In this week's Legal Beat newsletter, tax headaches for touring artists, a proposal to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, a Peanuts music battle and much more.
The Toronto rapper surpassed the King of Pop as the male solo artist with the most chart-toppers, while he also placed a record-setting 42 songs on the Hot 100
He also returns to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100.
Olivia Rodrigo has announced the tracklist for her upcoming third album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” releasing on June 12 via Geffen Records. Among the songs on the tracklist are previously released singles “Drop Dead” and “The Cure.” The rest of the album appears to be divided into...
The Quincy-Jones-founded publication will release its first print issue on June 2
The project marks the pop star's third studio LP.
The Black Label, which serves as the professional home of Blackpink’s Rosé, has scored a reportedly ₩120 billion (currently $79.7 million) Series B with support from Tencent Music and Krafton.
"i can’t wait for you guys to hear these songs," the singer wrote.
United Talent Agency has signed Latin music star Jay Wheeler for global representation in all areas. UTA will work alongside Wheeler across live touring, media, brand partnerships, filmed entertainment, and additional strategic opportunities worldwide.
Drake has rewritten many Hot 100 records since his chart arrival in 2009 with "Best I Ever Had."
Drake has broken the record previously held by Michael Jackson for most No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 by a solo male artist as “Janice STFU” bows atop the chart following the release of his trio of albums. With that accomplishment, Drake now ties Rihanna and Taylor Swift for most No.
The Bronx rapper still got to celebrate the victory, as he posted a photo alongside Knicks owner James Dolan postgame.
Drake adds his fourth Global 200 leader, among eight new top 10s.
The band now boasts 23 leaders, three more than its closest competitor.
U2 have appointed Sulinna Ong as a Management Partner, after more than seven years at Spotify, where she most recently served as Global Head of Editorial & Curation, Music Source
Karol G, sombr, Teyana Taylor and more artists also took the stage.
Plus, Drake passes Michael Jackson for the most No. 1s among solo males and ups his record count to 90 top 10s.
Company argued in court filings last week that the result was "against the clear weight of the evidence" Source
Weezer frontman uploaded “randum cuverz” playlist to YouTube, which also features his acoustic renditions of songs by Radiohead, Harry Nilsson, Eagles and others
The singer-songwriter called Billie Joe Armstrong a “little pussy” after claiming he stopped returning her calls after news leaked that she was set to helm the American Idiot follow-up
The three-track project also features the previously released single “Promise?”
Asake is gearing up to hit the road again: The Nigerian superstar has announced dates for his “In God We Trust Tour,” joined by special guest, South African artist-DJ Uncle Waffles, on select dates.
Sony Music now alleges that Udio "copied and ingested" 30,442 copyrighted works into its generative AI models. Source
Startup Un:hurd Music has been building its business of marketing-tools for artists, with more than 200,000 signed up. Now it’s launching a new venture for managers and labels called Contxt.
Streaming has eroded the value of b-sides for single releases, but Charli XCX is doing her bit to bring the idea back ahead of her upcoming album. ‘I Keep on Thinking about You Every Single Day and Night’ was the b-side for lead track ‘Rock Music’, and ‘Playboy Bunny’ is the b-side for second...
It’s the end of an era for Ed Sheeran… and no, not just because he shaved his head a few weeks ago. But his follicular fresh start did, as it turns out, point the way to his big news this week. “A lot of new beginnings in my life atm,” wrote Sheeran at the time. And […]
It’s just over two years since Universal Music Group and TikTok renewed their licensing deal after a damaging (and public) fall-out over terms, as well as UMG’s claim that TikTok was “flooded with AI-generated recordings”.
Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne died last July, and plans for his legacy are firmly underway – including the announcement last week that he’s the latest musician being turned into a posthumous avatar.
Overtune is a popular service for creating music, and SoundCloud is a popular service for creators to upload their music. An opportunity for partnership, you’d think. And now it has come to pass.
Bloomberg reports that the deal values The Black Label at 1 trillion won (approximately $660M) Source
Live Nation has made its latest move to overturn the recent verdict that it is an illegal monopoly in the US. However, it could soon be facing another policy headache across the Atlantic due to calls for a new competition investigation in the UK.
Melon will upload congratulatory video messages from artists including NCT Taeyong, Le Sserafim, ALPHA DRIVE ONE, and AND2BLE ahead of the launch. Source
SM Ticketmaster will partner with third-party venues, promoters and other ticketed experiences across concerts, sports and live events. Source
“This isn’t just like hooking up an image of my dad to ChatGPT,” he explained
Spotify already brings together listeners’ favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks in one place. Now, we’re trialing a new format that expands the content available on our platform: narrated Articles.
