AI covers built from North Carolina folk singer Murphy Campbell's YouTube performances appeared on streaming services under her name, then her own videos of public-domain songs were hit with copyright claims. The Musicians' Union now uses her case to argue for UK personality rights. Her story suggests a right on paper is only the first of three things artists need.
Artist rightsvia Musicians' Union
Luminate's 2026 midyear report puts South Korea third in its Export Power Rankings, up from fourth in 2025, and credits BTS's ARIRANG. The same report shows Korean-language songs holding steady at 1.1% of US streams, and ARIRANG's US success running on CD sales more than streams. One comeback can move a country's ranking without changing what most listeners choose to play, and that matters for every act not singing in English.
Industryvia Luminate
BandLab Technologies has bought Aiode, whose AI "musician models" are built with named session players who get a share of the tokens spent on their model. It is a better deal for players than scraped training, but neither company says how big that share is.
AIvia BandLab Technologies
Sony Music Publishing has closed its purchase of Recognition Music Group's 45,000-song catalogue, the former Hipgnosis portfolio, at a price reported at $3.5 billion to $4 billion. For the writers whose shares are inside it, the songs are now with their third owner, and each sale has taken them further from the people who wrote them.
Industryvia GIC (joint press release with Sony Music Publishing and Blackstone)
FL Studio 2026 lets its Gopher assistant act inside a project, routing audio, setting levels and writing scripts, while coverage of the launch says it won't write melodies or chords, draw automation or pick presets. That line is the right one. The harder question is the request log Image-Line keeps, with no stated retention period.
Releasesvia Image-Line
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