Alternative rock band Wet Leg has been a favorite in the virtual Jaybird office ever since “Chaise Longue” came out back in 2021. Now they’ve returned with a new album, moisturizer, and some new life circumstances – and it all rocks!

– Bill Greenwood, Jaybird Communications

We are living through a peculiar moment in media evolution, where the traditional categories used to organising content – TV, radio, podcast, film – are collapsing under their own weight. Not because they are obsolete, but because they do not reflect how audiences are consuming media. Curiously, it seems the more platforms we create, the less the platforms seem to matter.

– Laura Fisher, MIDiA Research

AI company Anthropic recently scored a big win in a copyright battle with three authors when – in a landmark ruling – US judge William Alsup said that training a generative AI model by making copies of legitimately sourced books was ‘fair use’. However, that big win could as yet turn into a trillion dollar loss, because Anthropic also copied millions of illegitimately sourced books when training its Claude AI model.cuse for a beer. And now it’s won an award

– Chris Cooke, Complete Music Update

Whether music is created by machine or human, inauthentic streams distort engagement and siphon royalties. Bots, clickfarms and manipulated playlists are common tactics being used across the digital ecosystem to manufacture popularity. By some estimates, 5 to 10 percent of all streams are inauthentic. That’s billions of listens, and real royalties being redirected from legitimate creators to fraudsters jumping into the royalty pool. It’s organized and sophisticated manipulation that’s leading to lawsuits and criminal investigations.

– Michael Lewan, Billboard

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms has indicated it won’t be signing on to the European Union’s voluntary AI Code of Practice, which includes restrictions on how AI companies can collect copyrighted content. In a statement posted to LinkedIn on Friday (July 18), Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, Joel Kaplan, said the EU “is going down the wrong path” on AI policy.

– Daniel Tencer, Music Business Worldwide

Earlier this month US President Donald Trump indicated that a deal was nearly done that would see a group of “very wealthy” Americans take ownership of TikTok’s US operations, satisfying demands made by US Congress last year regarding TikTok’s ownership, and stopping the TikTok app from being banned in the country. However, current TikTok owner ByteDance seemed less certain any deal had been agreed, and now one of the backers of that deal, private equity giant Blackstone, has reportedly bailed.

– Chris Cooke, Complete Music Update

US Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have introduced the ‘AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act’, a legislation designed to “establish a Federal tort relating to the appropriation, use, collection, processing, sale, or other exploitation of individuals’ data without express, prior consent.”

– Emmanuel Legrand, Creative Industries News

In spring 2025, MIDiA embarked on a global survey of close to 800 songwriters, alongside detailed interviews with several respondents. The results, published on July 10, paint a picture of reinvention. Rather than struggling to make ends meet in a system that does not serve them, a new class of songwriters are reinventing their role entirely – and the ripple effects on the wider music industry are just beginning.

– Tatiana Cirisano, MIDiA Research

… it does reflect the biggest challenge for the creative industries right now: that some policymakers and politicians are so focused on AI being a race against China that has to be won; and so seduced by the promise of everything AI can do – “an industrial revolution, an information revolution, and a renaissance – all at once” as the White House’s action plan puts it – that they see copyright as a barrier to be swept out of the way.

– Stuart Dredge, Music Ally