Sleep Token superfans got a lore-packed treasure hunt on recen tour If you've been following the rise of rock group Sleep Token, you'll know that they have a committed legion of superfans

Sounds Right made Nature an artist – and now a distributor too Sounds Right is the organisation behind the project making ‘Nature’ an artist on streaming services, creating a flow of royalties to climate-emergency projects when artists use nature sounds in their tracks. So far, that music has…

Spotify sued over ‘payola’ Discovery Mode, calls lawsuit ‘nonsense’ We have to hope Spotify’s lawyers weren’t hoping to wind down for the end of 2025 just yet. Hot on the heels of a lawsuit from rapper RBX alleging fake Drake streams, now the streaming service is facing a new class-action lawsuit…

Cisac global collections report reveals 7.2% growth for music Collecting-societies body Cisac has published its annual Global Collections Report, breaking down its members’ collections in the previous year – 2024 in this case. The headline is a 6.6% increase in collections to a new record of…

Behind The Campaign: Big Thief US indie-folk band Big Thief released Double Infinity, their sixth studio album, on 5 September. It was their first new album in over five years, although various solo projects helped bridge that gap. Will Tompsett (US label head & global marketing head at 4AD), Emma…

Too Young launches indie-focused Catalog sync-licensing marketplace Music-supervision company Too Young has officially launched its sync-licensing marketplace Catalog, the plans for which we reported on in September last year. The platform is launching with more than 30k tracks from independent…

White House TikTok account uses Taylor Swift track in post Major labels have shown themselves willing to sue brands for using their tracks in TikTok posts without the necessary sync licences.

Amazon Music’s mobile app now has smarter Alexa+ features Amazon has been steadily rolling out its new, smarter Alexa+ voice assistant to more people. Now they can also use it within Amazon Music’s mobile app. This is only for people who are already in the Alexa+ ‘Early Access’ program, mind.…

Live Nation revenues up 11%, buoyed by boom in stadium shows Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Live Nation has broken another of its quarterly-revenue records. The live-entertainment giant reported revenues of $8.5bn in the third quarter of 2025, up 11% year-on-year. That included…

Stability AI wins High Court copyright battle with Getty Images Getty Images brought one of the first high-profile lawsuits against an AI company when it sued Stability AI in the UK – but now it has lost.

AIM chair delivers warning about tone of UMG/Downtown debate UK indies body AIM held its AGM yesterday, and chair Ruth Barlow focused on the arguments about UMG’s Downtown Music acquisition.

South Korea update: Spotify x Naver, Bemyfriends x Dreamus Naver is one of Asia’s biggest tech companies. Based in South Korea, its business ranges from search and news aggregation to video streaming and mobile payments, as well as being the original developer of social app Line. Now it is…

Michael Jackson is the ‘highest paid dead celebrity’ of 2025 Just in time for Halloween last week, Forbes published its slightly-ghoulish rankings for the ‘highest paid dead celebrities’ of the year so far. Top of the list is Michael Jackson, with an estimated $105m of earnings for his estate this…

Danish collecting society Koda sues Suno for unlicensed training Udio may have struck a deal with Universal Music Group, but the major labels’ lawsuits against rival Suno remain active – and now the company has an extra legal action to deal with. Danish collecting society Koda is suing Suno,…

Spotify grows to 713m users and 281m subscribers Spotify has published its financial results for the third quarter of 2025, revealing strong growth in its free and paid listeners.

Spotify responds to RBX lawsuit over ‘fake’ Drake streams We reported on a lawsuit filed against Spotify by rapper RBX alleging fraudulent Drake streams. Now Spotify has responded in a statement.

No Kings co-organiser Indivisible targets Spotify over ICE ads Indivisible is a US organisation with more than a million members who have signed up to “fight for progressive politics”. It is also one of the partners in the ‘No Kings’ rallies protesting against the current US president and his…

Udio opens up downloads for 48 hours to stem its user revolt Last week we reported on a backlash from AI-music firm Udio’s community after it blocked downloads of their generated tracks with immediate effect after striking its deal with Universal Music Group. Now the company has responded to the…

Billboard India to launch in early 2026: ‘Look, this is the India story…’ Billboard magazine and its associated IPs will launch in India in early 2026, where the brand will be operated by Other Side Ventures.

Irving Azoff has some questions about UMG’s Udio deal The follow-on from this week's news of a deal between Universal Music Group and AI-music startup Udio continues.

Q3 financial results roundup: Apple, Amazon, SiriusXM, Roblox The Q3 financials are coming thick and fast this week.  Apple posted revenues of $102.5bn in Q3 (its fiscal Q4), up 8% year-on-year. That included $28.75bn from the company’s services division, which includes Apple Music. Fellow tech…

NewJeans lose legal battle to end contract with Hybe’s Ador There was bad news for K-Pop group NewJeans this week, who have been battling in court to terminate their deal with management agency Ador – a subsidiary of Hybe. Seoul’s Central District Court ruled that the group must honour the…

Billie Eilish pledges $11.5m to food-equity and climate orgs Billie Eilish’s global ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ tour kicked off in September 2024 and will finally end in November. Yesterday, Eilish announced that she’ll be donating $11.5m from the tour to food-equity and climate justice organisations.…

A musician’s guide to Substack Traditionally used by authors and journalists to create newsletters for paying subscriber bases, Substack has quickly gained traction over the past few years as a tool for other creative minds to connect with their fans. Alongside its attractiveness as an alternative…

Bandsintown launches marketplace for independent artists Bandsintown has announced their new centralised service hub, offering music distribution, CRM tools, and marketing opportunities with partners like CD Baby, Community, Groover, Musixmatch, ROSTR and TuneCore to their 700,000 artists. The new…

