MakersPlace, a digital art platform specializing in non-fungible tokens, is shutting down amid a sharp drop in the NFT market. The company, launched in 2018, announced its closure on Jan. 15 after six years of operations. “Ongoing market challenges and funding difficulties have made it impossible to sustain operations while fulfilling our mission,” MakersPlace’s content manager, Brady Evan Walker, said in the announcement.
Source: Digital art venue MakersPlace shuts down amid NFT market decline
Universal Music Group (UMG) announced Wednesday (January 15) that Pershing Square Holdings, led by billionaire investor Bill Ackman, has requested a secondary listing of the music company on a US stock exchange. Under a previously disclosed agreement, UMG will facilitate an underwritten offering for Pershing Square to sell a portion of its shares by September 15, 2025.
And along with the opening of the platform itself, the company is now unveiling the proprietary framework they’ve developed, AI Rights, which is at the core of the service, currently offering rights for AI model training and reference via RAG models. Adler says the team has plans to add more rights soon to the framework. “We’ve raised more funding,” he says. “The product is great shape. It’s really pretty polished and looking really good.
Blackstone’s rumored SESAC sale has an over $3 billion price tag and multiple prospective purchasers, according to new reports. Blackstone reportedly began entertaining private equity offers for SESAC after Hellman & Friedman took a majority stake in Global Music Rights (GMR) late last year. SESAC Music Group’s portfolio includes Audiam and the Harry Fox Agency, to name only a couple.
Source: Possible SESAC Sale Has $3 Billion Price Tag, Reports Suggest
Blackstone Inc. has hired financial advisers to explore the sale of song rights, including music from Bob Dylan, Adele and Ariana Grande, that it expects to fetch $3 billion or more, people with knowledge of the matter said. A handful of financial firms, including Apollo Global Management Inc., Warburg Pincus LLC and Temasek Holdings Pte, Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, have expressed interest in the assets.
Source: Blackstone Seeks $3 Billion in Sale of Bob Dylan, Adele Song Rights
What does it mean for a writer, such as a novelist, to have a unique “voice”? And does artificial intelligence (AI) help or hurt that voice? Microsoft researchers set out to answer that question with a small study using 19 fiction writers, 30 readers, and short passages written with the help of OpenAI’s GPT-4. The research takes its title from a comment by one of the writers — “it was 80% me, 20% AI.”
Source: Writers voice anxiety about using AI. Readers don’t seem to care
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today released an official Artificial Intelligence Strategy aimed at outlining the challenges faced by the Office both internally and externally, as the reach of AI impacts all aspects of innovation and society. According to the report, AI-related patent applications are up 33% since 2018 and appeared in 60% of all technology subclasses in 2023.
Source: USPTO Presents AI Strategy as AI Patent Applications Soar by 33%
The Los Angeles fires are expected to rank as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, and will impact every sector and industry in Southern California and beyond. Entertainment and media businesses have no special immunity. In fact, the high volume of industry insiders who called the Palisades and Altadena home means that the pain and ripple effects across Hollywood and the creative community will be severe and long-lasting.
Source: What Hollywood Lost in the Fires
Music streaming platform Deezer has partnered with rights management organization Sacem to implement an artist-centric payment system (ACPS) for publishing rights across Deezer’s platform in France. Deezer and Sacem describe the deal as “the world’s first update” to the remuneration model for publishing since the advent of streaming services.
Source: Deezer partners with Sacem to adopt artist-centric payment model for publishing rights in France
Asteria Film and Moonvalley are set to launch Marey, an ethically trained generative AI video model for Hollywood in early 2025, designed to prioritize legal and creative transparency by using exclusively licensed and original data. This approach stands in stark contrast to leading generative AI models, including OpenAI’s Sora and Meta’s Movie Gen, which have faced criticism for using copyrighted material without direct consent
Source: AI Video Model ‘Marey’ Poised to Shake Up Hollywood in 2025 — AI In Hollywood