A hiatus was no damper on fan love for BTS: The group won Artist of the Year prize at the American Music Awards Monday night, scoring that fan-voted honor for a second time, and for the first time since going on a hiatus for military service. They previously picked it up in 2021. Katseye draws […]
The Colombian star performed the new song from his latest album Loco x Volver
The UK Parliamentary trade committee pushes to investigate the country’s live music industry, saying Live Nation operates in a “climate of fear.” The UK’s House of Commons Business and Trade Committee, comprising members of Parliament from both sides of the aisle, launched an inquiry into the...
Musician sings his newest single at the 2026 AMAs live from Las Vegas
Teahouses and raves have not often been mentioned in the same breath, but Katseye brought the hyper-pop dance party to a beyond-brightly-colored tearoom set with the quintet’s live rendition of “Pinky Up” on the American Music Awards.
The performance marks the girl group’s first awards show appearance since the 2026 Grammy Awards
Alongside his own pioneering albums as band leader, Rollins also recorded with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and the Rolling Stones, contributing the sax solo to "Waiting on a Friend"
Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the “Saxophone Colossus” who was schooled by bebop’s legends as a prized sideman and became their peer as a formidable leader, improviser and composer, has died, according to a social media post from his family. No cause of death was cited; he was 95.
The American Music Awards may have been taking place in Las Vegas, but Sombr paid inadvertent tribute on Monday night to his hometown of New York City — which was drenched with rain for most of Memorial Day weekend — by performing a high-powered version of his hit “Homewrecker” that climaxed with a...
The American Music Awards are drawing some of the biggest stars in music to Las Vegas to perform present or collect honors on the three-hour CBS/Paramount+ telecast, and Variety has photographers on the carpet and backstage to capture all the looks heating up Memorial Day weekend.
Far from winding down its lawsuit against Udio, Sony Music is now looking to supersize the copyright infringement action by accusing the AI music platform of training on north of 30,000 recordings without authorization.
Queen Latifah is getting ready to host the American Music Awards on Monday night. The last and only time she hosted was back in 1995 as part of a trio that included Tom Jones and country singer Lorrie Morgan. “It’s been a long time, but it was exciting then and It’s exciting now,” Latifah tells […]
Parker's announcement of the move arrived less than 24 hours after Spotify and Universal Music Group unveiled landmark licensing agreements for AI-powered covers and remixes Source
The latest 'Tim's Take' from Music Business Worldwide founder, Tim Ingham Source
MPs concluded that Live Nation meets the threshold for market dominance across multiple areas of the UK live music supply chain. Source
The singer-songwriter revealed in a newsletter to fans that he parted ways with Atlantic Records and Asylum Records last month. Source
BLONDIE CHAPLIN “Lonely Traveler” I’m still waiting for another solo album from Blondie. He’s sent me new music, but…he’s kind of elliptical when it comes to communication. Anyway, I read about the Flame and then there he was singing “Sail On Sailor” on “Holland”!
This is one of the two best-reviewed books of the year. As for the other, “Transcription”…forget about it. Now “London Falling” is nonfiction whereas “Transcription” is fiction, and I vastly prefer fiction, but… There was an interesting article in the “Wall Street Journal”… “Dad Books Are a Dying...
1 I live in California because of the Beach Boys. That may be hard to understand if you’re under the age of 40, as there has been a multi-decade campaign to vilify the state. But if you grew up in the sixties, California was a dream. The bleeding edge was on the west coast of […]
The AI moratorium discussion centers on preventing local regulation through financial preemption, where federal backing creates inevitable infrastructure changes. This shifts community dynamics, leading to resistance against unwelcome industrial transformations rather than mere software debates.
Look at those cute little guys. | Image: Record Club There isn't really a solid equivalent to Goodreads or Letterboxd for music lovers, but Record Club is aiming to change that.
Roger Linn lets his accomplishments do the talking. | Image: Roger Linn Roger Linn is a legend in the world of musical instruments. He's been at the cutting edge of music technology for decades.
IQ Magazine has incorporated Hearby’s gig discovery platform into its Manchester Report 2026, offering a data-backed view of one of the United Kingdom’s most active live music markets. This article was created in collaboratio nwith DMN partner Hearby.
Universal Music Group’s inked a fresh multi-year licensing deal with TikTok, which is teeing up expanded marketing campaigns and doubling down on efforts to decommission AI deepfakes.
Here’s a recap of recent music industry hires and in-house promotions as of May 22nd, 2026. If you have a job shuffle to share, we’re all ears. Send us a note to news@digitalmusicnews.com. If you’d like to post a job on our Job Board, just send us a request to noah@digitalmusicnews.com.
After 15 years and eight full-length albums, Ed Sheeran confirms the rumor that he has left Warner Music—news also confirmed by the company. The rumors are true: Ed Sheeran has left Warner Music after 15 years with the company (and an impressive eight studio albums).
