Rights

An Estimated 73% of YouTube Music Subs Use Bundled Plans

Spotify’s main competitors – it along with Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music collectively account for the vast majority of music streaming subscribers in the States – haven’t been as brazen in adopting bundles. But as demonstrated by publisher royalty statements shared with and vetted by DMN, they also rely heavily on multi-product packages. For YouTube Music, the fourth-largest on-demand music platform in the U.S. by paid users, that refers to the estimated 72.99% of subscribers who access the service via a bundled plan.

Source: An Estimated 73% of YouTube Music Subs Use Bundled Plans

PPL: ‘Neighboring rights are becoming a significant and vital revenue stream’

Sound recording performance rights, also known as neighboring rights income, reached $2.7 billion in 2023, representing 9.5% of the global recorded music market. While ‘Old Europe’ has traditionally been the hub of these types of revenue streams – namely, rights from TV and radio broadcasting; aligned digital uses such as simulcasting, webcasting and satellite radio; and sound recordings played in public venues – a significant shift is underway.

Source: ‘Neighbouring rights are becoming a significant and vital revenue stream for recording rightsholders.’

Lucian Grainge Isn’t Mincing Words on AI Music and IP Theft

Grainge says the advent of AI technology has reached a point where Universal Music must “be completely at the epicenter of its application. An example he uses is the Beatles’ 2023 single “Now and Then” which used AI to isolate and clean up an old recording of John Lennon singing. “It’s a brilliant song—great lyrics, fabulous performance, incredibly emotive—that unless we’d had AI to individualize different recordings, would have never come to light, “Grainge told the L.A. Times.

Source: Lucian Grainge Isn’t Mincing Words on AI Music and IP Theft

Beatport and Beatdapp team up to tackle music-streaming fraud

 

Anti-fraud startup Beatdapp continues to make headlines with its data on just how many music streams might be illegitimate – most recently in a Sky News story suggesting that criminals might be making up to $3bn a year from streaming fraud. Now the company has announced its latest partnership with a music service trying to tackle this. Electronic music-focused DSP Beatport is going to be using Beatdapp’s fraud-detection technology.

Source: Beatport and Beatdapp team up to tackle music-streaming fraud

YouTube will use AI to snip copyrighted music and not silence your whole video

YouTube is turning to artificial intelligence to try to simultaneously appease copyright holders of songs while making life a little easier for those who upload videos with songs they don’t have permission to use. Instead of just taking down a video with copyrighted audio the uploader doesn’t own, they can use a new AI tool to remove the protected song without erasing the rest of the video’s audio track.

Source: YouTube will use AI to snip copyrighted music and not silence your whole video

Warner Music Warns AI Companies About Unlicensed Training

Warner Music Group has formally warned AI companies of training their models on protected media and other assets without a license. WMG forwarded the relevant notice to a number of high-profile artificial intelligence players, several of which are grappling with litigation over alleged copyright infringement. And that litigation centers mainly on the media, apparently including copyrighted works, used to train the underlying AI systems.

Source: Warner Music Warns AI Companies About Unlicensed Training

‘Landmark Victory’: Copyright Office Finalizes Rule Change On Streaming Royalties

The U.S. Copyright Office has finalized a new rule aimed at ensuring that songwriters who invoke termination rights to regain control of their music will actually start getting paid streaming royalties after they do so. The provision, issued on Tuesday, will overturn what the Copyright Office called an “erroneous” earlier policy by the Mechanical Licensing Collective, which critics feared would have kept sending money from streamers like Spotify to former owners in perpetuity, long after a songwriter took back ownership.

Source: ‘Landmark Victory’: Copyright Office Finalizes Rule Change On Streaming Royalties

Tool preventing AI mimicry cracked; artists wonder what’s next

Designed to help prevent style mimicry and even poison AI models to discourage data scraping without an artist’s consent or compensation, The Glaze Project’s tools are now in higher demand than ever. But just as Glaze’s userbase is spiking, a bigger priority for the Glaze Project has emerged: protecting users from attacks disabling Glaze’s protections—including attack methods exposed in June by online security researchers in Zurich, Switzerland.

Source: Tool preventing AI mimicry cracked; artists wonder what’s next

UK music bodies welcome new government with policy requests

The UK will have a new government this morning, after the Labour party won a landslide in its general election. British music bodies have been quick to welcome the new administration, but also to remind it of their key policy requests. “The incoming Labour Government has been elected on a platform to implement a plan for the creative sector as part of its industrial strategy. The potential of the UK music industry to contribute to growth must be at the heart of this plan,” UK Music head Tom Kiehl said.

Source: UK music bodies welcome new government with policy requests

As Apple and OpenAI Grow Partnership, Studios Stand on Sidelines of AI Battle

Apple’s growing partnership with OpenAI further calls into question the standing of major studios and the Motion Picture Association, which counts Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix among its members, on issues related to the use of intellectual property to train AI systems. Studios stand as among the most notable groups that’ve chosen not to sue AI companies, which could be using copyright-protected material in training data

Source: As Apple and OpenAI Grow Partnership, Studios Stand on Sidelines of AI Battle

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