CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week. On this edition, the resignation of Stability AI's VP Of Audio Ed Newton-Rex over the tech company's position that the training of generative AI models constitutes fair use under American copyright law, and YouTube’s plans to get AI generated clones both off and onto its platform. SECTION TIMES 01: Stability AI (00:06:04) 02: YouTube (00:14:08) (Timings may be slightly different due to...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week. On this edition, competition law expert (as well as musician and label owner) Amelia Fletcher's letter to Spotify boss Daniel Ek about the streaming service's plan for a two-tier royalty system, and the rickrolling takedown battle between two stream-ripping platforms.  SECTION TIMES 01: Spotify (00:04:27) 02: Stream-ripping (00:19:56) (Timings may be slightly different due to...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week. On this edition, big tech companies' insistence that training AI on existing content constitutes fair use under US copyright law, and the Grammy Awards' insistence that Christians do not swear. SECTION TIMES 01: AI fair use (00:03:55) 02: Grammy Awards (00:15:02) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK • Tech companies insist training AI models with...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week. On this edition, Spotify's plans to change the way it allocates revenues to individual tracks and catalogues each month, and the confirmation that digital is now the biggest driver of revenue for the song rights collecting societies. SECTION TIMES 01: Spotify (00:04:35) 02: CISAC (00:18:27) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK • Spotify also in...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week. On this edition, artist managers criticise Universal Music over a change it made to the way it pays Pandora royalties to artists, and new Bandcamp owner Songtradr making 50% of the direct-to-fan platform's staff redundant. PLEASE NOTE: This episode was recorded before the settlement between Megan Thee Stallion and her former label 1501 Certified Entertainment was announced. SECTION...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week. On this edition, British band Easy Life agree to change their name following legal action from owner of the easyJet airline easyGroup, and Coldplay’s ongoing legal battle with their former manager Dave Holmes. SECTION TIMES 01: Easy Life (00:05:32) 02: Coldplay (00:20:08) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK • Easy Life concede defeat in EasyGroup...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week. On this edition, the call for "consent, respect and remuneration" to be central to the development of music AI platforms and tools, and the RIAA’s latest stats on US recorded music revenues. SECTION TIMES 01: AI red lines (00:03:18) 02: RIAA (00:20:41) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK • "Consent, respect and remuneration" crucial as music AI...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including a call from the FanFair Alliance campaign group against ticket touting for the introduction of legislation to ban the for-profit resale of tickets in the UK, and criticism of Deezer’s new proposals for ‘artist-centric’ royalty payments. SECTION TIMES 01: Ticket resale (00:04:13) 02: Deezer (00:11:41) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK •...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including Deezer’s announcement that it is making changes to the way it allocates revenues to tracks later this year, and claims that organised criminals are using streaming services to launder money. SECTION TIMES 01: Deezer (00:04:22) 02: Streaming fraud (00:18:58) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK • Deezer set to roll out Universal Music...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the newly announced licensing hearing to decide the future of London’s Brixton Academy venue nine months after it was closed down when two people were killed in a crowd crush incident, plus Eminem’s battle with US presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy. SECTION TIMES 01: Brixton Academy (00:05:33) 02: Eminem (00:11:48) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including YouTube’s three new AI music principles published alongside the launch of a new YouTube Music AI Incubator, plus questions from various songwriter groups to the boss of American collecting society BMI about the organisation’s decision last year to become a for-profit enterprise. SECTION TIMES 01: YouTube (00:05:11) 02: BMI (00:15:15) (Timings may be slightly different due to...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the debate surrounding comments made by The 1975’s frontman Matty Healy on stage in Malaysia regarding the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and the latest developments in the battle over who will run the Leadmill music venue in Sheffield.  SECTION TIMES 01: The 1975 (00:12:00) 02: The Leadmill (00:24:58) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK •...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including TikTok and Warner Music’s “first-of-its-kind partnership” – a licensing agreement that involves both the Warner Music record company and music publishing business Warner Chappell and covers various platforms run by TikTok owner Bytedance – and the NME’s return to print.  SECTION TIMES 01: TikTok (00:03:04) 02: NME (00:18:53) (Timings may be slightly different due to...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the stepping up of the Featured Artists Coalition’s 100% Venues campaign, which encourages music venues to allow artists to sell merchandise at their shows without being charged any commission on sales, and the new legal challenge to the UK government’s festival drug testing policy.  Apologies for the sound issues in this episode. As you’ll hear, we have a new recording set up....

