Headlines

Five Publishers and Scott Turow Sue Meta and Mark Zuckerberg

May 6, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

Five major publishers — Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier and Cengage — and the best-selling novelist Scott Turow have filed a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta and its founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg. The complaint, which was filed on Tuesday morning in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses Meta and Zuckerberg of illegally using millions of copyrighted works to train their artificial intelligence program Llama

Source: Five Publishers and Scott Turow Sue Meta and Mark Zuckerberg

The US Copyright Office is hiking registration fees by 43%.

May 6, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

A group of ten music industry organizations formally opposed a proposed 43% average increase to copyright registration fees, arguing the hike would lock out independent creators out of the registration system. The filing was in response to the Copyright Office’s proposed fee schedule published in March 2026. The proposal reflects historic inflation since the last fee study in 2020 and projected inflation over the next three years, the Copyright Office said.

Source: The US Copyright Office is hiking registration fees by 43%.

The Audio Landscape is Overrun by AI ‘Podslop’—It’s Not Just a Music Industry Problem

May 6, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

It’s not exclusive to the music industry. The sheer volume of AI-generated podcast content is beginning to affect traditional discovery methods across the industry that podcast creators and their listeners rely on. Over a period of just nine days, nearly 39% of new podcast feeds were identified as potentially AI-generated. This rising trend in “podslop” was recently illustrated by data from the Podcast Index. Most of these shows target high-volume search terms, such as health and wellness or celebrity biographies.

Source: The Audio Landscape is Overrun by AI ‘Podslop’—It’s Not Just a Music Industry Problem

AI Can Write a Song. It Can’t Build a Career.

May 6, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

For years, artists have operated inside a system where millions of streams translate into fractions of a cent, algorithms dictate visibility, and ownership is often diluted long before a song reaches an audience. The conversation around AI is not a battle between humans and machines over creativity. It’s a structural shift that puts the entire artist economy at risk, and how we respond will determine if AI expands opportunities or quietly erodes them.

Source: AI Can Write a Song. It Can’t Build a Career.

How an Amazon-backed Hollywood production startup deploys AI for speed and cost-cutting

May 6, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

Innovative Dreams is a new production services company, backed by Amazon Web Services and Luma, a generative AI startup, that combines cameras and a giant LED wall on a soundstage with tools to apply AI from pre-production, to shooting, into post-production. By combining virtual production, motion capture, and a variety of AI tools including Luma, Google’s Nano Banana, and Bytedance’s SeeDream, Innovative Dreams says it can significantly cut down both on costs and time.

Source: How a new Amazon-backed Hollywood production startup deploys AI for speed and cost-cutting

There’s now a collecting society just for AI-generated music

May 4, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

For now, most established collecting societies are not representing GenAI-music creators, amid concerns over the training models of the platforms that they use – and also questions about whether their work even qualifies for copyright protection. A new organization called Aimpro is hoping to fill the gap, pitching itself as “the first PRO designed to serve creators of generative AI works, allowing AI music creators to collect royalties for their work on a global basis”.

Source: There’s now a collecting society just for AI-generated music

Sony Music v. Udio Legal Battle Heats Up; AI Music Generator Admits Obtaining from YouTube

May 4, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

Udio is doubling down on its longstanding fair use arguments and defending its training-related ingestion of audio data from YouTube. “Udio admits that it obtained audio data from YouTube for use as training data,” the text reads, proceeding to elaborate that Udio “acquired some of its training data by utilizing YT-DLP,” which is reportedly a stream-ripping platform. With that, the stream-ripping sub-dispute is out in the open – with serious implications for the lengthy list of complaints against AI developers.

Source: Sony Music v. Udio Legal Battle Heats Up; AI Music Generator Admits to Obtaining Data from YouTube

YouTube creators hit by music copyright claims can now replace tracks with AI

May 4, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

The feature is currently limited to US desktop users of YouTube Studio. A global launch and rollout to Studio mobile are planned for later this year. Rather than having to remove or re-edit videos that have triggered copyright claims, creators will now have the option to swap out the offending audio for an AI-generated, royalty-free alternative — keeping the video live and potentially restoring its ability to be monetized.

Source: YouTube creators hit by music copyright claims can now replace tracks with AI

Primary Wave raises $2.2 billion for fourth music fund

April 29, 2026By rightstech

Primary Wave Music IP Fund 4 is the fourth consecutive oversubscribed fund from Primary Wave, which says the vehicle is the “largest dedicated closed-end music royalties fund raised to date in the industry”. The fund was backed by a global investor base spanning insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, and large family offices, according to a press release, which also noted that Primary Wave is a strategic partner of financial giant Brookfield Asset Management.

Source: Primary Wave raises $2.2 billion for fourth music fund

Universal is selling 50% of its Spotify stake, generating around $1.4 billion

April 29, 2026By rightstech

Universal Music Group will sell half of its equity stake in Spotify and use the proceeds to help fund an expanded share buyback program totaling EUR €1 billion (USD $1.17 billion), the company confirmed on Wednesday (April 29) alongside its Q1 2026 results. The decision comes three weeks after Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square launched a $64 billion takeover bid for UMG that proposed liquidating the company’s entire Spotify stake to help fund the deal.

Source: Universal is selling 50% of its Spotify stake, generating around $1.4 billion