Some 31 UK websites, backed by the Movement for an Open Web (MOW), have added new “Search-Only Contracts” (SOC) to their website terms and conditions which prohibit the copying and repurposing of content by LLMs such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The terms seek to beef up existing robots.txt notices on websites, which are currently widely ignored by generative AI companies.
Source: Publishers to bill AI firms for unwanted scraping– and take them to court if they don’t pay
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) revealed some worrying data tied to the sustained hit the industry has taken from streaming providers’ “bundles.” As Spotify (and similarly, Amazon Music) started reclassifying its “premium” subscription tiers as a bundle with other services such as audiobooks, royalties paid by both companies have been cut by approximately 30% over the past two years.
Source: Streamers’ Bundling Has Cost Music Publishers Nearly $500 Million Since 2024: NMPA
Specifically, Tuskegee-born Richie moved to obtain four trademarks yesterday – joining the likes of Taylor Swift and Matthew McConaughey, both of whom have sought voice and likeness trademarks as of late. According to the filings, Richie is specifically seeking sound marks for snippets of his famed song lyrics: “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”; “Say you, say me”; “Easy like Sunday morning”; and “All night long.”
Publisher AI standards coalition SPUR has shared details of a proposed “common language” for tracking content usage by AI companies. SPUR aims to come up with a standard technical foundation for how AI platforms report on use of the content they scrape. This could be used by publishers when agreeing licensing deals. SPUR was launched at the start of the year by The Guardian, the Financial Times, BBC, Sky News and The Telegraph and has since added more than 20 other publisher members.
Source: SPUR publishes ‘common language’ for tracking AI use of publisher content
A new study sponsored by the Authors Guild examining the causes of the decline in authors’ earnings found that only 25% of print books and e-books read in the past month were bought new or through a paid subscription. The study, conducted by the Codex Group, notes that while books are available in more formats and channels than ever before, average author earnings, now pegged at about $10,000 annually, have declined about 42% since 2009, the year Kindles first entered the market.
Source: Authors Guild Looks at Why Author Incomes Are in Decline
Last month, Sony Music Publishing agreed to buy a collection of songs from Blackstone reported to be worth up to $4 billion. They included catalogs by Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira, Leonard Cohen, and Nile Rodgers. This was the same portfolio of songs that Merck Mercuriadis assembled for around $3 billion ($2.2 billion in Hipgnosis Songs Fund; $700M+ in Hipgnosis Songs Capital) – and for which he was, for a while, near-universally flamed for “overpaying” to obtain.
Source: Merck Mercuariadis on Hipgnosis, vindication, and his next move
In the ongoing effort to tackle this issue, Deezer introduced a tool that scans playlists from various streaming platforms to identify AI-generated tracks. Announced on Thursday, this free online AI music detector supports 27 languages and gives users from 20 of the most popular platforms the chance to see if their playlists include any AI-generated songs.
Source: Deezer’s new tool can identify AI music from Spotify, Apple Music, and others
The National Music Publishers’ Association has agreed an industry-wide AI licensing deal with the AI music platform Udio. NMPA President and CEO David Israelite announced the deal on Wednesday (June 10). He also unveiled an agreement in principle with a second AI music platform, KLAY. Israelite said the Udio agreement is the first industry-wide licensing deal struck with a major AI music company, and the first to “value songs and sound recordings equally” when it comes to AI training.
Source: Music publishers strike AI licensing deals with Udio and KLAY in ‘landmark’ industry-wide pacts
Warner Music Music (WMG) announced on Wednesday that it’s acquiring AI attribution startup Sureel AI. Sureel’s patented technology creates “AI DNA” for songs and breaks them down into component parts to trace how AI models use those elements. Through the acquisition, WMG aims to better track when its artists’ and songwriters’ work is used in AI-generated content or for training AI models.
Source: Warner Music acquires AI attribution startup Sureel AI
Google says in a new court filing that YouTube’s terms of service grant a “broad license” for artificial intelligence models to be trained on music uploaded directly to the platform. This argument came in Google’s Monday (June 8) motion to dismiss copyright infringement litigation filed earlier this year by a group of independent artists, songwriters and producers.
Source: YouTube Terms of Service Allow AI Music Training, Google Says in Copyright Lawsuit