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?
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
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 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
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’
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.
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
Figures released today (March 18) in IFPI’s Global Music Report 2026 show that global recorded music revenues grew by 6.4% YoY in 2025 – an improvement on the 4.7% rate of growth posted in 2024 — marking the global industry’s eleventh consecutive year of growth. Paid subscription streaming revenues increased 8.8% YoY and accounted for more than half — 52.4% — of global revenues. IFPI reports that there are now 837 million users of paid streaming subscription accounts globally.
Source: Global recorded music revenues hit $31.7B in 2025, up 6.4% YoY
Lyor Cohen, YouTube‘s Global Head of Music, says the platform’s mission for the year ahead is to “help artists and songwriters harness the power of visual storytelling to build their global audiences and lifelong careers.” The exec made the comments in his first letter to music industry partners of 2026, outlining the platform’s strategic priorities for the year ahead. outlining the platform’s strategic priorities for the year ahead.
Source: Lyor Cohen letter addresses AI integration at YouTube
Organisations worldwide are racing to develop a universally recognised label for “human-made” products and services as part of the growing backlash against AI use. Declarations like “Proudly Human”, “Human-made”, ‘”No A.I” and “AI-free” are appearing across films, marketing, books and websites. BBC News has counted at least eight different initiatives trying to come up with a label that could get the kind of global recognition that the “Fair Trade” logo has for ethically made products.
Source: Is this product ‘human-made’? The race to establish an AI-free logo