The industry-first, seminanual benchmark polls artist managers, lawyers and indie executives for their expectations for catalog investment trends. The Index is intentionally centered on the perceptions of music industry stakeholders, rather than buyout funds and financial institutions that can be a few steps removed from the “action” in the space.
Source: Introducing: Duetti and Billboard’s Music Finance Index
Heavybit, the self-described “leading early-stage investor in enterprise infrastructure,” led the newer raise. Also contributing to the $4.5 million tranche were the Business Development Bank of Canada and Halifax-based Build Ventures. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2026, Musical AI intends to keep on building out its core attribution tech. Per the company, the involved tools are “successfully deployed” and “can parse what percentage of a generated output came from which source.”
Source: Attribution and Licensing Startup Musical AI Scores $4.5M Raise
The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday released its December Consumer Price Index, showing modest inflation of 0.3 percent on a monthly basis and 2.7 percent for the year. But a deeper dive into the data tables also shows an outlier that is relevant to Hollywood: Subscription video services. According to the BLS data, “Subscription and rental of video and video games” saw inflation of 19.5 percent in December.
Source: “Streamflation” Is Real: U.S. Inflation Data Shows Soaring Price of Streaming Video Services
The national executive director and chief negotiator of the actors union SAG-AFTRA enumerated on his dollars-and-cents approach to what the labor group calls “synthetic performers” in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday. His remarks previewed the tack that the union may take when its negotiations with studios and streamers begin on Feb. 9, where AI is again expected to be a top issue.
Source: SAG-AFTRA’s Likely Strategy: Make AI Performers as Expensive as Humans
Anthropic is gearing up to raise a fresh $10 billion at a $350 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal. TechCrunch has confirmed the raise and valuation, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Claude maker last raised a $13 billion Series F round at a $183 billion valuation three months ago, so this raise nearly doubles the AI firm’s value. In March, Anthropic secured $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation.
Source: Anthropic reportedly raising $10B at $350B valuation | TechCrunch
The world’s largest music rights company announced Tuesday (January 6) a strategic collaboration with AI computing giant NVIDIA, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization, currently valued at approximately $4.56 trillion. According to a press release, the partnership will see NVIDIA and UMG “undertake collaborative research and development to promote shared objectives of advancing human music creation and rightsholder compensation.”
Back in November, Napster’s $3 billion funding apparently fell through, leaving the music streaming platform’s future uncertain. Now, the company has abruptly shuttered its music streaming capabilities—while users were actively using the service—in its broader pivot to AI assistants. The pivot into AI isn’t unexpected—the brand was purchased by AI company Infinite Reality last year—but for users of the music streaming service, to call it jarring is an understatement.
Source: Napster Music Streaming Service Abruptly Shuts Down, Pivots to AI
PRS paid out GBP £274.9 million (USD $367.6 million) at the current exchange rate) to songwriters, composers and music publishers in December, a 4% increase over the same period a year earlier. In all, 51,500 PRS members will receive a payment this quarter, among them 400 songwriters and composers who will receive royalties for the first time.
Source: The UK’s PRS for Music reports largest-ever quarterly royalty payout at $368m, up 4% YoY
Warner Bros. Discovery’s board has formally said “no thanks” to the $108 billion takeover bid from David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance and unanimously reiterated its support for the Netflix deal. Following WBD’s announcement, Paramount affirmed that it will continue to make its case directly to shareholders for the latest $30-per-share hostile offer — indicating for now that it won’t be going any higher.
IP acquisition is only the first step – one quickly followed by potentially overwhelming blocking and tackling. A typical catalog requires ingesting data from hundreds of platforms and sources spanning DSPs, sub-publishers, CMOs, and social media platforms, often in conflicting formats. And that’s just a working list of initial considerations to properly collect associated IP revenues, with downstream payouts and revenue splits another major area of concern.
Source: Billions Are Flowing Into Music IP — Can Financial Systems Handle It?