and re-elected six board members to three-year terms. On the writer side, that includes Darren Fung, Greg Johnston, and board chair Marc Ouellette.

Meanwhile, Peermusic’s Cheryl Link, Sony Music Publishing’s David Quilico, and YMX Media’s Jean-François Denis are confirmed as publisher members.

Wasserman

Wasserman Music has brought on New York-based Jazmyn Griffin (previously C3 Presents’ marketing manager) as global festivals director.

Additionally, LA-based Tessie Lammle (a 10-year UTA vet) has come aboard as a hip-hop-focused director and agent.

CRS

CRB has revealed the Country Radio Seminar’s 2025-26 Agenda Committee leaders and members. On the leader front, Broken Bow/BMG higher-ups Shelley Hargis (chair) and Krista Hayes-Pruitt (co-vice chair) are returning, with Pamal Broadcasting’s Kevin Callahan joining as co-vice chair.

Members, for their part, include Audacy’s Andrea Burtscher, Sarah Frazier, and Scott Roddy; Cumulus’ Jennipher Miller and Brooks O’Brian; manager Tanner Davenport; Cannon Country 107.9 host Gideon Dean; Leo33 co-founder Katie Dean; Froggy 101.7 host Paisley Dunn-Banks; Red Street regional director Bridget Herrmann; RECORDS Nashville’s Jamice Jennings; iHeart program director Jess Jennings; Megatrax’s Ileana Landon; Super Hi-Fi’s Bo Matthews; Forever Media’s Charlie Maxx; 92.5 XTU host Nicole Michalik; Urban One’s Lauren Sessions-Barker; BMG’s Jennifer Shaffer; Collective Heads partner Jimmy Steal; 97.3 The Dawg host Jude Walker; and Neil Wilson Voiceovers’ namesake founder.

Dreamliner

Entertainer Motorcoach Hall of Fame inductee Mark Larson has rejoined Dreamliner Luxury Coaches as leasing VP. Plus, tour operations VP Damian Holton is “transitioning to a new” business-development role.

Audio Chateau Records

Audio Chateau’s advisory board has welcomed Poo Bear, who’ll “co-write and produce the debut album for Randy Savvy, lead singer of the Compton Cowboys.”

Tickets for Good

Eyeing an international expansion, Tickets for Good has formally added Derek DeVeaux as global COO. And the company’s U.K. team has expanded with Aaron Taylor (new business lead), George Webb (ticketing operations and customer service lead), and Laura Harmer (community partnerships lead).

Swansea Building Society Arena

Formerly YTL Arena’s senior events project manager, Matt Blackhouse is preparing to begin as the Swansea Building Society Arena’s venue director on June 2nd.

AEG Presents

AEG Presents has upped seven-year team member Joe Jaeger to VP of integrated marketing and strategy.

Live Nation

Live Nation has elected Kennedy Center head Richard Grenell to its board.

Frontiers Label Group

Frontiers has named Earache vet Tim Bailey head of label for international.

Universal Music Group

Former Verizon CFO Matt Ellis will begin in the same role at Universal Music on June 9th.

Capitol Music Group

One reorganization later, CMG has enlisted Candice Watkins to serve as president of Capitol Records Nashville; the former Big Loud marketing exec will double as Capitol Christian’s EVP.

Armada Music Group

Priority Lane owner Maarten Steinkamp is now Armada Music’s interim president.

TikTok

TikTok has tasked creative agency Pereira O’Dell with overseeing its global-creative projects.

Washington, D.C.’s James Madison Memorial Building, which houses the U.S. Copyright Office. Photo Credit: UpstateNYer

The battle for Copyright Office control isn’t letting up: Shira Perlmutter is now seeking a high-speed summary judgement resolution, while the Trump administration is firing back against the sought “fast-track schedule.”  

Those developments might come as a surprise in light of the court’s most recent determination. Upon denying Perlmutter’s restraining order ask, the presiding judge also instructed the parties to “submit a joint proposed briefing schedule” concerning a potential preliminary injunction push on the plaintiff’s end, we reported yesterday.

Instead, Perlmutter’s legal team has opted to entreat the court to green-light an “expedited briefing schedule” on the summary judgement front.

There’s “a pressing need for both the parties and the public to obtain a speedy resolution of this matter,” the former USCO head indicated, “as the leadership of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office will remain in dispute until the legality of Defendants’ actions is adjudicated on the merits.

“It would best serve judicial economy and the interests of the parties to proceed to final judgment,” the plaintiff summed up.

That refers specifically to a desired June 5th deadline for the actual summary judgement motion, a June 12th cutoff for the defendants’ response, and four days thereafter for Perlmutter’s reply.

However, if “expedited summary judgment is unavailable,” Perlmutter would like “an opportunity” to hammer out the aforementioned preliminary injunction schedule, per the legal document.

As highlighted, the Trump administration isn’t on board with the quick-moving schedule, which it formally opposed in a filing today.

“But there is nothing ‘pressing’ about a legal issue remaining ‘in dispute’ until an adjudication on the merits after a case has run its normal course,” the Justice Department penned.

“That is true of all litigation, but that fact does not give every plaintiff a right to expedited proceedings,” the Trump administration continued. “And it especially should not here, where this Court recognized in denying the motion for a temporary restraining order that Plaintiff has failed to show that any of the purported harms she identified are either irreparable or imminent.”

Besides rejecting the rapid-fire schedule, the court shouldn’t entertain Perlmutter’s above-described request to cement a preliminary injunction timetable, the defendants said in more words.

“This Court gave Plaintiff that opportunity already,” the DOJ wrote, “but rather than propose a schedule for preliminary injunction briefing to Defendants, Plaintiff filed her present motion. That is no doubt because Plaintiff does not believe she could obtain a preliminary injunction given this Court’s holding that she has failed to show the irreparable harm necessary for emergency injunctive relief.”

How, then, should the case proceed? According to the Trump administration, a June 5th “or later” summary judgement cutoff for the plaintiff would be suitable, followed by a three-week window for an opposition response and a cross-motion for summary judgement.

From there, Team Perlmutter would have another three weeks yet to respond, with the defendants’ reply in support of the summary judgement cross-motion due within two more weeks.

At the time of writing, the court hadn’t weighed in on the opposing views. Despite the benefit of frequent updates thus far, though, it’s possible that the case will spin out over weeks (if not months should a full legal proceeding take place).

Among other things, the window could bring with it the appointment of permanent Library and Copyright Office heads – and, in turn, fresh legal questions as well as a variety of considerations for the music space.

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) headquarters in Seoul. Photo Credit: Wikiwater2020

The trading-focused investigations into Hybe founder Bang Si-hyuk and other execs look to be intensifying. According to regional reports, authorities have conducted a raid of the K-pop giant’s Seoul headquarters.

As things stand, we don’t know the precise extent of these investigations. However, it’s been nearly six months since local media first linked Bang to scrutiny concerning alleged private-equity side deals executed ahead of his company’s 2020 IPO.

Evidently, this scrutiny isn’t letting up. Yesterday, we broke down the status of the reported allegations – and explored the situation’s possible impact on BTS’ full-group comeback.

Long story short, the Financial Supervisory Service is reportedly considering an expedited referral of the Bang case to prosecutors. And a separate police investigation into the same matter is said to be ongoing as well.

(Regarding all the “reportedly” and “is said to be” usages: Technically, Bang and the appropriate authorities have yet to comment publicly on the subject. Related details are trickling out through anonymous sources via South Korean outlets.)

Not coincidentally, information about the initially mentioned Hybe HQ raid emerged on the heels of the media-fueled update on Bang’s case.

According to the Korea Times, Seoul Southern District prosecutors searched Hybe’s office in connection with insider-trading allegations against a different exec.

The higher-up, whose name remains undisclosed, is reportedly accused of pocketing roughly $175,000 in profits by capitalizing on knowledge of Hybe’s YG Plus investment plans in 2021. Unsurprisingly, the latter entity’s shares (KRX: 037270) spiked in value after Hybe purchased almost 18% of the business.

Back to the allegations against Bang, per the Korea Herald, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has submitted a distinct search-warrant request to prosecutors over the IPO-fraud claims.

And while it probably doesn’t need saying, it’ll be worth keeping an eye out for this comparatively important raid and any adjacent revelations. Also more or less implied is that Hybe is cooperating with the investigations, regional outlets summed up.

In the bigger picture, though the situation appears serious, it certainly isn’t without precedent. During 2024 alone, authorities arrested Kakao’s billionaire founder on stock-manipulation charges stemming from the SM Entertainment takeover battle – after raiding the main offices of both SM and Kakao in 2023.

Meanwhile, YG founder and exec Yang Hyun-suk was indicted last year for allegedly failing to declare a pair of high-end wristwatches upon returning to Korea a decade prior.

Bearing all that in mind, Hybe investors don’t seem too bothered at present. Shares (KRX: 352820) dipped about 2% during today’s trading but, at $193/₩266,000 a pop, are still up approximately 36% since 2025’s start.

Rodney Jerkins, who’s sold an interest in his work to HarbourView. Photo Credit: HarbourView

Let the IP acquisitions continue: HarbourView Equity Partners has officially purchased “select catalog assets” from veteran producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins.

HarbourView disclosed the deal today – albeit without getting too specific about the precise song rights at hand or the transaction’s price tag. However, the Newark-headquartered firm in its formal release did emphasize that the play “was facilitated by” Sweden’s Chapter Two, which rebranded from Anotherblock late last year.

The still-live website homepage of Anotherblock not-so-subtly touts the producer credits under 47-year-old Jerkins’ belt. Just in passing, that includes contributions to releases from Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, SZA, and several others.

Furthermore, in operating as Chapter Two, the business has pivoted from NFT music investments to developing catalog-acquisition tech, the appropriate site shows. In a February 2025 announcement that largely flew under the radar, Chapter Two said it’d sold songwriter interests in tracks from Lil Nas X and BTS for a total of over $6 million.

The “proprietary Royalty Engine normalizes and enriches financial data and forecasts future earnings through predictive royalty modeling, making catalog transactions quicker and more reliable for all parties,” Chapter Two summed up of its offering.

Evidently, the Engine is gaining at least some traction. Especially because HarbourView is hardly a stranger to catalog deals, it’ll be worth tracking Chapter Two’s presence in the volume-heavy space moving forward.

DMN reached out to HarbourView for additional insight here – including, in light of its dealmaking frequency, whether it has a stake in Chapter Two itself – but didn’t immediately receive a response.

In a statement, though, HarbourView head Sherrese Clarke applauded the career accomplishments of Jerkins; the “legendary” creator, for his part, had positive things to say about working with HarbourView and Chapter Two.

“HarbourView truly understands the value of music and the people who create it,” he weighed in. “Music creators deserve respect and clarity when it comes to selling their life’s work, and working with both HarbourView and Chapter Two has made that process feel seamless.”

And in remarks of his own, Chapter Two CEO Michel Traore described the perceived significance of the IP sale for the broader music sector.

“This transaction is a clear sign that creators are realizing the true value of their work faster and more transparently than ever before,” added Traore. “Rodney is setting a new benchmark in the industry, and we thank HarbourView for their vision in working with us.”

The E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, where the lawsuit filed by former USCO head Shira Perlmutter is unfolding. Photo Credit: Toohool

A federal judge has rejected a request from Shira Perlmutter for a restraining order against the Trump administration. But the fired Register of Copyrights could be preparing to push for a separate preliminary injunction.

Both developments came to light in docket updates following a related in-person hearing. Per one of the updates, Judge Timothy Kelly denied Perlmutter’s sought temporary restraining order; among different things, the former Copyright Office head is looking to be restored to the post, we previously noted.

However, if Shira Perlmutter intends to seek the aforementioned preliminary injunction, the parties should “meet, confer, and submit a joint proposed briefing schedule,” the court also ordered.

This briefing-schedule order has a 2 PM PST deadline today, but at the time of writing, the appropriate document hadn’t made its way into the docket. In other words, the dispute appears poised for additional deliberation from here.

And while it probably goes without saying, it’ll be worth closely tracking the challenge moving forward. As broken down in detail by DMN Pro, evidence (including the Supreme Court decision allowing the removal of National Labor Relations Board Chair Gwynne Wilcox) suggests that reinstatement might be unlikely for Perlmutter.

Nevertheless, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility, and high-stakes Copyright Office questions are unanswered in any event.

First, the precise views of the current acting appointees – including Deputy AG Todd Blanche at the helm of the overarching Library of Congress – remain to be seen. Though there’s quite a lot to consider in this department, most of the recent framing has concerned the government’s stance on AI.

Probably not coincidentally, Perlmutter’s dismissal arrived on the heels of a Copyright Office report pertaining to artificial intelligence training. But as DMN has noted, if their prior comments are any indication, the acting Library and Copyright Office appointees aren’t exactly Big Tech proponents.

Thus, it’ll be interesting to monitor their approach to ever-pressing questions at the intersection of AI and IP. Also far from set in stone is whether they’ll stay aboard for the foreseeable future or make way for permanent replacements.

Of course, another Copyright Office overhaul would bring with it a fresh collection of considerations for a variety of sectors, chief among them the music industry.

A live performance from Dirty Heads, which has sold “publishing and artist royalties” to Round Hill Music. Photo Credit: Constantino14

Back in “acquisition mode,” Round Hill Music has scooped up “a range of different rights and income streams,” among them interests in Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and Icona Pop’s “I Love It.”

Round Hill reached out with word of the plays today. Beginning on the compositional side, the UK-based IP investor now owns the publishing catalogs of Terry Shaddick, Linus Eklöw, and Carmine Appice.

Shaddick co-wrote Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” (1981), which Doja Cat interpolated in “Kiss Me More.” Besides having a credit on the latter, Shaddick is billed as a songwriter on Benson Boone’s even more recent “Mystical Magical,” which also incorporated “Physical.”

Next, Swedish DJ Linus Eklöw, better known as Style of Eye, has sold his “full catalog of songs” to Round Hill. That pile of IP extends to Icona Pop’s “I Love It” as well as much-streamed dance efforts like Galantis’ “Runaway (U & I)” and “No Money,” the buyer indicated. (Eklöw was at one time a member of Galantis.)

Lastly, in terms of complete-catalog pick-ups, King Kobra and Vanilla Fudge vet Carmine Appice has drummed on a variety of commercially prominent releases.

And his work with Rod Stewart (on 1977’s Foot Loose & Fancy Free, ‘78’s Blondes Have More Fun, ‘80’s Foolish Behaviour, and ‘81’s Tonight I’m Yours) includes writing contributions to “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” as well as “Young Turks,” to name a couple.

Reggae rock group Dirty Heads, for its part, has cashed in on “publishing and artist royalties.” All told, the group behind “Vacation” has released eight studio albums since arriving on the scene decades back.

Finally, Scotland-born Al Stewart, most widely recognized for 1976’s “Year of the Cat,” has sold “a selection of…master rights” to Round Hill, which is managing five private funds at present.

While Round Hill didn’t come right out and disclose the transactions’ price-tag particulars, it did note that the deals boosted its portfolio’s cumulative value back past the $1 billion mark.

And in a statement, CEO Josh Gruss touted the involved IP’s perceived “potential for further monetization.”

“From timeless pop hits to reggae rock, yacht rock and electronic music, these catalogs contain songs with proven commercial success,” Gruss said in part.

“Spanning different genres and eras, these songs have huge potential for further monetization across streaming, film, advertising and much more. … Tracks like ‘Physical’ go to the very heart of Round Hill’s strategy – finding and celebrating songs which can continue to resonate with new generations long after their original release,” he proceeded.

Wannasee Limited has shut down and canceled a number of its music festivals. Photo Credit: Adrià Sánchez Roqué

The UK’s Wannasee Limited has confirmed that it “will not be able to continue” operating, and the development has resulted in nearly a dozen festival cancellations.

Wannasee announced the unfortunate news on its website and in a media statement, after pulling the plug on the namesake Wannasee Festivals last week. One of those cancellations was made official at the last minute; Wannasee South had been scheduled for May 26th, with Wannasee Penrith teed up for late August.

(Additionally, Wannasee last year put the Penrith festival on ice, explaining then that “the ground conditions are not in a fit state for this to occur without substantial damage to the site.”)

Before nixing the May event, however, organizers acknowledged “growing speculation regarding the status of this year’s festival.” And prior to putting out the 11th-hour notice, Wannasee on May 14th seemingly changed its name to 08076670 Limited upon entering receivership, Companies House docs show.

Bearing in mind the latter detail, The Northern Echo and other outlets across the pond are pointing to 11 total festival cancellations stemming from Wannasee’s implosion.

“It is with deep regret that we confirm Wannasee Ltd will not be able to continue,” the company elaborated on this front, “and we must announce the cancellation of the following festivals: Kubix and Monument Festivals in Sunderland, Wannasee Penrith and Wannasee South, Jukebox Sunderland and Jukebox Bingley, Sign of the Times, Stone Valley South, Stone Valley Midlands and Stone Valley North.

“We are hopeful, however, that positive discussions currently underway may preserve Lindisfarne Festival and Northern Kin, and we wish them all the very best,” continued Wannasee.

Lindisfarne Festival organizers, still set to deliver a late-August event featuring The Fratellis and more, took to Instagram to inform fans of “work going on behind the scenes to ensure that” the happening proceeds. And Northern Kin, booked for early August, posted the same message (albeit with the appropriate event name) on its own Instagram page.

“Although we are unable to respond to individual emails and messages at the moment, we thank you all for your patience and we hope to have a full update for you as soon as possible,” both wrote.

Meanwhile, refunds for the shelved festivals are rather unsurprisingly a big focus for the impacted customers and vendors. With Wannasee’s brief remarks here having evidently failed to assuage related concerns, a number of passholders are speaking out on social media.

“To all of our ticket holders: we are truly sorry,” Wannasee weighed in on the ticketing side. “We understand your disappointment and frustration. Please contact your ticket provider or card issuer for refund information.”

In the bigger picture, the cancellations mark the latest in a long line of axed festivals. At the intersection of continued cost considerations, consumer-spending woes, and adjacent factors, more than 170 mega-events were called off or otherwise failed to take place in 2024, DMN Pro tracked.

Signs of the disconcerting trend have carried on into the current year: Travis Kelce’s Kelce Jam festival has opted against hosting a 2025 edition in favor of “planning ahead for 2026.” And even well-entrenched festival players like Coachella are grappling with sales slowdowns.

(l to r) Warner Chappell France senior A&R exec Valentin Zucca, Bob Sinclar, and Warner Chappell France MD Matthieu Tessier. Photo Credit: Warner Music

Bob Sinclar (real name Christophe Le Friant), the DJ behind perennial dance hit “World Hold On,” has inked a global admin and sub-publishing deal with Warner Chappell.

The publisher and the Paris-born “dance legend” announced their agreement today. As described by those parties, the tie-up extends to north of “350 works written or composed by Sinclar, and published or co-published by Mighty Bop Sessions.”

Besides the aforementioned “World Hold On” – which released in 2006 and has racked up somewhere in the ballpark of one billion Spotify streams across all versions – these efforts include “Love Generation,” “The Beat Goes On,” and “Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now),” to name a few.

“I’m very excited about this new journey with Warner Chappell Music,” added 56-year-old Sinclar, who last week dropped a new EP via his Yellow Productions label. “Their entire team has been incredibly motivated and I’m sure we will do great things together!”

And in remarks of his own, Warner Chappell France A&R higher-up Valentin Zucca touted Sinclar as “representative of the French Touch.”

“Bob Sinclar is a fervent representative of the French Touch, a true tastemaker who has always made a point of crossing borders,” indicated the six-year Warner Chappell exec, whose company scored a deal with Diplo one month back. “His music, and what he did for the dance culture, had a major influence on a whole generation of listeners and artists.”

Rounding out the remarks, Warner Chappell France MD Matthieu Tessier summed up: “Warner Chappell Music is proud to become his publishing partner and to represent worldwide such an iconic catalog.”

In the bigger picture, Warner Chappell’s Sinclar signing represents the latest in a long line of moves in and around the evidently lucrative dance space.

During the past year or so, said moves have included Reservoir’s acquisition of the U.K.’s New State (complete with a massive recorded catalog) and Create Music’s purchase of 50% of Enhanced Music.

Meanwhile, Believe last year bought 25% of Global Records, with not-so-subtle plans to build the Romanian label into “a global leader in dance music.”

And Armada Music’s BEAT continues to close all manner of investments. In March, for instance, the self-billed “world’s first dance music investment company” confirmed it’d acquired “a large portion of masters from Tiga.”

A live performance from Metallica, which has achieved 20x Platinum certification with The Black Album. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

Metallica’s self-titled 1991 album (aka The Black Album) has officially moved 20 million units in the U.S., achieving 20x Platinum certification – and 2x Diamond certification – in the process.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) officially logged those certifications today, a couple months short of the 34th anniversary of Metallica’s release. Unsurprisingly, given that the 12-track effort debuted as the CD era was picking up steam, a substantial portion of its sales derived from physical units shipped during the prior century.

However, The Black Album – including “Enter Sandman” and “Nothing Else Matters” – continues to ride a wave of consumption success in the streaming era. Certified 12x Platinum in late 1999, Metallica achieved 15x Platinum certification in November 2009 and 16x in December 2012 before cracking double Diamond today.

(Of course, the project’s recent sales aren’t confined to digital. The remastered 30th anniversary edition of The Black Album definitely contributed to the total, including but not solely with a $240 boxset that remains available for purchase on Metallica’s website.)

Thanks to today’s milestone, Metallica is now close to ranking among the top-10 bestselling albums in U.S. history. As things stand, the work is sharing the 12th spot with Green Day’s Dookie (1994), behind a handful of releases from Billy Joel, the Beatles, AC/DC, the Eagles, and other decidedly well-established legacy acts.

Meanwhile, the RIAA today confirmed 8x Platinum certification for Metallica’s Master of Puppets (1986), which initially made its way into the Platinum category 37 years ago en route to hitting 6x Platinum in 2003.

Taken as a whole, these and different commercial feats tie back to still-strong fan interest for Metallica, which is on the road as part of its M72 World Tour.

Currently proceeding through the States, the concert series will arrive in Oceania later in 2025 before a number of European stops (non-presale tickets will become available this Friday) take place in 2026. (Already touring with Metallica, Pantera will also play the M72 Tour’s European leg, the group recently announced.)

With ample superfan support comes the opportunity to move ultra-VIP packages. Passes for the “Nothing Else Matters” Snake Pit Experience, offering meet-and-greet opportunities as well as a variety of other perks, are priced at an astonishing $4,400 a pop not including fees, Metallica’s website shows.

Per the same source, the band has sold through the expensive passes (which are presumably far more resistant to scalping than their non-VIP counterparts) for several dates.

The Trump administration is firing back against a lawsuit filed by axed Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter. Photo Credit: Tabrez Syed

An intensifying battle for USCO control: The Trump administration is firing back against the lawsuit filed by axed Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter.  

We first covered that lawsuit (including a push for reinstatement) last week, and DMN Pro yesterday took an in-depth look at Perlmutter’s largely procedural action. Long story short: the former Copyright Office head maintains that the Library of Congress is part of the legislative, not the executive, branch, and is therefore off limits to the President.

Consequently, per Perlmutter’s complaint, President Trump’s dismissal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden is “unlawful.” (Among other things, said Librarian is tasked with appointing the Register of Copyrights.)

And in Perlmutter’s view, since Hayden’s firing is allegedly unlawful, the acting replacement (Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche) lacks the authority to boot her (Perlmutter) at all.

Perlmutter’s complaint contains several relief requests, the most noteworthy being a sought injunction declaring that she “may not be removed from her office as Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, or in any way be treated as having been removed.”

Enter the Trump administration’s initially highlighted opposition to Perlmutter’s requested restraining order.

As described by the newer legal document, because the Library of Congress “is part of the Executive Branch and is subject to presidential control” under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA), “[t]he President had the power to remove the Librarian and designate an acting replacement.”

But even in the absence of the FVRA, “the President’s power to designate Mr. Blanche comes from the Constitution, not any statute,” per the defendants.

Following the idea to its logical conclusion, Perlmutter’s firing was lawful, and the presiding judge should deny the restraining order motion, according to the Trump administration.

“Because Mr. Blanche is properly serving as acting Librarian,” the legal text reads, “he had clear authority to remove the Register of Copyrights, as he did in designating Paul Perkins as acting Register. In addition, the President removed the Register directly—a removal that likewise is within his constitutional power where, as at that time, there is no Librarian.”

On cue, Perlmutter’s legal team submitted a reply supporting the restraining order motion and opposing the defendants’ above-described arguments. In brief, the follow-up mainly builds on the existing central position that the executive branch lacks the authority to dismiss the Librarian.

“Historical practice confirms that the President lacks any inherent authority to fill vacancies in principal offices,” the retort claims.

“Because the FVRA does not confer authority on the President to appoint an officer to temporarily perform the functions of the Librarian of Congress, the President’s appointment of Mr. Blanche was ultra vires,” the filing proceeds.

Suffice to say that it’ll be worth closely monitoring the courtroom confrontation – and especially the near-term trajectory of Perlmutter’s crack at reinstatement.

As explored in detail by DMN Pro’s aforementioned report, while evidence points to longshot odds of Perlmutter’s taking the USCO reins once again, the music industry may still be able to record IP wins under the new Copyright Office guard.

Also important is the “acting” nature of this guard; it remains to be seen who will serve as Librarian and Register on a permanent basis and when they’ll begin doing so.

Stockholm, Sweden, where MAIA Universe (previously Freshsound) is headquartered. Photo Credit: Anna Hunko

Stockholm-based sync platform MAIA Universe (formerly Freshsound) has scored north of $1.13 million in funding from backers including Max Martin.

MAIA Universe CEO David Wille confirmed the €1 million raise — and the MxM owner Martin’s support — on LinkedIn. According to that disclosure, Stockholm VC Zenith Ventures, another existing stakeholder in Aligned Ventures, and several others yet likewise participated.

The Kobalt vet Wille – who joined MAIA shortly following the exit of co-founder and COO Sara Larsson – also touted his current company’s agreements with Sony Music UK, Warner Chappell, and self-described “leading independent” Playground Music.

(Per her LinkedIn profile, Larsson is currently CEO of Northfork, which says it makes “recipes and meal plans shoppable through customized technology solutions.” Separately, MAIA’s board has added former Netflix Nordics comms higher-up Malin Cumzelius.)

As things stand, MAIA Universe’s licensing offering is said to feature over 9,000 songs recorded by more than 2,200 artists. Recent placements include Alphaville’s “A Victory of Love” in a Polestar spot as well as Gabriels’ “Remember Me” in an advert for David Beckham’s BOSS collection, the website indicates.

With today’s funding influx, Freshsound/MAIA Universe has secured the better part of $5 million in publicly confirmed capital, data from DMN Pro’s Music Industry Funding Tracker shows.

And in the bigger picture, against the backdrop of AI’s rapid ascent, it probably goes without saying that competition is stiffer than ever in the sync arena. For prolific musicians smartly matching their music against placement opportunities, however, organization is key — especially given the tight turnaround times and quick changes often demanded by music supervisors.

“Managing files should never be a barrier to creativity,” explains Vivek Patel, CEO of OmMuse, a platform that enables artists to securely manage track versions, collaborate with anyone across the globe, and easily distribute their tracks. “A well-structured storage system prevents lost tracks, endless file versions, and workflow interruptions—allowing artists to stay focused on making music.”

Back to the financial picture at MAIA: in its coverage of MAIA Universe’s newly obtained capital, Sweden’s Breakit pointed to 2023 turnover of SEK 800,000 (currently $83,085) for the platform.

That same year, the startup is said to have experienced “a negative result of just over SEK 9 million” ($934,748 at present).

Bearing in mind these numbers and the well-entrenched positioning of certain sync players, Amsterdam’s Ringo earlier in May rolled out a fresh beta version. As summed up by execs, the improved product includes a “Sync Search Assistant button” that is acting as a “precursor to an upcoming recommendation engine.”

Meanwhile, Lickd is apparently pulling out all the stops with a “Brand New Affiliate Scheme” under which it says one can “earn $25 for every successful referral.” A cursory glance at the appropriate terms shows that “successful referral” does, in fact, refer to any instance when creators sign up and pay for the service via one of the relevant links.

A live performance from SM Entertainment act Aespa. Photo Credit: Plumflower Snow

Hybe has officially moved to sell its remaining SM Entertainment stake – encompassing almost 10% of the rival K-pop agency – to Tencent for north of $175 million.