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including Twitter being sued by a consortium of music publishers for hosting “countless” videos that contain unlicensed music, and the alliance of music distributors that has come together with Spotify and Amazon Music to form Music Fights Fraud, a new initiative described as “a global task force aimed at eradicating streaming fraud”. SECTION TIMES 01: Twitter (00:04:48) 02: Music Fights...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including Coldplay’s update on their work to reduce the environmental impact of their live shows during the first year of their Music Of The Spheres Tour, and the unveiling of Apple’s Vision Pro headset and what it might mean for the music industry. SECTION TIMES 01: Coldplay (00:04:48) 02: Apple Vision Pro (00:13:51) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the US Supreme Court ruling on a long-running copyright dispute between the Andy Warhol Foundation and the photographer Lynn Goldsmith, and Universal getting into bed with AI music company Endel. SECTION TIMES 01: Prince (00:06:30) 02: AI Music (00:23:37) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS WEEK • Music industry welcomes US Supreme Court...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including news that more than 20,000 people have made representations to Lambeth Council in support of the Brixton Academy as the local authority considers a request by London’s Metropolitan Police to revoke the licence of current operators Academy Music Group, plus the latest round in the ongoing battle between the Village People and Donald Trump. SECTION TIMES 01: Brixton Academy...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including Ed Sheeran’s victory in another high-profile headline-grabbing song-theft legal battle – this time over whether or not he ripped off Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ when he wrote his 2014 song ‘Thinking Out Loud’ – plus two sets of proposals for better regulating the sale of tickets put forward in US Congress late last month and another industry-led campaign launched last week that...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including Universal Music latest call for streaming platforms to play their part in ensuring that generative AI tools are not infringing the copyrights of the music industry, plus the news that cassette sales are booming and driving chart success in the UK. SECTION TIMES 01: AI (00:05:49) 02: Cassettes (00:27:31) (Timings may be slightly different due to adverts) STORIES DISCUSSED THIS...

A special edition of the show recorded live at Wide Days in Edinburgh. CMU’s Chris Cooke is joined on stage by Clara Cullen from Music Venue Trust, Toni Malyn from EmuBands and Silvia Montello from AIM. As Setlist returns after a short break, our guests dissect three topics that have been big talking points within the music industry in recent months: the ongoing challenges in the live sector, the debate around making streaming more “artist-centric”, and the increasingly urgent discussions...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including Hybe CEO Park Ji-won’s defence of his company’s recent acquisition of shares in rival SM Entertainment after its management hit out at the deal, plus concerns raised by two more US senators about TikTok and its Chinese parent company Bytedance and what access the Chinese government has to users and user-data on the video sharing platform. SECTION TIMES 01: Hybe (00:06:51) 02:...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the boss of Scottish live music firm DF Concerts' proclamation that any ban on alcohol brands sponsoring shows and festivals would be “nothing short of disastrous for Scotland’s live music industry”, plus the Australian record industry’s anger at TikTok over its ongoing experiment in the country to test the role music plays on the video-sharing platform.  SECTION TIMES 01: Alcohol...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including Live Nation and Ticketmaster coming under fire from both sides of the political spectrum, as the US Senate Judiciary Committee staged a session looking at ticketing following the problems that occurred last year when tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour went on sale via Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan system, plus one US venue company’s decision to stop taking a cut of income when...

CMU’s Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the campaign against proposed cuts to BBC Music Introducing, which gained momentum last week after a plethora of music industry organisations published an open letter to the board of the BBC seeking reassurance that the service does not become an “unintended victim” of any changes being made to ensure the “future stability and viability” of the broadcaster. STORIES DISCUSSED THIS...