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AI Music News

Your independent source for AI music news and what each story means for music creators.

  1. The Warner Music Group building in Burbank, the major label asking a court to dismiss the AFM's AI licensing lawsuit
    14 Jul

    Warner says its union contract never covered AI, and asks a judge to throw out the AFM's lawsuit

    • Warner asked Judge Edgardo Ramos to dismiss the AFM's breach-of-contract suit in a letter filed on July 10, 2026.
    • Warner argues the Sound Recording Labor Agreement was signed in March 2023, before Suno and Udio existed, so it never covered AI licensing.
    • Warner says Article 21, the "new use" clause the AFM's case rests on, only points to other agreements and confers no payment right on its own.
    Read the full story
  2. Philadelphia folk duo Makeshift Hammer, whose album was cloned on Spotify by the fake artist Carey Dupont
    13 Jul

    A fake artist took 94% of Makeshift Hammer's Spotify royalties with a sped-up copy of their own album

    • A fan tipped off Philadelphia duo Makeshift Hammer to 'Blue Road', an album by an unknown artist named Carey Dupont containing their songs at altered speed under lightly renamed titles
    • The cloned tracks collected close to 50,000 listens each in a year, while many of the 4-year-old originals sat between 1,000 and 2,000
    • By band member Owen Lyman-Schmidt's account, the clone captured 94% of the royalties his band's recordings earned on Spotify
    Read the full story
  3. Global Music Rights logo, the performing rights organization founded by Irving Azoff
    13 Jul

    5 streaming platforms coordinated to remove Irving Azoff's GMR from US mechanical rate-setting

    • A Phonorecords V motion shows Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora and Google jointly moved to remove Global Music Rights from the US mechanical rate-setting process
    • The platforms argue GMR is a performing rights organization without the 'significant interest' in mechanical rights required to participate
    • Independent songwriter advocates including Eight Mile Style and the Songwriters Guild of America are preparing objections demanding a 15.65-cent physical mechanical rate
    Read the full story
  4. The Suno wordmark, the AI music company that pushed back on the RIAA and IFPI AI labelling proposal
    13 Jul

    Suno says artists and platforms should decide on AI labels, not the RIAA suing it

    • Suno responded to the RIAA and IFPI AI labelling proposal by saying it should be up to artists and platforms to decide how AI music is treated.
    • The AI-Generated and AI-Assisted labels are voluntary, and no streaming service has committed to adopting them.
    • DiMA, which represents Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube, answered the labelling plan by asking rightsholders for better AI metadata.
    Read the full story
  5. Lorna Clarke, the BBC's Director of Music, who set out the broadcaster's AI music policy
    10 Jul

    BBC music boss Lorna Clarke says it will label AI in the music it plays, if the industry ever agrees how

    • BBC Director of Music Lorna Clarke set out the broadcaster's AI policy on July 7, 2026.
    • The BBC will prioritise music that is the result of meaningful human creativity, but says artists can still use AI tools.
    • Clarke pledged the BBC will never knowingly broadcast AI-generated music that infringes existing copyright works.
    Read the full story
  6. Band with a horn section performing on a large stage under bright spotlights at a live show
    10 Jul

    Gotobeat takes its AI touring tech to arenas after selling 150,000 tickets for smaller venues

    • Gotobeat launched in 2024 with an AI platform that predicts demand for emerging artists and helps them sell out venues.
    • The company sold more than 150,000 tickets in 2025 for small and medium-sized venues.
    • It is now opening an arena touring division, starting with two shows at OVO Arena Wembley in London.
    Read the full story
  7. Chart of Q2 2026 music funding at $5.75B, split across Primary Wave $2.23B, Chord $500M, and Suno $400M
    10 Jul

    Q2 2026 music funding hit $5.75B, and Suno's $400M round shows where the money is going

    • DMN Pro's weekly report put Q2 2026 core music industry funding at roughly $5.75 billion, quadrupling year-over-year.
    • Two mega-rounds drove the jump: Primary Wave's $2.23 billion fourth fund and Suno's $400 million Series D.
    • AI and catalog businesses took the largest share, with those raises topping $3.2 billion for the quarter.
    Read the full story

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  9. The two proposed AI music labels: a solid black AI badge and an outlined lowercase ai badge
    10 Jul

    The RIAA and IFPI propose an AI music labelling system with two tags, AI and ai

    • The RIAA and IFPI proposed an industry AI-music labelling system on July 10, 2026, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
    • The system uses two tags, a capital "AI" for AI-generated tracks and a lowercase "ai" for AI-assisted ones.
    • Backers include A2IM, the Recording Academy, SAG-AFTRA, and the Human Artistry Campaign; the streaming lobby DiMA gave a cautious welcome.
    Read the full story
  10. thumpN app screens showing the Shadow AI chat, an event feed, and the category picker
    10 Jul

    thumpN raises $3.7M for an AI agent that finds live events by conversation, not search

    • Mumbai-based thumpN raised a $3.75M pre-seed round and launched in public beta the week of July 6, 2026.
    • Its core feature is Shadow, an AI agent that finds live events through natural conversation instead of keyword search.
    • Backers include Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, its CFO Madhur Deora, and singers Arijit Singh, Badshah, and Sunidhi Chauhan.
    Read the full story
  11. The Bandcamp logo on a cream card against a dark teal background
    07 Jul

    Bandcamp lays off most of its remaining engineers, artists weigh alternatives

    • A 13-year Bandcamp engineer, Drew Harris, said he was laid off "along with most of the remaining engineers" in late June 2026.
    • Bandcamp has not commented, and the exact number of cuts is unclear.
    • Bandcamp has paid artists $1.2 billion since launch and lets them keep about 82% of sales, so the cuts worry indie musicians who rely on it.
    Read the full story
  12. The DistroKid logo and the CVC Capital Partners logo joined by a plus sign, marking the deal
    07 Jul

    CVC Capital Partners buys majority stake in DistroKid, the biggest pipe for AI uploads

    • CVC Capital Partners is buying a majority stake in DistroKid through its CVC Capital Partners IX fund, with the deal set to close in Q3 2026.
    • Terms were not disclosed, though MBW reported in January that a sale price near $2 billion was on the table.
    • DistroKid is the largest DIY distributor and a main route for the AI-generated tracks now making up a large share of daily streaming uploads.
    Read the full story
  13. Press portrait of Swedish house producer John Dahlbäck in a black leather jacket, beside his name
    07 Jul

    John Dahlbäck now uses AI for vocals, but calls full-song generation lazy

    • John Dahlbäck, the Swedish producer behind early Avicii collaborations, went from "scared of AI" to calling himself a "firm believer" in it.
    • Dahlbäck uses AI mainly for vocals and to sketch ideas, treating it like an instrument such as Splice or a synth.
    • He rejects lazy, full-song AI generation, saying he is only excited by AI when the person using it is also creative.
    Read the full story

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