The Big Hit parent disclosed the sizable selloff in a regulatory filing, which regional outlets promptly covered. According to the document, Hybe intends to exit its SM position altogether, exchanging 2.21 million remaining shares for a cool ₩243.35 billion (currently $176.85 million).

Per Google’s translation of the same text, the trade will take place after the market closes this coming Friday, May 30th. While Hybe doesn’t appear to have identified the precise reasons behind the selloff – its second such divestment in a year – the writing has been on the wall for some time.

To be sure, the Belift Lab owner only secured an interest in SM as part of an ugly takeover battle. Kakao, itself partially owned by Tencent, ultimately emerged victorious in that much-publicized showdown.

Post-takeover confrontation, there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason for Hybe to possess a piece of SM. Notably, the forthcoming stock sale will bring a per-share price of $79.94/₩110,000, up from $65.40/₩90,000 or so when Hybe shaved about 3% of its SM position in May 2024.

(Earlier in 2024, however, Hybe had purchased close to 900,000 different SM shares from founder Lee Soo Man.)

On the opposite side of the transaction, Tencent Music’s latest earnings report emphasized the company’s growing number of tie-ups and artist-specific initiatives in K-pop. Among those initiatives are Babymonster’s “debut pop-up store in mainland China” and Aespa’s “first-ever exhibition” in China, to name a couple.

Against this backdrop – and bearing in mind the relevant talent’s global appeal – it’s not a bad idea for Tencent proper to pick up an SM interest. And the investment may well be indicative of the Universal Music stakeholder’s music-space strategy moving forward.

(Plus, maintaining a positive professional relationship with Tencent won’t hurt Hybe, which is continuing to push into gaming. As something of an aside, it’s worth noting that Hybe chairman Bang Si-hyuk’s cousin Bang Jun-hyuk is the founder of South Korean mobile-gaming giant Netmarble, about 18% of which belongs to Tencent.)

When trading wrapped today, SM Entertainment stock (KOSDAQ: 041510) was down 2.1% at $94.40/₩129,900 per share; the price still represents a nearly 82% boost from 2025’s beginning. Hybe stock (KRX: 352820), in part due to the expansion-minded business’s strong Q1 financials, is also up big on the year.

Downtown Music Publishing Africa managing director Thando Makhunga. Photo Credit: Seventwo Creative Agency

Another high-profile expansion in Africa – this time from Downtown, which has rebranded its Sheer Publishing Africa subsidiary as Downtown Music Publishing Africa (DMP Africa).

Downtown reached out with word of South Africa-based Sheer’s new identity and broader operational scope. On the former front, the name change is said to be indicative of “a deeper alignment with the global vision of Downtown,” which bought 29-year-old Sheer in 2020.

“Our new name reflects our ability to plug directly into Downtown’s global expertise,” added DMP Africa MD Thando Makhunga, “while staying rooted in the nuances of the African music landscape. We’re expanding our scope and partnering with major global companies to deliver tailored, transparent, and future-forward services.”

Among DMP Africa’s existing partners are Warner Chappell, Concord, and Saregama, besides a number of indie publishers operating throughout Africa, the company relayed.

Per higher-ups, the transition from Sheer to Downtown Music Publishing Africa (which will retain its “same dedicated local team”) is also “more than a visual refresh.”

Here, DMP Africa is teeing up “an expanded suite of services,” among them neighboring rights admin and the implementation of Downtown’s Curve royalty accounting system.

Furthermore, the newly named division will “be moving away from outdated contracts to build agreements designed around each creator’s unique goals,” Downtown confirmed. Though time will tell exactly what this transition entails, CEO Pieter van Rijn drove home plans to double down on “long-term, equitable partnerships.”

“This marks an important new chapter in our presence across Africa, a region rich in creativity, culture, and talent,” van Rijn specified. “DMP Africa reflects our belief in the region’s creative power and our responsibility to support its continued expansion.

“By partnering local expertise with global access and investing in long-term, equitable partnerships, we will ensure that talent from across the African diaspora is rewarded on a global scale,” the Downtown head concluded.

Moving forward, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on the commercial byproducts of those partnerships – especially given the growth behind several African music markets and the often-discussed sales potential of promoting domestic releases globally.

Of course, Downtown isn’t alone in looking to capitalize on this growth by bolstering its reach in Africa. Earlier in 2025, Warner Music Group opted to scoop up the remainder of Africori (in which it already had majority ownership), and Universal Music Group in 2024 took a controlling interest in Lagos’ Mavin Global.

Producer Deezle (Darius Harrison), who’s filed a missing-royalties lawsuit against Universal Music, posing with his Grammys from Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III. Photo Credit: Claudio Ch Zayas

Lil Wayne producer Deezle (real name Darius Harrison) is suing Universal Music for allegedly failing to pay him millions in due royalties from Tha Carter III (2008) and more.

Deezle and his Drum Major Music Entertainment company just recently submitted the multifaceted lawsuit to a New York federal court. This time around, Universal Music Group (UMG) is the only defendant.

14 years back, however, Deezle levied a similar action against Lil Wayne himself; the involved parties settled in 2012. Despite the resolution – more on this in a moment – the producer is evidently unready to put his royalty qualms in the rearview.

As recapped in the newly filed lawsuit, after scoring a 2004 Cash Money Records producer deal and producing “Weezy Baby” on Tha Carter II (2005), Deezle went on to ink a producer agreement with Lil Wayne-founded Young Money Entertainment in late 2007.

Under the newer contract, the producer then contributed to six Tha Carter III tracks, among them “Lollipop.”

Per the plaintiffs, Young Money agreed to provide “no less than semi-annual accounting statements reflecting all royalties accrued” as part of the tie-up. Plus, Young Money’s distributor, Cash Money, was said to be compelled to account to the filing parties “directly and at the same time it” accounted to Young Money.

In terms of where Universal Music fits into the picture, stated concisely, the major has long handled Cash Money’s distribution. And Lil Wayne reportedly sold the Young Money catalog to UMG for $100 million in 2020.

Consequently, Young Money (as well as Cash Money and, in turn, UMG) is allegedly compelled to forward to Deezle and his company the appropriate “4 percent royalty rate” on the above-outlined Tha Carter III efforts.

Unsurprisingly, in light of the just-levied complaint, these payments have purportedly failed to come through.

“In a shocking, willful and intentional breach of the YME Producer Agreement,” the plaintiffs summed up, “YME failed to [account to] Harrison pursuant to the YME Producer Agreement and UMG has breached the agreement by failing to report and pay royalites [sic] for over a decade.”

Additionally, regarding the aforesaid 2004 Cash Money producer pact, Deezle has pointed to allegedly unpaid royalties for his six credits on Birdman’s Fast Money (2005), besides the “Shorty Bounce” track Lil Wayne recorded for The Longest Yard.

Back to the previously highlighted settlement, Universal Music is said to have started “sending royalty statements to” Deezle after the prior suit’s 2012 resolution. But the major allegedly “ceased sending” those statements “[a]lmost immediately” thereafter.

“UMG administers the payments to producers, artists and songwriters relating to the masters at issue and has failed to pay Plaintiffs,” the filing parties summed up. “Plaintiffs have not been paid any producer royalites [sic] associated with the YME Producer Agreement or CMR Producer Agreement for over a decade.”

While this suit’s timing is likely to take center stage as the legal battle plays out, Deezle is seeking at least $6 million in damages for the allegedly missing royalties. And in the bigger picture, the producer has joined the likes of Iggy Azalea and Limp Bizkit in formally accusing the major of failing to pay royalties.

An Eras Tour performance from Taylor Swift, whose original catalog might be changing hands once again. Photo Credit: Paolo V

Shamrock Capital is actively looking to offload Taylor Swift’s original masters – at least according to one new report, which is attaching an astonishing price tag to the possible deal.

Page Six’s Jeanette Settembre provided an overview of the rumored catalog divestment, though at the time of this writing, Shamrock didn’t seem to have commented publicly on the matter. Nor had the billionaire Swift, to whom the investment firm is reportedly being encouraged to sell the IP, weighed in.

However, judging by the mentioned piece’s framing and pricing details, it isn’t too difficult to guess which parties are forwarding related information to the media. As laid out by the report, none other than Scooter Braun is encouraging Shamrock (in which RidgeLake and Bonaccord took a stake in 2022) to sell the masters to Swift.

That refers to the recordings behind Swift’s first six albums, which, as described by the report, would carry a “price tag…in the ballpark of $600 million to $1 billion.”

Even the low end here, many will recognize at once, is substantially more than the $300 million or so that Shamrock reportedly paid Braun and Carlyle Group for the recordings back in November 2020.

Runaway inflation and sustained career success or not, it’s unclear whether the massive return is a realistic objective or a means of setting the negotiating tone, particularly given Swift’s “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings of the same works.

Not only are those re-recordings doing huge numbers on streaming, but thanks to Swift’s reach and professional connections, they’re the renditions making their way into programs like The Handmaid’s Tale, trailers, high-profile ad campaigns, and more.

(Per reports, Universal Music didn’t hesitate to modify its artist agreements to avoid re-recording fiascos down the line.)

On the ownership front, the competing catalogs tie back to a collection of complications that don’t exactly scream “billion-dollar deal” – especially since Swift herself is presumably far from eager to cough up the high-end sum for the recordings.

(Shifting the focus to the opposite side of the potential transaction once more, the commercial possibilities associated with authorizing AI training on the original masters is worth considering as well.)

Price-tag questions aside, it seems plausible that Shamrock, mainly for the above-outlined reasons but also in light of its increasingly varied song-rights holdings, may be receptive to selling. And as Swift certainly isn’t hard up for cash, it’ll be interesting to see whether she’s open to a deal and, assuming so, whether the parties can hammer out mutually satisfactory terms.

A nighttime shot of Seoul, South Korea. Photo Credit: Yohan Cho

YouTube looks to have resolved a bundling-focused investigation in South Korea, where the platform reportedly intends to launch its Premium Lite subscription.

Local outlets shed light on the resolution, which will seemingly end a years-long Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) probe. As we reported last month, the investigation centered on YouTube Premium’s music streaming market impact.

At present, Premium (offering ad-free access to YouTube proper and Music) is available for $10.87/₩14,900⁠ per month in South Korea, where close to 90% of the population actively uses YouTube. That’s compared to $8.75/₩11,990⁠ per month for Music, and unsurprisingly, many have opted to pay the extra $2 monthly for across-the-board viewing without ads.

But according to critics and the KFTC, this model means YouTube’s leveraging its video-sharing dominance at the expense of on-demand streaming platforms. With little incentive for Premium subscribers to utilize different music services, the likes of Melon and more have reportedly suffered material market-share slips in recent years.

And it’s safe to say that the competitive landscape is also compelling international players to adapt. Having previously offered only paid plans in South Korea, Spotify embraced an ad-supported tier in October 2024.

Now, however, the YouTube Music rivals may catch something of a break with the rollout of Premium Lite.

Per BusinessKorea, the KFTC has signed off on a YouTube proposal under which Lite would go live in the nation of 52 million. Technically resurrected last year, Lite costs less than Premium but excludes Music and doesn’t afford ad-free access to music videos on YouTube itself, to name a couple differences.

According to the same outlet, Lite will operate alongside Premium; at least in theory, YouTube diehards might migrate from Premium to Lite and then turn elsewhere for music streaming if so inclined.

On the other hand, some have acknowledged the distinct possibility that the cheaper plan will help YouTube entrench its already-advantageous position in South Korea. And as described by The Chosun Daily, certain domestic streaming players are criticizing the resolution as ineffective when it comes to reversing the above-outlined market-share trends.

In any event, this resolution will further see YouTube put up $21.89 million (₩30 billion) for a fund benefiting “consumer welfare” as well as the South Korean music industry.

Separately, the aforementioned Spotify is among the platforms still grappling with KFTC investigations of their own.

Ticketing platform XP has announced a $6.2 million raise. Photo Credit: Jessica Christian

Web3 ticketing platform XP has announced a $6.2 million raise and doubled down on plans “to build the most fulfilling ticketing experience for fans.”

The year-old ticket-resale marketplace unveiled the funding in a blog post as well as a formal release. Founded and led by former Grubhub exec Michael Saunders, XP says it “puts fans first with transparent, fair-market prices and tech-forward ticketing innovations.”

Now, the company has a cool $6.2 million at its disposal to continue expanding those innovations, among them an AI-powered price-comparison extension.

New York City-based Blockchange Ventures, which per its website backs “founders with visions as big and bold as the Blockchain itself,” led XP’s latest raise. Additionally, the round drew support from crypto-minded investment manager L1D and David Kalk’s Reflexive Capital.

Addressing his business’s raise, the XP head Saunders called out the many competitors operating in the evidently lucrative ticketing space.

“Buying tickets shouldn’t feel like you’re getting taken advantage of,” said Saunders, who’s also at the helm of Captain Labs, the Solana-focused tech studio behind XP.

“Fandom is an integral part of a person’s identity, and yet most platforms treat fans like transactions. We believe fans deserve better—and that starts with recognizing and rewarding fans’ loyalty and passion,” concluded Saunders, whose platform is said to boast “millions of dollars in annualized ticket sales.”

While there’s certainly something to be said for rewarding fans, logic suggests that lowering prices is the best way to stand out in the increasingly crowded live-entertainment arena. On this front, XP indicated that its model means customers can “save up to 30%…compared to the same seats listed on other resale marketplaces.”

As things stand, these resale marketplaces aren’t limited to well-entrenched players like Live Nation’s Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, the possibly-for-sale Vivid Seats, and StubHub.

Back in August 2024, TickPick scored a cool quarter of a billion dollars in funding, and the U.K.’s Seat Unique announced a close to $20 million extended Series A. Then, Amsterdam’s Celebratix in November pulled down about $1.2 million and emphasized a goal of bringing its blockchain tech to several international markets.

In other words, competition is fiercer than ever in ticketing, where regulatory scrutiny isn’t letting up. Most conspicuously, that refers to the DOJ’s apparently ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

But the same companies are also the subject of at least one government crackdown across the pond. Returning to the States, a DOJ inquiry into “unfair and anticompetitive” live/ticketing practices is in full swing, and not-so-subtle anonymous sources have pointed to a possible criminal antitrust probe targeting Live Nation and AEG alike.

YouTube Content ID payouts crossed the $12 billion mark in December 2024, according to a new report. Photo Credit: ilgmyzin

After cracking 125 million Music and Premium subscribers, YouTube has reported making a cumulative $12 billion in Content ID payouts as of December 2024.

The multibillion-dollar figure emerged in the video platform’s newly released “YouTube Copyright Transparency Report.” As laid out in the concise document, the sum reflects advert “revenue paid to rightsholders as of December 2024 from content claimed and monetized through Content ID.”

As a whole, YouTube indicated that these rightsholders (Content ID is said to have “over 7,700 partners”) in 2024 “chose to monetize over 90% of all Content ID claims.” And while the IP owners don’t solely deal in music, it’s safe to say that a significant portion of the monetization stemmed from songs.

“Over 99% of Content ID claims made in 2024 were made through automated detection,” YouTube added, “with partners’ usage of manual options being exceedingly rare (fewer than 0.5% of total claims).”

Next, looking at “the 3 years prior to January 2024,” YouTube said it’d paid north of $70 billion “to creators, artists, and media companies.”

A substantial piece of that payout pie – including both ad revenue and contributions from the aforementioned Music and Premium subs – presumably reached the music world as well.

With all that said, on an individual basis as opposed to a top-level view, one needn’t look hard to find compensation criticism of YouTube, which has long faced complaints pertaining to its per-view rates. And specifically in the music arena, the Google-owned platform has grappled with musician-spearheaded litigation centering on Content ID accessibility qualms.

(“Smaller, independent creators who do not meet the eligibility criteria for Content ID can still access these features through a number of service providers,” YouTube wrote in the report, perhaps with previous courtroom confrontations in mind.)

But the massive payout disclosures are interesting given that plenty of the relevant content wasn’t monetized at all in the not-so-distant past.

In the bigger picture, the data underscores that Spotify, despite its reach and comparatively robust subscriber base, certainly isn’t the only music-monetization player in town.

Keeping the focus on advertising, YouTube ad revenue growth (10.3% year over year to $8.9 billion) once again outpaced its Spotify counterpart (up about 8% year over year to $475.3 million) during Q1 2025.

There are several factors (some adjacent to the music space) at play here – with Spotify’s ongoing video buildout and advertising recalibration worth keeping in mind. Taken as a whole, though, the numbers seemingly attest to YouTube’s inherently advantageous positioning in a video-crazed entertainment landscape.

Fired Copyright Office head Shira Perlmutter, who’s challenging her dismissal in a lawsuit. Photo Credit: USCO

Axed Copyright Office head Shira Perlmutter is suing the Trump administration over her “blatantly unlawful” dismissal – and seeking, among other things, a court order allowing her to remain in the post.

Perlmutter submitted that straightforward complaint yesterday, after she was fired as Register of Copyrights earlier in May. One component of a wider Library of Congress and Copyright Office showdown – more on this in a moment – Perlmutter’s ordered exit arrived days following the firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

In turn, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (one of multiple defendants in the action) was named as Hayden’s replacement on an acting basis. From there, as described by Perlmutter’s action, Blanche “sent two Justice Department officials to the Library of Congress” to begin as the acting Deputy Librarian and acting Register.

Specifically, those DOJ officials are Associate Deputy AG Paul Perkins, tapped to serve as the acting Register of Copyrights, and Blanche’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Brian Nieves (acting Deputy Librarian).

But as the plaintiff sees things, President Trump doesn’t have the “authority to name a temporary replacement Librarian of Congress, much less name a high-ranking DOJ official whose presence offends the constitutional separation of powers.”

“In short, the President’s attempt to name Mr. Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress was unlawful and ineffective, and therefore Mr. Blanche cannot remove or replace Ms. Perlmutter,” the filing party summed up of her position.

Meanwhile, though Perlmutter’s complaint contains several requests for relief, the most noteworthy is that mentioned above, concerning her staying aboard as Register.

The court should “[e]nter a preliminary and permanent injunction ordering that Plaintiff Shira Perlmutter may not be removed from her office as Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office,” the legal text spells out.

Regardless of how Perlmutter’s legal challenge unfolds, it’s safe to say that the broader battle for Copyright Office control involves more than a few moving parts.

In its latest weekly report, DMN Pro broke down the multifaceted situation, which is still replete with unknowns when it comes to policy and, in turn, the optimal approach to lobbying.

Besides the legal questions (and lawsuit) surrounding the shakeup, it remains to be seen whether the aforementioned DOJ officials will stick around in their new posts or soon make way for non-acting replacements.

The timing here is certainly important. Despite the widespread idea that “tech bros” facilitated the Copyright Office and Library of Congress overhaul – Perlmutter’s firing directly followed the release of an AI training report – evidence suggests that the acting replacements are hardly Big Tech proponents.

Spotify execs and board members are still selling company stock, with co-founder Martin Lorentzon having recently cashed in on nearly $660 million worth of SPOT in a single transaction. Photo Credit: Gizmodo

Over $2 billion later, Spotify execs and directors still aren’t finished cashing in on company stock. Now, co-founder Martin Lorentzon has once again parted with SPOT shares, unlocking a more than $665 million windfall in the process.

Lorentzon just recently confirmed his latest Spotify stock (NYSE: SPOT) divestitures in regulatory filings. As many know, said divestitures represent one piece of the selloff picture at the streaming company, shares in which hit a record $669 each on Monday.

DMN Pro crunched the public-disclosure numbers last month and found that higher-ups as well as board members had moved a cumulative $1.8 billion in Spotify stock. Furthermore, bearing in mind SPOT’s 2022 plummet into the $70s, most of those transactions arrived during 2023, 2024, and to this point in 2025.

Enter Martin Lorentzon’s initially mentioned selloff, which started with 11,275 optioned shares on the 16th. That comparatively small transaction brought Lorentzon (who sits on Spotify’s board) about $7.31 million, the relevant document shows.

While nothing to scoff at, the sum pales in comparison to the staggering $658.61 million worth of founder’s shares Lorentzon reported selling via his Rosello Company on the 21st.

All told, then, the 56-year-old sold $665.92 million in Spotify stock across both transactions. Along with a November 2024 sale (also executed via Rosello) totaling $384 million, that means Lorentzon’s shed well over $1 billion in SPOT during the past six or so months.

These and other insider Spotify stock sales raise several questions. Most pressingly: Do the involved execs and board members know something we don’t?

Of course, we’ll have to make due without a definitive answer for now. But the exec-selloff wheels have been in motion for some time, and the market doesn’t appear too concerned. When trading wrapped today, Spotify stock finished at $636.75 per share, down from the above-noted record high but still up 113% from late-May 2024.

With all this said, Spotify stock’s ascent has largely coincided with an effort to steadily increase subs, rein in spending, and maximize profitability.

Besides the priorities and a few fresh features, there may not be a world of difference between the current Spotify and that which had a materially lower market value. Especially given analysts’ insistence on tying bullish targets to continued paid-user gains, it’ll be interesting to see how Spotify’s subscription base fares during Q2 2025.

Jony Ive, who’s sold a company called io to OpenAI at a reportedly $6.5 billion valuation. Photo Credit: Marcus Dawes

Welcome to the hardware world, OpenAI: The artificial intelligence giant has acquired a startup, reportedly valued at $6.5 billion, founded by Apple vet Jony Ive. But is the play indicative of an AI bubble?

Ive and OpenAI head Sam Altman announced the agreement in a brief release as well as a 10-minute video. Described by some as one of the iPhone’s main designers, Ive (and his LoveFrom “creative collective”) “quietly began collaborating” with OpenAI and Altman two years back, the parties indicated.

As those involved tell the story, the talks set the stage for Ive to launch a hardware-focused venture called io last year. (Not directly mentioned is the 23% io interest OpenAI promptly scooped up, with today’s deal covering the remaining stake, per the Wall Street Journal.)

“It became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company,” Altman and Ive explained of io’s conception.

Now, Ive and his approximately 55-person io staff will come aboard OpenAI, with the mentioned LoveFrom taking a stake in the ChatGPT developer but remaining independent, per the Journal.

The same outlet and OpenAI itself didn’t shed too much light on what’s in the cards for io post-purchase; the Journal, citing anonymous sources, only noted that Ive will have a hand in “all” OpenAI’s ventures, from ChatGPT to the app and more.

But that probably doesn’t need saying given the astonishing $6.5 billion io valuation floating around. Also implied are the decidedly high expectations associated with OpenAI’s forthcoming hardware, which could include headphones and cameras.

While far from impartial, the above-noted video saw Altman disclose that he’d already tested one of the upcoming physical products. Part of a “family” of hardware, this device represents “the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen,” he touted.

In any event, the purchase announcement underscores the ample capital floating around the AI sector – and raises questions about the initially mentioned possibility of a bubble. For better or worse, the rapidly evolving technology appears here to stay.

As is often the case, however, two things can simultaneously be true; AI’s quick-improving features and long-term relevance don’t mean there isn’t a bubble in the space.

Though time will tell how the well-financed episode plays out, OpenAI’s gargantuan valuation, Perplexity’s $14 billion value, the $5 billion at which legal-focused Harvey AI may raise capital, and a whole lot else are certainly worth keeping in mind.

Chili’s parent Brinker International has finalized agreements in principle to settle infringement complaints from the Beastie Boys and Universal Music. Photo Credit: Saiflee100

Copyright conflicts resolved: Chili’s parent Brinker International has officially moved to settle a pair of infringement actions centering on social media promo videos.

Counsel for Brinker and each of the plaintiffs just recently informed the court (or more specifically courts) of the settlements in principle. Both actions, one filed by the Beastie Boys, the second levied by Universal Music, kicked off last year.

And as noted, the similar complaints revolve around the defendant’s alleged infringement of protected music in adverts. As many know, this type of litigation – which has hit energy drink companies, NBA teams, AHL teams, Marriott (though the company quickly settled), and a number of others yet – is increasingly common today.

But now, it looks as though there will be two fewer suits to track here. Beginning with the surviving Beastie Boys members’ comparatively concise claim, alleging the unauthorized use of “Sabotage,” a May 7th mediation session is said to have delivered a settlement agreement in principle.

As things stand, the appropriate parties say they’re finalizing the resolution’s particulars and intend to formally move for dismissal by July 7th.

Shifting to Universal Music’s comparatively sweeping action – alleging the infringement of a variety of recordings and compositions – a separate May 7th mediation also brought about a settlement in principle. Like in the Beastie Boys v. Brinker’s battle, the major and the Chili’s operator plan to put the finishing touches on the resolution by July 7th.

It probably doesn’t need saying given that the settlements aren’t yet wrapped, but the exact terms at hand are unclear. However, it’ll certainly be worth keeping an eye on the once-off legal expenses identified in Brinker (NYSE: EAT) earnings reports moving forward.

Closer to the present, recent months have brought several additional infringement showdowns involving social platforms, where, in general, song libraries are pre-cleared for personal but not commercial use.

Unsurprisingly, in light of the above-described litigation volume in this area, it’d take quite a while to provide updates on each case. Just in passing, Crumbl is expected to answer Warner Music’s infringement suit by June’s end; WMG’s even newer action against Designer Shoe Warehouse is still in its early stages.

Bringing the final major into the fold, then, Sony Music is alleging largescale infringement on the part of the University of Southern California, which now has until June 6th “to file a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and for improper venue,” the docket shows.

Universal Music Group is firing back against the copyright-recapture lawsuit filed by Salt-N-Pepa. Photo Credit: David Burke

Let the copyright-recapture battle intensify: Universal Music is firing back against Salt-N-Pepa’s newly submitted lawsuit. Meanwhile, the hip-hop group has redacted sensitive details from its action.

We broke down the straightforward-enough suit at length moments after its filing. Long story short, Section 203 of the Copyright Act is said to allow certain entertainment professionals (not solely musicians) to terminate copyright transfers executed under non-work-for-hire agreements more than 35 years ago.

Translation: Some legacy acts (and a few actors) are moving to assume ownership of IP covered by decades-old agreements. Unsurprisingly, the increasingly common step isn’t sitting right with the majors and others, which have opposed the maneuver in no uncertain terms.

(Nevertheless, the likes of Dwight Yoakam and Southside Johnny have quietly settled recapture complaints levied against the majors.)

Returning to Salt-N-Pepa’s allegations, the original action, we previously noted, features as exhibits copies of the relevant agreements as well as related communications with Universal Music execs.

UMG brass in one such letter seemingly argued that Salt-N-Pepa’s sought terminations were both time-barred and invalid because members Cheryl James and Sandra Denton hadn’t themselves transferred the copyrights under the appropriate contracts.

Another document, dated July 2024, looks to outline terms under which Universal Music would continue exploiting the contested works while the recapture showdown unfolded. Last month, push evidently came to shove, and UMG when replying to another recapture letter said it’d halted “all U.S. exploitation of the” recordings at issue.

Bearing these points in mind, the major in responding to the action described the complaint’s exhibits as indicative of “repeated attempts to resolve this matter amicably.”

“As indicated by Salt-N-Pepa’s own legal filings,” a UMG spokesperson told DMN, “Universal Music Group has made repeated attempts to resolve this matter amicably, including offers to enter into a mediation, ever since the artists served an invalid termination notice.

“Although we had no legal obligation to do so, we still sought to find a way to improve the artists’ compensation and pay them directly, even after they had sold their royalty streams to a third party.

“Clearly, the artists’ legal counsel thinks they can use the threat of negative media coverage to achieve their unreasonable demands. Despite this, and consistent with our longstanding practice, we remain committed to working towards an amicable resolution,” the rep concluded.

Time will, of course, tell whether that amicable resolution materializes. Closer to the present, the presiding judge has now granted Salt-N-Pepa counsel’s mentioned redaction request.

Unfortunately, evidence suggests that the approval is too little, too late; the green-lit redactions seemingly pertain to Social Security numbers that the original complaint already revealed in full.

A live performance from Abby Anderson, one of the many artists publicly backing the No Fakes Act.

It’s time for Congress to pass the No Fakes Act – at least according to 21 Savage, Billy Idol, Deadmau5, Joe Walsh, Lainey Wilson, and a number of others who are backing the bill ahead of a Senate hearing today.

Just shy of 400 artists and actors signed a petition in support of the legislation, which, designed to tackle AI deepfakes, would establish bolstered voice and likeness protections. Originally introduced in 2023, the bipartisan No Fakes Act resurfaced in Congress last month with 40% more pages than its initial iteration.

