THE INDUSTRY
Copyright rulings, Content ID, label drama, and what the machine age actually means for anyone releasing music. The analysis, minus the panic.
The Copyright Infringement Case That Vanished: What X and the Music Publishers Didn't Tell You
I spent a Tuesday morning refreshing a court docket, which is not how I planned to spend it. The National Music Publishers' Association's copyright infringement suit against X — the platform formerly…
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Spotify Streaming Trends and the Sports Spike: Why the Final Whistle Moves the Charts
A 1995 Britpop single is sitting near the top of a global streaming chart, and no one released a remaster. There's no reunion tour on the ticketing sites, no biopic, no TikTok dance.
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Does Indonesia's Copyright Reform Actually Bind Your Platform's Licensing Strategy?
You have probably asked yourself some version of this question already: when a jurisdiction announces it will write AI restrictions into copyright statute, is that a compliance obligation you need to…
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AI Agents Won't Run Your Fanbase — But They'll Handle the Part You Hate
You post a live clip at 11pm. By morning a fan has stitched it into a phone-shot video that's outrunning anything your label paid for, and forty people have tagged you in Stories that vanish in…
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Generative AI Labeling Won't Save You From the Flood — But It Might Tell You Where the Water Came From
The pitch is seductive because it is simple: put a tag on the track, and the listener knows what they are hearing.
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Indonesia's Copyright Reform Is the Most Interesting Thing Happening in AI Music Law — and Almost Nobody Can Enforce It Yet
The most important AI-music copyright fight of the year is not in Brussels, and it is not in a US federal courtroom.
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AI Music Labeling Is Coming to Your Streaming Metadata. Here's What It Actually Changes for Namibian Artists.
A producer in Katutura finishes a beat at 2am — an 84 BPM amapiano-adjacent thing, log-drum bassline, a vocal chop he built from a session singer's take run through a pitch tool.
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AI Music Labeling and the Fine Print of an Artist Development Deal in Namibia
The advice going around the studios in Windhoek and Walvis Bay is clean and easy to repeat: when a development partner or a label brings you a contract, make sure AI use is disclosed, make sure the AI…
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Festival Livestreaming Is Now a Distribution Deal, Not a Marketing Freebie
The Tomorrowland mainstage has been broadcast to the internet for well over a decade. What changed is who owns the pipe.
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The Festival Industry Crisis Hiding Inside One Number
Start with the number the trade press kept repeating last cycle: dozens of UK festivals gone in a single year.
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The Spotify Feature Criticism That Should Worry Strategists Isn't About Accuracy
The most damaging thing about AI-written song descriptions on streaming platforms is not that they get facts wrong.
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Artist Funding in Independent Music India: What a Grant Actually Buys You in 2026
A grant of, say, a lakh or two rupees sounds like a lot until you lay it next to what a real single costs to finish and push into the world. Mastering. A video, or at least a good vertical cut.
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