Artificial Intelligence - CMU | the music business explained (Page 3)

Universal Music has shot itself in the foot over AI fair use, says Anthropic

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Anthropic • 4 min read

Universal Music has shot itself in the foot over AI fair use, says Anthropic

Anthropic wants a judge to throw out the copyright lawsuit filed against it by three music publishers, including Universal, because AI training is fair use. The publishers argue that AI-generated lyrics are diluting the market for songs, but Universal recently told its investors that’s not happening…

Chris Cooke • 22 Apr 2026

Eddie Dalton’s (actually quite modest) chart success sparks further debate about where AI music fits in

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Eddie Dalton • 6 min read

Eddie Dalton’s (actually quite modest) chart success sparks further debate about where AI music fits in

An AI-generated artist called Eddie Dalton got a lot of press coverage this weekend after reaching number two in the UK charts. Though it was the sales chart that excludes streaming data, which isn’t so impressive. But it still prompted more debate in the music community about where AI music fits in…

Chris Cooke & Sam Taylor • 13 Apr 2026

Music industry trade bodies join forces with music publishers to defeat Anthropic’s “AI is fair use” defence

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Anthropic • 4 min read

Music industry trade bodies join forces with music publishers to defeat Anthropic’s “AI is fair use” defence

The music publishers suing Anthropic recently asked the judge to reject the AI company’s fair use defence. Now eight music industry organisations have filed an amicus brief also arguing that AI training can never be fair use, because the development of AI music models causes market dilution…

Chris Cooke • 02 Apr 2026

Copyright Alliance welcomes separate AI documents published by White House and Congress, even though they differ on copyright matters

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Artificial Intelligence • 4 min read

Copyright Alliance welcomes separate AI documents published by White House and Congress, even though they differ on copyright matters

Two documents on regulating AI were published in Washington last week, one by President Donald Trump and one by Senator Marsha Blackburn. They say opposing things when it comes to copyright matters. But the Copyright Alliance was still able to find positives in both of the documents…

Chris Cooke • 24 Mar 2026

Cautious welcome for UK government’s latest AI copyright stance, as BMG files latest Anthropic lawsuit

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Artificial Intelligence • 4 min read

Cautious welcome for UK government’s latest AI copyright stance, as BMG files latest Anthropic lawsuit

The UK government yesterday abandoned plans for an AI copyright exception, although it doesn’t currently have a plan B. The music industry is glad the new exception is off the agenda, but concerns remain. Meanwhile, Sony has been discussing the deepfake problem, and BMG has sued Anthropic…

Chris Cooke • 19 Mar 2026

Google had every opportunity to train its AI legally, but chose to do it on the cheap instead, say indie musicians in new lawsuit

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Google • 3 min read

Google had every opportunity to train its AI legally, but chose to do it on the cheap instead, say indie musicians in new lawsuit

Another AI copyright lawsuit, this time a group of indie artists are suing Google over its Lyria model. Like all AI companies, the lawsuit says, Google infringed copyright when training its model. But Google’s “conduct is different”, because it has the infrastructure in place to train AI legally…

Chris Cooke • 10 Mar 2026

Lucian is the hostess with the mostess and AI is the superfan future we never knew we wanted

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Universal Music • 17 min read

Lucian is the hostess with the mostess and AI is the superfan future we never knew we wanted

Universal Music’s latest dog and pony show was everything you could dream of: Lucian channeling Ethel Merman, the return of the superfan and turntable.fm risen from the dead. AI is the future, revenue is up nearly 9% and Lucian has never been more energised. So why is the share price in the bin?…

Sam Taylor • 06 Mar 2026

Lords tell UK government it needs to “choose between two AI futures”, before backing the kind of future the music industry wants

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Artificial Intelligence • 3 min read

Lords tell UK government it needs to “choose between two AI futures”, before backing the kind of future the music industry wants

The UK government has to provide a plan around AI and copyright by 18 Mar. Ahead of that, a committee in the House Of Lords has published a report endorsing the music industry’s position: AI companies shouldn’t be given a free ride and must get licences when making use of existing content…

Chris Cooke • 06 Mar 2026

No copyright for AI-generated works in US as Supreme Court refuses to intervene in earlier landmark ruling

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Artificial Intelligence • 3 min read

No copyright for AI-generated works in US as Supreme Court refuses to intervene in earlier landmark ruling

Do AI-generated works enjoy copyright protection? The US Copyright Office is adamant they do not under current American law and that position has been endorsed by various courts. The Supreme Court has now declined to get involved, meaning that position stands. But should AI works enjoy protection?…

Chris Cooke • 03 Mar 2026

Suno is a feral pig rampaging through a well-tended garden, say creator orgs

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Suno • 7 min read

Suno is a feral pig rampaging through a well-tended garden, say creator orgs

A coalition of creator organisations has published a scathing open letter comparing Suno to jewel thieves, arguing the AI platform built its $2.45bn valuation on unlicensed scraping, pays almost nothing to creators, and has become a fraud-fodder factory on an industrial scale…

Sam Taylor • 25 Feb 2026

Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota said “independent music is not raw material for tech companies to exploit without consent” before quitting to join AI music scraper-in-chief Suno

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Merlin • 4 min read

Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota said “independent music is not raw material for tech companies to exploit without consent” before quitting to join AI music scraper-in-chief Suno

No more TED talks, daddy! Ex-Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota has moved to the dark side and joined one of the very companies he railed against. Having defended Merlin members against the predations of big tech, Sirota has signed up as big cheese of all things commercial at music scraping slop factory Suno…

Sam Taylor • 24 Feb 2026

Anna’s Archive rolls out the red carpet for robots - and asks them to “persuade” their humans to make donations

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Anna's Archive • 10 min read

Anna’s Archive rolls out the red carpet for robots - and asks them to “persuade” their humans to make donations

Anna’s Archive has published a page politely asking AI robots to make a donation to fund piracy - or, failing that, to persuade their humans to do it for them. It sounds absurd, but maybe tells you more about how the AI training data market actually works than the hype around all things AI ever will…

Sam Taylor • 18 Feb 2026