As we summarized then, the extra words pertain to updated liability exclusions, penalties for online services as well as individuals, and subpoena particulars, to list a few elements. Besides growing in the length department, the bill is finding new proponents this time around.

Continued industry endorsements – RIAA head Mitch Glazier and country star Martina McBride will testify at this afternoon’s hearing – are now accompanied by backing from YouTube, the Walt Disney Company, and OpenAI.

Stated differently, with music-space giants and tech companies alike throwing their weight behind the measure, the odds of passage seem better than ever. Still, when it comes to maximizing the chances of a successful legislative journey, it makes sense to emphasize the bill’s creative-sector positioning.

Enter the aforementioned Human Artistry Campaign petition touting the No Fakes Act, which is supported by talent from CAKE to Lee Greenwood and Luis Fonsi to Lamb of God.

Common, Reba McEntire, Elvis Costello, Peter Frampton, the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney, Steven Tyler, and Mary J. Blige represent some of the numerous other signers. Though many of these individuals are music professionals, actors such as Jack Nicholson and an apparently ticked off Scarlett Johansson also added their names to the petition.

“This diverse coalition of artists, actors and creatives who know the importance of protecting these individual qualities as well as the support from leaders in both political parties on Capitol Hill, highlights how vital the NO FAKES Act is to preventing AI-generated deepfakes and fraud from exploiting who we are,” Human Artistry Campaign senior advisor Moiya McTier added in part.

Now, days after President Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law, all eyes are on the initially highlighted Senate hearing, dubbed “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: AI-Generated Deepfakes in 2025.”

On top of the above-noted appearances from Glazier and McBride, the Capitol Hill outing is set to feature remarks from YouTube global music publishing senior counsel Suzana Carlos.

Alexandre Marmita (left) and Cleber Augusto in the studio. Photo Credit: Warner Music

Decades after losing his voice to throat cancer, samba artist Cleber Augusto has harnessed AI to create a project entitled Minhas Andanças (My Wanderings).

Rio de Janeiro-born Cleber Augusto technically released that album in late April. But a 14-track deluxe version, including four additional songs, only dropped via Warner Music Brazil today.

According to the same label, 74-year-old Augusto has suffered from “a complete loss of voice” since undergoing a throat operation in 2004. However, the former Fundo de Quintal member is still active and performing as an instrumentalist, numerous social posts show.

And evidently, Augusto remains interested in putting out music. As described by Warner Music Brazil, a variety of samba artists, including but definitely not limited to Diogo Nogueira, Ferrugem, Marvvila, and Menos é Mais, contributed to Minhas Andanças in one way or another.

But it was Alexandre Marmita, said to share Augusto’s vocal tone, who acted as the chief “voice donor” here, per the major. That refers specifically to providing interpretations of songs in Augusto’s style.

From there, AI “enhanced” these interpretations before bringing a depiction (trained on prior recordings, of course) of Augusto’s voice into the fold, Warner Music Brazil relayed. All told, Minhas Andanças features 13 re-recordings of existing tracks and one completely new effort.

The latter, entitled “Imã,” was originally captured “more than 20 years ago and rescued from one of Cleber’s old tapes,” with vocalist Péricles featured, per Warner Music Brazil.

“The voice is the soul of music,” Cleber Augusto added, “and AI allowed me to maintain the essence of my interpretation, even with technology. The end result is amazing. The emotion and message of the songs remain intact, and that is what really matters. I thank Warner Music and everyone involved who made this project possible.”

And in remarks of his own, Warner Music Brazil A&R manager Tony Vieira touted the AI-powered album and the tech behind it.

“Technology, when used with respect and purpose, can be a great ally of art,” the former Som Livre higher-up indicated. “This project does not replace Cleber’s genius, but it allows his voice and his story to live on. It is a way to celebrate his legacy and show the world the importance of his work.”

It’s now been a year and change since Randy Travis utilized artificial intelligence to release his “first new music in more than a decade.” At the time, he and Warner Music confirmed plans for additional AI works.

Meanwhile, quite possibly in a harbinger of things to come, the major hasn’t hesitated to tee up AI films and music involving artists who are no longer living.

U2 bassist Adam Clayton, who has an interest in the just-sold ROXi music video service. Photo Credit: U2start

Self-described “music video streaming service” ROXi has officially sold in a “management buyout,” with multiple broadcasters and U2 bassist Adam Clayton among its stakeholders

Reps for London-based ROXi reached out with word of the deal, executed via a new company called FastStream Interactive. All told, ROXi/FastStream says it’s drawn support from north of 100 “major” backers thus far.

Those parties include but certainly aren’t limited to Simon Cowell, Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Sheryl Crow, and Alesha Dixon, who all boarded the ROXi train a while ago. At the time, the business was still zeroing in chiefly on providing access to music videos and especially karaoke via smart TVs.

Since then, ROXi, currently counting broadcasters Sinclair (an existing partner) and Gray Media as stakeholders, has adjusted its focus to prioritize “interactive TV channels.”

And it’s these channels that FastStream Interactive head Rob Lewis emphasized when addressing the buyout of ROXi, which was at one point considering an IPO.

“The new technology, FastStream, will revolutionise Broadcast TV,” indicated Lewis. “For the first time in history, consumers tuning into a normal TV channel will find they automatically start at the beginning of the program, and that they are able to skip, pause or search, even though they are watching normal Broadcast TV.”

Running with the idea, FastStream took the opportunity to confirm its forthcoming release of “America’s first Interactive TV Music channel,” referring to ROXi. This free offering is said to be teed up to debut via “new digital TV standard” NextGen TV – which Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley has been touting for some time – with no app or registration required.

NextGen, for its part, describes itself as “the biggest leap forward in TV in years” and claims to combine “the benefits of broadcast with broadband TV viewing.”

With an antenna required for access, NextGen before 2028 will be supported by 75% of U.S. TVs sold, FastStream estimated.

“FastStream Interactive will empower Sinclair to deliver a range of cutting edge, fully interactive TV channels,” summed up Sinclair VP and GM of technology business development Skip Flenniken. “Our viewers across the U.S. will be able to search, skip, and engage with content in a seamless, personalised experience.”

Besides the initially mentioned U2 member as well as Gray and Sinclair, other ROXi/FastStream stakeholders include Terra Firma Capital Management founder Guy Hands, businessman Jim Mellon, and longtime Rothschild partner Warner Mandel.

The jury verdict in favor of Epic Games, which has prevailed in a marathon patent infringement lawsuit centering on the technology behind Fortnite concerts from Travis Scott and Ariana Grande. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

Four years and one week-long trial later, Epic Games has triumphed in a patent infringement suit involving Fortnite concerts from Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, and others.

The jury just recently sided with Epic, which a company called Utherverse Gaming sued back in June 2021. Letting this initial complaint take the wheel for a moment – and keeping the focus on brass-tacks details – the plaintiff said it’d assumed ownership in 2020 over several patents.

As laid out by the filing party, three of the patents concerned “multi-instance, multi-user animation platforms,” with another describing tech purportedly allowing “for massively populated virtual worlds in which participants can share the same experience without overcrowding.”

Citing, among other things, Scott’s mentioned 2020 Fortnite show, the plaintiff maintained Epic had “utilized the claimed inventions of the Asserted Patents to host repeatable, large-scale events for multitudes of participants.”

That refers specifically to “the software that when executed on a server enables many Fortnite participants to experience the same virtual worlds for virtual social events and concerts,” according to the document.

Unsurprisingly, in light of the newly concluded trial, Epic refuted the allegations – including by firing off counterclaims challenging the patents’ validity and more.

When all was said and done, the trial and the jury’s assessment boiled down to whether Epic had infringed one patent, “Method, System and Apparatus of Recording and Playing Back an Experience in a Virtual Worlds System,” in its Grande and Scott concerts.

In the jury’s eyes, neither of those digital happenings constituted infringement of the claims within the central patent, the verdict form shows.  

But the jury also found – perhaps, given the presence of some clarifying markings, after a bit of debate – that Epic hadn’t proven the patent claims to be “invalid as obvious based on the prior art.”

Close but no cigar: Another page from the jury’s verdict form. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

(On the debate front, it evidently wasn’t a good sign for the plaintiff when the already-deliberating jury asked the presiding judge if unanimous verdicts were required. “The jury must be unanimous when it answers any individual question on the verdict form,” the court reiterated in response.)

Lastly, on the same form, the jury determined Epic had proven one of the patent’s relevant claims “involved only technology that a person of ordinary skill in the art would consider to be well-understood, routine, and conventional as of” 2014.

With that, the jury necessarily left blank the verdict form’s damages page, including a section for a percentage-royalty obligation.

(l to r) Cherry Red Records MD Adam Velasco; Korda Marshall (a consultant on today’s deal); Cherry Red founder and chairman Iain McNay; Dome Records founder Peter Robinson; Dome GM Santosh Robinson; and Cherry Red director Matt Bristow. Photo Credit: Cherry Red

Cherry Red Records has acquired Dome Records, with plans in place to “diligently” oversee the soul and R&B label’s catalog while continuing to release new material from signed acts.

47-year-old Cherry Red formally disclosed the buyout today. Founded in 1992 by Peter Robinson, Dome is said to have put out projects from talent including Lulu, Beverley Knight (whose “Mutual Feeling” was sampled by Playboi Carti earlier in 2025), Incognito, Hil St Soul, and the James Taylor Quartet, to name a few.

Additionally, the likes of Drizabone Soul Family, Jarrod Lawson, and Shaun Escoffery have dropped new works via Dome as of late. Cherry Red itself is “concentrating more on” catalog at present, but it’s still releasing fresh recordings and, as initially highlighted, plans to unveil “some new albums” from Dome acts moving forward.

“In recent years we have focused less on releasing new recordings (although we will still put out around 20 new albums this year) and concentrating more on catalogue,” Cherry Red founder and chairman Iain McNay elaborated in part.

“We are very excited to be acquiring Dome from Peter and Santosh and will look after their catalogue diligently as well as releasing some new albums by their artists. Dome will live on within Cherry Red!” the AFCW PLC director proceeded.

On the other side of the transaction, aforementioned Dome founder Peter Robinson is expected to “continue working with the label as a consultant” once the deal wraps.

“After 55 years in the industry and more than three decades running Dome together with Santosh,” added Robinson, “it’s time to hand over the reins to a new custodian, and I’m very confident that Iain McNay, Adam Velasco, Matt Bristow and the team that have helped to build Cherry Red into one of the UK’s most respected independent label groups will maintain the Dome legacy in the years ahead.”

Regarding Dome’s price tag, the involved parties rather unsurprisingly opted against diving into specifics as part of their announcement message. And Dome Records and Dome Publishing financials, though covering the 12 months ended March 31st, don’t appear to provide too much pertinent info on this front.

In any event, today’s deal marks the latest in a line of 2025 indie sales – with the main attraction seemingly being IP holdings even at labels still releasing new works. Just in passing, these transactions include plays for Monstercat, !K7, Mack Avenue, New State, ARC Musicq, Symphony Recording, and Musicraft Entertainment.

Spotify is facing criticism for allegedly hosting a number of ‘podcasts’ promoting illegal drug sales. Photo Credit: Joshua Coleman

Audio entertainment with a side of drugs: Spotify has reportedly booted a number of “podcasts” advertising the online sale of illegal substances.

Multiple outlets have written about and claimed credit for the takedowns. However, it appears that an X user named Lauren Balik was first to bring attention to the pill-plugging podcasts.

Early last week, Balik posted Spotify screenshots displaying a portion of the relevant uploads. Though we previously touched on Spotify’s pharmaceutical-focused advertising expansion, it seems safe to say these uploads centered on illegal drugs.

Per the mentioned screenshots, the so-called podcasts were entitled “Tramadol No Prescription Exclusive,” “Order Percocet Online Overnight,” “ORDER ADDERALL ONLINE ALL TIME,” and “Buy Tramadol Online with Holiday Discounts,” to name a few.

Often running less than a minute apiece – and sometimes containing no audio whatsoever – the uploads directed one to the appropriate websites via their cover images and text descriptions, the screenshots show.

Surprisingly, on the text side, the not-so-subtle operations seemingly included straight links. Meanwhile, bearing in mind the aforesaid “Buy Tramadol Online with Holiday Discounts” title, several of the podcasts had apparently been uploaded to Spotify months back.

It probably doesn’t need saying, but the audio platform has removed many of the referenced uploads. Nevertheless, the trend predates the recent wave of media coverage and still hasn’t been completely halted.

One needn’t look too hard to find lingering seconds-long “podcasts” (multiple uploaded way back in 2022) promoting websites purporting to sell mail-delivery drugs.

A few of these sites claim to offer legal substances, and their exact status under the law is unclear. In any event, the uploads at hand certainly don’t constitute podcasts and would best be axed from the platform.

Running with the point, the episode raises far-reaching questions about, among other things, Spotify’s content-moderation policies.

When it comes to the service’s library, we’ve already covered the presence of adult-video “podcasts,” seemingly unauthorized music uploads classified as podcasts, and more. Following the idea to its logical conclusion, podcast volume is evidently front of mind for Spotify amid an aggressive video buildout – and stiff competition from YouTube in this area.

Stated bluntly, then, Spotify says it hosts “nearly 7 million podcast titles,” but there’s room for speculation about the number of actual shows therein.

Beyond the above-described substance-selling uploads, the service features many non-podcast videos (like TikTok compilations and a whole lot else) that have made their way into the podcast category.

A live performance from Ed Sheeran, whose legal team is urging the Supreme Court to reject a cert petition in a marathon ‘Thinking Out Loud’ copyright dispute. Photo Credit: Mark Kent

Ed Sheeran is firing back against a Supreme Court cert petition in one of multiple “Thinking Out Loud” copyright suits. As the artist and his team see things, reversing the courts’ prior decisions could set the stage for a tidal wave of speculative infringement actions.

Defendants including Sheeran just recently made their position clear in a 31-page brief opposing an appeal from Structured Asset Sales (SAS). The latter has an interest in the Marvin Gaye hit “Let’s Get It On” and, alleging unauthorized overlap with the aforementioned Sheeran track, fired off a related infringement suit the better part of a decade ago.

Technically, this marathon legal battle is distinct from the similar complaint spearheaded by the estate of “Let’s Get It On” writer Ed Townsend. An appellate court closed out 2024 by denying a rehearing request in the SAS action – evidently laying the groundwork for the filing party to take the matter to the Supreme Court.

As we previously explored in greater detail, the confrontation centers specifically on protectable elements of deposited works under the Copyright Act of 1909.

Ultimately amended by the 1976 Act, the more than century-old copyright law required “two complete copies of the best edition” of a published work (meaning sheet music here) to be deposited with the Office to receive protection.

The 1976 update officially brought recordings into the fold (effective in 1978, that is) for compositional deposit copies, but “Let’s Get It On” was registered in 1973. And while it probably doesn’t need saying given the nearly eight years of litigation at hand, the point proved important.

Though the complaint alleged infringement of certain elements (like the bass line) contained in the “Let’s Get It On” recording, the courts in many more words found that the claims must be confined to the actual handwritten deposit copies.

“The Copyright Office has claimed that the 1909 Act registration deposit strictly delimits the scope of copyright in a work,” SAS vented in its initial cert petition. “In fact, nothing in that Act states that the deposit defines scope—no court ever limited a copyright based on a deposit for over 100 years until Led Zeppelin.”

Letting the brief from Sheeran and his counsel take the wheel, then, the purportedly “plain wrong” Structured Asset Sales is allegedly overlooking more than a century of well-established precedent.

“For over a century,” Team Sheeran wrote, “as evidenced by consistent case law and even by copyright treatises, there has been nothing ‘unsettled’ about the scope of copyright protection for musical works being limited to what is literally expressed in the ‘complete copies’” deposited with the Copyright Office under the 1909 Act.

“The self-serving free-for-all Petitioner posits would foment vast uncertainty and encourage rampant speculation, decades after the fact (and, in many cases, such as this one, long after the death of the composer in question), regarding the composer’s supposed intentions,” Sheeran and others continued.

“It would expand copyright infringement litigation to encompass elements appearing nowhere in deposited sheet music under the 1909 Act, nor in deposited recordings under the 1976 Act, so long as an expert is willing to suggest that such elements can be implied,” the respondents drove home.

Global Talent Services head Narcís Rebollo and Rosa Lagarrigue, who’s now GTS’ global EVP. Photo Credit: Universal Music

Universal Music’s little-discussed Global Talent Services (GTS) Latin artist services agency has officially acquired Rosa Lagarrigue Management (RLM).

Global Talent formally disclosed the buyout today, seven months and change after setting sail “independent of UMG’s local music labels.” As part of the latter pivot, GTS became “a standalone company” and tapped longtime Universal Music Spain exec Narcís Rebollo to serve as president and CEO.

Evidently, the GTS expansion isn’t stopping there. Founded decades back by the namesake Rosa Lagarrigue, RLM is now expected to operate under the UMG/GTS banner, the involved parties indicated.

That refers specifically to the just-sold entity’s being “integrated” into GTS, per the announcement. Long term, it’s unclear exactly what this means on the personnel front; among other things, RLM also owns a label called Sin Anestesia.

More immediately, RLM has between 11 and 50 employees, its LinkedIn page shows, and the team members are poised to come aboard GTS. So is the mentioned Rosa Lagarrigue, whose company is active in Spain as well as Colombia and counts as clients Mia Lardner, Miguel Bosé, and more.

Per the relevant businesses, Lagarrigue is signing on as GTS’ global EVP. “I have always believed that every artist needs unique and personalized support; one that combines listening, intuition, strategy, and honest work,” she added in a statement.

“I’m excited to share this project with Narcís, undoubtedly one of the most brilliant executives in the industry, and with his team. What we started at RLM not only continues, but it is amplified and strengthened alongside them,” concluded Lagarrigue.

Meanwhile, Rebollo in remarks of his own touted the deal as a step towards affording signed “artists the best service and strategic support to achieve their goals across all markets.”

In the bigger picture, today’s purchase has arrived against the backdrop of strong Latin revenue growth. When it comes to the States, the RIAA placed the streaming-powered space’s 2024 recorded revenue at a record $1.4 billion or so.

And on-demand listening is still fueling double-digit increases in markets including but certainly not limited to Brazil and Mexico.

Unsurprisingly, then, Universal Music isn’t alone in looking to secure a bigger piece of the Latin music pie. Hybe Latin America last month unveiled a Mexico-focused music-competition program entitled Pase a La Fama, to name one example. The reality series is scheduled to premiere on Telemundo in early June.

The Robert F. Kennedy Building, which serves as the DOJ headquarters. Photo Credit: ajay_suresh

Live Nation is reportedly grappling with yet another wave of Justice Department scrutiny. Now, a reported criminal antitrust probe is zeroing in on alleged refund-related ticketing collusion during the early days of the pandemic.

This possible probe just recently entered the media spotlight and was confirmed by Live Nation. At the time of writing, however, the DOJ itself didn’t appear to have publicly commented on the matter. Consequently, we don’t have an abundance of information with which to work.

But as described by Bloomberg, the ongoing investigation revolves around whether the Ticketmaster parent and AEG Presents in early 2020 “illegally colluded on refund policies for canceled concerts and dealt with artists to limit losses.”

Per the same outlet – which, potentially setting the tone for subsequent reports, opted to prioritize the probe’s significance for Live Nation as opposed to AEG – prosecutors have considered levying charges against Live Nation and CEO Michael Rapino.

Of course, charges aren’t necessarily forthcoming; on the other hand, that the DOJ is turning back the clock half a decade isn’t exactly a good sign for the targeted companies. Though we’ll have to see what the future holds here, Live Nation EVP of corporate and regulatory affairs Dan Wall attempted to get in front of the subject with a prompt statement.

(DMN reached out to AEG Presents for comment but didn’t immediately receive a response.)

“‘While Live Nation contributed to this industry effort in good faith,’” Wall reportedly communicated in part, “‘we set our own unique policies and refund terms to support fans and artists. We did not collude with AEG or anyone else. We are proud of our leadership during those trying times, and if any charges result from this investigation, we will defend them vigorously.’”

Closer to the present, it’s safe to say that the administration change, contrary to the prevailing sentiment beforehand, hasn’t brought any regulatory relief whatsoever for Live Nation.

Most tellingly, the Justice Department antitrust suit seeking to separate the promoter from Ticketmaster is still in full swing. Then there’s a different DOJ and FTC inquiry, initiated earlier in May in response to a late-March executive order, centering on “unfair and anticompetitive” live/ticketing practices.

For the latter, companies, members of the public, and others can submit comments until July 7th. Apparently, one has the option of weighing in anonymously; the appropriate docket displayed 68 remarks, many far from positive and pertaining to Live Nation despite the inquiry’s more general scope, at the time of writing.

Especially important in light of these details is the Senate’s fresh bipartisan focus on the Live Nation/Ticketmaster agreement with Fanatics.

With all that said, the market doesn’t seem too concerned; Live Nation stock (NYSE: LYV) rose 1.6% during today’s trading to $147.68 per share. The price represents a 14% increase since 2025’s start and a 53% spike from mid-May 2024.

Connaught Place, New Delhi. Photo Credit: Kabi1990

DSPs including Spotify India have reportedly removed “all” Pakistani music in response to a related government advisory.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued that advisory eight days ago. Without diving too far into the underlying conflict – India and Pakistan have reportedly extended their ceasefire until May 18th – the notice compelled streaming platforms to boot content “having its origins in Pakistan.”

“In the interest of national security,” the agency wrote, “all OTT platforms, media streaming platforms and intermediaries operating in India are advised to discontinue the web-series, films, songs, podcasts and other streaming media content, whether made available on a subscription based model or otherwise, having its origins in Pakistan with immediate effect.”

Despite the “immediate effect” requirement, evidence suggests that Spotify India didn’t complete the multifaceted removals at once.

“Not renewing my subscription until Spotify India bans these Pakistani artists,” one individual wrote on X after the advisory’s issuance. “No platform for them while tensions with India continue.”

“Gonna cancel my membership withing [sic] 24 hours if you continue to show pakistani artists on the app even after the government’s ban,” another account penned.

But as initially mentioned, the relevant works were ultimately rendered unavailable on YouTube, Spotify, and different platforms in the nation of 1.4 billion.

The “all” descriptor and several removal examples come from outlets including New Delhi Television (NDTV). Furthermore, the same source indicated that the undertaking spans beyond straight takedowns.

“Pakistani actors have been removed from the posters of their Hindi films,” NDTV relayed. On the music side, the outlet pointed as well to the soundtrack album for Indian film Sanam Teri Kasam. One of the 2016 movie’s two leads, Karachi-born Mawra Hocane, has been nixed from the cover image on Spotify and YouTube, per the report.

Of course, the original cover is unaltered on Spotify in the States and elsewhere; on the other hand, Hocane is no longer part of the image as displayed on India’s JioSaavn.

It remains to be seen when – and whether – the streaming situation will change. Just for reference, it’s worth reiterating that the Indian government was early to the TikTok ban party, having outlawed the app way back in 2020 and stuck to the position since then.

In any event, the development underscores the many moving parts factoring into international streaming operations. Suffice to say that the removal of music from DSPs won’t improve the subscription situation in India, where some self-described paid users are lamenting the takedowns on X.

Anthropic counsel has apologized for a citation ‘hallucination’ in an expert testimony submitted as part of a copyright battle with music publishers. Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

Time to lay off the use of AI in legal documents? Amid a high-stakes copyright battle with music publishers, Anthropic attorneys have apologized for an apparent citation “hallucination,” pinning the blame mainly on Claude.

We broke down the citation crisis after counsel for the music publisher plaintiffs formally voiced related concerns to the court. Anthropic data scientist and expert witness Olivia Chen, the publishers maintained in more words, had seemingly referenced a non-existent academic paper.

Unsurprisingly, the serious allegation prompted the presiding judge to order an explanation on the part of Anthropic. And this explanation arrived in the form of a declaration from Latham & Watkins associate Ivana Dukanovic.

The way Dukanovic tells the story, an internal investigation confirmed “that this was an honest citation mistake and not a fabrication of authority.”

Running with the point, the Anthropic attorney indicated that the relevant American Statistician citation “includes an erroneous author and title, while providing a correct link to, and correctly identifying the publication, volume, page numbers, and year of publication of, the article referenced.”

So what happened? Well, according to the same declaration, Claude took some liberties when citing not just the American Statistician article, but other sources used in Chen’s testimony.

“After the Latham & Watkins team identified the source as potential additional support for Ms. Chen’s testimony,” Dukanovic penned, “I asked Claude.ai to provide a properly formatted legal citation for that source using the link to the correct article.

“Unfortunately, although providing the correct publication title, publication year, and link to the provided source, the returned citation included an inaccurate title and incorrect authors,” she continued.

Claude is also said to have fumbled with “additional wording errors” in different citations. Though so-called AI hallucinations aren’t exactly rare – including in legal settings – the situation certainly draws attention to the law firm’s review approach.

“During the production and cite-checking process for Ms. Chen’s declaration,” Dukanovic weighed in here, “the Latham & Watkins team reviewing and editing the declaration checked that the substance of the cited document supported the proposition in the declaration, and also corrected the volume and page numbers in the citation, but did not notice the incorrect title and authors, despite clicking on the link provided in the footnote and reviewing the article.”

These remarks may raise more questions than they answer. Chief among them: If one has to make all sorts of corrections to AI-powered legal citations, wouldn’t it be preferable to tackle the process without consulting a chatbot?

And at the risk of throwing salt on the imaginary-citation wound, it’s safe to say the reviewing team’s performance left something to be desired.

But as the (incorrectly) cited article actually exists, the “embarrassing and unintentional mistake” doesn’t mean “Chen’s opinion was influenced by false or fabricated information,” per the text.

“We have implemented procedures, including multiple levels of additional review, to work to ensure that this does not occur again,” added Dukanovic.

DMN asked Claude about the episode, and even it advised against using LLMs for legal citations.

“Regarding citation hallucinations more generally – this is a known limitation of large language models like myself,” Claude responded. “When asked to provide citations, if I don’t have perfect recall of specific sources, I might generate what seem like plausible citations based on my training patterns rather than accurate bibliographic information.

“For any situation requiring accurate citations, the best practice would be to use dedicated academic search tools and databases rather than relying on an AI system to recall specific publication details from memory,” Claude continued.

Reservoir exec Spek, who oversees the operations of Musicraft Entertainment purchaser PopIndia. Photo Credit: Reservoir Media

One month after launching a Mumbai-based subsidiary called PopIndia, Reservoir Media (NASDAQ: RSVR) has officially closed its first catalog deal in India.

New York City-headquartered Reservoir today revealed the song-rights purchase, executed via PopIndia and covering the IP of 45-year-old Musicraft Entertainment. According to the involved parties, PopIndia scooped up the “entire” catalog at hand, including both “publishing and master rights.”

Founded in 1980, Musicraft by Reservoir’s description owns the rights to music with “production styles similar to Bollywood soundtracks while remaining independent of any specific film.”

Regarding genres and artists, the catalog is said to encompass popular Qawwali works and releases from the likes of Ashok Zakhmi, Gyasuddin Warsi, and Usman Taj, to name just a few. And per Musicraft itself, its catalog also features projects from regionally prominent comics such as Raju Srivastav, who passed away in 2022.

On the financials front, Reservoir opted against disclosing Musicraft’s sale price; the publicly traded buyer’s forthcoming earnings reports may provide insight here.

However, the purchaser did underscore the transaction’s comprehensive nature. Among other things, PopIndia will begin operating the Musicraft YouTube channel, which has racked up 3.3 million subs and nearly 900 million cumulative views.

The mononymous Spek, who leads PopArabia and is Reservoir’s EVP of international and emerging markets, is at the helm of PopIndia. In a statement, the exec touted the deal as “a major step forward” in the long run.

“This marks a major step forward for PopIndia — our first full catalog acquisition, covering over a thousand recordings that span decades of Indian music… Our strategy in India is focused on long-term value creation, and that starts with investing in catalogs that matter — culturally and commercially.

“We see a growing global appetite for Indian music, and this deal positions us well to meet that demand with credible, well-curated content,” proceeded Spek.

Reservoir certainly isn’t alone in looking to cash in on said global appetite. Primary Wave-partnered Times Music, Believe, Warner Music, and Universal Music alike are spearheading sizable music investments in the nation; Sony Music yesterday underscored plans to wrap “deliberate acquisitions” specifically in India.

