Finance

Believe partners with Google to offer AI music creation tool Flow Music to its artists

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Believe is partnering with Google to offer the tech giant’s AI music creation platform, Google Flow Music, to artists across Believe and TuneCore. Under the deal, Believe will offer Flow Music — the Google Labs-housed AI music tool formerly known as ProducerAI — to its artists, producers and songwriters as what the companies describe as a “creative collaborator.” Google says that Flow Music can help artists with lyrics, experimenting with melodies or genres, and creating new instruments.

Source: Believe partners with Google to offer AI music creation tool Flow Music to its artists

Warner Music Group and Paramount strike deal for theatrical films based on WMG artists

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Paramount Pictures and Warner Music Group have announced a multi-year, first-look deal for theatrical films. The partnership will see the companies develop movies drawing on the lives and music of WMG‘s roster of artists and songwriters. Robert Kyncl, CEO of Warner Music Group, said: “This collaboration with Paramount unites two forward-looking and innovative companies, and together we’re taking a fresh approach to the space.”

Source: Warner Music Group and Paramount strike deal for theatrical films based on WMG artists

The $1.4 Billion Question: Will UMG Actually Share Its Spotify Stock Windfall With Artists?

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Late last month, Universal Music Group (UMG) confirmed plans to sell 50% of its Spotify stock – while claiming that “artists will share in the proceeds.” But pressing questions remain about what this possible distribution will look like in practice. Those questions are taking center stage now that the dust has settled from UMG’s Spotify stock sale disclosure. As reported, Universal Music brass unveiled the divestment after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square floated the idea of offloading the shares under a massive takeover proposal.

Source: The $1.4 Billion Question: Will UMG Actually Share Its Spotify Stock Windfall With Artists?

Primary Wave raises $2.2 billion for fourth music fund

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Primary Wave Music IP Fund 4 is the fourth consecutive oversubscribed fund from Primary Wave, which says the vehicle is the “largest dedicated closed-end music royalties fund raised to date in the industry”. The fund was backed by a global investor base spanning insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, and large family offices, according to a press release, which also noted that Primary Wave is a strategic partner of financial giant Brookfield Asset Management.

Source: Primary Wave raises $2.2 billion for fourth music fund

Universal is selling 50% of its Spotify stake, generating around $1.4 billion

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Universal Music Group will sell half of its equity stake in Spotify and use the proceeds to help fund an expanded share buyback program totaling EUR €1 billion (USD $1.17 billion), the company confirmed on Wednesday (April 29) alongside its Q1 2026 results. The decision comes three weeks after Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square launched a $64 billion takeover bid for UMG that proposed liquidating the company’s entire Spotify stake to help fund the deal.

Source: Universal is selling 50% of its Spotify stake, generating around $1.4 billion

Spotify’s Song Library Is a Lot Bigger Than We Thought

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Against the backdrop of continued streaming growth – and an avalanche of AI slop – Spotify’s library now contains a staggering 250 million tracks. That eye-popping total came to light during the company’s Q1 2026 earnings call this morning. There’s a lot to unpack in these brief remarks, but one key question jumps out: Is Spotify, which has been almost curiously uninterested in labeling (let alone limiting) AI slop, allowing and capitalizing on “catalog inflation” to bolster its recommendations reach?

Source: Spotify’s Song Library Is a Lot Bigger Than We Thought 

BMG Parent Co. Bertelsmann to Buy Concord in Major Indie Music Merger

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In one of the biggest music mergers in more than a decade, BMG, which represents artists like Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson, and Concord, owner of songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Phil Collins and R.E.M., said on Tuesday (April 28) they reached a definitive agreement to merge companies under the BMG name. The combined company will be 67% owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, BMG’s parent company, and 33% owned by affiliates of Great Mountain Partners.

Source: BMG Parent Co. Bertelsmann to Buy Concord in Major Indie Music Merger

Brazil’s Competition Watchdog Opens Google Probe Over Publisher Pay

Brazil’s competition watchdog, Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE), unanimously decided Thursday to open a formal investigation into Google’s use of news content, including in its AI Overviews, without compensation to publishers. The investigation will consider whether Google’s scraping of journalistic content to feature in the ‘News’ tab and to produce AI Overviews is an anti-competitive practice and whether outlets that decide to opt-out are being penalized with less visibility.

Source: Brazil’s Competition Watchdog Opens Google Probe Over Publisher Pay

Indie label group Futures Music raises $6m as it sets sights on catalog deals

Futures Music Group, the independent label group founded in 2024 by Neon Gold’s Derek Davies and Avenue A’s Dave Wallace, has raised $6 million in seed funding from a group of music industry investors in the US and UK. Commenting on the investment, Blackburn said: “From an artist perspective, what matters most is having partners with great relationships and smart technology, who also understand the creative and don’t force a rigid system onto it.

Source: Indie label group Futures Music raises $6m as it sets sights on catalog deals

deviantART says artists made $23 million on its platform last year, was ‘100% right to embrace AI

Welcoming AI and introducing DreamUp resulted in significant backlash from its community, and a number of artists left the platform entirely. But Levy says any claim that dA has lost artists and/or that it’s dying is “a convenient web troll narrative” that’s also dead wrong. “Let’s address this ridiculous nonsense once and for all. There has been no ‘downfall of DeviantArt,’ nor any mass exodus,” he wrote.

Source: deviantART says artists made $23 million on its platform last year, was 100 right to embrace AI

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