We are the music makers

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Industry

  • Live Nation after the verdict: the fight that matters to artists is over who books the big rooms

    Six months after a jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable for monopolisation, the judge had not ruled, as far as we could find, on throwing out the verdict, and the federal settlement is still under review. A new filing says President Trump briefly appeared at the March meeting where it was agreed. For working artists, ticket fees matter less than whether Live Nation can keep tying its promotion to the venues it controls.

    Artist rightsvia US Department of Justice, Antitrust Division

  • India's labels want streaming services to pay nothing for AI "slop". Who decides what counts?

    Saregama's managing director Vikram Mehra says labels in India and globally are working with the three leading streaming services so that purely AI-generated music gets no share of the royalty pool. The principle protects human artists, but it leaves open who draws the line, how AI-assisted work is treated, and who keeps the money that slop no longer earns.

    Industryvia Deezer Newsroom

  • FTC v. Ticketmaster survives dismissal: the BOTS Act and fee claims head to discovery

    On 28 September 2026 a federal judge in Los Angeles refused to throw out the FTC and seven states' case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster over broker-friendly ticket limits and drip pricing. That isn't a finding that the companies broke the law. It does let the case go ahead on the theory that a ticket platform can be liable under the BOTS Act for reselling tickets brokers got around its limits to buy, and that theory is the part of the ruling artists should care about.

    Artist rightsvia US District Court for the Central District of California (copy hosted by TicketNews)

  • Phonorecords V: what Spotify, Apple and Amazon want to pay songwriters for 2028 to 2032

    Publishers want a 20% headline streaming mechanical rate for 2028 to 2032. Spotify, Apple, Google and Pandora want to keep 15.35%, and Amazon wants it cut to 13.4%. Meanwhile, a deal on CD, vinyl and download rates, struck mostly by labels and their sister publishers, is being challenged by the independent songwriters it left out.

    Industryvia Copyright Royalty Board, Library of Congress (Federal Register)

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