The revolution of artificial intelligence in digital entertainment content is a once in a life time opportunity, said Cheng Lu, president and CEO of Chinese artificial intelligence technology company CreateAI, adding that AI will reshape the industry landscape of video games and anime. “In Hollywood and Japan, top-tier studios are drowning from rising production costs, labor shortage and long development cycles,” Lu said.
Source: CreateAI CEO: AI revolutionizing digital entertainment industry
AI startup Stability AI has released Stable Audio Open Small, a “stereo” audio-generating AI model that the company claims is the fastest on the market — and efficient enough to run on smartphones. Stable Audio Open Small is the fruit of a collaboration between Stability AI and Arm, the chipmaker that produces many of the processors inside tablets, phones, and other mobile devices.
Source: Stability AI releases an audio-generating model that can run on smartphones | TechCrunch
German firm AIxchange is the latest startup building bridges between the music industry and GenAI companies through licensing deals for the music data used by the latter to train their models. “Our mission is to empower the GenAI music revolution by offering legal, high-quality music training data, ensuring ethical and compliant licensing for AI music generation,” explains operations manager Peer-Uli May.
Feedback examined the logos of OpenAI, Apple Intelligence, Claude and others, and we can confirm that, yes, they do bear more than a passing resemblance to a sphincter, and once you see it you can’t unsee it. DeepSeek and Midjourney are about the only exceptions: their logos look like a whale and a sailboat on the sea. But maybe they will soon get sucked into the circular logo maelstrom.
Source: Why do so many AI company logos look like buttholes?
It was unclear how the levies, which were announced over the weekend on social media, would be enforced and which productions are most vulnerable to the tariffs. Yet, there are widespread concerns that if they are enacted, Trump’s latest moves have the potential to upend and potentially decimate a global film business that relies on a network of international incentives and foreign locations to make movies.
MusicAnswers has spent two years conducting a survey of college student music creators to better understand their experience with song registration agencies—specifically the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC). The results are pretty grim, with a majority of college students being unaware of the MLC’s purpose or what they do in the industry.
Source: Only 17% of Music Creator College Students Familiar With MLC
The payout is the result of a program introduced in 2025 that opened up new revenue streams to eligible hosts. But it is also an attempt to draw more creators (and their audiences) to Spotify, as the rise of video podcasting has driven many of them to YouTube. Video has come to dominate podcasting. More than half of Americans over the age of 12 have watched a video podcast — but primarily on YouTube, according to an Edison Research report from January.
Source: Spotify Paid $100 Million to Podcasters as Creator Wars Heat Up
Publishers have welcomed a ruling that should make it easier for them to make money from apps when operating in EU countries. Apple has 60 days to comply with a ruling under the EU Digital Markets Act which was accompanied with a €500m fine for abusing its dominant market position when it comes to the distribution and monetization of apps in its store.
Source: EU’s €500m fine of Apple and enforcement action is good news for publishers
Films made with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) will be able to win top awards at the Oscars, according to its organizers. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued new rules on Monday which said the use of AI and other digital tools would “neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination”.
According to one music industry exec’s estimate, the controversial Spotify stream minimum cost emerging artists $47 million during 2024. As many know, that approach sees Spotify pay recording royalties only for tracks with at least 1,000 annual streams. Implemented (along with other changes) at the behest of the majors, the revamped model is effectively preventing the vast majority of uploaded recordings from generating payments.
Source: Spotify Stream Minimum Cost Indies $47M in 2024, Exec Estimates