Saxophonist Dick Parry, who played on some of Pink Floyd’s biggest songs and tours, passed away on Friday at the age of 83. Dick Parry, the saxophonist who played on some of Pink Floyd’s biggest songs and tours, passed away on Friday of unspecified causes. He was 83.
Forget about a 5% “streaming tax”: Now, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has moved to require Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and other video streaming platforms to cough up 15% of their domestic revenue annually.
Tune in Saturday May 23rd to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West. If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz
Ricky Martin refused to cancel a gig in Montenegro after a concertgoer disrupted his show by discharging tear gas near the stage. Ricky Martin’s publicist reports that the singer is “safe” after a concertgoer disrupted his European show on Thursday by discharging tear gas near the stage.
Warner Music and GZ Media launch a landmark pilot with Abbey Road Studios to process unsold vinyl into new, commercial-grade pressings. Warner Music Group (WMG) and GZ Media have completed a landmark pilot showing how unsold records can be reprocessed and incorporated into new vinyl pressings...
Prompt something better than Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” I dare you. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images AI covers and remixes of songs are already a blight on the internet.
Live Nation settled with the US Department of Justice a few days into its antitrust trial, but a number of state attorneys general continued with their lawsuit… and won.
We all knew that AI-music firm Udio is working on a new service to launch later this year, based on its licensing deals with labels. We also knew that the new service would enable fans to play with the music and sound of artists who’d opted in, and that it would be a ‘walled garden’ […]
Music-streaming services have been campaigning hard in the last two years against a levy on their Canadian revenues by the country’s telecommunications regulator the CRTC, to fund local content and creators.
This appears to be ‘third-time lucky week’ for proposed US legislation relating to the music industry. We reported yesterday on the return of the deepfakes-tackling No Fakes Act after two previous attempts to get it onto the statute books.
The last year or two has seen a dispiriting growth in the number of artists finding AI-slop tracks uploaded to their streaming profiles pretending to be them. So much so that Spotify took action in March, launching its ‘Artist Profile Protection’ feature.
Five years ago, techno titan Richie Hawtin teamed up with AI-music startup Endel to launch ‘Deeper Focus’ – an “adaptive soundscape” based on his samples and creative DNA. Since then, it has been streamed for more than 5m hours. Now it’s getting a reworking: ‘Deeper Focus: Remastered and Reduced’.
Recycled vinyl has been A Thing for a while now… but is it really A Thing that sounds as good as non-recycled vinyl? A pilot scheme from Warner Music Group and GZ Media aims to prove that it does.
One of the big industry talking points in recent years has been about artists from the most exciting non-Anglo territories collaborating with one another – no English-language artists required to break a track globally.
What do the federal government, video game publisher GameMill Entertainment, Heritage Auctions, and belt-buckle specialist Buckle-Down have in common? For one thing, they’re facing infringement lawsuits from Lee Mendelson Film Productions (LMFP), which controls the Peanuts music catalog.
A group of state attorneys general demand the breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster a month after the trial that determined them to be a monopoly. On Thursday (May 21), the coalition of over 30 state attorneys general that sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster in a trial that found the live events...
Though he died last year, Ozzy Osbourne’s “digital DNA” will live on thanks to a partnership between the Osbournes and entertainment company Hyperreal. Sharon and Jack Osbourne, the late Ozzy’s wife and son, detailed plans to create an interactive digital avatar of the Prince of Darkness during the...
The music industry runs the risk of excluding working-class musicians without saving small venues, Tinie Tempah said at the Ivor Novello Awards. Without efforts to save small venues that help grow budding artists and work to promote talent from diverse backgrounds, the music industry is likely to...
Spotify and Universal Music Group have announced a licensing agreement for a ‘responsible AI’ tool to launch as a paid add-on for Spotify subscribers. It’s another step forward for UMG’s controlled, walled-garden AI licensing vision, one that isn’t quite working for companies like Suno.
Wixen's lawsuit against Meta highlights allegations of copyright infringement and deceptive practices during licensing negotiations. Notably, it omits an accusation regarding Meta's potential misuse of licensed music for AI training.
Is Spotify the key to ensuring that superfans, not scalpers, secure face-value tickets to high-demand tours? We’re about to find out, as the streaming platform has debuted “Reserved” to set aside passes for diehard supporters.
Stability AI launches Stable Audio 3.0, AI music models trained entirely on licensed data and able to generate tracks of over six minutes in length. Stability AI has announced the launch of Stable Audio 3.0, a family of four new AI music models that the company promises are trained entirely on...
Mick Jagger has arrived on the island of Stromboli, near Sicily, to film Italian director Alice Rohrwacher’s adaptation of “Three Incestuous Sisters.” Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was postponed by a day, but arrived via helicopter this week on the island of Stromboli, off the coast of...
