Marketplace

As AI Discourse Rages, Publishing Has More Questions Than Answers

One week after Hachette Book Group pulled Mia Ballard’s Shy Girl for strong suspicions of AI use, the industry is reeling—and struggling to contend with the implications of the novel’s cancelation. In a statement about the book’s cancelation, Hachette cited its commitment to protecting “original creative expression and storytelling.” But book industry researcher Rachel Noorda argued that Hachette’s actions reflected market demands more than anything.

Source: As AI Discourse Rages, Publishing Has More Questions Than Answers

Global Streaming Subscription Revenue Tripled In Five Years, Poised to Top $200 Billion by 2030

Global streaming subscription revenue surpassed $150 billion for the first time in 2025, according to a new survey from Ampere Analysis, which highlighted that as “a major milestone” for the subscription market. And streaming subscription revenue will hit $202 billion by 2030, up 29 percent, “as streamers shift focus from subscriber growth to price increases and ad-supported tiers.”

Source: Global Streaming Subscription Revenue Tripled In Five Years, Poised to Top $200 Billion by 2030

Can AI Music Be A Real Growth Market?

The conversations around the usage of AI in music can get quite nebulous without proper framing. On one hand, Suno’s current role, according to CEO Mikey Shulman, is that it’s the Ozempic of the music industry: everyone is on it, but no one is telling you. With 2 million paid subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue, the sizable base is there. The question now is what the ceiling looks like. The belief that “most of the music on Suno is bad,” is also accurate. But most songs on Spotify are not good.

Source: Can AI Music Be A Real Growth Market?

Why Is the Music Industry Still Estimating Public Performance?

At a top level, public performances of musical works are tracked by a vast and complex system of loosely tied organizations. Issues aside — and there are many — it’s a remarkably complex royalty-collection mechanism for music IP owners, with PROs worldwide tracking and charging for music the public enjoys. But is it time for that mechanism to undergo a system upgrade?

Source: Why Is the Music Industry Still Estimating Public Performance?

SunoCharts shows how AI music’s trending creators and breakout genres could be tracked

The recently-launched SunoCharts website carries the tagline ‘the analytics layer for AI music’. The twist is that none of the trending tracks or artists included in those analytics are real. That’s not us making a snarky jab at those creators. They’re literally not real, as the site’s creator Kieron Donoghue explains. “SunoCharts is a site built on dummy data that shows what could be possible if Suno released an API. It does not use any live data, it’s purely a demo,” he says.

Source: SunoCharts shows how AI music’s trending creators and breakout genres could be tracked

ElevenLabs launches Music Marketplace to let its users monetize their AI-generated tracks

According to the company, once published to its Music Marketplace, tracks can be downloaded and used as they are, remixed into new projects, or licensed for use in videos, games, ads, and other commercial work. When a paid subscriber uses a published track, the original creator earns from that use. he company says that more than 14 million “studio-grade tracks have been created” via ElevenLabs since the launch of its AI music generator last year.

Source: ElevenLabs launches Music Marketplace to let its users monetize their AI-generated tracks

Sony Music has targeted 135,000+ deepfakes for removal from streaming platforms

Sony says the 135,000 tracks it has identified so far are likely only a fraction of what has actually been uploaded. Since last March 2025 alone, the company flagged roughly 60,000 songs falsely attributed to artists from its roster, according to the report. In a submission to the government’s consultation on AI and copyright law, obtained by the Financial Times and The Sunday Times at the time, Sony flagged more than 75,000 AI-generated deepfakes.

Source: Sony Music has targeted 135,000+ deepfakes for removal from streaming platforms

Indie Label Owner Says Streaming Has Failed ‘The Middle Class of Musicians’

Streaming has failed “the ‘middle class’ of musicians” – at least according to Hopeless Records founder Louis Posen, who’s calling for major changes to the current pro-rata compensation model. Posen took aim at streaming’s shortcomings – and floated an interesting solution – in a blog post entitled “The Digital Paradox.” Technically, said post was attributed to the Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts (ORCA), an indie advocacy group that counts Hopeless as a founding supporter.

Source: Indie Label Owner Says Streaming Has Failed ‘The Middle Class of Musicians’

A.I. Is Writing Fiction. Publishers Are Unprepared.

For months, speculation has been building online that a buzzy horror novel, “Shy Girl,” was written with the help of A.I. Earlier this year, Max Spero, the founder and chief executive of Pangram, an A.I. detection program, heard of the claims about “Shy Girl” and decided to run a test of the full text. Its results indicated that the book was 78 percent A.I. generated. “I’m very confident that this is largely A.I. generated, or very heavily A.I. assisted,” said Spero, who posted his research on X in January.

Source: A.I. Is Writing Fiction. Publishers Are Unprepared.

US publishers see traffic boost for breaking news from Google Discover

Breaking news on Google Discover is making up almost all growth in search referrals for major US news publishers, according to new data. Organic search traffic to 64 publishers has dropped 42% since AI Overviews launched in 2024. The Google Search Console data was shared by Define Media Group, which manages SEO and audience development for major publishers in the US. Define said its clients received a combined average of 1.7 billion organic search clicks for the five quarters to Q1 2024.

Source: US publishers see traffic boost for breaking news from Google Discover

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