A legal complaint has been submitted to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority over the impact of Google AI Overviews on news publishers. A collaboration between tech justice non-profit Foxglove, the Independent Publishers Alliance and the campaign group Movement for an Open Web aims to “stop Google stealing the work of British journalists”.
Source: Urgent bid lodged with UK regulator to stop Google AI Overviews ‘stealing journalism’
The US Senate dealt a blow to the technology sector voting 99-1 to strip a provision from President Trump’s economic package that would have prevented states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. The rejection signals a victory to creative industry groups that have campaigned against what they see as an attempt to shield AI companies from accountability when using creators’ art and music to create AI models.
Source: US Senate rejects 10-year ban on state AI regulation in win for creative sector
Those using the platform can now indicate their interest in AI training licensing deals by marking songs as “Open to AI licensing.” The company explains that this selection registers rightsholders in a dedicated database, “creating a simple process for AI companies to seek authorization and legally license compositions and recordings from artists, labels, and publishers”.
Source: BandLab now allows artists and rightsholders to signal interest in AI licensing
Internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare is now blocking all AI scrapers accessing content by default in an industry first. The move has been backed by more than a dozen major news and media publishers including the Associated Press, The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, Conde Nast, DMGT, Dotdash Meredith, Fortune, Gannett, The Independent, Sky News, Time and Ziff Davis. Cloudflare said its default setting for new domains is now to block AI crawlers that don’t have permission or provide compensation.
Source: UK and US publishers back move to block AI scrapers by default
Cloudflare, a cloud infrastructure provider that serves 20% of the web, announced Tuesday the launch of a new marketplace that reimagines the relationship between website owners and AI companies — ideally giving publishers greater control over their content. It’s called Pay per Crawl, and Cloudflare is launching the “experiment” in private beta on Tuesday.
Source: Cloudflare launches a marketplace that lets websites charge AI bots for scraping | TechCrunch
WMG and Bain Capital said on Tuesday (July 1) that they will source and acquire the catalogs together, while WMG will manage all aspects of marketing, distribution, and administration. The funds might be deployed swiftly: Warner and Bain are reportedly mulling the acquisition of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ recorded music catalog for around $350 million.
Source: Warner Music Group and Bain launch $1.2 billion fund to buy rights; each party owns 50% of venture
Bloomberg now reports, citing a person familiar with the discussions, that the buyers cited by Trump are a group of investors who were previously in talks with ByteDance, including Oracle, Blackstone and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Those talks broke down after Beijing withheld approval in the wake of Trump’s decision to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods.
Outlaw country artist Aventhis is verified on Spotify – where just over a million (1.072M) listeners absorb his work each month. He’s even popular enough to have one of those official Spotify-generated ‘THIS IS… Aventhis’ playlists under his name. And his music? It’s gaining traction, with the blues-soaked, 2025-released Mercy On My Graver racking up more than 2 million plays. Aventhis isn’t real. Neither is his voice. He, and it, are both AI-generated.
Source: The AI music problem on Spotify (and other streaming platforms) is worse than you think
The battle between technology heavyweights and many of the country’s most famous creative companies and artists is playing out in Washington and in court. At stake are billions of dollars and precedents that could shape the future of AI and U.S. copyright law. While the fight is far from over, some in creative industries fear it might be too late to stop the advance of AI as it roils their professions.
Source: Hollywood Confronts AI Copyright Chaos in Washington, Courts
On Thursday, the tech giant officially launched Offerwall, a new tool that allows publishers to generate revenue beyond the more traffic-dependent options, like ads. Offerwall lets publishers give their sites’ readers a variety of ways to access their content, including through options like micropayments, taking surveys, watching ads, and more.
Source: As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue | TechCrunch