Google has begun giving publishers a prominent “Top Stories” plug above many news-based queries which generate an AI Overview summary. While the move could lead to more referral traffic for publishers, they could lose the opportunity to feature in these snippets if they opt out of allowing their content to be used in AI Overviews.
Source: Google adds Top Stories links to many news-related AI summaries
Just as printed letters can be scanned and converted into digital text, emerging technology can transform sheet music into sound. A new effort is underway to use optical music recognition (OMR) to bring to life music in the public domain for all to listen and access through the Internet Archive. Nearly 200 public domain songs have been uploaded to the Internet Jukebox—from John Philip Sousa marches to children’s folk songs and piano concertos by Frederic Chopin—and the collection is growing.
Source: Bringing Forgotten Music Back to Life with Optical Music Recognition
Suno has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit over a data breach that reportedly exposed the personal information of 55.3 million users. The suit was filed on Friday (July 24) in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, where Suno is headquartered. The named plaintiff is Alec Pilavian, a Florida resident and Suno customer who is seeking to represent everyone in the United States whose data was compromised in the breach.
Source: Suno faces proposed class action lawsuit over data breach
The “first tremors in an earthquake” hitting the news industry from AI answers and audience habit changes can be seen in the latest snapshot of digital publishing revenue. Following four consecutive quarters of growth among UK publishers taking part in the Digital Publishers’ Revenue Index, Q1 2026 saw a swing back into decline. Among 13 publishers (nine B2C and four B2B) surveyed by the Association of Online Publishers and Deloitte, total digital revenue dropped by 4.55% in the first three months of this year.
Source: ‘First tremors’ of AI earthquake showing in digital revenue hit
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the “broad qualities” of those authors “while remaining distinct in its own voice,” for example. In refusing to directly copy the “exact style” of various authors, ChatGPT offered instead to capture an overall “feeling” by incorporating some of the common features found in those authors’ work.
Source: ChatGPT starts blocking direct requests to copy an author’s style
AI is sampling. There, I said it. And as someone who’s been handling sample clearances for over three decades, I should know. The key thing to understand here is that AI can never generate something new; it can only recontextualize existing data that is fed into it. When it comes to music, that data is the 1s and 0s of digital music files. So when you ask an AI platform to generate a song, the result is inherently tied to the music that was used to train the model.
Source: Why AI is sampling – and how that will affect the future (opinion)
On July 7, 2026, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) published draft guidelines on web scraping for generative AI. The Guidelines are intended to provide practical GDPR guidance in one of the more complex areas of AI development and will be of direct relevance to any organization building or procuring generative AI systems trained on internet-sourced data The Guidelines apply to both organizations that scrape data from external internet sources to train generative AI systems and those that acquire and reuse pre-scraped datasets from third parties.
Source: What Do the European Data Protection Board’s Web Scraping Guidelines Mean for AI Training Datasets?
US consumers are “more wary than willing” to engage with entertainment content created using generative AI, according to a new study from Luminate. That finding comes from AI & Media: Audience Attitudes, a report from Luminate Intelligence published on Friday (July 24). The report draws on Luminate’s US Entertainment 365 survey to assess consumers’ own use of generative AI applications, and how its use in creating songs, movies and TV shows affects their willingness to engage.
Source: US consumers are ‘more wary than willing’ to engage with AI in entertainment content
Independent music distributor Symphonic Distribution has partnered with Sureel AI to let its artists track how AI uses their work and, the companies say, “participate in AI-driven revenue”. Sureel, an attribution platform that tracks how music is used by AI, is owned by Warner Music Group, which acquired it in June for an undisclosed sum.
Source: WMG’s Sureel teams up with Symphonic to let artists track AI use of their music
Canadian performing rights society SOCAN has partnered with Musical AI to build infrastructure that identifies when songwriters’ and composers’ work is used by artificial intelligence. The goal, the two organizations said on Tuesday (July 21), is to make sure those creators are credited and paid when it happens.
Source: Canada’s SOCAN names Musical AI as its attribution partner to credit and pay creators