Spotify bugün, 20’nci yıl dönümümüzü kutladığımız bu yılda, finans camiasına, iş modelimiz, ürün stratejimiz ve uzun vadeli vizyonumuz hakkında daha detaylı bir bakış sunmak amacıyla New York’ta üçüncü Investor Day etkinliğini düzenledi.
Hoje, o Spotify realizou seu terceiro Investor Day em Nova York, oferecendo à comunidade financeira uma visão detalhada sobre o negócio e a estratégia de longo prazo da companhia em um ano que também marca o aniversário de 20 anos da plataforma.
You can buy physical plates to pair with your AI effects. | Photo: Terrence O’Brien / The Verge I'm not sure anyone was really asking for an AI guitar pedal. But it was inevitable that someone would build one.
Ontario’s ban on resale-for-profit is now the most aggressive ticket resale law in North America, overtaking Maine’s 10% resale price cap that passed in June 2025.
스포티파이 2026 인베스터 데이: 다음 시대의 미디어를 향한 새로운 비전 오늘 스포티파이는 미국 뉴욕에서 세 번째 인베스터 데이(Investor Day)를 개최하고, 금융 업계 관계자들을 대상으로 스포티파이의 비즈니스와 프로덕트 전략, 그리고 장기적인 비전에 대해 공유했습니다. 올해는 스포티파이의 20주년이 되는 해이기도 합니다. 이번 인베스터 데이는 올해 초 공동 CEO로 취임한 알렉스 노스트롬(Alex Norström)과 구스타브 소더스트롬(Gustav Söderström)이 처음으로 Investor...
Hari ini, Spotify menyelenggarakan Investor Day yang ketiga di New York City, memberikan komunitas finansial pemahaman yang lebih mendalam tentang bisnis, strategi produk, dan visi jangka panjang kami alam tahun yang juga menandai.
Hoy Spotify celebró su tercer Investor Day en Nueva York, donde ofrecimos a la comunidad financiera una mirada más profunda a nuestro negocio, estrategia de producto y visión a largo plazo, en un año que, además, marca nuestro aniversario número 20.
Oggi, a New York City, Spotify ha presentato il suo terzo Investor Day, offrendo al mondo della finanza uno sguardo più approfondito sul proprio business, sulla strategia di prodotto e una visione a lungo termine, nell’anno che segna anche il suo 20° anniversario.
Aujourd’hui, Spotify a organisé son troisième Investor Day à New York. En pleine célébration de notre 20ème anniversaire, c’était l’occasion de fournir à la communauté financière un aperçu plus approfondi de notre activité, stratégie produit et vision à long terme.
Spotify hat heute seinen dritten Investor Day in New York City veranstaltet und der Finanzwelt tiefere Einblicke in das Geschäft, die Produktstrategie und die langfristige Vision des Unternehmens gegeben. Die Veranstaltung fand anlässlich des 20. Spotify Jubiläums statt.
Today, Spotify hosted our third Investor Day in New York City, offering the financial community a deeper look at our business, product strategy, and long-term vision during a year that also marks our 20th anniversary.
Singer Skye Newman also highlights how becoming a performer is becoming inaccessible to those without money The music industry risks becoming a more hostile place for working-class artists, Tinie Tempah and Skye Newman have said at the Ivor Novello awards.
Four weeks after the biopic's release, Michael Jackson gained 40 million Spotify listeners and 748 million additional streams. Here's what the Michael biopic did to one of the biggest catalog in music history.
Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG) just announced a licensing deal that will allow users to prompt the creation of AI-generated remixes and covers for streaming songs. The tool will be a paid add-on for Premium subscribers.
Most music fans are musically creative. This doesn’t necessarily mean they aspire to be artists or producers, but simply that they are engaged in at least one of the musical creativity behaviours tracked by MIDiA, such as producing music, learning or playing an instrument, writing music,...
Disability rights campaigner Robin Millar reveals he is taking owners of music business he founded to a tribunal The head of one of the UK’s biggest disability charities is planning a legal challenge against the owners of the music business he founded in a dispute over its alleged failure to...
What matters more in the music business, mastering every plugin, or becoming the kind of person people want to hire again? On this week’s podcast episode, I talk with songwriter, producer, engineer, and educator Gary Gray about music licensing, post production, rhythmic integrity, AI, immersive...
Two friends tell the story of their friendship through every generation of K-pop.
Senate & House Reintroduce Bill to Combate AI Deepfakes Creative Communities, AI Developers, Child Safety Groups, Labor Unions, Conservatives & Free Speech Advocates Align on Landmark Protections for Individuals While Enabling Innovation The Recording Industry Association of America® (RIAA)...
Stability Audio 3.0 small model can run on-device and generate two-minute long tracks.
In Waco, Coweta County, and Box Elder County, residents oppose opaque AI infrastructure projects promising jobs and growth while facing industrial transformation, unclear benefits, and significant public financial burdens, raising concerns about long-term consequences.