Getty Images dropped copyright infringement allegations from its lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI as closing arguments began Wednesday in the landmark case at Britain’s High Court. Seattle-based Getty’s decision to abandon the copyright claim removes a key part of its lawsuit against Stability AI, which owns a popular AI image-making tool called Stable Diffusion.
Source: Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI
Do U.S. copyright terminations extend to international markets? The Society of Composers & Lyricists and the Songwriters Guild of America believe so, and they’re weighing in on a high-stakes case revolving around the important question. The mentioned organizations (and a few others operating outside the music space) explained their position in an amicus brief supporting “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” songwriter Cyril Vetter.
Source: Songwriters Guild of America Files Copyright Recapture Case Brief
With no way to stop the onslaught of AI music, the industry is taking a different approach: figuring out how to make money off of it. Detection systems are being embedded across the entire music pipeline: in the tools used to train models, the platforms where songs are uploaded, the databases that license rights, and the algorithms that shape discovery. The goal isn’t just to catch synthetic content after the fact. It’s to identify it early, tag it with metadata, and govern how it moves through the system.
Source: The music industry is building the tech to hunt down AI songs
Suno and Udio have been slapped with another round of copyright litigation, this time by country musician Tony Justice, who filed class-action lawsuits against both controversial AI music generators. The complaints allege Suno and Udio used Justice’s recordings and works from “thousands of class members” without authorization to train their AI models.
Source: Suno and Udio hit with class action lawsuits from independent artist
Judge William Alsup just issued his order on summary judgment. It’s a major win for the plaintiffs Bartz, even though the court ruled that the use of copies to train Anthropic’s model were fair use. Significantly, the court also ruled that Anthropic’s acquisition of pirated books from shadow libraries (Books3, LibGen, and Pirate Library Mirror) that Anthropic used to create its own general library at Anthropic was copyright infringement.
The company said AI-made music accounts for just 0.5% of streams on the music streaming platform but its analysis shows that fraudsters are behind up to 70% of those streams. AI-generated music is a growing problem on streaming platforms. Fraudsters typically generate revenue on platforms such as Deezer by using bots to “listen” to AI-generated songs – and take the subsequent royalty payments, which become sizeable once spread across multiple tracks.
Source: Up to 70% of streams of AI-generated music on Deezer are fraudulent, says report
Napster, the brand synonymous with the music piracy boom of the early 2000s, has a new copyright challenge. Together with audio giant Sonos, Napster faces a lawsuit demanding over $3.4 million in alleged unpaid copyright royalties. Filed by SoundExchange, the complaint centers on missed payments related to the “Sonos Radio” service, which until 2023 was powered by Napster’s music catalog.
Source: Napster and Sonos Sued for Millions in Unpaid Music Royalties * TorrentFreak
Music catalog management platform and business engine OpenPlay has announced a new collaboration with Trolley, the end-to-end payouts platform for the internet economy. The partnership will see Trolley integrated into OpenPlay Reach, the recently launched service designed to support royalty management and payout of music and video assets.
Source: OpenPlay & Trolley Partnership to Streamline Royalty Payments
NMPA General Counsel Danielle Aguirre said Spotify’s bundling practice has already resulted in $230 million in lost revenue during its first year. Aguirre added that “these losses will continue if we can’t reverse or correct Spotify’s actions. In fact, if we don’t stop them, we are projected to lose over $3.1 billion through the next CRB period,” which will be Phonorecords V, which determines mechanical royalty rates for 2028 through 2032.
Source: NMPA says Spotify ‘bundling’ move could cost music publishers $3.1bn through 2032
The major and the Silver Lake-backed investment firm unveiled that JV today, with plans in place to spearhead growth “outside traditional recorded music and music publishing.” Though time will tell exactly what this entails, the companies intend to zero in on film, TV, fashion, consumer products, brands, and more.
Source: Universal Music, Patrick Whitesell Debut Diversification-Geared JV