Germany’s performance rights organization, GEMA, plans to reduce its commission on all “on-demand music distribution” to 7% from 10% by 2027, a move that is expected to increase annual payouts to music creators by more than EUR €6 million (USD $7 million). The PRO will implement the cut in stages, beginning with a reduction to 9% in January 2026 before reaching the target rate the following year.
Rights
UK Creators Demand PM Recognize Creators’ Human Rights
Ahead of U.S. President Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom, 70-plus of the UK’s biggest creators and creative organizations have issued an open letter calling on the government to protect the rights of UK copyright holders by upholding international human rights standards. With signatures from heavy-hitters including Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and Elton John, the letter has also been signed by creative organizations like the News Media Association, UK Music, Pan MacMillan, and Getty Images.
Source: UK Creators Demand PM Recognize Creators’ Human Rights
Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCU Sue Chinese AI Company MiniMa
Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal are taking legal aim at another AI company that they allege is massively ripping off their intellectual property. On Tuesday, the three media companies filed a lawsuit against MiniMax, a Chinese AI company that is reportedly valued at $4 billion, alleging “willful and brazen” copyright infringement.
Labels settle copyright lawsuit against Internet Archive
Major record labels including Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have reached a confidential settlement with the nonprofit Internet Archive, ending a two-year legal battle over its digitization and streaming of vintage vinyl recordings. The parties filed a joint notice in California federal court on Monday (September 15), requesting that Judge Maxine Chesney pause all case deadlines while they complete the settlement terms.
Source: Labels settle copyright lawsuit against Internet Archive over streaming of vintage vinyl records
Tracy Maddux leads ‘multi-million dollar’ investment round into OpenPlay
Tracy Maddux, former Chief Commercial Officer at Downtown Music Holdings, has led a “multi-million dollar” strategic investment in rights management platform OpenPlay, giving him a board seat. As board member, Maddux brings experience in music technology to OpenPlay, which serves more than 3,500 labels, distributors and publishers across 24 countries.
Google is a ‘bad actor’ says People CEO, accusing the company of stealing content
Neil Vogel, CEO of People, Inc. (formerly Dotdash Meredith), a publisher that operates over 40 brands, including People, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Better Homes & Gardens, Real Simple, Southern Living, Allrecipes, and others, said that Google is not playing fair because it uses the same bot to crawl websites to index them for the Google search engine as it does to support its AI features.
Source: Google is a ‘bad actor’ says People CEO, accusing the company of stealing content | TechCrunch
ISPs Rally in Cox Communications v. Sony Supreme Court Battle
Multiple internet providers and related organizations are weighing in on the high-stakes Cox Communications v. Sony Supreme Court battle. Grande Communications and Altice USA just recently submitted briefs of their own, joining the U.S. government, all manner of tech giants, Twitter/X, the ACLU, the EFF, and a variety of others. It probably doesn’t need saying in light of this list or the forum, but there’s quite a lot riding on the decision for the involved parties.
Source: ISPs Rally in Cox Communications v. Sony Supreme Court Battle
Rolling Stone owner Penske Media sues Google over AI summaries
Google faces a new lawsuit accusing the company of illegally using news publishers’ content to create AI summaries that damage their business. The lawsuit comes from Penske Media Corporation (PMC), which owns industry publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Vibe, and Artforum.
Source: Rolling Stone owner Penske Media sues Google over AI summaries | TechCrunch
What Would An AI Music License Even Look Like? It’s Complicated
To get a sense of how complicated it is to grant an AI company a license to train its algorithm on copyrighted work, imagine for a moment that you run a European collecting society that distributes royalties to songwriters and publishers. For the sake of this example, let’s say that this organization is called COMPLEX (the Cooperative for Original Music Publishing Licensing Excellence) and that it represents public performance and mechanical rights for the fictional country of Freedonia.
Source: What Would An AI Music License Even Look Like? It’s Complicated
AI-generated film sparks copyright battle as it heads to Cannes
OpenAI has taken a significant step into entertainment by backing Critterz, the first animated feature film generated with GPT models. Human artists sketch characters and scenes, while AI transforms them into moving images. The $30 million project, expected to finish in nine months, is far cheaper and faster than traditional animation and could debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2026.
Source: AI-generated film sparks copyright battle as it heads to Cannes | Digital Watch Observatory