While mega-PROs like ASCAP and BMI do a laudable job of tracking, matching, and distributing royalties on billions of tracks played in the United States, a nagging question is whether these vast systems can be improved. Now, London-based Audoo has hard evidence showing that billions of song plays can be counted with near-100% accuracy.
Source: Audoo Shares Some Shocking Song-Tracking Data from Denver
New details are emerging about Amazon Music’s “artist-centric” recalibration, which, like its Spotify counterpart, includes minimum-play thresholds before uploads can begin accruing royalties. Brussels-based IMPALA fired back against the thresholds today, after Amazon Music unveiled an “artist-centric” Universal Music deal late last year.
Source: IMPALA Calls Out Amazon Music Minimum-Play Thresholds
Aquarian and Raven Capital have launched a music investment fund called Raven Music Partners, which has $250 million in committed funding. Reps for the involved parties reached out with word of Raven Music Partners, which is said to have offices in New York, LA, and South Florida. Founded by former Guggenheim VP Rudy Sahay, Aquarian says it has close to $22 billion in AUM across its “strategic portfolio of insurance and asset management solutions.”
Source: Aquarian, Raven Capital Debut Raven Music Partners Catalog JV
Canada supplies most of the newsprint used in America and there’s no easy way for the U.S. to quickly replace its production. Local newspapers already cut to the bone and then some in recent years. Especially hard hit are small papers in rural and suburban communities. Abruptly raising their largest material cost by 25% for no apparent reason will be the last straw for some.
Source: Tariffs latest blow to newspaper industry; AI fears confirmed
A group of European Union lawmakers wrote to top U.S. officials to push back on accusations that the bloc is using its new digital competition rules to treat American tech giants unfairly, saying that some U.S. companies are calling for its enforcement. The letter, seen by Dow Jones Newswires, was sent to U.S. Department of Justice Attorney General Pamela Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday.
Source: EU Lawmakers Push Back on U.S. Criticism of AI Tech Regulation
The sale, which finished earlier today, contained 34 lots dating from the 1960s to today and totalled a middling $728,784 (with fees), against a pre-sale low estimate of $600,000 (calculated without fees). By far the top lot was Machine Hallucinations – ISS Dreams – A (2021) by Refik Anadol, the pioneering Turkish-American artist known for his large-scale immersive installations who plans to open the first AI arts museum, Dataland, in Los Angeles later this year.
Source: Christie’s AI art auction outpaces expectations, bringing in more than $728,000
Sony Music has challenged the UK government’s proposed copyright reforms, revealing it has already requested the removal of more than 75,000 AI-generated deepfakes of its artists’ content. The music giant warned that proposed changes to copyright laws would be “rushed, unbalanced and irreversible” and could significantly harm the British creative economy.
Source: Sony Music reveals 75,000 AI deepfake takedowns, slams UK’s ‘rushed’ copyright plans
The UK competition watchdog has ended its investigation into the partnership between Microsoft and the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded that, despite Microsoft investing billions of dollars into OpenAI and having exclusive uses of some of its AI products, the partnership remains the same, so is not subject to review under the UK’s merger rules. Digital rights campaigners, Foxglove, said it showed the CMA had been “defanged.”
Source: UK competition watchdog drops Microsoft-OpenAI probe
When online journal subscriptions became pervasive in the academic marketplace in the late 1990s, the licensing process was initially inconsistent, cumbersome, and time-consuming. Each license was a bespoke agreement. Even after pricing and business conditions were settled, legal teams from both the publisher and the subscribing library engaged in extensive negotiations over contract specifics. This slow, intricate and expensive process did not scale effectively across numerous publishers, products, and libraries.
GPT architect Alec Radford has been subpoenaed in a copyright case against OpenAI, according to a court filing. Radford, who left OpenAI late last year to pursue independent research, was the lead author of OpenAI’s seminal research paper on generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs). GPTs underpin OpenAI’s most popular products, including the company’s AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT.
Source: Key ex-OpenAI researcher subpoenaed in AI copyright case | TechCrunch