As for the commercial upside of establishing a presence in India – referring to domestic revenue, that is – streaming adoption is strong but monetization remains a challenge. Some reports have suggested that it’ll be a while yet before paid listening catches on at scale.

Bearing the point in mind, Reservoir is billing PopIndia “as a full-service music company focused on signing and developing regional talent and acquiring catalogs.”

Additionally, the newly minted division is said to act as “sub-publisher for global music catalogs within the Indian and South Asian markets,” simultaneously offering “music supervision and rights management solutions for regional music.”

A live performance from Yuja Wang, who’s signed on as an artistic advisor at the newly launched Deutsche Grammophon China. Photo Credit: Quincena Musical

Universal Music Group’s aggressive China expansion isn’t slowing down, as the major has officially brought Deutsche Grammophon and Blue Note to the nation of 1.4 billion.

Universal Music Greater China today announced (and hosted a launch event for) Deutsche Grammophon China (DGC) as well as Blue Note Records China (BNRC). Both imprints will zero in “on identifying and supporting rising Chinese talent,” including by helping their releases find fans on the global stage.

More immediately, the classical-focused DGC has tapped pianists Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, besides Shanghai Symphony Orchestra music director Long Yu, to serve as “artistic advisors.” All three of those professionals are “long-time” Deutsche Grammophon artists, Universal Music pointed out.

On the release front, Deutsche Grammophon China has teed up its first album, Jian Wang’s Bach: The Cello Suites, to debut on May 23rd. Longer term, DGC has scored “a special project with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra,” which will commemorate its 150th anniversary in 2029 by recording “the complete Shostakovich Symphonies.”

“The Yellow Label has been my recording home for well over a decade,” added Yuja Wang, “and I am delighted to see it engage with young artists in my home country. I am thrilled to support this initiative as Artistic Advisor and to help identify and grow future talent across the full spectrum of classical music.”

Shifting to Blue Note Records China, the label underscored an objective of “helping bring Chinese jazz expression to broader international audiences.” Regarding the nature of that jazz expression – or at least BNRC’s view thereof – Innout has been confirmed as the first signing.

Consisting of guitarist Xiao Jun and drummer An Yu, that “avant-garde jazz duo” is said to integrate “modern jazz, experimental electronics, and free-form composition” into its work.

“Xiao Jun and An Yu are two of the most talented and visionary musicians I’ve ever met,” touted Blue Note president Don Was. “Their music is going to ‘blow people’s minds’ all over the world. It’s a thrill and an honor to be able to launch Blue Note Records China with their music.”

Lastly, the multifaceted announcement also saw BNRC reveal a partnership with Shanghai-based jazz label JZ Music. As described by Universal Music, that tie-up “will focus on live performance opportunities – including artist touring, music festivals, and live house events.”

In addition to underscoring Universal Music’s commitment to building out in China – where Warner Music “lost market share” in Q1 2025 – today’s announcements are seemingly indicative of bigger-picture plans in classical and jazz.

Without diving too far into this subject, it’s safe to say that DGC will factor into Deutsche Grammophon’s Stage+ classical streaming service, which has a well-entrenched competitor in Apple Music Classical.

But classical expansions aren’t underway across the industry; last month delivered rumblings of possible layoffs at Sony Classical.

Snoop Dogg, who seems to have put his Spotify dispute in the rearview. Photo Credit: gcardinal

Just in time for today’s release of a surprise album entitled Iz It a Crime?, Snoop Dogg looks to have put his long-running Spotify dispute to rest.

The most immediate example of that resolution can be found in the widespread streaming availability of Iz It a Crime?. As many will recall, Snoop Dogg in late February released “Spaceship Party” solely via Tune.fm after levying royalties-related criticism at Spotify.

(Before that, 2024 had seen the Death Row owner finalize a separate streaming-exclusive tie-up with Web3 music platform Gala. A copyright suit against the latter, Snoop, and Death Row alike is technically ongoing, though both sides last month said they’d hammered out a settlement in principle.)

Spotify, Snoop publicly alleged, had only paid him a paltry $45,000 or so for somewhere in the ballpark of one billion streams. The service promptly pushed back, pointing to millions in total royalty payouts for the plays and, in the process, urging the 19 Crimes partner to direct his compensation qualms elsewhere.

Now, Spotify has capitalized on an opportunity to diffuse Snoop’s high-profile criticism, with the 16-time Grammy nominee taking advantage of a chance to promote the aforementioned Iz It a Crime? and the release particulars thereof.

Enter a decidedly positive article not from the music world, but Bloomberg, which proclaimed that Snoop Dogg “now understands the complexity of” royalties after meetings with Spotify execs.

The plural “meetings” is important. As the outlet tells the story, Gamma co-founder Larry Jackson (whose company put out Iz It a Crime? alongside Death Row) facilitated the talks, which occurred over a “few weeks.”

With Spotify in the habit of stressing the significant portion of revenue that it pays rightsholders, we won’t have too hard a time inferring which way the blame shifted here.

In any event, NBC-partnered Snoop Dogg “no longer blames Spotify itself,” but still isn’t a fan of the underlying streaming-compensation model, per the report. “‘They offered me understanding and clarity,’” Snoop elaborated in a concise statement. “‘We had a meeting of the minds.’”

If the well-established Snoop wants to drop the streaming model like it’s hot, it’s safe to say emerging acts are also eager to do so – or, at a minimum, to secure a less-lousy arrangement.

Of course, these professionals cannot very easily meet with Spotify brass to discuss their royalty-rate reservations. And they’re simultaneously fighting to stand out from an ocean of noise, being denied pay for some of their streams, and being shortchanged in different ways yet.

SZA, whose SOS Deluxe: Lana generated the most recorded revenue of any Sony Music release during Q1 2025 as well as the 12 months ended March 31st. Photo Credit: Erin Cazes

Sony Music Entertainment (SME) achieved a double-digit year-over-year revenue spike during fiscal 2024, but recorded music streaming revenue increased by a modest 4.8% during 2025’s first three months.

These and other takeaways come from a new earnings report released by the overarching Sony Group Corp. This performance breakdown covers January, February, and March 2025, the final quarter of the conglomerate’s fiscal 2024.

Beginning on the quarterly side, Sony Group pointed to ¥463.57 billion (currently $3.16 billion) in music revenue, representing a 9.8% YoY increase. As usual, though, that sum includes a sizable contribution from the music-adjacent visual media and platform.

Stated concisely, the latter, lumping together mobile gaming, anime, and more, is best omitted to get an idea of core Sony Music revenue. Another important side note: Sony Group collects revenue in all sorts of currencies but reports in yen; exchange rates helped the below results along.

Less visual media and platform, then, music revenue came in at $2.64 billion/¥387.46 billion during calendar Q1 2025, up roughly 4.5% YoY, the document indicates.

Behind the first-quarter total, each category save non-streaming recorded revenue improved from the same period in 2024.

However, recorded streaming’s growth rate finished at the initially mentioned 4.8% ($1.32 billion/¥193.04 billion in total revenue), compared to a 16.3% YoY boost for Sony Music Publishing ($656.54 million/¥96.28 billion).

Digging into those numbers for just a moment – Sony Music’s full-year showing is, of course, also worth exploring – publishing streaming revenue is said to have risen 25.6% YoY to $378.20 million/¥55.46 billion in Q1 2025.

And as of March 31st, Sony Music Publishing’s owned-and-administered catalog contained a cool 6.63 million works, up from 6.24 million in the prior year, per the report.

Back to recorded revenue for 2025’s opening quarter, physical sales enjoyed a 12% YoY hike to $183.10 million/¥26.85 billion. By revenue, Sony Music artists’ Q1 bestsellers were SZA’s SOS Deluxe: Lana, Tate McRae’s So Close to What, Lisa’s Alter Ego, and Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia as well as Igor, respectively.

All told, music operating income (including for visual media and platform) finished at $569.97 million/¥83.58 billion for Q1 2025, up nearly 17.4% YoY.

Transitioning to Sony Music’s full-year financials, revenue less visual media and platform rose 13.1% YoY to hit $10.75 billion/¥1.58 trillion.

Within the sum, recorded music kicked in $8.16 billion/¥1.20 trillion (up 12.2% YoY), including $5.38 billion/¥788.77 billion from streaming (up 11.2% YoY) and $724.40 million/¥106.15 billion from physical (up 4.8% YoY).

Fiscal bestsellers included SZA’s aforementioned effort, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, We Still Don’t Trust You by Future as well as Metro Boomin, and Travis Scott’s Utopia, respectively.

Publishing revenue, on the other hand, jumped 16.3% YoY to crack $2.59 billion/¥379.81 billion for the 12-month stretch. And full-year music operating income, at $2.44 billion/¥357.26 billion, was up 18.4% YoY.

Looking ahead to the 12 months ending March 31st, 2026, execs are anticipating “essentially flat” sales at Sony Music. Also on the horizon are further catalog purchases and business acquisitions “in high growth markets such as Latin America, India, and other Asian countries.”

SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton, who’s responded to the ongoing controversy about his platform’s AI training policies. Photo Credit: SoundCloud

Amid pushback targeting an AI-focused update to his platform’s terms of use, SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton has responded to the controversy. But critics say a new TOS adjustment doesn’t go far enough to protect artists.

The SoundCloud head addressed the fiasco in a more than 650-word open letter today. This lengthy follow-up arrives on the heels of criticism from artists as well as a few not-so-helpful statements from the company.

As we previously recapped, an early 2024 update (which, presumably implemented sans email notification, just recently entered the media spotlight) to SoundCloud’s terms compelled artists to “explicitly agree that” their music uploads “may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies.”

The company subsequently claimed it hadn’t actually trained or allowed training on protected works – albeit while leaving the door open for related initiatives down the line.

Enter the response from Seton, who maintained once more that SoundCloud hadn’t “used artist content to train AI models” or authorized “third parties to scrape or use artist content from SoundCloud to train them either.”

In keeping with the Musiio owner SoundCloud’s prior remarks, the exec described the relevant TOS clause as an effort to power “smarter recommendations, search, playlisting, content tagging, and tools that help prevent fraud.”

“More broadly,” the CEO deflected, “we use AI to identify emerging talent, personalize the platform experience, and support real-time customer service, all designed to support human artists and engage real fans.”

Getting to the heart of the matter, Seton then acknowledged that the February 2024 TOS section “was too broad and wasn’t clear enough.”

Running with the point, the four-year SoundCloud higher-up confirmed a fresh terms update that looks as though it may put the kibosh on certain “opt-out” requirements. The latter would leave it up to artists and rightsholders to proactively exclude their work from on-platform training.

Instead, the adjusted TOS, which Seton disclosed in full, would seemingly mean that artists would have the chance to expressly consent to some types of AI training beforehand. Nevertheless, even the modified language doesn’t close the aforementioned training door altogether.

“We will not use Your Content to train generative AI models that aim to replicate or synthesize your voice, music, or likeness without your explicit consent, which must be affirmatively provided through an opt-in mechanism,” the proposed alteration reads in part.

“For the avoidance of doubt,” the important text continues, “neither SoundCloud nor any third party is allowed to use, copy or reproduce any Content delivered to the Platform under separate agreements…for the purposes of informing, training developing (or as input to) artificial intelligence technologies without authorization from the applicable rightsholders.”

For artists and rights owners whose music is on SoundCloud, the development isn’t exactly reassuring. It also highlights the growing need to store and manage music collections independently, instead of relying on downstream platforms and hubs like SoundCloud.

That’s increasingly the focus at platforms like OmMuse, whose platform offers catalog storage, protection, security, and accessibility from a consolidated hub. That shifts the control back to artists, who can distribute — or not distribute — depending on the situation.

“For music professionals, storage is more than just space—it’s about accessibility, security, and creative workflow,” Vivek Patel, CEO of OmMuse, told DMN. “The right system ensures that files are organized, protected, and instantly available.”

On X, Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex (whose TOS discovery set the training controversy in motion) took issue with the “aim to replicate” stipulation.

“SoundCloud have changed their terms on AI in response to user backlash, but the change doesn’t go nearly far enough,” Newton-Rex wrote.

“Their new terms will say they won’t train gen AI models that replicate your voice / style,” he continued. “But they leave the door open to the much more likely gen AI training: models trained on your work that might not directly replicate your style but that still compete with you in the market.

“If they actually want to address concerns, the change required is simple. It should just read ‘We will not use Your Content to train generative AI models without your explicit consent,’” the former Stability AI exec proceeded.

The way Newton-Rex sees things, if SoundCloud decides to leave the fresh terms “unchanged” from here, “we can only assume” the new approach “is intentional.”

Suffice to say that the multifaceted issue won’t be going away anytime soon. For SoundCloud in particular, future AI announcements, pertaining to training or not, will be closely scrutinized. And it remains to be seen how different DSPs will approach training moving forward.

Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, who’s exited the Universal Music board, testifying before Congress.

Bill Ackman has officially stepped down from the Universal Music Group (UMG) board, citing “increasing demands on his time.”

The Pershing Square Capital Management head confirmed that departure in a brief release, with UMG having put out a concise disclosure of its own.

Per the former announcement, the aforementioned demands pertain to Ackman’s “other Pershing Square commitments,” among them his recent appointment as executive chairman of Howard Hughes Holdings’ own board.

(Said appointment coincided with a $900 million Pershing Square investment in Howard Hughes Holdings. Apparently, the latter intends to branch out beyond real estate and begin operating as a “diversified holding company.”)

At the time of this writing, Ackman didn’t appear to have addressed his UMG board exit (which is effective following the business’s annual investor meeting today) on X. However, the 59-year-old in a statement touted the “superb leadership” of Universal Music CEO Lucian Grainge.

“Over the last three years,” Ackman communicated, “I have greatly enjoyed being a director of UMG as it has transitioned from a private company into a flourishing public enterprise.

“The company is extremely well positioned for future growth and profitability under the superb leadership of Sir Lucian Grainge and the entire UMG team. I am grateful to my fellow directors for their continued commitment to driving long-term value for all shareholders,” he concluded.

Beyond these enthusiastic parting remarks, it’s worth reiterating that Pershing in March sold some of its Universal Music stake – with existing UMG investor Tencent having upped its interest in the major that same month.

And besides the much-discussed streaming plateau (at least in terms of core financials, UMG’s faring relatively well here), Ackman’s board exit follows Pershing Square’s public push to shift Universal Music’s main stock listing from Amsterdam to the States.

UMG brass bristled at the not-so-subtle suggestion, and as things stand, it doesn’t appear that the major plans to make the jump. Nevertheless, Pershing still has the right – one it will seemingly exercise – to spearhead a separate Universal Music listing in the U.S.

That sub-listing is presumably moving forward and, according to reports, is expected to commence sometime before mid-September 2025.

More immediately, Universal Music (now preparing to add Verizon vet Matt Ellis as CFO on June 9th) saw its stock price slip during today’s trading. Once again at the time of writing, shares were down about 2.4% at $29.52/€26.35 apiece.

Tencent Music has once again reported subscriber and profit growth — this time for Q1 2025, when the company leaned into “IRL” SVIP initiatives. Photo Credit: Tencent Music

Tencent Music (NYSE: TME) has revealed continued subscriber and profit boosts for Q1 2025, which also delivered licensing renewals with Sony Music and others.

The QQ, Kugou, Kuwo, and WeSing operator shed light on its first-quarter financials today. In keeping with the company’s 2024 results and heightened focus on core streaming offerings, overall online music MAUs once again dipped, this time by 4% year over year to 555 million, the Q1 report shows.

Nevertheless, Tencent Music posted an 8.3% YoY surge in online music paid users, to almost 123 million, and a 7.5% YoY increase in monthly average revenue per paid user (CNY 11.4, currently $1.58).

Elaborating on the ARPPU improvement, Tencent Music emphasized strong results attributable to its superfan-geared SVIP tier, where “premium audio quality remains a key attraction.” About half the service’s SVIP subs “actively” enjoyed upgraded audio on the quarter, per TME.

Furthermore, the aforementioned multiyear Sony Music renewal – incidentally, the major also has a sizable stake in podcast platform Ximalaya, which TME is reportedly in talks to purchase – brought “the 360 Reality Audio sound privilege” to SVIP subscribers, per Tencent Music.

At the intersection of these points (an aggressive streaming strategy and more relaxed efforts on the livestream side), Tencent Music disclosed an 8.7% YoY revenue jump for Q1 2025, to $1.02 billion/CNY 7.36 billion.

But behind the figure, streaming revenue is said to have risen 15.9% YoY to $804.85 million/CNY 5.80 billion, including growth of 16.6% on the subscription front ($585.59 million/CNY 4.22 billion). And all told, Tencent Music identified Q1 2025 net profit of $609.18 million/CNY 4.39 billion, up substantially YoY.

Possibly more interesting than these solid financials and TME’s optimistic full-year forecast are a few easily overlooked elements of the Q1 earnings report.

First is Tencent Music’s prioritization of results for global companies as well as international talent in China’s quick-expanding music market – and not just when it comes to streaming. (This is perhaps worth remembering given Warner Music’s admission that it lost commercial ground in China during Q1.)

To be sure, the business didn’t stop at acknowledging its “deepened” ties to Starship Entertainment and YG Entertainment. Rather, Tencent Music reiterated its merch collab with G-Dragon, its launch of Babymonster’s “debut pop-up store in mainland China,” and its role in spearheading “aespa’s first-ever exhibition” in China, to name a few examples.

“[W]e organized Fiona Sit’s concert tour and offered SVIP members meet-and-greet opportunities, further strengthening user engagement,” Tencent Music indicated.

Next, on top of the initially highlighted Sony Music renewal, TME, having reupped with Universal Music closer to the beginning of 2024, confirmed scoring “equity interests” in UMG this past March.

“In March 2025,” Tencent Music wrote here, “we received a 2% equity interests of Universal Music Group (‘UMG’) through a distribution-in-kind from one of our associates, which was designated as financial assets at fair value through other comprehensive income, and recognized a gain of RMB2.37 billion (US$327 million) on deemed disposal of this associate.”

Tencent Music’s Q1 2025 earnings call mainly covered forthcoming monetization plans, including for the above-described SVIP tier. During today’s trading, TME shares rose about 2.5% to $14.69 apiece, reflecting a nearly 30% hike from 2025’s start.

A breakdown of the newly added voice-request support for Spotify’s AI DJ. Photo Credit: Spotify

Spotify has officially added voice-based music requests to AI DJ, listener engagement with which is said to have “nearly doubled over the past year.”

The streaming platform announced its latest DJ expansion (and the engagement spike) in a brief release today. According to Spotify, the AI feature now responds to and tailors sessions based on a variety of English-language voice requests from subscribers.

That refers specifically to those based in the 60 or so nations currently supporting AI DJ, which, per Spotify, can field “a combination of genre, mood, artist, or activity-related requests” on the music side.

Regarding non-music content, DJ (which takes voice prompts via a button in the lower-right corner) doesn’t yet provide podcast, audiobook, or video recommendations. But given Spotify’s aggressive focus here, it’ll presumably begin doing so in the not-so-distant future.

Closer to the present, Spotify elaborated that DJ will personalize sessions “based on your request, listening history, music preferences, and more.” Users can also “change the vibe” of recommendations with a tap as opposed to a follow-up voice request.

On the “more” front, one needn’t stretch the imagination to guess which artists and rightsholders are likeliest to benefit from DJ responses.

However, Spotify did take the opportunity to plug possible requests such as “Play me some cry-in-the-car songs” and “Surprise me with some indie tracks I’ve never heard before.”

With any luck, the DJ expansion will help at least a portion of listeners find quality human-made tracks that aren’t already racking up millions upon millions of streams.

In the bigger picture, it probably goes without saying that streaming platforms are dedicating more resources than ever to developing AI features and DJ tools.

For Spotify, this also includes AI Playlist, with YouTube Music having recently rallied around what it calls AI-powered personalized radio stations. (YouTube proper, on the other hand, is quietly embracing pre-cleared AI instrumentals for creators.)

And evidence suggests that SoundCloud could be preparing to take things a step further. After an AI-focused terms of service update began making a media splash, the platform seemingly left the door open to training gen AI based on uploaded media down the line.

It probably goes without saying once again, but TOS clause or not, the majors won’t be consenting to largescale training on their catalogs sans compensation. Following the point to its logical conclusion, emerging artists in particular are receiving an increasingly raw deal at the intersection of streaming and AI.

The House of Lords chamber, where an amendment to the UK’s heavily debated AI bill has passed 272-125.

One much-publicized opposition campaign later, the UK AI bill, including a controversial “opt-out” approach to generative model training, has suffered a setback.

That’s according to outlets from across the pond, which have described a new amendment to the proposed law as “a heavy defeat” for the government. As we previously noted, said law as written would have given gen AI developers the green light to train their models on protected works without prior permission.

Instead, it’d be up to rightsholders themselves to “opt out” of training. While the government painted the system as part of a “blueprint to turbocharge AI,” the majors, Merlin, and a multitude of artists criticized the measure as a serious blow to the creative community.

Now, the tidal wave of pushback, including op-eds, a silent album, and an Elton John- and Paul McCartney-signed letter, looks to have delivered the industry’s desired result.

As described by The Independent, politician (and film director) Beeban Kidron in more words criticized the proposed law as enabling tech giants to steal protected media and then undercut creatives. A related amendment to the bill is said to have passed in a 272-125 House of Lords vote.

Digging into the amendment itself, the suggested change would empower copyright owners to obtain “information regarding the text and data used in the pre-training, training, fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation in the AI model, or any other data input to the AI model.”

Additionally, AI developers would be compelled to “provide an effective mechanism to allow copyright owners to identify all individual works that they own that are used” in training, per the amendment.

And the same owners would reportedly have to approve beforehand – not proactively opt out of – training usages. The text describes several other obligations for AI developers (including in relation to bots) as well.

Seemingly every gen AI business operating in the UK will be on the hook under the amendment as written; the requirements would apply to any model that “has a significant number of United Kingdom users” or that counts the UK as one of its “target markets,” the document shows.

As for where the legislation goes from here, the amended bill is on its way to the House of Commons “for further debate,” according to The Indian Express.

Stateside, the battle over AI training is as heated as ever, referring both to high-stakes legislative proposals and ongoing suits. Even individual platforms like SoundCloud are finding themselves at the center of training debates.

And while it happens to be a key argument from the AI side, evidence strongly suggests that developers based in countries with less robust IP protections are, in fact, training their models on protected works. Put differently, there are more than a few angles to consider when it comes to the unprecedented technology’s ongoing fallout.

SoundCloud says it hasn’t used music uploads to train generative AI models. But related debates are ongoing after the platform seemingly left the door open to training undertakings down the line. Photo Credit: SoundCloud

Is SoundCloud using your music to train generative AI models? The company says it “doesn’t allow AI training or scraping with music on our platform,” but questions remain in light of a controversial terms of service update.

Former Stability VP of audio Ed Newton-Rex, a longtime musician who’s currently the CEO of Fairly Trained, recently posted about that update on social media. Added in February 2024, per Newton-Rex and SoundCloud itself, the relevant text authorizes the platform to use uploads “to inform, train, [and] develop” AI.

“You explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services,” the terms read.

The next paragraph elaborates that “neither SoundCloud nor any third party” can use or reproduce uploaded media “for the purposes of informing, training developing (or as input to) artificial intelligence technologies without authorization from the applicable rightsholders.”

Despite the latter line, which seemingly leaves the door open for AI training should uploaders fail to opt out, the text isn’t sitting right with artists. Moreover, SoundCloud (which isn’t a stranger to artificial intelligence) left the same door open when responding to the controversy.

Here, the Berlin-based platform maintained that it had “never used artist content to train AI models” and hadn’t allowed “third parties to scrape or use SoundCloud content from our platform for AI training purposes.”

“The February 2024 update to our Terms of Service was intended to clarify how content may interact with AI technologies within SoundCloud’s own platform,” the Musiio owner emphasized on X. “Use cases include personalized recommendations, content organization, fraud detection, and improvements to content identification with the help of AI Technologies.”

When closing out the message, however, SoundCloud said it would “keep our community informed every step of the way as we explore innovation and apply AI technologies responsibly.” And subsequently, communications head Marni Greenberg indicated that “clear opt-out mechanisms” would accompany any future decision to train AI models on user uploads.

“Should we ever consider using user content to train generative AI models,” Greenberg relayed on this front, “we would introduce clear opt-out mechanisms in advance—at a minimum—and remain committed to transparency with our creator community.”

Unsurprisingly, the suggestion that SoundCloud may potentially “consider using user content to train generative AI models” elicited a number of less-than-enthusiastic responses.

Just scratching the surface, many on X criticized SoundCloud for (among other things) possibly deciding against an opt-in model.

“The ‘opt-out’ they commit to in this new statement would be totally unfair on artists, shifting the burden onto them to tell SoundCloud not to train on their music,” Newton-Rex wrote. “Most would miss the chance. Opt-outs are designed to gather as much content as possible for training.”

Driving home his dissatisfaction, Newton-Rex committed to “[d]eleting my SoundCloud” profile, which appeared to still be live on the service at the time of writing.

The decision might be a bit premature at this stage of the game – especially given that some AI companies are alleged to have already trained on protected works without permission. But it’ll be worth closely monitoring the situation (referring not only to SoundCloud’s terms, but those of different DSPs) moving forward.

Photo Credit: The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0

With the ugly Drake v. Universal Music defamation lawsuit – and the discovery process – moving forward, both sides have requested and received a protective order covering “highly confidential or proprietary business information.”

The presiding judge signed off on that protective order this afternoon, on the heels of Universal Music’s firmly worded attempt to dismiss the amended complaint. By now, most are at least generally familiar with the high-stakes legal battle and Drake’s “Not Like Us” defamation qualms.

Less widely known, however, are Team Drake’s aggressive discovery demands. As we reported early last month, the plaintiff and his counsel disclosed plans to seek copies of “all” Kendrick Lamar’s UMG contracts, an abundance of internal communications between UMG execs, and a whole lot else.

Against this backdrop, the major label and the Toronto-born artist agreed that their dispute “is likely to involve the production of certain categories of highly confidential or proprietary business information, specifically, previously undisclosed contracts and information regarding business relationships with non-parties to this litigation.”

In the same letter to the judge, a Drake attorney noted that her side and Universal Music alike had proposed “certain, limited changes” to the court’s protective-order model.

Unfortunately for the public, the now-approved order will therefore provide each side with considerable room to label pretty much any contract-related document “attorneys’ eyes only.”

For Universal Music, the attorneys-only designation is expressly allowed when it comes to professional “relationships with other recording artists or non-parties to this litigation.”

That includes but isn’t limited to “confidential financial or payment information, revenue reports, royalty rates, licensing rates, and any other commercially sensitive documents,” the legal text spells out.

On the opposite side of the equation – and perhaps more interestingly – Drake and his attorneys can slap the mentioned designation on “any documents identifying confidential or proprietary business information regarding Plaintiff’s business relationships with non-parties to this litigation.”

As to where things go from here, the discovery wheels are certainly in motion – though assuming a resolution doesn’t materialize, they’ll remain that way for a while yet before an anticipated three-week trial initiates.

Just scratching the scheduling surface, an order last month set a tentative February 13th, 2026, wrap date for fact discovery, compared to a May 29th, 2026, cutoff for expert discovery.

Closer to the present, Kendrick Lamar (who’s technically not a party to Drake’s UMG complaint) is now facing a separate lawsuit, filed this time by Rodney O, over a Drake diss track.

Snoop Dogg, who’s officially set to host a live New Year’s Eve special on NBC. Additionally, the Death Row owner is preparing to serve as a coach on the forthcoming 28th season of The Voice. Photo Credit: TechCrunch

The Olympics, The Voice, and now New Year’s Eve: Snoop Dogg is officially set to cap off 2025 with a two-hour special from Miami.

NBC formally announced that year-end programming, aptly entitled Snoop Dogg New Year’s Eve, in a brief release today. As things stand, concrete details are limited; we are, of course, seven months and change out from 2025’s end.

But the network teased guest appearances (hinting strongly at a Martha Stewart showing), “unforgettable music performances,” and more for the live event, which will air on Peacock and NBC proper between 10:30 PM and 12:30 AM local time.

(Incidentally, Stewart is hosting a cooking-competition show, Yes, Chef!, that premiered on NBC late last month.)

