Spotify’s mechanical publishing royalties took a sudden-and-sizable dip this month for many US-based publishers and songwriters, according to preliminary stats shared with Digital Music News over the past few days. That includes multiple reports of 30-40% drops compared to previous months — all specifically tied to US-based mechanical publishing royalties.
Source: Spotify Mechanical Royalties Just Dropped 30-40%, Publishers Say
France-headquartered music streaming service Deezer has launched a new AI detection tool – after filing two patent applications for the technology in December. On Friday (January 24), the company revealed that its new tech has already discovered that roughly 10,000 ‘fully AI-generated tracks’ are being delivered to its platform every day.
A team at AI dev platform Hugging Face has released what they’re claiming are the smallest AI models that can analyze images, short videos, and text. The models, SmolVLM-256M and SmolVLM-500M, are designed to work well on “constrained devices” like laptops with less than around 1GB of RAM. The team says that they’re also ideal for developers trying to process large amounts of data very cheaply.
Source: Hugging Face claims its new AI models are the smallest of their kind
Music AI, the “AI-first” company behind the increasingly popular Moises music creation platform, has announced it has raised USD $40 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Connect Ventures – an investment partnership between entertainment and sports agency CAA and venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) – along with Brazilian investor monashees.
Source: Music AI raises $40m in Series A round, as its Moises platform hits 50m users
On January 20, hours after President Donald J. Trump was inaugurated, thousands of readers lined up for one of the 1,100 midnight release parties held across the country for Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros. The book, which is the third in the TikTok-beloved Empyrean series, received a 2.5 million copy first print run according to the book’s publisher, Entangled Publishing. Today, many in the industry are wondering: will we see its like again?
Source: TikTok Uncertainty Prompts the Book Business to Envision an Even Better Future
Meta is among a long list of companies being sued for allegedly using pirated material to train its AI models. Meta has never denied using copyrighted works but stressed that it would rely on a fair use defense. However, with rightsholders in one case asking for torrent client data and ‘seeding lists’ for millions of books allegedly shared in public, the case now takes a geeky turn.
Source: Authors Seek Meta’s Torrent Client Logs and Seeding Data in AI Piracy Probe * TorrentFreak
In June, the three major labels sued the generative AI music companies Udio and Suno for training their software on copyrighted music without a license. Now, GEMA, the German PRO, is also taking legal action against Suno, in a case filed today (Jan. 21) in the Munich Regional Court. In an announcement, GEMA said that it documented that the Suno system outputs content that “largely corresponds to world-famous works whose authors GEMA represents.
Source: Germany’s GEMA Sues U.S.-Based Generative AI Company Over Copyright Infringement
The report explores important aspects of the structure of CSP and AI developer collaborations, such as the equity and revenue-sharing rights retained by CSPs in these partnerships and certain consultation, control and exclusivity rights that CSPs gain by investing in AI firms. In addition, the report covers some “potential competition implications,” the FTC said. For example, the regulator said, these partnerships could affect “access to certain inputs.”
Source: FTC Issues Staff Report on AI Partnerships | PYMNTS.com
Despite blocking thousands of illegal streaming sites, Italy’s ‘Piracy Shield’ anti-piracy program has failed to deliver increased viewership for legal services like DAZN. This revelation appears in data provided by telecoms regulator AGCOM, which oversees the blocking regime. It adds fuel to the already heated discussions, which divide stakeholders and copyright representatives.
Source: ‘Piracy Shield’ Fails to Convert Pirates to Paying Subscribers, Data Suggest * TorrentFreak
At Music Ally Connect in London today, Oakley sat down for a keynote interview, stating with her first-six-months impressions of the industry. “Man, it’s complicated. You would not design an industry from scratch like this! So getting your head around it is very, very complicated, ” said Oakley. “It’s also deeply misunderstood. And I think that is a big part of our challenge, for all of us who care about the music industry and the ecosystem.”
Source: IFPI CEO Victoria Oakley talks AI, fraud and lobbying: ‘We have a compelling story to tell’