Marketplace

Spotify slashes streams of hit song after suspicious activity on prediction market Kalshi

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Spotify has removed more than 500,000 registered streams from Malcolm Todd‘s Earrings, after the song’s rise to No. 1 on the platform’s daily US chart was tied to bets placed on the prediction market Kalshi. Kalshi is a US prediction market, regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, on which users stake real money on future events – including which song will be the most-streamed on Spotify in the US in a given month.

Source: Spotify slashes streams of hit song after suspicious activity on prediction market Kalshi

Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie ‘Misaligned,’ Marking Feature Debut for AI ‘Actor’

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Tilly Norwood, the AI “actor” who sparked a frenzy of anger in Hollywood and across the wider industry in late 2025, is set to front her first feature film. “Misaligned,” announced by Particle 6, the AI-focussed studio behind Norwood, is described as a comedy-drama telling a “coming-of-age story infused with existential AI chaos.” Set inside the so-called “Tillyverse,” a surreal digital world located somewhere up in the Cloud, the film will follow Tilly, an AI being with no real body, no childhood and no lived experience of her own … only access to everyone else’s.

Source: Tilly Norwood to Lead New Movie ‘Misaligned,’ Marking Feature Debut for AI ‘Actor’

US senators revive bill to require AI-generated audio, video and images to carry labels

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A bipartisan group of US senators has reintroduced legislation that would require AI-generated audio, video and images to carry disclosures identifying them as artificially generated. The AI Labeling Act of 2026 was introduced on Thursday (June 25) by Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), John Curtis (R-UT) and Mark Warner (D-VA). Its backers include SAG-AFTRA, the Songwriters Guild of America, Music Creators North America and the Society of Composers and Lyricists.

Source: US senators revive bill to require AI-generated audio, video and images to carry labels

The Ghost in the Machine Wants a Cut

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For a hundred years the music business ran on scarcity. A small head of hits drove most of the revenue, and the engine was simple: protect the hits, ignore the rest. Streaming did not break that. It made the head bigger. Drake alone accounts for more of Spotify than the bottom fifty thousand artists combined. Generative music breaks it for real, but not in the way the doomsayers think.

Source: The Ghost in the Machine Wants a Cut

Google AI changes could deal further blow to publisher Discover traffic

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Google has started replacing publisher links in its Discover feed with AI-written posts summarising related stories. The new feature, deployed sporadically so far, follows Discover changes which have already downgraded publisher posts in favour of content from X and Youtube. Publishers have seen a sharp drop in referral traffic from the news aggregation feed served to smartphone users.

Source: Google AI changes could deal further blow to publisher Discover traffic

Google accepts need for ‘new value exchange’ with publishers

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Google has said it is exploring new “value exchange models” with publishers and accepted the need for independent regulation of AI. The tech giant’s paper, A Pragmatic Approach to AI Governance in America, has defended the use of publicly available online content for training AI models, but said it is “piloting novel ways to partner with websites whose content meaningfully contributes to the freshness and factuality of generative AI responses”.

Source: Google accepts need for ‘new value exchange’ with publishers

Hollywood Workers Are Training AI Models as Job Prospects Grow Slim

In 2023, concerns over the rise of generative AI animated the writers’ and actors’ strikes, with many rank-and-file workers fearful that it could put wide swaths of the entertainment industry out of work. Three years later, with those concerns still alive and well, some Hollywood workers have been moonlighting in AI training, working to help improve the tech, anyway. As the traditional film and television job market narrows, this kind of gig work is on the rise and current and former entertainment workers are taking part.

Source: Hollywood Workers Are Training AI Models as Job Prospects Grow Slim

Hollywood and Big Tech Are Preparing For War

As tech and AI companies push further into entertainment and media, their stewardship of that content (or lack thereof) is becoming a story into itself. At the same time, strategic maneuvers by Amazon, YouTube and Meta appear designed to take over the biggest screen in the home: The TV set, ultimately stealing time from legacy studios in what is effectively a zero sum game.

Source: Hollywood and Big Tech Are Preparing For War

Tech startup Artist Included launches with plan to re-record classic songs using AI

A new music technology company called Artist Included has launched in Los Angeles, aiming to let artists re-record classic tracks using AI-assisted vocal technology. The company claims that it is “creating a new model for legendary artists to reimagine classic recordings and create new, artist-owned masters for today’s market”.

Source: Tech startup Artist Included launches with plan to re-record classic songs using AI

Streamers’ Bundling Has Cost Music Publishers Nearly $500 Million Since 2024, NMPA Reveals

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) revealed some worrying data tied to the sustained hit the industry has taken from streaming providers’ “bundles.” As Spotify (and similarly, Amazon Music) started reclassifying its “premium” subscription tiers as a bundle with other services such as audiobooks, royalties paid by both companies have been cut by approximately 30% over the past two years.

Source: Streamers’ Bundling Has Cost Music Publishers Nearly $500 Million Since 2024: NMPA

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