Furthermore, Snoop Dogg New Year’s Eve will follow the Death Row Records owner’s lucrative Olympics correspondence on NBC, where Snoop has lined up another coaching gig on The Voice.

NBC and the Reservoir-partnered rapper also confirmed that return today. Having previously occupied the coach’s chair for the music-competition show’s 26th season, Snoop is poised to join Michael Bublé, Reba McEntire, and Niall Horan on season 28 of The Voice this fall.

In other words, tapping Snoop Dogg to liven up programs and events seems to be paying off for NBC, which is presumably drawing casual fans into the viewership fold.

(Keith Urban and former Voice judge Blake Shelton are opting instead to take a new stab at the music-competition genre. Meanwhile, Netflix’s Building the Band is reportedly still teed up for a 2025 release despite judge Liam Payne’s October 2024 passing.)

Specifically when it comes to New Year’s Eve programming, it’s safe to say competition for watchers is stiffer than ever; live-performance lineups are decidedly deep as well.

Last year, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest attempted to attract viewers to ABC with sets from the aforementioned Shelton, Luis Fonsi, Lenny Kravitz, Hardy, Laufey, and a variety of different talent.

Likewise looking to get in on the year-end TV action is four-year-old New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash. Ringing in 2025 on Central time, the CBS and Paramount+ broadcast featured headline performances from the above-noted Urban, Kane Brown, and Jelly Roll. And CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live saw 50 Cent, Diplo, Sting, and more take the stage.

Robert Baugh, who’s joined Dynamic Talent as an agent. Photo Credit: Dynamic Talent

Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of May 9th, 2025.

If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com. And, keep track of all the latest music industry hires here.

Range Music

Range Music has launched a composer division and announced Kraft-Engel vet Jeff Jernigan as the first hire.

Dynamic Talent

Dynamic Talent International has opened a new Music City office and brought on former Reliant booking coordinator Robert Baugh as a Nashville-based agent.

Downtown Music

Downtown Music Publishing has hired former Iconoclast A&R exec Jason Taylor as VP of business development. Additionally, the company has upped 14-year team member Bea Koramblyum to global head of business affairs and VP of business development.

AEG Presents

AEG Presents Europe has announced Andrew Spencer as COO; the former Frontier Touring chief commercial officer is expected to relocate from Australia to London “this summer.”

Boyarski Fritz LLP

Boyarski Fritz has boosted Alex Stolls to partner and added the three-year employee to its management team.

Horus Music

CD Baby vet Rich Orchard has signed on as MD for Horus Music and its Anara Publishing sister company.

UMG Nashville

16-year Universal Music higher-up Lori Christian is stepping away from her role as marketing EVP at UMG Nashville.

Capitol Music Group

Partizan executive producer Sara Nix and Astralwerks exec Joe Mortimer are officially creative SVPs at Capitol Music Group.

Rolling Stone

Former Billboard president (and Doodles CEO) Julian Holguin is now CEO of Rolling Stone; existing head Gus Wenner has transitioned to executive chairman.

A live performance from the Pointer Sisters, whose ‘Hot Together’ is riding high after appearing in a Grand Theft Auto trailer. Photo Credit: Rick Kramer

Some four decades after its release, Pointer Sisters track “Hot Together” is taking off on Spotify and elsewhere thanks to a Grand Theft Auto trailer appearance.

Both Spotify and the Pointer Sisters themselves are touting the sync-fueled streaming ascent of “Hot Together” (1986). According to the platform, that refers to an astonishing 182,000% play-volume boost since the second Grand Theft Auto VI trailer dropped earlier this week.

“Grand Theft Auto cuts through popular culture like almost nothing else,” weighed in Spotify global head of editorial Sulinna Ong. “Music has been synonymous with the series since the very beginning, so it’s great to see fans both new and established connecting with an iconic track in this way.”

While the popularity surge is impressive, “iconic” might be a bit of a stretch here. The 182,000% consumption hike stemmed in part from a relatively low initial stream count on the track, which didn’t appear at all on 2017’s 36-song The Essential Pointer Sisters.

As things stand, “Hot Together” has around 1.04 million Spotify streams, well beneath the totals attributable to established Pointer Sisters hits like “I’m So Excited” (623.4 million) and “Slow Hand” (51.6 million).

The GTA 6 trailer’s extensive reach is also worth keeping in mind. On YouTube alone, the official video (meaning the main Rockstar Games upload) is already closing in on 100 million views, compared to 110 million on X and millions more on Instagram.

Existing stream total aside, “Hot Together” evidently aligned with Rockstar’s vision for the trailer and the Vice City-set game itself (the track will be in the soundtrack proper). And unsurprisingly, the commercial momentum isn’t limited to Spotify for the Pointer Sisters, who are attracting new fans on YouTube, Apple Music, and different services yet.

Nor is this momentum confined to streaming, where, as many know, strong listenership doesn’t necessarily translate into material royalties for artists. As plugged on Shazam, the Pointer Sisters, including 79-year-old original member Ruth Pointer, have several concerts lined up for the remainder of 2025.

Time will tell whether continued fan interest in GTA 6 (scheduled to release on May 26th of next year) drives consistent results for the Pointer Sisters among heretofore untapped listener groups.

At least in theory, most of those who caught “Hot Together” in the trailer (and subsequently sought out the song on streaming) are new to the act, which released an eponymous debut album more than half a century ago.

We’ve seen similar sync situations for media without nearly as much marketing firepower as Grand Theft Auto. Fleetwood Mac rode a viral TikTok trend into Gen-Z superstardom, for instance, and a Stranger Things placement helped Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” top 1.3 billion Spotify streams and counting.

Concord has officially acquired Broadway Licensing Global (BLG). Photo Credit: Erik Mclean

Concord has officially acquired self-described “global leader in theatrical licensing and distribution” Broadway Licensing Global (BLG).

The acquisition-minded Concord reached out with word of its latest purchase, the assets from which will become part of the seven-year-old Concord Theatricals unit. Most notably, this division will house BLG imprint Broadway Licensing, which licenses A Night with Janis Joplin and The Cher Show, to name a couple.

Likewise set to operate under the Concord Theatricals banner are Broadway Licensing Global subsidiaries Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts, and Stage Rights (A Cappella and Country Is: The Music of Main Street in Concert), the buyer indicated.

“At this time,” Concord elaborated on LinkedIn, “the customer experience remains unchanged. Customers should continue to work with their respective licensing houses.”

Though Nashville-based Concord (which recently touted the many 2025 Tony Award nominees in its catalog) didn’t dive into price-tag particulars, it did emphasize that the transaction excludes BLG’s Stageworks and Broadway On Demand.

The former imprint houses an “internal content development division” as well, while five-year-old Broadway On Demand, as its name suggests, brings the stage to the screen.

Concord (advised in the transaction by Reed Smith, Davis Wright Tremaine, and KPMG alike, with Barron International Group acting as the “exclusive financial advisor”) also took the opportunity to reiterate its theatrical presence.

Concord Theatricals is said to be “the only firm providing truly comprehensive services to creators and producers of plays and musicals,” referring to licensing, publishing, cast recording, and more.

Meanwhile, the involved parties opted to rattle off some of the many authors and rightsholders behind Broadway Licensing Global, advised here by Goldman and Proskauer Rose. Keeping the enthusiasm going in statements, execs drove home the deal’s perceived significance for Concord and the wider theater space.

(Side note on the executive front: Broadway Licensing founder and CEO Sean Cercone stepped away in March 2024, promptly launched a new company called Dramallama, and is apparently working on a play entitled “Sold Out.” “It’s about ambition, ego, power, and what happens when the spotlight turns off,” Cercone wrote on LinkedIn just this morning.)

“Concord’s mission is to champion authors by promoting and protecting their work and empowering theatre makers to help their shows reach audiences worldwide,” added Concord chief theatricals executive Sean Patrick Flahaven.

“Bringing together these catalogs combines 150 titles and 400 authors that are already shared between the companies, as well as creating new relationships,” the close to seven-year Concord exec proceeded in part.

Intercept Music has announced a $50 million song rights partnership. Photo Credit: Casey Botticello

Let the song rights purchases continue: Intercept Music has announced $50 million in fresh catalog funding, and “several initial acquisitions” are said to be in the works.

According to the San Francisco-headquartered distributor and marketer, the sizable tranche resulted from a “private partnership.” Beyond this, Intercept Music didn’t provide too many details about the tie-up.

But it did confirm that founder and chairman Ralph Tashjian is a “co-investor and strategic advisor in the partnership.” Additionally, Intercept indicated that it’ll target U.S. and Latin catalogs in particular.

(Longtime Universal Music Mexico exec Martín Roca signed on with Intercept in February as Mexico GM. The same month, eight-year Believe vet Raquel Martins, who’s based in Spain, began as a YouTube music-services advisor, and the namesake head of Bob Frank Entertainment joined the board.)

The plays could involve “full or partial rights” in IP, the seven-year-old company said, acknowledging as well a special focus on bodies of work “with untapped or under-leveraged revenue.”

From there, the buyer would by its own description utilize “proprietary technology, predictive analytics and [its] targeted marketing portal to amplify both earnings and audience reach.”

“This is more than just a funding deal—it’s a commitment to restructuring music rights management,” Intercept CEO Tod Turner elaborated. “This partnership is a significant endorsement of our platform and strategy allowing us to combine capital with cutting-edge technology to unlock more value for artists, songwriters, and catalog owners, while accelerating our growth into the Latin and U.S. markets.”

Lastly, in terms of the funding’s specifics, Intercept spelled out that it intends to start wrapping deals sooner rather than later. “Intercept’s catalog management division will begin deploying capital immediately,” the business relayed, “with several initial acquisitions already under review.”

It’ll be worth keeping an eye out for related announcements – and catalog purchases from different companies – moving forward. Despite the mountain of music IP deals that have wrapped, Intercept certainly isn’t alone in looking to scoop up song rights.

Following 2024’s numerous catalog transactions and billions in funding, 2025’s initial four months delivered massive capital disclosures from Duetti ($200 million), Aquarian and Raven Capital ($250 million), and Pophouse Entertainment ($1.3 billion, about 30% of which has been deployed), to name a few.

Meanwhile, 2025’s many catalog deals (all compiled in DMN Pro’s Music IP Acquisition Tracker) extend to the work of Deadmau5, Snow Patrol, Morgan Wallen, DJ Khaled, Notorious B.I.G., T-Pain, and many others.

The DOJ and the FTC have officially launched a public inquiry in connection with a March executive order targeting ‘unfair practices in the live entertainment market.’ Photo Credit: ActionVance

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have officially launched an inquiry into “unfair and anticompetitive practices” in the live entertainment space.

The DOJ and the FTC formally announced this public inquiry today, a month and change after President Trump signed an executive order targeting “unscrupulous middlemen who sit at the intersection between artists and fans.”

As we noted then, the order gave the mentioned department and agency (besides the Treasury Department) 180 days to provide a report describing “any recommendations for regulations or legislation necessary to protect consumers” in the ticketing world.

And it’s in connection with the report that the entities are now fielding comments concerning “harmful practices” in the live sector. The public, from consumers to companies, have until Monday, July 7th to weigh in if so inclined, according to the inquiry announcement.

In addition to insights pertaining to the previously highlighted “unfair and anticompetitive practices,” the DOJ and the FTC are welcoming comments about “the competitive effects of current state and federal regulations and laws in the live concert and entertainment industry.”

“We will continue to closely examine this market and look for opportunities where vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws can lead to increased competition that makes tickets more affordable for fans while offering fairer compensation for artists,” Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater added in part.

Time will, of course, reveal exactly what comes of the inquiry and different components of the executive order, which also instructed the FTC to ramp up enforcement of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act).

Today’s announcement underscored that the commission is “taking the lead” here. Though new charges have yet to materialize under the scalping-focused law, the FTC last month fired off a warning shot of sorts with an explainer entitled “BOTS Act compliance: Time for a refresher?”

In the bigger picture, one needn’t be a Washington insider to sense the bipartisan regulatory mood regarding crowd-based entertainment.

To name one immediate example, today’s public-comments release also reiterated that the DOJ as well as 40 state and district attorneys general are litigating against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary over “monopolization and other unlawful conduct.”

Meanwhile, the House closed out April by overwhelmingly approving the TICKET Act (which, in a nutshell, would mandate all-in pricing for tickets), and senators from both sides of the aisle kicked off a new round of Live Nation antitrust scrutiny.

This time, the involved lawmakers (who aren’t strangers to expressing concerns about the Ticketmaster parent’s operations) are zeroing in on a Fanatics pact.

Warner Music Group has reported a revenue dip for Q1 2025, when recorded subscription streaming revenue grew modestly and its ad-supported counterpart fell 5% YoY. Photo Credit: WMG

Warner Music Group (WMG) has reported another quarterly revenue slip – this time for 2025’s opening three months, when the major label suffered a “market share loss in China.”

WMG posted its financials for 2025’s first quarter (the fiscal second quarter) this morning, pointing to about $1.48 billion in overall revenue. That represents a small decrease from the same period in 2024 and reflects dips in several categories.

To be sure, U.S. recorded revenue ($497 million, down 2% YoY in constant currency), stateside publishing revenue ($161 million, down 5% YoY), and international recorded revenue ($678 million, down slightly YoY) all fell during Q1 2025, Warner Music relayed.

International publishing revenue rode a double-digit YoY boost to hit $149 million, however, and physical sales grew almost 1% YoY to $112 million amid bumps in the U.S. and Japan.

Meanwhile, the Tempo Music owner acknowledged a minor decline in recorded digital revenue to $841 million for 2025’s opening quarter. Behind this development, recorded streaming subscription revenue ($622 million) is said to have improved by 1.1% YoY, though its ad-supported counterpart ($203 million) decreased by almost 5%.

More interesting than the slips themselves is the company’s explanation for the wider trend.

During the corresponding earnings call, execs cited a lighter Q1 2025 release schedule, difficult YoY comparisons, a soft ad market, presumably advantageous DSP renewals that are still kicking in, and the aforementioned “market share loss in China.”

For reference, China’s on-demand market leader, Tencent Music, is still reporting solid growth in the core streaming category. And Universal Music previously indicated that it’d achieved double-digit subscription revenue growth in China during 2025’s first quarter.

In any event, execs opted against diving into Warner Music’s exact commercial woes in China. But CEO Robert Kyncl said he anticipates the trend will “continue for the balance of the year.” Even so, the former YouTube exec also touched on the potential for better results under a head of Asia who’s set to come aboard in about two months.

Elsewhere in the Q1 2025 report, Warner Music confirmed $36 million in net income (down from $96 million) and shed light on the exit package of former CFO Bryan Castellani.

Remaining on in an advisory capacity until September’s end, Castellani is expected to receive his base compensation, a $1.65 million severance payment (via weekly installments), a once-off $40,000 payment, an “annual target bonus” (amount to be determined), and $1 million in restricted stock units, Warner Music communicated.

These and previous stock awards will vest so long as the exec complies with a collection of “non-competition and non-solicitation covenants,” according to the text.

At the time of writing – despite wider market trends that pushed Spotify stock to a record high of $663 per share – Warner Music stock (NASDAQ: WMG) was down 7.2% at $27.92 per share.

A live performance from Bakar, whose viral ‘Hell N Back’ is at the center of a new copyright infringement lawsuit. Photo Credit: Tackofall099

Bakar’s viral “Hell N Back” has crashed into a massive copyright infringement lawsuit for allegedly sampling a decades-old track without proper authorization.

New York City-based Tuff City Records fired off the multifaceted complaint yesterday, naming as defendants not only Bakar, but Resnik Music Group, Sony Music UK, its Black Butter Records imprint, and others yet.

As some already know, the nearly six-year-old “Hell N Back” is still riding a wave of commercial momentum – including on TikTok, where it’s featured in millions of clips. Beyond the short-form app, the track (which Summer Walker remixed in 2023) is said to have appeared in a trailer for Disney’s Elemental and on American Idol.

Putting those pertinent details on the backburner for a moment, plaintiff Tuff City Records currently specializes in “rescuing thousands of blues, jazz, funk, soul and R&B treasures from obscurity,” its website shows.

Overall, the company owns and administers “tens of thousands of musical recordings and compositions,” per the suit. And as the filing party tells the story, that pile of IP includes a 1967 song entitled (ironically enough) “I Caught You in a Lie.”

As laid out in the action, multiple years and agreements later, full ownership of the recording (released by Robert Parker) and the composition (penned by Lee Diamond) ultimately wound up with Tuff City.

That’s a decidedly important point for the plaintiff, which believes that “Hell N Back” and its remix sample “the entire rhythm track (including all of the bass and drum sounds)” from “I Caught You in a Lie.” It probably doesn’t need saying given the suit, but the alleged usages “were not authorized by” Tuff City.

How, then, did an allegedly infringing track release via a major label imprint and rack up 900 million Spotify streams (while recording several different consumption feats to boot) before this complaint’s submission?

On the compositional side, Tuff City is placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the aforesaid Resnik Music Group and its alleged “false claim of ownership” over “I Caught You in a Lie.”

Long story short, Resnik Music allegedly maintains that it’s the actual owner based on a series of rights transfers stemming from the above-noted Lee Diamond.

On top of allegedly securing royalties to which it’s not entitled, Resnik Music has allegedly denied the plaintiff its “opportunity to license” the composition.

“Based on their claimed ownership of the Composition,” the suit reads in part, “Defendants [Robert] Resnik and Resnik Music and their counsel have demanded that Plaintiff abandon its ownership claims.”

DMN reached out to Resnik Music for comment but didn’t immediately receive a response. However, “I Caught You in a Lie” seemingly remained available to license via Resnik Music’s website at the time of writing.

And when it comes to the relevant recordings, Tuff City (which says it “repeatedly notified” the defendants of its concerns) is pointing to alleged false representations from one Maple Gaines to Sony Music UK.

Gaines is said to have inked a related licensing deal with Sony Music UK in October 2019 – despite not owning the master, according to the suit. Consequently, “she was not authorized to enter into the agreement, and as she lacked the rights, the agreement was a nullity,” per the legal text.

Sony Music UK may not have known “that Gaines’s representations and warranties were false,” but “declined to distribute royalties [to Tuff City]…amounting to at least $47,500 as of 2023,” the suit states.

All told, Tuff City is suing Bakar, Sony Music UK, Black Butter, and Summer Walker publisher LVRN for copyright infringement, besides seeking an injunction as well as a declaratory judgement confirming that it’s “the owner of all rights in and to the” composition and the recording.

The plaintiff is also pursuing fraud claims against Resnik Music, its owner, and Gaines.

Warner Music has officially unveiled WMG Pulse, which is said to provide songwriters and artists with real-time consumption stats, royalty data, and more. Photo Credit: Warner Music

Warner Music Group (WMG) is officially testing an app called WMG Pulse, which is said to provide artists and songwriters with real-time consumption data from streaming and social platforms.

The major label disclosed its WMG Pulse beta today, pointing to north of 100 current users and plans for a wider rollout later in 2025. Importantly, the app is distinct from Warner Music’s long-anticipated superfan offering, which looks to be slowly but surely getting off the ground.

(Nor should Pulse be confused with the existing WMG AMP, which is still available for download and, per its Play Store description, “is designed to help Warner Music Group’s artists and managers make meaningful connections from performance data.”)

Pulse, on the other hand, is said to boast a consolidated breakdown of works’ consumption metrics and a corresponding real-time income snapshot. The latter encompasses not just streaming royalties, but earnings particulars for physical, sync, and more, according to Warner Music.

Though the major’s formal release doesn’t dive into specifics here, a brief promo clip appears to suggest that Pulse includes across-the-board DSP data, consumption numbers for individual songs, follower counts, and a standalone “Money” page dedicated to the aforementioned royalties.

(With a “Current balance snapshot” and a side-by-side view of both “Earnings” and “Recoupable costs,” this Money section may well prevent recoupment-related legal confrontations down the line.)

Meanwhile, the major – which emphasized that its “in-house tech experts,” not an external developer, created Pulse – also touched on plans to add support for revenue forecasting, release planning, and collaboration options moving forward.

It’s unclear when these features will go live, and the Africori parent didn’t identify a hard label-wide launch date for Pulse. However, feedback from the above-highlighted artist and songwriter testers “will help fine-tune the app” in the coming months, Warner Music indicated.

“With WMG Pulse,” added WMG technology president Ariel Bardin, “we’re providing greater transparency across the music ecosystem, including data from every major streaming and social media platform.

“The app offers a seamless, easy to use experience, giving deeper insights into careers and fan bases, with even more sophisticated updates still to come. It’s about empowering artists and songwriters with clarity, and helping them make smarter, data-driven decisions with their teams,” concluded Bardin, whose company added Activision Blizzard vet Armin Zerza as CFO on Monday.

A pair of headphones from Bowers & Wilkins, one of the Sound United brands that’s set to become part of Samsung’s Harman International thanks to a newly announced acqusition agreement. Photo Credit: Evgeniy Bezkorovayniy

A little over three years after acquiring Sound United, medical tech company Masimo Corporation is offloading its consumer audio unit in a $350 million deal with Samsung’s Harman International.

Irvine-headquartered Masimo, having previously kicked off a strategic review of some non-core operations, confirmed the divestment in a brief release. As mentioned, the 36-year-old business only wrapped its Sound United buyout in April 2022.

(Between then and the review’s start, a multiyear proxy battle culminated with the September 2024 exit of Masimo founder and CEO Joe Kiani, according to medical device trades. Katie Szyman came aboard as CEO this past February.)

Still based in Carlsbad, Sound United markets wearables, speakers, and a variety of different audio products via brands like Bowers & Wilkins, Polk Audio, and (at least in name) Boston Acoustics, to name a few.

Now, these and others are set to begin operating under the Samsung banner. Today’s deal includes a $350 million cash payment “subject to certain adjustments” and, pending regulatory approval, is expected to wrap sometime before 2025’s conclusion.

In more words, Masimo execs described the transaction as a step towards prioritizing across-the-board efficiency and an enhanced focus on the medical side. Meanwhile, Dave Rogers, president of Harman’s lifestyle division, said the purchase “opens new avenues for growth.”

“Sound United’s portfolio of world-class audio brands including Bowers & Wilkins, Denon and Marantz, will join HARMAN’s iconic family of brands, including JBL, Harman Kardon, AKG, Mark Levinson, Arcam, and Revel,” proceeded the 15-year Harman higher-up Rogers.

“Built on a shared legacy of innovation and excellence in audio technology, this combined family of brands, together with the talented employees of both companies, will deliver complementary audio products, strengthen our value proposition and offer more choices to consumers,” he concluded.

For the FLUX Software Engineering and Roon parent Harman, the high-profile acquisition marks the latest in a line of expansion initiatives.

2024 saw the business open an audio engineering lab in Denmark (“the first and only one of its kind in Europe”) and (eyeing a continued automotive buildout) debut a manufacturing facility in Thailand. Earlier in 2025, Google and Samsung proper touted their newly developed Eclipsa Audio technology.

According to Samsung’s Q1 2025 earnings report, Harman generated ₩3.4 trillion (up 7% YoY and currently $2.4 billion) from sales on the quarter, with a slightly improved operating profit of $215 million/₩300 billion or so.

Still fending off App Store regulatory scrutiny, Apple has officially appealed last month’s ruling in its courtroom confrontation with Epic Games. Photo Credit: Laurenz Heymann

As expected, Apple has moved to appeal last month’s ruling in its Epic Games legal battle over App Store terms. Meanwhile, the Open App Markets Act is poised to be reintroduced in Congress.

Apple attorneys confirmed the appeal in a brief notice, after CEO Tim Cook underscored that the maneuver was forthcoming. The concise filing doesn’t dive into the iPhone developer’s exact position here, but it does emphasize that the arguments will zero in on the court’s April 30th approval of Epic’s injunction-enforcement motion.

We explored the ruling (which took effect at once, appeal or not) in detail immediately after it was handed down. Keeping the focus on the order’s impact, however, Fortnite quickly returned to the App Store, and Spotify promptly received approval for a fresh version of its iOS app.

The music platform also described those pricing and payment changes on social media as well as in a dedicated blog post. “After nearly 10 years,” CEO Daniel Ek applauded on X, “Spotify can now show pricing + direct purchase links in our app for U.S. users. This is a huge win for consumer choice and tech innovation.”

In other words, there’s quite a lot riding on Apple’s appeal for Spotify and different companies, and it’ll be worth monitoring the legal showdown (besides adjacent disputes) in the coming months.

Bigger picture, the long-running confrontation over App Store terms isn’t confined to the Epic case.

First, the European Commission slapped Apple with a more than half-billion-dollar fine last month for allegedly violating the Digital Markets Act. One of several penalties handed down against the company in the EU, the decision elicited criticism and an appeal pledge from Apple.

At the intersection of these points – intensifying App Store scrutiny on multiple continents – Epic certainly isn’t letting its foot off the regulatory gas. When addressing Apple’s EU fine to close out April, Epic made clear its belief that “[n]ow is the time to follow through” on the Open App Markets Act in the States.

We took a look at the bipartisan legislation, which would impose a variety of new requirements on both the App Store and Google’s Play Store, at the time of its 2021 introduction.

Last week, Punchbowl News reported that one of the lawmakers behind the Open App Markets Act, Senator Richard Blumenthal, intended to reintroduce the bill. Though a timetable isn’t set in stone, the senator touched on a possible goal of getting the ball rolling before Memorial Day (Monday the 26th).

Young Musicians Unite students and others celebrate raising $1.6 million at the non-profit’s 2025 gala. Photo Credit: Osmany Torres

Young Musicians Unite’s 2025 gala raised $1.6 million to support free music education for Miami-Dade students, according to organizers.

12-year-old Young Musicians Unite (YMU) reached out with word of the final fundraise total. The disco-themed gala itself took place at the Mana Wynwood on April 26th, attracting more than 700 attendees.

This guestlist featured actors (like Burn Notice star Gabrielle Anwar), philanthropists, politicians (chief among them Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava), and, of course, industry figures, the non-profit recapped.

Keeping the focus on the music space, those on hand included iHeartMedia head Bob Pittman; BCHTA Records owner Pedro Polanco; BMI execs Jesus Gonzalez and Robertocarlos Carranza; Peermusic’s Julio Bagué; and Twelve:02 Agency founder Hector Mendez.

These and other attendees, Young Musicians Unite summed up, “enjoyed a vibrant mix of gourmet dining, electric performances by YMU’s talented student musicians, and a disco-fueled dance party.”

And most importantly, the 2025 installment raised the aforementioned $1.6 million, which organizers indicated “will support programs for 12,000+ students during the 2025–2026 school year.”

(For the entire fiscal year ended July 31st, 2023, Young Musicians Unite pointed to $2.15 million in overall “revenues and other support.”)

“What we witnessed tonight was more than generosity,” added Young Musicians Unite founder and CEO Sammy Gonzalez Zeira, “it was a full-circle moment. Many of our students began with nothing but raw talent, and now they’re growing into confident, creative leaders.

“This gala wasn’t just a celebration, it was a statement. We’re building a movement, and thanks to this community, it’s only getting stronger. And because of tonight, thousands more students will walk into school next year with instruments in their hands and music in their lives,” the Wynwood School of Music owner concluded.

According to its website, Young Musicians Unite has served north of 25,000 students since its 2013 founding, with over 60 partnered schools at present. The self-described “largest provider of free music education in Title I Schools in Florida” supports programs focusing on production, jazz ensembles, drumlines, and more, per the same source.

Jimmy Page (pictured), Warner Chappell, and others are facing another copyright lawsuit centering on ‘Dazed and Confused.’ Photo Credit: Simon Fernandez

Jimmy Page, Sony Pictures Classics, Warner Chappell, and others are facing a copyright suit centering on “Dazed and Confused,” which allegedly appeared in Becoming Led Zeppelin without the original songwriter’s authorization.

Singer-songwriter Jake Holmes submitted the straightforward complaint to a California federal court. Turning back the clock for a moment, Holmes, now 85 years old, wrote and recorded “Dazed and Confused” nearly six decades ago.

As the story goes, Page then “learned of” and began performing the same effort while a member of the Yardbirds. Subsequently, a reworked version of “Dazed and Confused” made its way onto Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut album with (among different things) fresh lyrics and Page credited as the sole songwriter.

Evidently, the situation didn’t sit right with Holmes, who in a 2010 complaint accused Page and others of infringing on his “Dazed and Confused” composition with the Led Zeppelin founder’s own version.

