Sony launches $2B music rights acquisition JV with Singapore’s GIC

Sony Music Group is forming a music rights-buying joint venture with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC Pte. According to Bloomberg, Sony and GIC plan to pursue “high-quality, marquee music assets across a range of genres”. “As a long-term investor, GIC seeks to be a creative and flexible capital partner to strategic industry leaders like Sony,” Girish Karira, head of the sovereign fund’s integrated strategies group, said in a statement.

Source: Sony launches $2B music rights acquisition JV with Singapore’s GIC

Apple says it demonetised 2bn fraudulent music streams in 2025

Apple Music identified and demonetised up to 2bn fraudulent streams last year according to longtime exec Oliver Schusser. “Streaming manipulation on our platform is already incredibly low. We literally have systems where we check and validate every single play on Apple Music,” claimed Schusser. “When we find fraud we remove the stream counts, we remove from the charts, and we take the money and put it back into the pool so that it goes to honourable artists.

Source: Apple says it demonetised 2bn fraudulent music streams in 2025

AI ‘slop’ is transforming social media – and there’s a backlash

Meta, which runs social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Threads, is not only allowing people to post AI generated content – it’s launched products to enable more of it to be made. “Soon we’ll see an explosion of new media formats that are more immersive and interactive, and only possible because of advances in AI,” Zuckerberg said.

Source: AI ‘slop’ is transforming social media – and there’s a backlash

Deezer Offers Its AI-Detection Tool for Sale to Other Platforms

A year after the launch of Deezer’s AI-music detection tool, the company is now making it commercially available, encouraging industry-wide transparency. Up to 85% of all streams on AI-generated music have been detected as fraudulent, the company says, and are demonetized and removed from the royalty pool in continued efforts to support fair payments for artists and songwriters.

Source: Deezer Offers Its AI-Detection Tool for Sale to Other Platforms

Spotify says it paid out over $11bn to the music industry in 2025

Today (January 28), the company announced it paid out more than $11 billion to the music industry in 2025, which it says is “the largest annual payment to music from any retailer in history.” Spotify previously paid out “a record” $10 billion to the music industry in 2024 and $9 billion the prior year. .

Source: Spotify says it paid out over $11bn to the music industry in 2025

UK media groups should be allowed to opt out of Google AI Overviews, CMA says

Web publishers and news organizations could be given the power to stop Google scraping their content for its AI Overviews, under measures announced by the UK competition watchdog to loosen its grip on online search. Media organizations have experienced a drop in click-through traffic to their websites – and therefore their revenue – since Google started posting AI summaries at the top of search results.

Source: UK media groups should be allowed to opt out of Google AI Overviews, CMA says

Publishers fear AI search summaries and chatbots mean ‘end of traffic era’

Media companies expect web traffic to their sites from online searches to plummet over the next three years, as AI summaries and chatbots change the way consumers use the internet. An overwhelming majority are also planning to encourage their journalists to behave more like YouTube and TikTok content creators this year, as short-form video and audio content continues to boom.

Source: Publishers fear AI search summaries and chatbots mean ‘end of traffic era’

Wixen files $50m copyright suit against Meta, claims tech giant wants to replace songwriters with AI

The lawsuit, filed in California federal court last Thursday (January 23), claims Meta has “willfully” infringed the copyrights of over 330 musical works – including songs by The Doors, Weezer, Styx, The Black Keys, Missy Elliott and Townes Van Zandt – after the companies’ licensing agreement expired on December 10, 2025.

Source: Wixen files $50m copyright suit against Meta, claims tech giant wants to replace songwriters with AI

YouTubers sue Snap for alleged copyright infringement in training its AI models 

A group of YouTubers who are suing tech giants for scraping their videos without permission to train AI models has now added Snap to their list of defendants. The plaintiffs — internet content creators behind a trio of YouTube channels with roughly 6.2 million collective subscribers — allege that Snap has trained its AI systems on their video content for use in AI features.

Source: YouTubers sue Snap for alleged copyright infringement in training its AI models | TechCrunch

Trump Offers ‘Low-Interest Bonds’ to Help Hollywood While Again Threatening Tariffs

President Trump renewed his threat to tariff films made overseas on Monday, but also suggested that he would offer “low-interest bonds” to help stimulate domestic production. In an interview with the New York Post, the president did not explain his proposal but indicated he is still considering the decline in production.

Source: Trump Offers ‘Low-Interest Bonds’ to Help Hollywood Production While Again Threatening Tariffs

Get the latest RightsTech news and analysis delivered directly in your inbox every week
We respect your privacy.