Rights

French newspapers seek legal action against social media platform X

Major French newspapers, including Le Monde, Le Figaro and Le Parisien, said on Tuesday that they were taking legal action against social media platform X for allegedly using their content without paying. Representatives for X did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The newspapers said they were due payment under their ancillary rights, which allow payment to news outlets by digital platforms for the distribution of their content.

Source: French newspapers seek legal action against social media platform X

News Corp adds Google-powered AI summaries to Factiva search results

Dow Jones-owned business intelligence search engine Factiva is adding generative AI summaries to its search results. The news database has deployed Google’s Gemini technology as part of News Corp’s ongoing business partnership with the tech giant. Factiva approached every one of its almost 4,000 sources for new generative AI permissions and received the go-ahead from a “significant subset” of them according to general manager Traci Mabrey.

Source: News Corp adds Google-powered AI summaries to Factiva search results

Musical.AI teams up with China’s Kanjian to deliver licensed music to AI developers

Musical.AI, which bills itself as the company that built the world’s first secure platform for rights management in AI training, has partnered with China-headquartered license management firm Kanjian to bring what it says is a fully licensed, ready-to-use music catalog to AI developers.

Source: Musical.AI teams up with China’s Kanjian to deliver licensed music to AI developers

Jerry Garcia’s AI-Created Voice Can Now Narrate Audiobooks, Articles and More

The late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s estate has recreated his voice using AI in partnership with Eleven Labs. The singer-songwriter’s voice can now read to ElevenReader app users their choice of audiobooks, articles, poetry, PDFs, and more through what Eleven calls the Iconic Listening Experience, Billboard reported. Garcia’s voice is available in 32 different languages.

Source: Jerry Garcia’s AI-Created Voice Can Now Narrate Audiobooks, Articles and More

Blackstone’s Hipgnosis closes $1.47bn asset-backed securities transaction

Blackstone’s Hipgnosis has successfully completed a $1.47 billion music rights asset-backed securities transaction (i.e. bond offering). The ABS deal, referred to as Lyra 24-2, sees investment giant Blackstone raise $1.47 billion in debt financing backed by royalties from the 45,000-song Hipgnosis Songs Fund portfolio it acquired in July. Blackstone acquired Hipgnosis Songs Fund‘s assets from HSF’s then-public shareholders in a transaction worth USD $1.584 billion.

Source: Blackstone’s Hipgnosis closes $1.47bn asset-backed securities transaction

Rostrum Pacific unveils AI-powered music distribution platform SpaceHeater

The platform, currently in beta testing, is set to officially launch in early 2025 and access will be by invite only. It is said to be “the first in the market to offer AI attribution via Sureel AI.” The tech will enable artists and labels to track how their music is used in AI training models and determine fair compensation for AI-generated outputs.

Source: Rostrum Pacific unveils AI-powered music distribution platform SpaceHeater

TikTok deepens integration with Spotify and Apple Music via ‘Share to TikTok’ feature

TikTok’s increasing integration with music streaming platforms comes amid ongoing tensions between the short video platform and music rights holders. After resolving the licensing dispute with Universal Music Group (UMG) earlier this year, during which the music of UMG-signed artists disappeared from the platform, TikTok is now embroiled in a licensing dispute with Merlin, the licensing org for indie labels and distributors.

Source: TikTok deepens integration with Spotify and Apple Music via new feature that lets streamers ‘Share to TikTok’

‘Millions’ of NYT and NY Daily News stories taken by OpenAI for training data

Millions of stories published by sites including The New York Times and The New York Daily News have been found in three weeks of searching OpenAI’s training dataset. The news publishers are currently trawling through data to find instances of their copyrighted work being used to train OpenAI’s models – but they say the tech company should be forced to provide the information itself.

Source: ‘Millions’ of NYT and NY Daily News stories taken by OpenAI for training data

News organisations are forced to accept Google AI crawlers, says FT policy chief

News sites don’t have a “genuine choice” about whether to block Google AI crawlers from scraping their content, a publisher has warned. Matt Rogerson, director of global public policy and platform strategy at the FT and former Guardian Media Group director of public policy, argued that Google’s “social contract” with publishers – through which it provided value to the industry by sending traffic to their sites – has been broken.

Source: News organisations are forced to accept Google AI crawlers, says FT policy chief

UMG sues Believe and TuneCore for $500 million 

The complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and focuses in part on the dissemination of so-called ‘manipulated’ audio. It alleges that Believe has built its business through “industrial-scale copyright infringement” of “the world’s most popular copyrighted recordings.”

Source: UMG sues Believe and TuneCore for $500 million, alleging ‘industrial-scale copyright infringement’

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