(“Page copied Plaintiff’s Dazed and Confused in purporting to author a composition Page also entitled ‘Dazed and Confused,’” the firmly worded 2010 suit alleged.)

That set the stage for a settlement the following year, when, per Holmes’ latest complaint, the parties agreed that he “‘created and had and has complete ownership of’” the initial “Dazed and Confused” composition.

But according to the newly submitted action, Page and his fellow defendants have since “released numerous sound recordings” without Holmes’ authorization and in violation of the settlement.

This refers specifically to a variety of Yardbirds live tracks, all of which allegedly “falsely” credited Page instead of Holmes and allegedly failed to direct the appropriate royalties to the latter professional.

Building on these allegations, the action also maintains that the mentioned Becoming Led Zeppelin features an unlicensed Yardbirds rendition of “Dazed and Confused” – with Page, not Holmes, credited as the songwriter. Holmes didn’t provide his “permission or authorization” for the usage, the legal text spells out.

Consequently, the defendants “have willfully infringed” the original “Dazed and Confused,” according to Holmes, who’s said to have fired off cease-and-desist emails in mid-April. Those messages were “ignored,” per the plaintiff.

Now, ahead of a quick-approaching physical release for Becoming Led Zeppelin, Holmes is seeking damages, a share of the defendants’ profits, and, perhaps most notably, an injunction barring “any further false and unauthorized uses” of “Dazed and Confused” in the documentary.

Connoisseur Media has announced a ‘definitive agreement’ to acquire Alpha Media. Photo Credit: Connoisseur

Looks like Connoisseur Media’s radio reach is about to get a lot bigger, as the company’s announced the acquisition of Alpha Media.

Westport-headquartered Connoisseur unveiled its “definitive agreement” for Portland-based Alpha Media today. Subject to FCC approval but expected to wrap during 2025’s second half, the deal will bring 218 radio stations, operating in 47 markets, under the same banner, the parties emphasized.

The lion’s share of those stations will come from the self-described “leader in the local advertising space” Alpha; as things stand, Connoisseur says it operates 11 stations. Meanwhile, the companies are also banking on bolstered “digital capabilities” with the integration of Alpha Digital into Connoisseur’s Ferocious Digital.

Shifting to the organizational side, Connoisseur opted against diving into personnel particulars in the announcement, and time will tell whether the purchase brings layoffs.

However, the business did spell out that it intends to operate as Connoisseur post-buyout, with CEO Jeff Warshaw remaining at the helm. Longtime Alpha Media head Bob Proffitt didn’t provide a statement for Connoisseur’s release and hadn’t addressed the transaction on LinkedIn at the time of writing.

But in his own remarks, Warshaw made clear an objective of turning the united operations into “an industry-leading platform of broadcast and digital.”

“This transaction underscores our commitment to the irreplaceable role local broadcasters play in providing news, information and entertainment that truly resonates,” Warshaw said in part. “Together, we will build an industry-leading platform of broadcast and digital. I could not be more excited to get started.”

Also absent from the formal announcement are price-tag details. Nevertheless, Connoisseur did acknowledge that “[f]inancing for the transaction is being provided by Brigade Capital Management.”

This means Brigade’s been involved with at least two high-profile radio deals on the year. Earlier in 2025, the Family Dollar buyer (and would-be Macy’s purchaser) disclosed an investment, referring here to senior notes financing, in a Beasley Broadcast subsidiary. Beasley proper (NASDAQ: BBGI) owns and operates 69 stateside radio stations, according to its LinkedIn profile.

Bigger picture, it’s been about seven months since Audacy, said to be the States’ second-largest radio company, officially emerged from bankruptcy under controlling stakeholder Soros Fund Management. (March 2025 then brought a far-reaching round of layoffs at Audacy.)

Once the Alpha acquisition wraps, Connoisseur says the combined entity “will rank among the top 10 radio groups both by station count and by revenue.”

A live performance from Beyonce, who’s updated a promo video to remove a depiction of the Sphere. Meanwhile, Beyhive superfans are swarming the Vegas venue’s social profiles. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

One cease-and-desist letter later, Beyoncé has removed a depiction of the Sphere from a video released as part of her ongoing world tour.

The clip’s retooled version debuted during a SoFi Stadium concert yesterday, according to Variety. And as we previously noted, it’s been just days since Sphere attorneys penned a firmly worded letter demanding that Beyoncé axe the venue reference.

Still live on YouTube, the original video appears to show a colossus Beyoncé picking up and inspecting what looks to be the Sphere. Though seemingly inconsequential, the promo evidently proved a big deal for Sphere brass, and not in a positive sense.

At least according to the mentioned attorneys, the video “resulted in significant speculation that Beyoncé will end her tour with a Sphere residency.” As things stand, the Parkwood Entertainment founder intends to wrap the tour in Vegas – albeit with a pair of performances at Allegiant Stadium.

Now, with the cease-and-desist having given the Cowboy Carter act until today to nix the Sphere reference, Allegiant Stadium has been incorporated as the replacement.  

Besides the in-concert debut, the retooled video also made its way into an Instagram post from Parkwood. “What happens in Vegas starts with a BANG,” the appropriate caption reads.

At the time of writing, the video had already racked up a healthy 75,000 or so likes on Instagram. In other words, the ostensibly unforeseen conflict is proving beneficial for Beyoncé, who has stops booked into late July.

Of course, it’s unclear whether the media coverage will translate into heightened attendance. Many of the reactions here are coming from existing “Beyhive” superfans – see the multitude of bee emoji comments on the Sphere’s Instagram page for proof – who are presumably set to attend in any event.

Nevertheless, the exposure won’t hurt; reports have pointed to thousands of available tickets for the SoFi series. More generally, the Cowboy Carter Tour revolves around repeat concerts at only a handful of stadiums. All told, the Houston-born singer is expected to deliver 32 performances at nine total venues.

Back to the Sphere, which has teed up a Tomorrowland “multi-sensory adventure” for later in 2025, execs have scheduled their first-quarter earnings call for this coming Thursday, May 8th.

Myke Towers puts his racing skills to the test while attending a Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix activation in support of F1 The Album. Photo Credit: Warner Music Group

The F1 marketing wheels – and the soundtrack-promotion wheels – are already in motion. Days removed from the F1 The Album lineup announcement, several of the involved artists attended the Miami Grand Prix over the weekend.

Formula 1 emphasized as much on social media, and Warner Music Latina took the opportunity to put out a formal release about Myke Towers’ attendance. The Puerto Rican artist has recorded a new track, “Baja California,” for the Apple Studios-produced film, which stars Brad Pitt and is set to hit North American theaters on June 27th.

Among different things, the Miami Grand Prix yesterday featured an “experiential activation” tied specifically to the F1 soundtrack. On cue, invited influencers took to social media to provide looks at the activation – including not just racing simulators, but an Apple Music-branded DJ booth focusing on F1 The Album.

Debuting in tandem with the movie, said album will release on streaming, vinyl, CD, and cassette alike. On the streaming side, Apple Music is plugging the project with a pre-release page; Spotify has taken things a step further by adding a release countdown.

When it comes to vinyl, the likes of Target and Amazon have teed up limited-edition products; Amazon settled on $27.98 a pop here, with a $14.98 price point for the cassette version.

Meanwhile, the Miami Grand Prix also went ahead and (by Warner Music’s description) “replaced drivers’ names above the garages with those of the artists featured on the official soundtrack.” Additionally, Towers participated in a pre-race grid walk.

In other words, the music and artists behind F1 are receiving quite a promotional push, and it’ll be interesting to see how much of a boost they ultimately enjoy from the movie.

Keeping the focus on racing blockbusters, the Fast & Furious franchise has certainly helped propel tracks into the commercial stratosphere. And with a hefty 150-minute runtime, F1 definitely has room for songs, 17 of which are featured on the soundtrack album.

That includes efforts from Atlantic acts Don Toliver, Ed Sheeran, Roddy Ricch, and Rosé – with Raye, Chris Stapleton, Doja Cat, Tate McRae, and more on board as well.

Back to the Miami Grand Prix, Toliver, Ricch, and Rosé (besides fellow Blackpink member Lisa) were likewise in attendance. On the performance side – live music factored prominently into the event to boot – Hard Rock’s “trackside stage” welcomed Kygo, Cedric Gervais, Kaskade, Steve Aoki, Sofi Tukker, and Pitbull.

Apple has approved a Spotify iOS update in the U.S. following a ‘landmark’ Epic Games ruling. Photo Credit: James Yarema

On the heels of a major ruling in the marathon Apple v. Epic Games legal battle, Spotify has received approval for an updated version of its iOS app in the U.S.

The vocal App Store critic Spotify revealed as much in a “Time to Play Fair” blog post. Originally published yesterday (following the April 30th ruling), that post reiterated the streaming service’s long-sought changes on iOS.

As many know, those changes include but aren’t limited to enhanced pricing-display details and bolstered payment options for Spotify, which has a decidedly smoother professional relationship with the Play Store operator Google.

In the same document, the AI-minded Spotify went ahead and disclosed that it’d already submitted the appropriate update to Apple. Now, the iPhone developer has signed off on the changes.

“After nearly a decade,” Spotify added to the original blog post today, “this will finally allow us to freely show clear pricing information and links to purchase, fostering transparency and choice for U.S. consumers. We can now give consumers lower prices, more control, and easier access to the Spotify experience.

“There is more work to do, but today represents a significant milestone for developers and entrepreneurs everywhere who want to build and compete on a more level playing field. It’s the opening act of a new era, and we could not be more ready for the show,” the company concluded.

Unsurprisingly, given Spotify’s years-running Apple showdown, the victory lap didn’t stop there. The New York Post today put out a friendly interview with CEO Daniel Ek, who took the opportunity to offer a parting shot at Apple’s “pretty draconian rules” for app developers.

But as Spotify itself acknowledged, “more work” remains in its App Store dispute. First, the streaming service is still entangled in a regulatory confrontation (albeit at a distance) with Apple in the EU, where appeals and fresh fines are in motion.

Stateside, Apple CEO Tim Cook yesterday doubled down on plans to appeal the Epic case’s ruling, and it’ll certainly be worth monitoring that process moving forward. Cook’s comments arrived as part of Apple’s earnings call (the Q&A portion of which focused chiefly on tariffs) for 2025’s initial three months.

In the corresponding report, the Apple Music operator pointed to $26.65 billion in services revenue for the quarter, up almost 12% year over year. All told, Apple is said to have “well over” one billion subscriptions across its suite of services.

(l to r) Craig May (artist and fan development) and Sean Hallarman (product) are now CD Baby SVPs. Photo Credit: Downtown Music

Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of May 2nd, 2025.

If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com. And, keep track of all the latest music industry hires here.

Warner Music Nordics

Over six-year Sony Music Finland exec Henri Lanz has come aboard Warner Music Nordics as senior international A&R and creative advisor.

CD Baby

Downtown’s CD Baby has brought on Sonos content director Sean Hallarman as SVP of product and named Craig May (who joins from an executive role at FUGA, also a Downtown subsidiary) SVP of artist and fan development.

Meanwhile, marketing SVP Jean Mischler’s role has expanded to include revenue, and finance VP Whitney Thomas will also oversee business operations moving forward.

Payday Music Publishing

Payday Publishing has hired Score a Score vet Jamey Sussman as creative sync director for trailers and ads. Additionally, the company has welcomed former MNRK higher-up Desiree Autobee in the same role but with a focus on film and TV.

Event Safety Alliance

Rob Bergeron, previously an executive director with ODTUG, has signed on with the Event Safety Alliance in the same capacity.

Apple Music

Apple Music has confirmed as co-presidents ex-TikToker Ole Obermann and 16-year Apple vet Rachel Newman.

Kobalt

Former 138 Strategic managing partner Jason Feinberg has joined Kobalt as SVP and head of its Kosign admin platform.

SXSW

A far-reaching shake-up at South by Southwest has brought the exit of longtime president and chief programming officer Hugh Forrest, music festival VP James Minor, and close to four-decade comms VP Lillian Park.

Now, Penske EVP of product and technology Jenny Connelly (who’s been on the SXSW board for four years) is SXSW’s director in charge. Plus, SXSW EDU co-founder Greg Rosenbaum is succeeding Forrest as programming head, and 13-year SXSW music team member Brian Hobbs is replacing Minor as VP.

Avex Music Group

Justin Hunter, an over three-year exec at S10 Entertainment, is officially VP at Avex Music.

Russells

London law firm Russells has two new music partners: Liv Lyons (who joins from Lee & Thompson) and Mark Walker (who’s been with the firm for about a decade).

North American Concert Promoters Association (NACPA)

AEG Presents exec Brent Fedrizzi has been re-elected president of NACPA’s board.

ASCAP

ASCAP has upped Nicole George-Middleton, who’s been with the PRO since 2008, to EVP and head of creative membership.

Virgin

Virgin Music Group has formally boosted three-year team member Hannah Thompson-Waitt to SVP of U.S. commercial strategy.

Warner Music Group is suing DSW for alleged copyright infringement on social media. Photo Credit: Anthony92931

Another day, another social-focused copyright lawsuit – this time from Warner Music, which is suing Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) and others for allegedly infringing on protected works in hundreds of promo videos.

Warner Music Group (WMG) submitted the straightforward action to an Ohio federal court, naming as defendants the mentioned DSW, Topo Athletic, and their Columbus-headquartered owner, Designer Brands (NYSE: DBI).

By now, many are aware of the mountain of infringement actions targeting music featured in companies’ social videos. In short, social platforms’ song libraries are pre-cleared only for personal use, with standalone licenses required for commercial usages in most instances.

(On the “most instances” front: Warner Music licensed some of its catalog for TikTok’s “Commercial Music Library,” which, as its name suggests, includes works cleared for brands.)

And paid influencer campaigns don’t constitute personal use, multiple companies have found out the hard way in separate litigation. Per today’s suit: “DSW’s social media advertising” – even featuring an appearance from the spouse of a Warner Music exec – “is similar to that of” Bang Energy.

Bang “was found liable for copyright infringement in two different lawsuits due to the same type of copyright infringement,” WMG’s DSW suit reads in part.

Running with the point, then, Warner Music says the defendants have “extensive experience with music licensing” but failed to seek or receive usage permission for its own social videos and for its influencer campaigns.

(WMG also took the opportunity to call out the defendants’ alleged approach to compensating influencers.“[C]ontrary to Federal Trade Commission guidelines, the social media influencers often do not disclose that they receive compensation in any form,” the complaint maintains.)

As for the extent of the alleged infringement, the filing parties’ “initial investigation has revealed that DSW misappropriated over two hundred” compositions and recordings in which Warner Music has stakes, per the text.

Incorporated into videos on Instagram and TikTok alike, the allegedly infringed works include tracks recorded by Usher, The Weeknd, Linkin Park, Ed Sheeran, and many others, the suit shows.

All told, Warner Music has levied three copyright claims against DSW and the other defendants, including for vicarious and contributory infringement.

Regarding the aforementioned mountain of social-infringement actions, various music companies have opted to litigate against NBA teams, AHL teams, Chili’s parent Brinker International, the University of Southern California, and Crumbl Cookies, to name some.

SiriusXM has posted its Q1 2025 financials, including a revenue dip, and reiterated its full-year guidance. Photo Credit: SiriusXM

SiriusXM has reported small revenue and net income decreases for Q1 2025, when its satellite radio subscribers dipped from the same period in 2024. Nevertheless, execs have reiterated their full-year guidance.

The savings-minded company shed light on its first-quarter showing today, pointing to almost $2.07 billion in revenue for the three-month stretch. Down about 4% from 2024’s first quarter, the figure reflects slips on the core satellite radio side (revenue fell 5% YoY to $1.58 billion) and Pandora (a 2% or so YoY decline to $487 million).

Behind satellite radio, SiriusXM disclosed $1.47 billion in subscription revenue (down 5% YoY), with a cumulative $111 million stemming from advertising, equipment, and other sources yet.

Separately, SiriusXM reduced its cost of services by 4% YoY to $644 million during the quarter, the report shows. And as of March 31st, self-pay subscribers were down 1% YoY to roughly 31.34 million, with the falloff representing a 16% improvement from its Q1 2024 counterpart. But paid promotional subs and paid accounts in Canada decreased by a combined 439,000, the document indicates.

Shifting to Pandora, the business posted $132 million in subscription revenue (down 1% YoY) and $355 million from advertising (down 2% YoY). Fueling those sums were 42.36 million MAUs (down 6% YoY), including 5.71 million self-pay subscribers (down 5% YoY).

And in keeping with the figures, Pandora’s ad-supported listener hours totaled 2.35 billion during Q1, about 5% less than in 2024’s opening quarter.

All told, SiriusXM identified adjusted EBITDA of $629 million (down 3% YoY), with net income of $204 million (compared to $241 million in the prior-year quarter).

During the corresponding earnings call, SiriusXM execs didn’t reveal an abundance of new information; among other things, they aren’t anticipating a “material impact” on their operations from auto tariffs.

But they did reiterate their high hopes for an ongoing advertising buildout – besides doubling down on the initially mentioned 2025 guidance. That guidance refers to revenue of $8.5 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $2.6 billion, and a free cash flow of $1.15 billion.

“Q1 marked our first full quarter since unveiling our new strategic direction and sharpened focus on super serving our core in car audience at SiriusXM,” CEO Jennifer Witz said.

“We are already seeing early benefits from these efforts as reflected in our solid first quarter results. Given our momentum and despite broadening economic uncertainty, we’re pleased to confidently reiterate our full year guidance today,” concluded Witz, whose company in March initiated a new round of layoffs.

Despite this confidence, the market doesn’t appear too enthusiastic with the financials; during today’s trading, the spun-off SiriusXM (NASDAQ: SIRI) saw its share price slip close to 9% to $19.50 per share.

Merlin is now a member of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance. Photo Credit: Merlin

Months after bringing on its first director of content integrity, Merlin has officially joined the Music Fights Fraud Alliance (MFFA).

The indie collective (and AI fair-training advocate) announced as much this morning. Established in 2023, Music Fights Fraud, in keeping with its name, bills itself as “a global task force aimed at eradicating streaming fraud.”

And in pursuit of the objective, MFFA is said to collaborate with the 23-year-old National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) on “a shared database of identified fraud markers.”

From there, members can “track, investigate, and respond to fraudulent activity in real time,” according to Music Fights Fraud, which welcomed former Recording Academy government-relations MD Michael Lewan as executive director in February.

Regarding these members, the MFFA’s diverse ranks include Downtown, Spotify, Amazon Music, SoundCloud, DistroKid, Believe, and about 15 others, the appropriate website shows.

That group now features Merlin as well – with CEO Jeremy Sirota describing his organization’s MFFA membership as a means of building “a more ethical digital marketplace” for actual artists.

“Illegitimate activity siphons revenue away from genuine artists and undermines trust across the entire ecosystem,” Sirota indicated. “We believe that protecting the value of music is rooted in collaboration, accountability, and transparency.

“Since the MFFA’s founding, Merlin has championed its work to our members. By joining the MFFA, we can help to better defend the rights of genuine artists and build a more ethical digital marketplace,” the Merlin head concluded.

As things stand, it’s not exactly a secret that many “genuine artists” are getting a rawer-than-ever deal on streaming services, which are facing daily floods of AI “music.” This refers in part to controversial royalty-accrual stream minimums and an adjacent spike in library sizes.

At the intersection of those points, many already know that a small percentage of uploads are generating recording royalties on Spotify. Less widely considered, however, is the portion of royalty-accruing works attributable to AI as opposed to proper human talent.

That isn’t a Spotify-specific criticism; in fact, the service claims to have promptly put the kibosh on a multimillion-dollar AI royalty scam. (It probably doesn’t need saying given the multimillion-dollar descriptor, but other DSPs weren’t nearly as quick to catch on; MFFA may help prevent similar situations and federal charges moving forward.)

Nevertheless, reports have shed light on alleged streaming farm operations on Spotify and different DSPs. And when dozens of identical 50-second tracks, all attached to generically named “ghost” artist profiles with just a handful of monthly listeners each, have racked up thousands of streams apiece over multiple years on Spotify alone, it’s hard not to be suspicious in this area.

(l to r) Influence senior partner Rene McLean, co-managing partner Lynn Hazan, founder Lylette Pizarro, and DJ Khaled. Photo Credit: Influence Media Partners

Three months after securing $360 million in debt financing, Influence Media Partners has taken a stake in DJ Khaled’s song rights and launched a pair of JVs with the New Orleans native.

New York City-headquartered Influence Media opted to emphasize the joint ventures – and its “unconventional” efforts “to increase future brand value for artists through multifaceted partnerships” – in the formal announcement.

Starting there, then, the first of the JVs will see Influence Media and DJ Khaled coordinate on “original content across film and television,” besides taking steps to “secure legacy-defining commercial ventures.”

Though the involved parties didn’t get into specifics here, Influence did indicate that “several film projects” are “currently in various stages of development” thanks to the tie-up. (DJ Khaled elaborated on his silver-screen ambitions in a Forbes interview.)

Additionally, the company – which had and presumably still has a hand in Will Smith’s comeback – relayed that the focus is also on “brand partnerships and content deals” in this area.

Hard details are sparser yet when it comes to other elements of the union, under which Influence will look to “expand commercial opportunities” via NIL “rights in certain exclusive categories.” Despite the lack of concrete information, logic suggests further announcements will shed light on the NIL dealmaking’s scope before long.

On the core song-rights front, BlackRock- and Warner Music-backed Influence invested on the recorded and publishing sides alike, a rep confirmed to DMN.

“I’m proud that my legacy will continue to resonate and connect with audiences around the world with this partnership through Influence Media,” 49-year-old DJ Khaled added. “These iconic recordings I’ve created will continue to be curated in the most optimum manner to impact culture with nearly two decades of music.

“In addition, I’m excited for the world to see and experience the film and television projects Influence and We The Best are developing and producing together. This next phase of my career will be filled with ground-breaking cultural impact, and I look forward to being at the forefront in all categories,” concluded Khaled, who’s set to release an album entitled Aalam of God later in 2025.

Anonymous and purportedly well-informed sources have pointed to a nine-figure valuation for the deal, which, whatever its total value, marks the latest in a line of sizable music-IP plays on the year.

Notwithstanding market factors and the sheer volume of already-wrapped catalog purchases, these transactions (all compiled by DMN Pro) extend to the work of Notorious B.I.G., Morgan Wallen, and Deadmau5, with massive raises from GoldState, Pophouse, and more to boot.

An interior shot of Deezer’s Paris headquarters. Photo Credit: Deezer

Deezer has reported a modest revenue improvement – and a subscriber dip – for 2025’s opening quarter. Nevertheless, execs are still banking on “reaching profitability this year.”

The publicly traded streaming company (DEEZR on the Euronext Paris) today published its Q1 2025 financials as well as its close to 300-page 2024 annual report. Keeping the focus on the former, Deezer disclosed Q1 2025 revenue of €134 million (currently $151.71 million), up 1.1% YoY.

Behind the sum, the Paris-headquartered business pointed to $90.04 million/€79.5 million (up 4.5% YoY) in first-quarter revenue from France, where “the contribution of a new deal signed at the end of 2024” fueled growth.

The remaining $61.73 million/€54.5 million (down 3.4% YoY), on the other hand, resulted from operations in all nations except France. Unsurprisingly, given those details, Deezer’s France-based direct subscribers increased 6.3% YoY to 3.5 million during Q1, against a 2.1% YoY slip to 1.8 million for Rest of World.

Letting Deezer take the wheel for a moment, the business updated its Q1 2024 figures for the report. “Q1-2024 data has been restated to offset the effect of the 50 thousand inactive Family account removal, on a like for like(LFL) basis,” the Access Industries subsidiary acknowledged in a footnote.

Meanwhile, non-direct “partnership” subscriptions, like with Mercado Libre and more, fell 14.6% YoY to 4.1 million for Deezer in the first quarter, the report shows. Even so, partnerships monthly ARPU grew 2.6% YoY to $3.51/€3.10 as direct subs slipped 1.2% YoY in the same category to $6.23/€5.50.

As initially mentioned, Deezer doubled down on its longstanding objective of achieving profitability.

“As previously announced,” CEO Alexis Lanternier said in part, “we are fully focused on executing our new strategic direction, introducing bold and innovative music experiences designed to create long lasting value for fans, artists and our partners.

“New features are already live, with intuitive personalization and universal sharing, setting the tone for what we continue to build – a next level music experience based on the expectations of music fans of today and tomorrow.

“With confidence, we confirm our 2025 guidance and our objective of reaching profitability this year,” concluded Lanternier, who came aboard in 2024.

Deezer unveiled those new features – bolstered user control over algorithm recommendations, enhanced interface customizability, monthly consumption stats, and “a universal sharing link” that works across all streaming platforms – earlier in April.

During today’s trading, Deezer shares parted with about 1% of their value, finishing at $1.61/€1.42 apiece when the market closed.

Fat Joe, who’s filed a defamation lawsuit against one of his former employees. Photo Credit: Mika-photography

Drake isn’t the only rapper suing over allegedly false pedophilia claims. Now, Fat Joe says his former hype man defamed him with untrue allegations “of vile sexual misconduct, pedophilia, statutory rape, violence and stealing.”

54-year-old Fat Joe (real name Joseph Cartagena) just recently submitted the complaint to a federal court in his native New York. Aside from the mentioned hype man, Terrance Dixon (known professionally as TA), the complaint names as defendants attorney Tyrone Blackburn and his law firm.

For a bit of background, Fat Joe brought on TA as his hype man in or around 2006, according to the suit. Over the course of the professional relationship, which is said to have “ended amicably in 2019,” Fat Joe purportedly afforded TA “generous compensation.”

Fast forward to 2023, when TA allegedly “initiated a campaign of public harassment against” Fat Joe on social media.

“In an obvious money grab, all these years later, Dixon claims that he should have been paid more. He claims (falsely) that Cartagena recently blocked him from getting outside funding for a record label, which was the ‘last straw,'” the suit reads.

Furthermore, some of those not-so-subtle posts, which were still live on Instagram at the time of writing, accused the five-time Grammy nominee of sexual assault.

The accusations pertain in part to 2010 “inappropriate touching” allegations against Fat Joe, who denied the claims at the time and was cleared “of any involvement shortly” thereafter, per the text.

“Dixon knew that these statements were false: Cartagena never sexually assaulted anyone,” the suit maintains. “Authorities never charged or detained Cartagena…and cleared him of any involvement shortly after speaking with him. Rather, Dixon attempted to resurrect a decade plus-old false accusation and headline to support his campaign of harassment and extortion.”

Unsurprisingly, given the complaint, this alleged campaign was accompanied by demands for Fat Joe to cough up cash, per the suit.

Also unsurprisingly in light of the action, the rapper didn’t cave to the payment demands then or later in 2023, when the remarks “escalated” and “accused him [Fat Joe] of being a pedophile.”

Fast forward once more, past 2024 (when the alleged defamation continued) and into the current year. To this point in 2025, TA has allegedly levied false accusations at Fat Joe for cheating “him out of money and credit” on songs, besides penning “countless other posts attempting to belittle and humiliate” the plaintiff.

“Frustrated by his inability to overcome Cartagena’s resolve,” the complaint continues, “Dixon upped the ante by hiring” the aforementioned “Blackburn to continue his extortionate scheme.”

That attorney’s name will be familiar to some in the industry – though as Fat Joe and his counsel see things, Blackburn is only “an extortionist masquerading as a lawyer in a cynical ruse to use the court system as both a sword and a shield for his unethical conduct.”

Long story short, Fat Joe and his team are accusing Blackburn of engaging in “a pattern of unprofessional and erratic behavior that raises significant concerns.”

Said behavior includes allegedly threatening letters, an alleged threat to report Fat Joe to Homeland Security, and a whole lot else, the suit explains in more words.

And it’s against this backdrop that the defendants allegedly made massive settlement demands – one for a staggering $20 million – to prevent related litigation, according to the action.

All told, Fat Joe is suing TA for defamation and seeking relief from both TA and Blackburn for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

In a statement provided to DMN, Blackburn dismissed the complaint as “a desperate Hail Mary attempt to soften the blow of what’s to come.”

“The lawsuit filed by Fat Joe is a desperate Hail Mary attempt to soften the blow of what’s to come,” Blackburn said to DMN. “We will file a RICO, and TVPA case that outlines Fat Joe’s pattern and practice of sleeping with 10th/11th grade girls, one of whom we have on audio tape detailing how manipulative Fat Joe was when he was in his late 30’s and she was only 16.

