Rohan Sahai, who leads the Sora product team, tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview that there’s been considerable interest from the entertainment industry, without specifying the contours of the conversations. He sees utilization of the tools across most stages of production as the tools improve. “For some of these bigger production companies, the ones who are forward-looking, they see where things are going and try to think about how to change their whole workflows to make the best fit at this moment in time,” he says.
Marketplace
Independent launching AI-powered news service for ‘time-poor audiences’
The Independent is to launch a news service which it said will use Google AI tools to summarise its journalism for “time-poor audiences”. The publisher says all content written for the service, named Bulletin, will be “reviewed and checked” by journalists before publication and seven people have been hired to staff it. The service will use Google‘s Gemini AI model to re-write the Independent’s own articles, the publisher said, alongside its own “in-house data and development teams”.
Source: Independent launching AI-powered news service for ‘time-poor audiences’
How the China-Led “Vertical Film” Movement Wants to Upend the Way We See Cinema
China’s vertical short drama boom took center stage on Hong Kong Filmart’s opening day, with a collection of the creatives driving the trend extolling the opportunities being offered in a market they predict will soon be worth around $14 billion annually. For the uninitiated, the phase “vertical short drama” refers to series shot with a vertical rather than horizontal orientation so they can more easily be viewed on smartphones.
Source: Filmart: How the China-Led “Vertical Film” Movement Wants to Upend the Way We See Cinema
Movie, Music and Sports Industries Urge EU to Keep Geo-Blocking in Place
Threatened by potential EU regulatory changes, the movie, music, and sports industries are vehemently defending the practice of geo-blocking, as an essential part of their business models. Rightsholders argue that eliminating geo-blockades would devalue content, force price hikes for consumers in some countries, and ultimately reduce investment in content and localized services.
Source: Movie, Music and Sports Industries Urge EU to Keep Geo-Blocking in Place * TorrentFreak
Global recorded music revenues rose 6.5% to $36.2bn in 2024, says MIDiA Research
IFPI is expected to release the official global recorded music revenue results for 2024 this month, but in the meantime, the clever number crunchers at MIDiA Research have published their own estimates. And the headline stat from MIDiA’s new report: Global recorded music revenues rose 6.5% YoY to $36.2 billion. That marks a slowdown from 2023, when revenues rose 9.7% YoY, per MIDiA’s estimates.
Source: Global recorded music revenues rose 6.5% to $36.2bn in 2024, says MIDiA Research
Spotify Audiobooks Add Indie Publishing Program for Short Works
Less than one month after bolstering support for AI-narrated audiobooks, Spotify has rolled out a publishing program for independent authors looking to sell “bite-sized” works. The diversification-minded service just recently revealed its latest audiobooks expansion. As many who’ve accessed on-platform audiobooks are aware, Spotify already supported self-publishing via Findaway Voices.
Source: Spotify Audiobooks Add Indie Publishing Program for Short Works
IMPALA Calls Out Amazon Music Minimum-Play Thresholds
New details are emerging about Amazon Music’s “artist-centric” recalibration, which, like its Spotify counterpart, includes minimum-play thresholds before uploads can begin accruing royalties. Brussels-based IMPALA fired back against the thresholds today, after Amazon Music unveiled an “artist-centric” Universal Music deal late last year.
Source: IMPALA Calls Out Amazon Music Minimum-Play Thresholds
Christie’s AI art auction outpaces expectations, bringing in more than $728,000
The sale, which finished earlier today, contained 34 lots dating from the 1960s to today and totalled a middling $728,784 (with fees), against a pre-sale low estimate of $600,000 (calculated without fees). By far the top lot was Machine Hallucinations – ISS Dreams – A (2021) by Refik Anadol, the pioneering Turkish-American artist known for his large-scale immersive installations who plans to open the first AI arts museum, Dataland, in Los Angeles later this year.
Source: Christie’s AI art auction outpaces expectations, bringing in more than $728,000
We Could Use a Model Licensing Framework for Scholarly Content Use in AI Tools
When online journal subscriptions became pervasive in the academic marketplace in the late 1990s, the licensing process was initially inconsistent, cumbersome, and time-consuming. Each license was a bespoke agreement. Even after pricing and business conditions were settled, legal teams from both the publisher and the subscribing library engaged in extensive negotiations over contract specifics. This slow, intricate and expensive process did not scale effectively across numerous publishers, products, and libraries.
ElevenLabs Launches Publishing Platform for AI-Generated Audiobooks
ElevenLabs, the software company specializing in AI-generated audio, has launched ElevenReader Publishing, a platform that offers free audiobook production and distribution. Through ElevenReader, rights holders can upload their books as ePub, DOCX, or PDF files, which are then converted to AI-generated audiobooks, for which authors and publishers can choose the voice of the narrator.
Source: ElevenLabs Launches Publishing Platform for AI-Generated Audiobooks