Some authors hoping to receive their share of Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright settlement said they received surprising emails this week — emails informing them that someone else was making a claim on their payments. Under the terms of the settlement, the authors will be paid $3,000 for each pirated work. If the book is still in print with a traditional publisher, the money will be split 50-50 between author and publisher. But writers have been posting on social media that publishers seem to be claiming more than their fair share of some payments.
Source: Authors push back as publishers and agents make claims on Anthropic settlement
Streaming generated USD $4.9 billion, up 4.7% YoY, with paid subscriptions generating $3.4 billion in the period – up 6.4% YoY. The ‘Premium’ subscription part of that equation generated $3.11 billion for rightsholders in H1 2026, up 7.8% YoY. The other half of the equation – ‘non-premium’ subs, largely music bundled into services where music isn’t the main event – fell 9% YoY to $239.1 million.
Over the last ten years, buying music became trendy. The logic was simple: recurring revenue, long duration, emotional resonance. Prices climbed. Multiples stretched. Everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Then the market said enough. The collapse of the Hipgnosis Songs Fund looked, for a moment, like a verdict on music as an asset. It was not. It was a verdict on an over-leveraged fund. Content underneath it was just fine. Music is still the name of the game. What came next proved the point.
A group of more than 80 performers, including actor Hugh Bonneville and singer Sandi Thom, have written to the UK government to demand greater protection against their voices being used by AI. Together, they are asking Prime Minister Andy Burnham to introduce legislation that would better protect every person in the UK against voice cloning and AI training on recordings without consent. Audiobook narrator Alice Sockett co-founded the campaign, calling voice cloning “an existential threat to our entire industry.”
A new report from the UK Department for Culture, Media, and Sport on the impact of Brexit on British musicians playing in Europe reveals that the UK leaving the EU in 2020 has had a significant effect on European touring for UK musicians. In particular, the study highlights the decline in performances and estimates the economic consequences. Commissioned by the UK government, the report reveals that the total number of performances by British artists in Europe in 2024 was 21% lower than pre-Brexit levels in 2019.
Stability AI, the AI startup backed by the likes of James Cameron and Sean Parker, has raised $76 million in a Series B funding round from a roster of investors including some of the entertainment industry’s top record labels and gaming companies. The company’s newest investors include the top three record labels, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group; the gaming company Electronic Arts.
A group of Hollywood filmmakers, executives and actors has spent the last three years secretly meeting with Silicon Valley executives to try to address a simmering issue in the industry: how to define where AI is useful in the context of a human-controlled creative process. After a meeting last weekend of about 120 participants, the coalition landed on a framework that outlines how AI is already present in the film industry and defines ways humans can maintain control of other use cases.
Suno, the AI music generator that’s managed to both rankle the music industry and lure some of its biggest talent to its side, has added music company BMG as its latest licensing partner as it prepares new models powered by licensed work. The partnership will see Suno pay for BMG’s repertoire of recordings from its artists, while also covering the use of any BMG songs to train Suno’s past models.
Warner Music Group expects its licensing deals with artificial intelligence platforms to start boosting its subscription streaming revenue, starting from WMG’s 2027 fiscal year, which begins on October 1, 2026. That’s according to Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl, who told the company’s fiscal Q3 earnings (calendar Q2) call on Wednesday (August 5) that WMG’s partnerships with AI music firms Suno, Stability AI, KLAY, and Udio would drive the contribution.
The Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) and SoundExchange have announced that the two entities have entered into a purchase agreement under which SOCAN will acquire the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA). The transaction, which is still subject to regulatory approval, will unite the neighboring rights management of mechanical rights with public performance rights in Canada.