“It will also outline Fat Joes Rico Criminal Enterprise, that is supported by a 19 minute audio recording of Fat Joes felonious hitman, Pistol Pete attempting to convince a member of Terror Squad to lure my client to a specific location so he can be ‘pounded out,’ which is code for killed,” the attorney proceeded.

Udio is set to begin fingerprinting its outputs under a deal with Audible Magic. Photo Credit: Possessed Photography

With AI tracks pouring onto streaming services in droves, Udio is now set to begin fingerprinting its users’ outputs under an Audible Magic tie-up.

The involved parties reached out with word of the audio-ID system. Revolving around a “content control pipeline,” the approach will see Udio register tracks at the source via Audible Magic so DSPs can then “reliably recognize” the works, according to the companies.

From there, Udio and Audible Magic drove home in their formal announcement, said DSPs (and, before that, distributors) can “apply the appropriate business rules around” the labeled recordings.

Time will tell exactly what the “business rules” entail; Udio intends to begin rolling out the fingerprinting feature during “the coming months.” And in the bigger picture, Udio certainly isn’t the only music-generation player in town.

To be sure, plenty of other AI music platforms are pumping out audio like no tomorrow and appear unlikely to stop doing so anytime soon. But Audible Magic didn’t hesitate to tout Udio’s “proactive rights management solution…as a model for how AI platforms and rights holders can work together” moving forward.

“This partnership demonstrates Udio’s substantial commitment to rights holder transparency and content provenance,” indicated Audible Magic CEO Kuni Takahashi. “Registering files directly from the first-party source is a clean and robust way to identify the use of AI-generated music in the supply chain.”

Regarding the scope of AI music’s streaming-service explosion, Deezer earlier in April said north of 20,000 machine-made tracks were hitting its platform daily.

That’s up from 10,000 daily AI uploads closer to 2025’s beginning, according once again to Deezer, which has for years been striving to identify the relevant works.

Furthermore, evidence has already pointed to both largescale AI royalty scams and more measured approaches to absconding with compensation that would have otherwise reached proper artists (or at least their labels).

In a nutshell, the situation is one component of an increasingly raw streaming deal for non-major-label talent. It’s harder than ever for these artists to stand out in the badly overcrowded streaming arena, and many are being denied would-be royalty payments to boot.

But this adjacent consideration is a different discussion. At least in theory – and assuming on-demand platforms, not solely rightsholders, actually utilize the information – labeling AI-generated uploads accordingly could be a means of counteracting the intensifying audio tidal wave.

However, doing so won’t settle the ongoing debate about generative AI training authorization – a topic front and center in multiple industry lawsuits.

One of those high-stakes suits involves the major labels and Udio, another involves Amazon-partnered Suno (which itself inked an Audible Magic deal in October 2024). The plodding cases are still wading through the discovery waters; in the Suno showdown, the presiding judge today granted a joint request to extend a written-discovery deadline until May 30th.

Spotify head Daniel Ek during his company’s What’s Playing event. Photo Credit: Spotify

Spotify added about five million paid users but fell short of forecasted operating income during Q1 2025. Meanwhile, execs seem to have changed their tune about the Super-Premium tier’s release timetable.

The streaming service revealed these performance particulars in its Q1 2025 earnings report this morning. In the breakdown, Spotify pointed to 678 million MAUs (up 10% YoY), including 268 million paid subscribers (up 12% YoY) and 423 million ad-supported listeners (a decrease of two million from Q4).

MAUs hit the previously issued forecast, and subs surpassed the 265 million anticipated by execs. Geographically, users outside of North America and Europe now account for 56% of Spotify’s MAUs – but subs, despite Q1 upticks for Latin America and Rest of World, remain heavily concentrated in the former two regions.

Thanks mainly to the solid subscribership showing, total revenue spiked 15% YoY to just shy of the targeted $4.79 billion/€4.2 billion, the Spotify earnings report shows. Of course, subscriptions, benefiting from continued price bumps, kicked in the lion’s share of the sum ($4.30 billion/€3.77 billion, up 16% YoY and 2% QoQ).

And on the advert front, “automated sales channels were the largest contributors to overall advertising growth,” communicated Spotify, which debuted a new ad exchange and AI marketing options earlier in April.

Evidently, the market (and specifically analysts who’d rallied behind astronomical Spotify stock targets beforehand) weren’t thrilled with the report.

That presumably refers to Spotify’s $580.29 million/€509 million in Q1 2025 operating income, which, while up 203% YoY, fell short of the forecasted $624.74 million/€548 million. In brief, higher-ups attributed the miss to “social charges,” which were $66.12 million/€58 million more than expected due to “share price appreciation during the quarter.”

Additionally, Spotify is banking on $4.90 billion/€4.3 billion in revenue and $614.46 million/€539 million in operating income for Q2, when subs are expected to crack 273 million.

At the time of writing, Spotify stock (NYSE: SPOT), hovering around $564 per share, was down about 5.7% from opening. Nevertheless, that value is still almost double SPOT’s worth in late April 2024.

Back to the initially mentioned Super-Premium offering, it’s been nearly one year since Spotify head Daniel Ek confirmed plans for a long-awaited tier geared towards superfans. Furthermore, rumblings in February 2025 suggested that the higher-priced listening option would roll out in phases this year.

Though the launch could still be teed up for 2025, Ek, now emphasizing growth opportunities for existing subscriptions, appears to have adopted a less urgent position here.

“But for the very, very long term, it [the Super-Premium option] is an upside opportunity for Spotify,” Ek said during the Spotify earnings call, “but I think one where, if I look at it from the music industry standpoint, this is a huge part for the music industry.

“But for the near term, the way to think about it for Spotify is, we’re not dependent on that for growth, but we want to make it happen. … [F]or the superfan [subscription tier], we do need the partners to come to the table and be part of this trip,” he proceeded.

Translation: obstacles are preventing the Super-Premium takeoff. With the major labels champing at the bit to begin charging diehard fans larger monthly fees, those obstacles presumably pertain to the compositional side, where Spotify’s bundling craze still isn’t sitting right with the NMPA and a variety of others.

Overall, the remainder of the Spotify earnings call didn’t cover too many noteworthy details. One analyst did ask about charging for an ad-supported tier with bolstered functionality; execs more or less dismissed the possibility.

Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge. Photo Credit: UMG

Is the streaming plateau over? A growth-minded Universal Music Group (UMG) generated $3.30 billion/€2.90 billion during 2025’s first quarter, when subscription revenue grew by 11.5% year over year.

That’s according to the major label’s just-released Q1 earnings breakdown, which points to roughly $2.55 billion/€2.24 billion (up 12.7% YoY) in recorded revenue for the three-month stretch. As usual, the lion’s share of the sum ($1.83 billion/€1.61 billion, up 9.5% YoY) resulted from streaming.

Within that €1.61 billion tranche, ad-supported contributed $402.15 million/€353 million (up 2.9% YoY), compared to $1.42 billion/€1.25 billion for the aforementioned subscription category, UMG relayed.

Against the backdrop of streaming price increases, long-running freemium-monetization woes, and the company’s aggressive acquisitions approach, the figures don’t exactly come as a surprise.

More interestingly, given UMG’s “artist-centric” obsession, the Modern Sky partner acknowledged “double-digit revenue growth from four of our major DSP partners” for the first quarter. (Here, “major” refers to the top 10; chief digital officer Michael Nash elaborated that UMG also enjoyed double-digit Q1 revenue jumps with three of its top-five DSP partners.)

Meanwhile, the A-Sketch owner identified double-digit subscription-revenue spikes in Japan, Germany, China, and Mexico on the quarter.

Each of those nations has found its way into UMG’s top-10 markets by subscription revenue, execs emphasized. Among other things, that raises questions about the precise revenue-growth trajectory of several emerging music sectors. But this discussion is best left for another time.

Rounding out the recorded side, where fitness revenue was “stable,” Universal Music attributed $45.56 million/€40 million (down 13% YoY) in revenue to permanent downloads, $341.77 million/€300 million (up 17.6% YoY) to the sale of vinyl as well as other physical formats, and $337.19 million/€296 million (up 33.3% YoY) to licensing.

A sync boost and “strong live income in certain markets” fueled the licensing surge, per UMG, which touted as the quarter’s top sellers Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, and Mrs. Green Apple.

(The live-income hike didn’t translate into bolstered merch sales, which came in at $127.56 million/€112 million, down 1.8% YoY, during the quarter.)

Shifting to publishing, the company disclosed revenue of $632.22 million/€555 million (up 11.9% YoY). Every sub-category save performance (which was flat YoY at $129.84 million/€114 million) and digital ($386.11 million/€339 million total, up 19.4% YoY) achieved modest growth.

Overall, UMG posted an 11.8% YoY improvement to adjusted EBITDA ($752.78 million/€661 million) for Q1 2025. During today’s trading, Universal Music stock (UMG on the Euronext Amsterdam) saw its value fall slightly to $28.48/€25.01 per share.

Elsewhere in the earnings report and the corresponding call, UMG didn’t divulge too many significant details. But higher-ups did reiterate plans for another round of “strategic organizational redesign” efforts this year – referring to cuts totaling $142.26 million/€125 million.

Lastly, Universal Music execs opted to focus on Spotify’s positive comments about a Super-Premium tier – not the streaming service’s newfound indifference to the offering.

Belift Lab act Enhypen, which is helping drive concerts revenue growth at Hybe. Photo Credit: Ten Asia

Thanks in large part to a substantial jump on the concerts side, Hybe has reported record Q1 2025 revenue of ₩500.61 billion (currently $349.36 million).

The professional home of BTS shed light on its first-quarter showing today, with the mentioned revenue representing a close to 39% increase from the same period in 2024. As Hybe acts released relatively few albums during Q1, however, recorded revenue fell 5.9% YoY to $95.27 million (₩136.52 billion), the Quality Control parent indicated.

In part because of the less populated release schedule (and K-pop’s ultra-strong physical sales), streaming accounted for “nearly half” the recorded sum in the first quarter, Hybe relayed.

And when it comes to live performances, the Belift Lab owner confirmed $108.28 million/₩155.15 billion (up 252.3% YoY) in concerts revenue for Q1 2025. Explaining the hike, Hybe emphasized the ticket sales behind tours from Enhypen and especially J-Hope, besides a continued prioritization of superfan passes offering artist meetings and more.

At the intersection of superfan initiatives and concerts, Hybe also generated a whopping $74.25 million/₩106.40 billion from merch and licensing on the quarter, up 75.2% YoY.

Meanwhile, the Weverse operator attributed $21.26 million/₩30.46 billion (up 39% YoY) to the fan club category. MAUs on Weverse (which added a “Listening Party” feature last month) were up a bit at 10 million, but average revenue per paid user slipped from Q1 2024, the report shows.

Rounding out the company’s Q1 revenue, ads and appearances kicked in $21.53 million/₩30.85 billion (up 10.9% YoY), against $28.77 million/₩41.23 billion (down 32.7% YoY) for “contents” including DVDs, per the document.

All told, then, Hybe identified Q1 2025 net profit of $38.59 million/₩55.30 billion, reflecting a YoY spike of 398.3%. When trading wrapped today, Hybe stock (KRX: 352820) was worth an even $176.55/₩253,000 per share, up 1.8% on the day and almost 29% from 2025’s beginning.

During the corresponding earnings call, Hybe touched on plans to debut new talent later in 2025 – including Japan-based Aoen (set to officially set sail in June) and a Big Hit group that will arrive in the third quarter. Additionally, execs reiterated a multifaceted long-term expansion strategy in Latin America.

Lastly, BTS’ reunion is also on the horizon for Hybe, which didn’t appear to address the ongoing NewJeans contract dispute during the call.

Earlier in April, Hybe’s gaming subsidiary scored a $20.5 million raise, and Scooter Braun-led Hybe America inked a distribution pact with Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def Recordings.

Spotify has confirmed a north of $100 million global podcast payout for Q1 2025. Photo Credit: Reet Talreja

Podcasting pays on Spotify – to the tune of over $100 million for creators during Q1 2025. But can the platform catch up to YouTube in the ever-important video-podcast arena?

Spotify disclosed its worldwide first-quarter podcasts payout today, dedicating a relatively substantial 630 or so words to the appropriate release. As many know, video is now front and center in the battle for podcasting dominance – a reality that has (among other things) enabled the mentioned YouTube to take the lead.

(One of the other things: Late-night television’s abysmal ratings, which, besides stemming from the video-podcast explosion, definitely aren’t being helped by new competitors like Netflix’s Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney. Incidentally, Netflix isn’t stopping there, with reports suggesting an imminent buildout into video podcasts proper.)

Consequently, Spotify didn’t hesitate to emphasize “the rise of video podcasts” in the very first paragraph. The service went on to acknowledge that the north of $100 million Q1 2025 payout “encompasses both ad-based revenue and revenue generated through the Spotify Partner Program,” however.

The former revenue reaches all eligible podcasts regardless of format. But the expanding Partner Program centers in large part on cutting podcasters in on subscription revenue when paid users watch their video uploads, we broke down at 2025’s start.

Building on the idea, Spotify touted a 23% spike in total Partner Program earnings between January and February as well as a 29% hike across February and March.

Furthermore, the service (which is also zeroing in on audiobooks, lessons, and television shows) identified a 28% jump in “active monthly video podcasts…since the program launched” in January.

Driving home the point, Spotify rattled off double-digit consumption boosts for individual podcasts like Your Mom’s House with Christina P. and Tom Segura, which is said to have seen its “weekly consumption” increase “more than 45%” since enrolling in the Partner Program.

That doesn’t exactly come as a surprise given Spotify’s sizable userbase. And from a business perspective, the current approach to non-music entertainment (though one component of an increasingly raw deal for musicians) makes a lot more sense than Spotify’s acquisition-obsessed strategy of old.

Specifically with regard to podcasting, can this approach enable Spotify to close the gap with and then overtake YouTube?

Only time will reveal the answer to that multifaceted question – though at present, YouTube, having underscored its strong viewership on TVs in particular, continues to rule the video-podcasting race.

According to a recent update from Edison, YouTube accounts for one-third of weekly podcast listeners in the U.S., the most of any single platform. Globally, YouTube previously said it boasted “more than 1 billion monthly active viewers of podcast content” as of January.

7-Eleven has finalized a Live Nation sponsorship deal, including When We Were Young naming rights. Photo Credit: 7-Eleven

Introducing 7-Eleven the music festival sponsor: The convenience chain has scored When We Were Young naming rights and more under a Live Nation partnership.

That newly announced partnership is already in full swing; When We Were Young’s poster has been updated to clarify that the festival is “Presented by 7-Eleven.” This marks the first time that the Las Vegas event “has welcomed a naming rights partner,” the companies emphasized.

Said naming rights will place 7-Eleven front and center on one of When We Were Young’s five stages. Additionally, the October happening is expected to feature “a quick-stop destination” powered by the chain, referring in part to a Slurpee-equipped “Hangout activation.”

(Side note: 7-Eleven ultimately belongs to Tokyo-headquartered Seven & I Holdings, which owns a major piece of the still-independent Tower Records Japan and a whole lot else. Perhaps not coincidentally, today’s tie-up has arrived as Live Nation is aggressively expanding in the Asian nation, most recently with the purchase of Hayashi International Promotions.)

Beyond When We Were Young, 7-Eleven is also set to have a presence at The Governors Ball in June.

Though Rakuten has dibs on a VIP offering, and Verizon is poised to present the festival’s “Cabanas” attendance option, 7-Eleven’s “Slurpee Street” will provide free beverage samples in Peace Tea and Fanta Zero Sugar Hibiscus Berry, the chain indicated.

Later yet in 2025, Rolling Loud Miami attendees will have access to “an amplified version” of Slurpee Street, complete with an “immersive activation” offering “a visually rich, music-infused experience,” 7-Eleven relayed.

“Live music is where culture and connection come alive, and that’s exactly where we want to be,” 7-Eleven chief marketing and sustainability officer Marissa Jarratt elaborated of the sponsorship. “By teaming up with Live Nation, we’re bringing the 7-Eleven brand to the heart of unforgettable fan moments.

“We’re eager to recreate the fun and excitement that comes with visiting a 7-Eleven store in an immersive music experience for the next generation of brand fans,” Jarratt finished.

In the bigger picture, a few main things stand out about the Live Nation/7-Eleven deal.

For organizers, against the backdrop of attendance woes in the wider festival space, there’s evidently a little-discussed option of bringing fresh sponsors into the fold – at least for certain happenings.

Adjacent to the point, potential sponsors are presumably focused on audience demographics as opposed to sell-through status. And at the intersection of those ideas, logic suggests that even comparatively small sponsorships like ticket pre-sales carry hefty price tags.

For companies without a clear-cut sponsorship upside, then, it might make more sense to explore cost-effective alternatives to multimillion-dollar agreements.

Splice has acquired Spitfire Audio in a reportedly $50 million deal. Photo Credit: Spitfire

Splice has acquired Spitfire Audio for a reported $50 million, and with AI front of mind for the businesses, new features are teed up to release later in 2025.

New York City-headquartered Splice and London-based Spitfire announced the deal in a brief release and a video this morning. Those official resources opted against disclosing the sale’s price tag; the $50 million estimate comes from the Financial Times and, just in general, should be taken with a grain or two of salt.

That said, the self-described “leading creator of sounds and sample libraries” Spitfire and the “leading music creation platform” Splice did shed light on a few interesting details.

First, in the mentioned video, Spitfire co-founder Paul Thomson (who’s set to remain aboard) and Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava touched on the above-highlighted plans for fresh features.

“[Splice clients] want more creative control,” Srivastava weighed in here, “and they want Splice and the sounds that we have deeper into their workflow. … When I think about Spitfire – tools that you’ve built, the user experience, the creative control that you’ve given users. Making that accessible to the Splice community, I think, is going to be really powerful.

“I can’t talk about all of it,” the former Adobe and GitHub exec proceeded of the upcoming features. “But I think in the next six to nine months, probably, we’re gonna see some really cool new stuff coming out.”

Running with the point, the two then jumped right into the heart of the matter: AI in the music world and well-founded concerns about the unprecedented technology. Judging by the video’s comments, the higher-ups’ remarks (including the often-heard belief that AI can complement the musicmaking process) don’t look to have assuaged these creator concerns.

In any event, new artificial intelligence products and tools are on the way from the well-funded Splice (which already offers Splice Mic and several other AI products) and Spitfire (which debuted a LABS+ subscription option last year), the execs spelled out.

“We have been building new AI components that are ethical, artist-first, where artists are fairly compensated for their work,” added Srivastava. “So bringing some of that technology together, I think, will be really, really important.”

“This partnership marks a new era,” Spitfire drove home in an FAQ about the sale. “Together, Spitfire Audio and Splice will create the most complete and forward-thinking toolkit for modern music makers—whether you’re discovering a loop, crafting a score, or pushing boundaries with ethical AI-assisted tools.”

Lastly, on the personnel and organizational front, Spitfire “will continue to operate under its own name, brand, and distinct product experience,” per the same FAQ section. And in a LinkedIn post, CEO Olivier Robert-Murphy said he’ll keep on “running Spitfire Audio with the same mission at heart.”

Tencent Music is reportedly in talks to purchase podcast platform Ximalaya. Photo Credit: Austin Distel

Tencent Music (NYSE: TME) is reportedly in “advanced” talks to purchase Chinese podcast platform Ximalaya in a multibillion-dollar deal.

Word of the possible buyout entered the media spotlight in a detail-light report from Bloomberg. As described by the outlet, which cited anonymous and purportedly well-informed sources, the acquisition could bring with it a $2.4 billion price tag.

According to the same source, Tencent Music would put up a combination of cash and stock under the transaction, which could wrap in “the coming weeks.” At the time of writing, neither Tencent Music nor Ximalaya looked to have commented publicly on the matter.

But from a strategic perspective – and despite the gigantic price tag – the play would seemingly make sense for Tencent Music. The profitability-minded business is continuing to focus aggressively on adding subscribers, and a bolstered podcast offering would presumably prove useful on this front.

Furthermore, it’s now been four years and change since the company dropped a reported $415 million on Lazy Audio, which specializes in podcasts and audiobooks. Regarding audience size, various reports have identified strong podcast-listenership growth in China – though the numbers behind the trend appear to be all over the place.

Bigger picture, the maneuver may then help Tencent Music (which operates QQ, Kugou, and Kuwo) to expand its lead over domestic rivals including NetEase Cloud Music.

Scheduled to post its Q1 2025 earnings in mid-May, Tencent Music closed out 2024 by reporting north of 120 million paid users. And for last year’s final quarter, the company disclosed an 18% YoY spike in subscription revenue.

Moreover, Tencent Music shares, worth $13.36 apiece when trading concluded today, have seen their value climb by about 18% since 2025’s beginning.

Separately, should a Ximalaya deal actually come to fruition, Sony Music Entertainment might be poised to secure a nice piece of the $2.4 billion in question.

Per regulatory filings, Ximalaya issued 4.61 million shares to the major label for a cool $50 million back in September 2020. Incidentally, reports have further pointed to a sizable Tencent Music holding for Sony Music, which also took a $100 million stake in Cloud Music when it IPO’d in 2021.

Napster buyer Infinite Reality has revealed the identity of the investor behind the over $3 billion round it announced in January 2025. Photo Credit: Ben Sweet

Now claiming a north of $15 billion valuation, Napster buyer Infinite Reality has officially revealed the identity of the mysterious investor behind its $3 billion January raise.

Despite its size, that raise didn’t make too big a splash in the music world, where Infinite Reality is best known for its Napster acquisition. But in January, the Norwalk-headquartered “innovation company” said it’d scored $3 billion in capital “from a private investor whose portfolio focuses on global technology and real estate investments.”

(On LinkedIn, Infinite Reality is still pointing to a Connecticut headquarters. Yesterday, though, the company unveiled plans to turn a “60-acre site in Fort Lauderdale into a next-generation technology and entertainment campus” housing its main offices.)

Unsurprisingly, the massive round, the huge valuation, and the lack of concrete investor details raised questions. And the speculation certainly didn’t let up when Infinite Reality announced its $207 million Napster buyout one month ago; the disclosure of a $500 million play for AI business Touchcast followed last week.

Enter a roughly 3,500-word deep dive, published by Forbes yesterday, into Infinite Reality’s history, funding, presence in the metaverse space, and more.

(Another pertinent parenthetical: Infinite Reality CEO John Acunto is said to be “writing a book with Forbes Books, a licensed partner of Forbes,” the appropriate outlet acknowledged.)

Dialing in on brass-tacks takeaways, the “Magic Money” piece describes steadily rising valuations for Infinite Reality thanks to a variety of all-stock acquisitions. Among the latter are purchases of Drone Racing League, tech company Landvault, and a whole lot else.

Long story short, Infinite Reality was worth $1 billion in January 2022 and, following the previously highlighted Touchcast play, claimed an astonishing $15.5 billion valuation, per Forbes.

As the deals and the rising valuations were made possible by major raises, the focus rather quickly turned to the identity of the purported multibillion-dollar investor.

It’s against this backdrop that Infinite Reality took the opportunity to shed additional light on the situation.

“We have decided to publicly share that Sterling Select, a venture development firm associated with Sterling Equities and the Katz family, represents the significant $3 billion investor that the company announced earlier this year,” Sterling Select managing partner Christopher Steele communicated.

Owing again to the many moving parts at hand, we’ll have to settle for a top-level view here. First, Sterling Equities’ website bills former Mets owner Fred Wilpon as a co-founder, with his brother-in-law Saul Katz (and several different Katz family members) described as a partner.

Next, not stopping with the statement, Steele put out a follow-up LinkedIn post – including a clarification about exactly how the Sterling businesses fit into the picture.

“For further clarity,” he wrote, “Infinite Reality is a Sterling Select investment. Sterling Equities is not part of the $3B investment into Infinite Reality.”

Per LinkedIn, Select is a “venture development and investment platform affiliated with Sterling Equities.”

(Not tackled by Forbes or mentioned by Steele are the far-from-subtle Infinite Reality blog posts about tech innovations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.)

Lastly, Steele also addressed the Forbes report’s breakdown of purported cash-flow problems at and vendor lawsuits against Infinite Reality, which one anonymous exec said has access only to a portion of the $3 billion tranche at present.

“It is not uncommon with many fast-growing companies,” Steele weighed in, “especially ones with a voracious M&A appetite, that there are differences of opinions and approaches and also with disruption to cash flow and operations. In fact, we ourselves were part of that group. In the end, however, we became ardent supporters.”

The European Commission is now reviewing the proposed Universal Music Group buyout of Downtown Music Holdings. Photo Credit: Guillaume Périgois

Following ample competition-related criticism and a couple investigation referrals, the European Commission has moved “to examine” Universal Music Group’s proposed Downtown buyout.

The EU executive arm just recently made the inquiry official, weeks after receiving the mentioned referrals from competition watchdogs in the Netherlands and Austria.

As we noted at the time, these regulatory concerns didn’t necessarily mean that a full-fledged investigation was in the cards. However, they did arrive on the heels of considerable pushback from organizations including IMPALA, a vocal critic of “UMG’s juggernaut strategy.”

Evidently, the indie sector’s opposition and the referrals were enough to spur action from the Commission, which believes the $775 million buyout “threatens to significantly affect competition” in the music world.

“In particular,” the European Commission wrote, “the transaction threatens to significantly affect competition in certain markets of the music value chain, where both companies are active, in Austria and in the Netherlands, as well as in many other Member States.

“The Commission has therefore concluded that it is best placed to examine the transaction,” the EC proceeded. “The Commission has asked UMG to notify the transaction. UMG cannot implement the transaction before notifying and obtaining clearance from the Commission.”

It probably doesn’t need saying, but especially in light of the EU’s aggressive regulatory approach, it’ll be interesting to see how the investigation plays out. Per the Commission, updates will be posted to its register (case number M.11956 here) moving forward.

More immediately, Universal Music in a statement said it remains confident that the Downtown purchase (which the major initially announced in mid-December 2024) will wrap “in the second half of the year, on its original timeline.”

IMPALA and its members, on the other hand, applauded the development and doubled down on a push for a separate investigation across the pond.

“The news about the EU shows the way for other jurisdictions to intervene,” AIM CEO Gee Davy reiterated in part. “We call on the UK to follow, given the importance of the music market to the UK economy.”

Meanwhile, with the Commission’s investigation now in motion, IMPALA executive chair Helen Smith took things a step further by calling for the UMG-Downtown deal to be “blocked entirely.”

“Like any sector,” Smith relayed in part, “the music market needs big companies of course, as we already flagged, there is simply a point at which big is too big. In this case, UMG clearly exceeded the maximum even before adding Downtown. This deal must be blocked entirely.”

The Copyright Licensing Agency is set to release an AI training license later in 2025. Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

An AI training license is expected to launch just months from now in the UK – albeit with an initial focus on the writing and publishing side.

London’s Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) announced its “ambitious plans” for the license in a brief release. With a rollout teed up for Q3 2025, the system will enable gen AI developers to purchase one-stop training authorization for “text-based published content,” per the CLA.

On this front, although the 42-year-old entity deals in licenses for both writing and visual art, it’s working with two member organizations, the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) and the Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS), to get the ball rolling here.

But logic suggests that the generative training license could later expand to include other types of media – or encourage the development of different licenses yet.

Closer to the present, the CLA opted against diving into compensation and opt-in specifics. The non-profit did clarify that the model will be “[d]esigned to complement direct licensing deals,” which are comparatively common in the writing and journalism worlds.

(Nevertheless, not all the spaces’ leading players are on board with AI giants’ proposals, pertaining to training and more.)

That’s a noteworthy contrast to the music universe, where some generative platforms are licensed but scores of others have allegedly trained on protected works without authorization.

Despite leading AI companies’ arguments to the contrary – and the uncertain outcome of related litigation for rightsholders – those alleged usages seem far from fair. For better or worse (with a strong emphasis on the latter), however, free-for-all training is in many ways the norm.

Not helping the less-than-ideal situation are controversial regulatory proposals – and adjacent calls to “delete all IP law.” Moreover, evidence indicates that several nations don’t intend to establish any protections at all when it comes to AI training.

In short, the CLA’s forthcoming license could represent a concrete step towards unlocking new compensation and much-needed control for rightsholders.

