It’s the weekly headline roundup!
This week we’re looking at UMG’s latest earnings, the latest on Suno’s legal fight, Spotify’s AI remix product, and more.
Universal Music Group Generated $3.90B in Q3, Up 11.7% YOY
Universal Music Group generated revenues of EUR €3.394 billion (USD $3.90B) across all of its divisions (including recorded music, publishing, and more) in Q3 (the three months ending September 30, 2026).
– Tim Ingham, Music Business Worldwide
That’s according to UMG‘s latest quarterly results, published on Thursday (October 29).
They reveal that UMG’s overall Q3 revenue grew 11.7% YoY at constant currency, a figure that includes the consolidation of Downtown Music Holdings.
UMG talks AI music: ‘The volume is growing faster than the safeguards’
Universal Music Group’s quarterly financial earnings-call yesterday saw boss Sir Lucian Grainge sounding the latest alarm around AI music. He cited Deezer’s latest figures showing more than 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks are being uploaded to streaming services every day.
– Stuart Dredge, Music Ally
“The volume is growing faster than the safeguards,” warned Grainge, despite listing various measures that UMG and its DSP partners have taken to deal with the slop-torrent. “Many of our DSP partners are also taking meaningful steps, and we welcome that progress, but the scale of the problem is still outpacing the guardrails.”
Here’s Every Company Fighting Subpoenas in Suno’s Legal Fight with Universal and Sony Music
As Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music continue battling Suno in court over seismic questions about AI training, both sides have sought to gather evidence from other key market players. But not everyone wants to give it over.
– Rachel Scharf, Billboard
The landmark music industry lawsuit is nearly two years into an arduous evidence discovery process that’s set to continue through mid-2027. After that, a judge will decide whether or not it was “fair use” for Suno to train its popular AI music service on millions of unlicensed tracks owned by UMG and Sony (Warner Music Group was initially a plaintiff in the lawsuit as well, but it reached a licensing settlement with Suno last year).
Spotify aiming to get AI remix product live in early 2027, even though it remains unclear if artists and fans are all that interested in it
2027, according to a report in the Financial Times, although its sources concede that an exact timeline is yet to be finalised, and it’s not yet been decided how much to charge users to access the new add-on service.
– Chris Cooke, CMU
The music industry, and especially Universal Music, is very excited about the commercial potential of using AI to remix and cover existing tracks and songs, rather than using AI to generate new music. However, it’s not yet clear that artists and fans share that excitement.