Our ranking of the top Louvre Heist Tunes The Louvre heist has unsurprisingly stolen the internet, inspiring a host of content around the high-profile robbery. Many creators have also taken the opportunity to include heist-inspired songs on their videos, with users posting comments like “I need to…

UMG roundup: Revenues up, Stability AI deal, YouTube guardrails Having unveiled its deal with AI-music firm Udio overnight, yesterday saw Universal Music Group reveal a second deal – with Stability AI – while also publishing its financial results and dropping some news about its evolving…

Kathmandu festival Grasslands Carnival returning in November  It’s a Kathmandu-based event but the Grasslands Festival and its day-long offshoot the Grasslands Carnival is very much a cross-border collaboration between India and Nepal. Promoted by the Homebound Collective, an initiative co-founded…

Live industry round-up: BookMyShow’s Delhi MoU; APB Network’s Bae; JetAlive When they’re not staging India tours by international acts in their busiest gig season yet—Pitbull and Calum Scott are the newest additions to their seemingly never-ending line-up for 2025-26—the team at BookMyShow seems…

Learnings from this week’s big releases: Lily Allen, Rosalía, Dave Rosalía, Lily Allen & Dave made a splash this week with exciting and impactful releases. We’ve unpacked the best and biggest takeaways from their campaigns: Cinematic Reveals: ROSALÍA and Dave experimented with bold and creative…

SoundCloud CEO talks all-in-one artist subscriptions, superfans, AI and more SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton: “Everything we're doing is based off a central premise: streaming is not enough for the vast majority of artists"

Meta financials reveal user growth and a new Threads milestone Quarterly financials season is underway, with Meta announcing its Q3 numbers overnight. The company posted $51.24bn of revenues last quarter, up 26% year-on-year. 3.54 billion people are now using its family of apps every day, up 8%…

Germany’s rap boom has a dark side: neo-Nazi hate speech TikTok is under the spotlight again over its moderation policies – and this time there is a direct music angle. An investigation by news agency AFP has revealed that “far-right German-language rappers are flouting hate speech rules by…

‘Share of Ear’ report highlights growth in paid streaming Edison Research’s ‘Share of Ear’ vertical has become a trusted resource for the music, radio and podcast industries alike. Now the company has shared some music findings from its latest report, tracking the growth in listening to paid music…

YouTube ad revenues up 15% as Shorts outstrip longform videos When YouTube announced recently that it had paid more than $8bn to the music industry in the last year, its music chief Lyor Cohen said that “the twin engine of ads and subscriptions is firing on all cylinders”. How is that engine…

UMG settles Udio lawsuit; companies plan new AI-music service together Universal Music Group has settled its lawsuit with AI-music startup Udio, and the pair are launching a new GenAI music service together.

EC sets 6 February deadline for decision on UMG / Downtown deal The European Commission paused its investigation into UMG’s acquisition of Downtown Music in September. Now it has been unpaused.

Radio is still 62% of ad-supported listening time in the US Research firm Nielsen has published its latest data on US audio listening habits, based on its survey for the third quarter of 2025.

Exit Festival sets ‘global tour’ after clash with Serbian authorities In August we reported on a crowdfunding campaign launched by Serbia’s Exit Festival. Now it's following up with... a global tour.

Spotify update: German rap playlist, Lagos Greasy Tunes pop-up Recent years have seen a sustained period of streaming success for German rap (or Deutschrap). Now Spotify is throwing more weight behind it.

EA launches music radio stations for its Battlefield 6 game Battlefield 6 is one of the biggest game launches of 2025, with publisher EA recently reporting more than 7m sales in the first three days.

AI music roundup: PRO policies, Suno’s free upgrade, TikTok tools… We’re rounding up the latest batch of stories about AI’s intersection with music. There’s a lot going on this week.

Un:hurd raises new funding and launches ‘Artist Deals’ feature Music-marketing startup Un:hurd has announced a new funding round that includes several prominent investors from the music industry.

Here We Go Magic are latest artist to suffer an AI imposter US band Here We Go Magic released a new track recently – their first since 2015. Except they didn’t: ‘Water Spring Mountain’ was an AI-generated track uploaded to streaming services that somehow appeared within the band’s profiles. NPR…

‘Diary of a CEO’ creator Steven Bartlett’s firm valued at $425m Social media entrepreneur-turned-podcaster Steven Bartlett has built his ‘Diary of a CEO’ podcast into a big brand, but now he’s got ambitions to repeat this success for other creators. His company Steven·com has just raised a “major…

ARIA boss welcomes government’s decision on AI TDM exception We reported yesterday on the decision by the Australian government NOT to pursue a ‘text and data mining’ exception for AI training on copyrighted content. Since the story broke, the Australian music industry has been welcoming the news.…

Reservoir and PopArabia expand MENA catalogue with acquisitions Already one of the most active catalogue buyers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Reservoir and PopArabia have snapped up two more acquisitions this week. The first is the full catalogue of songs and recordings owned…

Musicians’ heirs hit out at AI deepfakes as ‘digital grave robbing’ The debates about how AI technology should be regulated continue, with the latest views coming from a group of organisations and heirs.

Digital Marketing Coordinator – Mexican Summer – New York Position Overview Mexican Summer is seeking a Digital Marketing Coordinator who will be responsible for maintaining digital operations and executing content strategies across various digital platforms. This role involves implementing social…

Spotify hits back at MLC in latest filing in their legal battle In January, Spotify won a ruling to dismiss the lawsuit filed against it in the US by the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) over its ‘bundle’ royalties. However, the MLC won the right to amend and refile its complaint, which it…