“Training AI models on copyrighted content requires permission and compensation,” longtime CLA CEO Mat Pfleger added in part. “CLA’s collective licence will further demonstrate that licensing is the answer and can provide a market-based solution that is efficient and effective.”

Last month, Sony Music led AI licensing startup Vermillio’s $16 million Series A, while Vobile 10 days ago kicked off an audio buildout by acquiring Pex. And in a relatively early AI partnership, Universal Music inked a deal with content-attribution platform ProRata.ai in August 2024.

The ProRata tie-up now appears to include some sort of licensing arrangement. At the time of writing, ProRata’s “AI-powered search engine,” Gist, was seemingly producing the complete lyrics to a variety of well-known UMG tracks when prompted accordingly.

Madrid, Spain, where the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) is based. Photo Credit: Jorge Fernández Salas

The Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) has reported record revenue of €390 million (currently $443.1 million) for 2024, when digital collections spiked by 25.6%.

SGAE disclosed these and other financial details today; CISAC, of which SGAE is a member, also highlighted the seemingly solid results in a release. Behind the revenue total, which rose 11.7% YoY and is up close to 60% from 2020, the Madrid-based society said it’d distributed north of $396.5 million/€349 million (up about 6.1% YoY).

Meanwhile, the mentioned digital side, at $68.6 million/€60.4 million, accounted for about 15% of SGAE’s 2024 revenue, the report shows. By sub-category, streaming made up 55.6% of the digital sum, against 43.2% for “audiovisual platforms” and the remaining 1.3% for internet radio and more.

Beyond digital, the Unison rival identified double-digit collections boosts for international usages (a record $40 million/€35.2 million, up 15.4% YoY) and “live arts” ($72.9 million/€64.1 million, up 16.2% YoY).

By region, the foreign-collections total resulted from Europe ($18.6 million/€16.4 million, “primarily” attributable to France and Italy); Latin America and the Caribbean ($11.4 million/€10 million); and North America ($9.1 million/€8 million).

A breakdown of Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) revenue by year, 2020-2024. Photo Credit: SGAE

Unsurprisingly, the live-collections sum stemmed chiefly from concerts and festivals, which kicked in $55.4 million/€48.7 million (up 7.4% YoY) during 2024. However, SGAE also pointed to a 13.2% YoY jump for performing arts to $14.1 million/€12.4 million.

Next, the 125-year-old entity confirmed $125 million/€110 million in broadcasting and cable collections for 2024; SGAE chalked up the 18.9% YoY hike in part “to various public and private television channels settling arrears.”

Finally, in terms of 2024’s top-level financials, private copying contributed $18.5 million/€16.3 million – up 57.2% YoY thanks to a once-off settlement, but down 38.1% YoY without this payment, according to the document.

And with vinyl still riding relatively high, SGAE reported $4.3 million/€3.8 million (up 11.8% YoY) in physical revenue. (Technically, the long-surging format is grappling with sales-slowdown concerns not just in Spain, but in a variety of markets.)

Rounding out the report, SGAE emphasized its continued efforts to reduce admin fees, which are said to have dropped to pre-pandemic levels last year. All told, the society’s final 2024 distribution reached 75,019 members.

Regarding Spain’s recorded music market, Promusicae in February reported a 9.4% YoY revenue improvement for 2024. Though streaming revenue grew significantly, physical sales suffered a double-digit falloff (once again by revenue) on the year, the trade body communicated.

The European Commission headquarters in Brussels. Photo Credit: EmDee

That’ll be $800 million, please. A couple investigations and one stroke of the pen later, the European Commission has fined Apple (€500 million) and Meta (€200 million) the better part of $1 billion.

The European Union executive body announced as much in a formal release. As many know, both the mentioned companies (besides Google and other leading tech and social players) aren’t exactly strangers to aggressive regulatory scrutiny in the EU.

For Apple, that includes an astonishing $2 billion or so fine handed down last year over alleged anticompetitive behavior targeting music streaming apps. As we noted then, the penalty (which Apple promptly appealed) stemmed specifically from a 2019 complaint submitted by the vocal App Store critic Spotify.

Also as noted at the time, Apple was facing different investigations to boot; we detailed one such probe when it initiated in June 2024. And it’s in connection with this Digital Markets Act (DMA) inquiry, pertaining to purported consumer harm inflicted via App Store anti-steering policies, that the EC has ordered Apple to cough up €500 million.

According to the European Commission, “a number of restrictions” mean Apple is, in practice, preventing  developers from informing “customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store.”

“Developers wanting to use alternative app distribution channels on iOS are disincentivised from doing so as this requires them to opt for business terms which include a new fee (Apple’s Core Technology Fee). Apple also introduced overly strict eligibility requirements,” the European Commission spelled out here.

That said, the entity did close a different investigation yet into Apple’s “user choice obligations,” including in terms of default-setting changes and more on iOS.

“This closure follows a constructive dialogue between the Commission and Apple,” the EC elaborated. “As a result, Apple changed its browser choice screen, streamlining the user experience of selecting and setting a new default browser on iPhone.”

Meta, on the other hand, is staring down a fine over an alleged failure to comply with the DMA with a “Consent or Pay” advertising model.

Keeping the focus on brass-tacks takeaways, the Facebook parent apparently embraced a revamped model some time back; the fine is for the system in place until November 2024.

As for where things go now, the companies must “comply with the Commission’s decisions within 60 days, otherwise they risk periodic penalty payments,” the EU agency relayed. Both Apple and Meta have fired back; Apple touched on plans to appeal as well.

While these massive fines don’t directly impact the core industry, the affected companies certainly have considerable music-space reach. Furthermore, the EU’s choppy regulatory waters are worth keeping in mind when it comes to Universal Music’s proposed Downtown buyout. Earlier in April, the much-criticized deal was referred to the European Commission for review.

A live performance from Mariah Carey, who, along with fellow defendants including Sony Music, is pushing to receive legal fees in an ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ copyright lawsuit. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

All I want for Christmas is everything you own: A copyright infringement lawsuit over Mariah Carey’s perennial holiday hit is turning ugly amid a legal fees sub-dispute.

We first broke down that high-stakes sub-dispute closer to April’s beginning, after the presiding judge opted to toss the complaint in March. Long story short, the country-singer plaintiff, Vince Vance (real name Andy Stone), accused Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” of lifting from his own effort of the same name.

But the ruling in favor of the defendants – among them Universal Music, Sony Music, and Carey herself – set the stage for a massive attorneys’ fees demand. All told, the parties are looking to make the plaintiff cough up an astonishing $185,602 and change.

Unsurprisingly, the request isn’t sitting right with Stone, who, when opposing the bill in a new filing, described himself as “an elderly man now without vast resources.”

Elsewhere in the legal document, the plaintiff emphasized in more words that he’d pursued relief not on a whim, but only after “two of the most esteemed musicologists in the country” had independently identified alleged overlap between the two Christmas songs.

Not stopping there, Stone also underscored the belief that musicologists and artists know more about the subject matter than the court or attorneys in general.

“This is a lawsuit between a successful artist from one generation against another successful artist from a later generation,” Stone and his counsel wrote. “These musicians know more than any lawyer or the Court what they hear in another song.”

Evidently attempting to cover every angle, Stone proceeded to call out the defendants’ allegedly “unreasonable” legal fees billing.

Furthermore, the plaintiff reiterated his own litigation expenses (purportedly including a $40,000 bill just to oppose summary judgement motions) and claimed that “forcing him to sell parts of his catalogue of music will accomplish nothing.”

Against the backdrop of a volume-heavy infringement-litigation landscape, the defendants’ counsel would probably disagree with the latter remark.

With all that said, how much should the plaintiff pay? While the best answer (from Stone’s perspective) is undoubtedly “nothing at all,” if the court is inclined to award legal fees, giving “the entire group more than $70,000 would be reversible error,” per the filing.

Under the current schedule, we won’t have to wait too long to see whether the judge agrees with Stone here; the courtroom confrontation’s next hearing is set for May 12th.

Spotify stock once again topped $600 per share during today’s trading, and some analysts remain optimistic that the rebound will continue. Photo Credit: Gizmodo

Spotify stock (NYSE: SPOT) rebounded past $600 per share during today’s trading. But with the company’s Q1 2025 earnings release just days away, will the momentum continue?

That question is front of mind for investors and analysts, who, ahead of the first-quarter report’s April 29th release, are continuing to put out relatively bullish forecasts. We covered some of those optimistic target prices (and a couple more measured positions) earlier this week.

Since then, Benchmark has decreased its SPOT target to a still-substantial $700, pointing to high hopes for Super-Premium, podcasting profitability, and advertising revenue. Wolfe Research is banking on shares’ cracking $660 apiece, with UBS having settled on a $690 target.

In other words, the aforementioned “relatively bullish” descriptor appears apt here. And while broader market trends are certainly affecting SPOT’s trajectory, logic suggests that the company’s post-earnings positioning will be determined by key metrics including reported subscribers and profitability.

Keeping the focus on what we already know, Spotify execs and directors are continuing to cash in on company stock, shares in which topped $600 each this morning and were hovering around the $590 mark at the time of writing.

Though the market is evidently unconcerned, these sales are now nearing a cumulative $2 billion – with a substantial portion of the sum having resulted from transactions in 2024 and 2025.

To be sure, DMN Pro broke down execs’ and directors’ $1.8 billion in total SPOT sales in mid-April. But CEO Daniel Ek added to the figure – and kept the selloff trend going – by cashing in on $28.2 million worth of Spotify stock one week ago.

Next, Spotify’s recent job posts can provide valuable insight into the company’s strategic direction. That might seem obvious, but the details are often overlooked despite having offered a glimpse of the platform’s video and IRL event plans months beforehand, to name one major example.

Admittedly, the streaming platform’s openings to this point in April haven’t unlocked any particularly groundbreaking insights. But amid a well-documented licensing showdown in the music publishing world, the service is looking to bring aboard a publishing-licensing manager, one post shows.

Meanwhile, with its largescale advertising revamp in full swing, Spotify is also making multiple related hires, different posts indicate. Most noteworthy here (especially given ad-supported listening’s modest revenue and rumblings of a stateside ban on TV pharmaceutical adverts) is a professional tasked with selling advert space to pharma companies in particular.

Diplo (real name Thomas Pentz), who’s inked a worldwide admin deal with Warner Chappell Music. Photo Credit: Maria Jose Govea

Warner Chappell Music (WCM) has officially signed “visionary creative” Diplo to a global admin deal.  

Warner Music’s publishing unit and 46-year-old Diplo formally announced that high-profile pact this morning. In the appropriate release, Warner Chappell took the opportunity to emphasize the Major Lazer member’s commercially prominent catalog, with a particular focus on collaborations involving Morgan Wallen, Justin Bieber, and others.

(Most recently, Diplo wrote and produced Blackpink member Jennie’s “Like Jennie.” Fellow Blackpink member Rosé signed a worldwide deal with Warner Chappell in November 2024.)

Meanwhile, the Mad Decent and Higher Ground owner Diplo in a statement touted WCM’s “immensely skilled, forward thinking staff.”

“The Warner Chappell team is uniquely set up to address my many endeavors and projects whether it be producing for other artists, releasing my own music, or collaborating on records,” the three-time Grammy winner said.

“They have an immensely skilled, forward thinking staff that I feel can help complement how I approach making and placing music,” the LSD member concluded. “In addition, I am excited to bring it full circle with [WCM COO] Carianne Marshall who played such an integral role in my early success.”

And in remarks of his own, Warner Chappell SVP of A&R for North America David Goldsen praised the HonkyTonk curator “as one of the most accomplished artists.”

“Diplo has already cemented himself as one of the most accomplished artists and music pioneers on the planet,” the close to two-decade Warner Chappell exec communicated.

“His bold approach to art, culture, and songs is what we want to align with at Warner Chappell. There’s lots to continue to look forward to, and we’re thrilled to work together with him alongside his management team, Andrew McInnes and Renee Brodeur,” Goldsen finished.

Now with a Spotify direct deal in place, Warner Chappell has scored several other signings in and around the EDM space on the year. That includes agreements with Mau P (inked specifically via Warner Chappell Benelux) and Empire of the Sun’s Luke Steele, to name a couple.

And fresh off a Sphere residency, EDM vet Anyma closed out March by signing a publishing pact of his own, this time with Kobalt.

The heated debate over the controversial Spotify stream minimum is showing few signs of resolving. Photo Credit: Shutter Speed

Let the debate over Spotify’s 1,000-stream royalties threshold continue: A distribution exec is firing back against the service’s defense of the controversial minimum.

As many know, that much-criticized model went into effect at the behest of the majors last year. Now, audio uploads must rack up 1,000 annual streams on Spotify in order to accrue recording royalties.

Long story short, the vast majority of tracks aren’t generating any royalties at all under the system. Far from having a negative effect on the majors’ catalogs, the revamped payout approach is in practice redistributing compensation that would have otherwise reached indie and unsigned professionals.

Meanwhile, the minimum-stream wheels (and different measures designed to boost the majors at the expense of indies) are reportedly in motion at other services yet.

Against this backdrop, Disc Makers CEO Tony van Veen calculated the ballpark royalties impact of Spotify’s 1,000-stream minimum during 2024. Last year, the exec estimated, emerging talent missed out on about $47 million in would-be recording royalties.

(Though sizable, the sum resulted from a conservative approach to calculating, van Veen explained. Thus, the actual figure might be even larger.)

On cue, Spotify fired back – including by arguing in more words that the affected tracks receive a small amount of fan interest and (owing mainly to withdrawal minimums) wouldn’t see their recording royalties reach artists in any event.

(In December 2023, DMN Pro broke down the hard numbers behind Spotify’s stream threshold. As part of the same analysis, guest author Jeff Price refuted the idea that the reallocated royalties, owing to distributors’ minimum payments, simply wouldn’t have made it to their intended recipients.)

Now, van Veen has offered a rebuttal to Spotify’s response – and the platform’s alleged “patently unfair practice of demonetizing tracks with under 1,000 streams.”

After indicating that indie distributors also find the system unfair but are “afraid to speak up” owing to their reliance on Spotify, van Veen criticized the stream-volume descriptions as “immaterial” to the minimum-payments conversation.

Running with the point, van Veen called out Spotify’s “spun” contention that 99.5% of streams hit works with at least 1,000 annual plays apiece. The remaining 0.5% of streams aren’t necessarily massive from a volume perspective, but they involve a substantial number of tracks.

“Because, dear artist, it is those $47 million in royalties that used to monetize for you, which are now redirected to more popular artists who don’t need your royalties! They have enough fans of their own! They make enough of their own royalties!” van Veen retorted in a video.

Similarly, van Veen took aim at Spotify’s representation that the system “targets” tens of millions of tracks earning (at least previously) an average of $0.02 per month in recording royalties.

“Again, spinning data to make it sound convincing doesn’t make it right. In fact, Spotify’s own data shows that of the 202 million tracks on the platform, over 175 million are now demonetized because they don’t reach the 1,000-stream annual threshold. Somehow 175 million feels like a lot more than ‘tens of millions.’

“And at just two cents per track per month, that still represents (in Spotify’s own calculation) over three and a half million [dollars] in royalties every month from small emerging artists that they are diverting to the big guys,” the exec proceeded.

Circling back to distributors’ above-mentioned minimum payments, van Veen lambasted Spotify’s position as a “blatant lie.”

“And this blatant lie about distributors’ minimum payments making it impractical to pay royalties to small artists – come on, man! You know that’s just not true. How can I be so sure?

“Because I was CEO of CD Baby’s parent company [AVL Digital] from 2008 to 2019. Those small monthly artist royalty payments just keep gradually growing in each artist’s account until they amount to 50, 100, 300 dollars. And then the artists can withdraw them. Implying that an artist wants to withdraw $2 and needs to pay a fee of a dollar for that is just disingenuous.”

Furthermore, far from making those “micro-payments” to each artist, Spotify was simply forwarding slightly reduced royalties to the likes of CD Baby, TuneCore, and DistroKid, van Veen drove home.

Here’s the full 10-minute video response from van Veen, who also addressed Universal Music’s role in spurring the overarching “artist-centric” recalibration, the fact that Spotify must track and pay compositional royalties on all streams in any event, and more.

Etsy has inked a Reverb sale agreement with Creator Partners and Servco. Photo Credit: Oberon Copeland

Almost six years after acquiring Reverb, Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY) is selling the instruments marketplace to Fender investors Creator Partners and Servco Pacific.

Reverb reached out with a formal announcement about its sale – and its return to private ownership – this morning. Meanwhile, Etsy confirmed the divestment in a regulatory disclosure, chalking up the move to a “focus on driving growth in the core Etsy marketplace.”

The seller, which previously acknowledged “significant GMS [gross merchandise sales] headwinds in 2024,” also noted that it would provide additional information in its Q1 2025 earnings report. Having reportedly paid $275 million for Reverb, Etsy is scheduled to release the first-quarter performance breakdown on the 30th.

Shifting to Reverb’s buyers, the mentioned Creator Partners was founded in 2022 by former SoundCloud head Kerry Trainor, a longtime Fender board member who, in keeping with another of his company’s investments, joined BMI’s own board towards the top of 2024.

Fellow SoundCloud vets including Jaydan Heather Malsky are also aboard as Creator Partner execs.

The more than century-old Servco, for its part, touts itself as “Hawaii’s largest private company,” with operations in the automotive sector as well as venture capital. On the VC front, Servco possesses an ownership stake in Fender, which is said to represent its “largest investment to date.”

Notwithstanding the buyers’ Fender holdings, Reverb went ahead and pledged not to provide preferential treatment to the instruments giant. Plus, the marketplace signaled that it would continue operating independently with its existing team in place; a straight merger into Creator Partners isn’t forthcoming, per Reverb.

Though the latter’s users “won’t notice any disruption as a result of this news,” significant updates are said to be on the horizon.

“We’ve got a lot of exciting changes in the works,” Reverb CEO David Mandelbrot elaborated in part. “We’re expanding access to music-making software on Reverb and we’re getting ready to pilot a new option for selling that allows musicians to get paid faster, while skipping the listing and shipping process.

“Our teams are working on improving our search functionality, making it easier to ship, and shortening the time it takes to resolve support issues,” the former Indiegogo CEO proceeded.

Those remarks appear to indicate that Mandelbrot will remain aboard Reverb, which he’s led since early 2020. And the marketplace, which declined to provide sale-price details to DMN, expects the transaction to close “in the coming months.”

Hayashi International Promotions head Kaori Hayashi, whose company has sold to Live Nation. Photo Credit: Live Nation

Live Nation’s aggressive international buildout has officially reached Japan, where the promoter has acquired Hayashi International Promotions (HIP).

The Ticketmaster parent announced its newest buyout in a brief release. Founded some four decades back and currently led by the namesake Kaori Hayashi, Hayashi International has, of course, organized concert series for a variety of Japanese acts.

Additionally, the Tokyo-headquartered business has promoted a number of shows in Japan for international talent. Global clients include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Fall Out Boy, and Linkin Park, the appropriate website shows.

Now, at least as Live Nation sees things, today’s deal “will enhance Japan’s live music landscape” both by attracting “global superstars” to the nation and by “elevating J-pop on the international stage.”

While the involved parties opted against divulging the transaction’s financials, they did indicate that Kaori Hayashi will remain at the helm moving forward. In a statement, Live Nation head Michael Rapino touted the purchase as a means of bringing “even more live music to fans across Japan.”

And in remarks of her own, Kaori Hayashi emphasized the sale’s perceived ability to help Hayashi International Promotions operate on a “greater scale.”

“HIP has been at the heart of Japan’s live music scene for over 40 years,” the exec communicated, “and our focus has always been on delivering incredible concerts for fans.

“Partnering with Live Nation allows us to keep doing this with greater scale, giving Japanese artists the opportunity to perform to new audiences and strengthening Japan’s position as a must-visit destination for major acts,” Kaori Hayashi concluded.

For Live Nation, the play is just the newest in a line of international expansions to arrive as the company grapples with a fresh round of stateside antitrust scrutiny.

Furthermore, the promoter is also encountering regulatory hurdles in Europe, where rivals like CTS Eventim are expanding aggressively and reporting solid growth.

At the intersection of those points – the antitrust crackdown and the stiff competition in Europe – Live Nation is apparently zeroing in on different regions. Besides today’s buyout, that refers to recent venue investments in Singapore, Portugal, Canada, and South Africa, on top of ticketing pushes throughout Africa and elsewhere.

Separately, Japan-focused expansions aren’t confined to the events side. Universal Music bought A-Sketch in February, Hybe rebranded its Japanese division that same month, and Believe in March scored a Teichiku Entertainment distribution deal.

SoundExchange president and CEO Michael Huppe. Photo Credit: SoundExchange

Ahead of related CRB Web VI hearings, SoundExchange and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) have unveiled a rates agreement covering 2026 through 2030.   

SoundExchange and the radio rep just recently put out a joint release about the deal, which was actually finalized closer to April’s beginning. Meanwhile, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) set the overarching Web VI wheels in motion early last year.

Unsurprisingly, there’s been plenty of back and forth between the involved parties since then, the CRB’s pages-deep Web VI section shows. (The main CRB hearings themselves are slated to commence next Monday, April 28th, though a prehearing conference is scheduled for Wednesday the 23rd.)

Nevertheless, the talks (or at least those concerning rates for a portion of non-interactive digital recording usages – more on this in a moment) look to be ushering in significant progress relative to certain prior negotiations. And they’ll presumably be far smoother than some forthcoming rate discussions when all is said and done.

Bringing the focus back to the internet-radio world, the NAB and SoundExchange say their proposed settlement will boost the non-subscription rate to $0.0028 per usage in 2026 (up from $0.0025 currently). From there, the per-usage rate would increase by $0.0001 annually en route to hitting $0.0032 in 2030.

Additionally, the minimum fee would come in at $1,100 in 2026, grow by $50 annually until hitting $1,250 in 2029, and then remain the same in 2030. The payment deadline, for its part, would decrease from 45 days to 30 days following each month’s conclusion.

Lastly, in terms of brass-tacks takeaways, the NAB and SoundExchange treaded new ground with regard to late fees and access to performance data held by third-party vendors, among other things.

In a statement, SoundExchange president and CEO Michael Huppe applauded the “business solution that both parties can accept,” including because of the compromise’s “many benefits over battling it out in court.”

(George Johnson and Word Collections are participating as well; both, upon reviewing the relevant terms, “agreed they would not object to the” NAB settlement, per the adoption motion.)

And in remarks of his own, NAB head Curtis LeGeyt touted the settlement for providing “critical certainty around streaming rates in a way that is sustainable for broadcasters large and small.”

Bigger picture, SoundExchange has also proposed Web VI rate settlements on the public- and college-radio sides. And today, the entity reiterated proposed rates for all activities not covered by these possible settlements.

Against the backdrop of an existing royalties war between SoundExchange and SiriusXM – and given the above-described settlements, of course – that move is decidedly important for the satellite radio giant.

To be sure, besides seeking to address all sorts of “material terms issues,” SoundExchange has doubled down on calls for a substantially heightened per-performance rate of $0.0037 for subscriptions during the first year of the half-decade window.

Snoop Dogg at WrestleMania XL. Photo Credit: Diego Serrano

Snoop Dogg and Death Row Records are looking to dismiss the $107 million lawsuit filed by Lydia Harris, who they say should also be barred from litigating against them moving forward.

Counsel for Snoop Dogg and the relevant label just recently made the dismissal push official. Meanwhile, Universal Music, Jimmy Iovine, and several others are likewise defendants in the pro se complaint.

We broke down that complaint when it was filed – and then once more when the presiding judge scheduled a pretrial conference – last month. Long story short, Lydia Harris (the ex-wife of Death Row co-founder Michael Harris) says she’s owed big for her purported stake in the label, which Snoop Dogg bought in 2022.

She sued Suge Knight (who allegedly pushed her out of Death Row) for similar reasons in 2002, and a court in 2005 entered a $107 million default judgement in her favor (hence the damages sought in the current action).

But Suge Knight went on to declare bankruptcy, and Team Snoop maintains that a 2008 bankruptcy settlement both resolved Lydia’s claims and prevented her from seeking relief down the line. (Lydia has seemingly confirmed receiving a $1 million “good-faith payment” from Suge Knight at some point.)

Consequently, Snoop Dogg is painting the newest suit as the latest in a series of attempts to overturn the 2008 settlement. Lydia, who hasn’t hesitated to elaborate on her position in the media, is alleging that “strategic bankruptcy filings” concealed the assets in question and prevented the settlement’s full enforcement.

Running with those ideas, Snoop Dogg and Death Row believe that Lydia’s “substantively frivolous” suit is “undeniably time-barred by the relevant statute of limitations.”

“Thus,” reads one part of the dismissal motion, “over 20 years have elapsed between the March 9, 2005 entry of judgment and the March 18, 2025 filing of Plaintiff’s Complaint, a time period which is considerably outside the one-year statute of limitations.”

Furthermore, the two mentioned defendants say the prior litigation and settlement definitively resolved the claims at hand, subsequent discovery of additional information or not.

Leaving no stone unturned, Snoop Dogg and Death Row are also accusing Lydia of failing “to adequately plead any cognizable legal claim” and of improperly serving the suit.

“Here,” the text indicates, “the proof of service filed by Plaintiff clearly shows that Plaintiff [a party to the action, of course] herself served the Complaint via certified mail. This is clearly improper and constitutes an independent ground for insufficient service.”

For these and different reasons, the court should toss the action and deem Lydia a vexatious litigant to boot, per counsel for Snoop and Death Row. The plaintiff is allegedly “a bad faith litigant” who “continued a pattern of harassment in California for years and has now shifted her harassment to a new forum in Texas,” the motion reads.

Morgan Stanley and others are bullish on Spotify stock ahead of the company’s Q1 2025 earnings report. Photo Credit: Sven Piper

Despite being up nearly 25% on the year, Spotify stock (NYSE: SPOT) is poised to climb higher – at least according to a pair of new projections.

As things stand, Spotify stock is hovering around $568 per share, reflecting the mentioned boost from 2025’s beginning and a 109% surge from the same point in April 2024. Nevertheless, SPOT is down on the month and remains $84 beneath its 52-week high of almost $653 per share.

In other words, it remains to be seen whether the stock will continue ascending or level out at a more modest (but still substantial) value. And multiple analysts are opting to weigh in ahead of Spotify’s April 29th earnings release.

Citing factors including the company’s ongoing subscriber growth and price increases, Wolfe Research is banking on the former outcome. The equity-research firm has now settled on a $660 target for SPOT; on top of representing another record high, that per-share price would render Spotify an over $135 billion company.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley has opted for a $670-per-share Spotify stock target, emphasizing the perceived upside associated with (besides other factors) bolstered personalization features.

Separate forecasts are even more bullish; UBS is running with a $690 SPOT target, for instance. And some have been long Spotify for a while – including when shares were trading for closer to $70 a pop in the not-so-distant past.

Different analysts yet are urging pricing caution; KeyBanc recently maintained its overweight rating for SPOT while simultaneously reducing its target from $675 to $625. And Redburn Atlantic’s neutral SPOT rating brought with it a relatively modest $545 target.

To state the obvious, only time will tell exactly what the future holds for Spotify stock, and broader market factors are playing a big role. But we aren’t without worthwhile information here.

First, investors are evidently unbothered by the roughly $1.8 billion in Spotify stock that execs and board members have now sold. A substantial portion of the SPOT selloff arrived in 2024 – though the involved parties could have made more cash had they waited to part with their holdings.

Next, notwithstanding all the aggressive SPOT targets and ultra-enthusiastic analyst assessments, the ever-fickle market’s presumably on the lookout for a handful of Q1 2025 performance particulars. Chief among the latter are profitability and subscriber gains.

Behind this point, Spotify hasn’t exactly reinvented the wheel since November 2022, when its per-share stock price was, as highlighted, in the $70s. However, it has prioritized a leaner operation (including dialed-back spending on questionable investments), price bumps, bolstered advertising initiatives, and a multifaceted diversification.

Near term, SPOT’s showing seemingly hinges on paid-subscriber movements and staying in the black. But throughout the remainder of 2025 and beyond, heightened audiobook revenue wouldn’t hurt, nor would a bit of early payoff for a rapid-fire video buildout.

Additionally, managing to fuel consistent advertising growth would be a big plus for Spotify, which will probably see a revenue upside if it can, in fact, get Super-Premium off the ground during 2025.