The AI music generation company has revealed details about its suite of new models, all built on its licensing deals with Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe. Dubbed “V6,” the company said the collection of technology represented its most powerful models yet, with its use incorporating revenue sharing for artists and their labels. The approach kickstarts a new era that it believes will “make a bigger music industry,” according to chief product officer Jack Brody.
Source: Suno Tries to Break Into Music Mainstream With New Label-Backed Model ‘v6’
The agreement, announced on Tuesday (September 8), covers “participating repertoire” from Believe and TuneCore, its platform for self-releasing artists. “Under the agreement, music from participating Believe and TuneCore artists and labels will be included in the new music models that Suno is launching in partnership with the music industry,” the two companies said. According to the announcement, Believe and TuneCore artists and labels “can choose to opt in to new, licensed music products that the companies will create together.”
In a class action case filed by the Authors Guild and its co-plaintiff authors against OpenAI and Microsoft, all parties have filed motions for summary judgment. The plaintiffs argue that “OpenAI built the foundations of its business on mass piracy,” which included reproducing and then deleting book content found on the pirate site Library Genesis, aka LibGen. Plaintiffs note that courts have “consistently held that obtaining ‘for free’ something one would ‘ordinarily have to buy’ is not fair use.”
Publishers are already adapting to a distribution environment in which search and AI increasingly mediate how audiences find information. Reuters Institute’s 2026 report found that publishers expect search referrals to fall 43% over the next three years, while Google organic search traffic to more than 2,500 news sites fell 33% globally between November 2024 and November 2025. That pressure is making licensing more relevant.
According to the RIAA’s new report, CDs generated $171.1 million in revenue during the first half of 2026 — up 58.6% from roughly $107.9 million in the first half of 2025 — on 17.5 million units sold, up 45.7% from about 12 million units in the same period last year. The growth comes amid a surge of renewed interest in simpler tech, like so-called dumbphones, digital cameras, typewriters, landlines, and physical media like CDs and vinyl, among other categories.
Using Hollywood’s publicity-machine-ready math, this summer’s $4.76 billion estimated haul was 9 percent higher than the $4.35 billion collected in 2019, the summer before Covid upended moviegoing. Adjusted for inflation, the 2019 total rises to $5.7 billion, putting this summer 17 percent below it. Higher ticket prices disguise a deeper decline in attendance. From Jan. 1 through Aug. 16, domestic theaters sold an estimated 568.4 million tickets, down 30 percent from the same period in 2019, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The screen itself is not our enemy. It has brought extraordinary things into our lives. Never before have so many people had access to so many films, ideas and cultures other than their own. It’s clear to all of us that a screen can educate, connect and inspire. The question is how to preserve that promise while confronting what has gone wrong. We should begin by acknowledging something uncomfortable: we shaped this world, and we must take responsibility for it.
Book authors have asked a New York federal judge to rule that OpenAI built its AI models on “mass piracy”. Pointing to internal documents, a summary judgment motion alleges the AI giant downloaded books from LibGen, hid the evidence by renaming datasets, and designed its models to supplant human writers. OpenAI filed the mirror-image motion, stressing that its data harvesting qualifies as fair use.
Court filings made Friday in a closely watched copyright trial pitting The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft invoked a wide range of material, including relevant copyright law, arts and sports. The briefs, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, largely boiled down to two questions: whether the publishers’ news articles were sufficiently “transformed” into an entirely new work by A.I., and whether A.I. produced content that “substituted” for news articles and harmed their value.
A US federal judge has thrown out the copyright theory at the center of the lawsuit that accused Bad Bunny, Drake, and more than 150 other artists of copying the “dembow” rhythm used across reggaeton. Judge André Birotte Jr. ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to identify a single copyrighted work of their own that contains the combination of elements they are trying to protect. The order reverses the decision Birotte issued on July 1, which had left the protectability of the rhythm for a jury.