Welcome to our Weekly Headline Roundup!
This week, we’re looking at copyright for book authors vs. AI, Chartmetric’s new report, Budweiser’s music rights misstep, and more.
What Book Authors’ AI Copyright Court Losses Mean for the Music Business
While the first copyright rulings have come out on the side of AI platforms, this is hardly a death knell for the music giants’ lawsuits against Suno, Udio and Anthropic, legal experts say.
– Rachel Scharf, Billboard
Chartmetric’s new Make Music Equal report tracks gender representation across 1 million artists
Music analytics company Chartmetric has published its 2025 Make Music Equal Report, which presents the company’s analysis of pronoun data from a database of over one million artists across 230 countries and territories.
– Murray Stassen, Music Business Worldwide
First released in 2018, Chartmetric says that its Make Music Equal initiative began as a “data-driven approach for measuring and improving the structural inequities of today’s music industry”.
Budweiser boasts of “$0 spent on music rights” in “iconic songs” campaign, wins ad-land’s biggest prize
Budweiser, the king of carbonated disappointment in a can, is proud that it’s found an apparent loophole that means it doesn’t need to pay for “music right$” when harnessing “the most iconic songs in the world” to shill its sad excuse for a beer. And now it’s won an award
– Sam Taylor & Chris Cooke, Complete Music Update
Metallica Issues A Copyright Strike Against the U.S. Government—Over A Pentagon Drone Video
Metallica issued a copyright strike against the U.S. government’s Department of Defense (DoD) after a video showcasing a new drone used “Enter Sandman” without permission.
– Ashley King, Digital Music News