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In the Era of Average AI Music, What’s ‘The Human Premium’?
AI is very good at creating—or regurgitating—perfectly average, unoriginal music in extreme quantities. That is a big, big problem for human musicians who are also creating perfectly average, unoriginal music, regardless of how much of it they make.  We are entering a world where “pretty good” is available on demand. There is no scarcity anymore. If you want another pleasant ambient track, another competent pop song or another piece of background music that sounds vaguely like something you have already heard, AI can make thousands of them before lunch. That changes the equation for musicians.  If AI has already mastered average, I do not think competing with it on volume, technical perfection or speed makes any sense. We are going to lose that contest. Machines can work faster, generate more alternatives and endlessly revise themselves without getting tired, discouraged or needing to go get a sandwich. For musicians, simply making “good music” is no longer enough. There is too much good music already, and there is about to be exponentially more of it. We have to develop musical identities that are recognizable. We have to become better performers and communicators. We have to make choices that reveal something about who we are instead of constantly trying to approximate what is already successful.  Most importantly, I think we have to become more willing to take creative risks.  And that may ultimately be the unexpected gift of this moment. AI is going to become extraordinarily good at staying inside the lines. That leaves a tremendous amount of territory for human beings who are willing to scribble outside of them.  The future may not belong to the musician who can make the most music or even the most technically perfect music.  It may belong to the musician who can make something that could only have come from them.

 

‘AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act’ Inches Closer to Becoming Law
The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act is scheduled for a standalone floor vote in the U.S. House of Representatives during the week of September 14.  On Thursday, a report from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) revealed that U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) has scheduled the ‘AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act’ for a standalone floor vote during the week of September 14.  The announcement not only curbs concerns that the legislation might end up sidelined until a lame-duck session post-election or attached to broader transportation legislation but also suggests that the bill may finally have the support its advocates have been working toward. The legislation would require the secretary of transportation to conduct a rule-making proceeding to be completed in one year that mandates AM receivers to be included in all vehicles sold in the U.S. as a standard feature without extra cost to buyers. The bill has 317 co-sponsors in the House and 61 in the Senate. The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act was reintroduced in the current (119th) Congress after the previous legislative cycle ended without a floor vote despite broad bipartisan support. The 119th Congress concludes its session at the end of the year.

 

Suno admits it obtained YouTube audio to train its AI – but challenges UMG and Sony’s standing to bring ‘stream ripping’ claim
Suno has admitted in a court filing that it obtained audio data from YouTube for use as training data.
The admission appears in the AI music company’s answer to the first amended complaint from UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, and Sony Music Entertainment.  Suno also alleges that the labels have engaged in “anticompetitive activities that extend an unlawful monopoly” over music.  And it challenges whether they have standing to bring their YouTube “stream ripping” claim.  The 26-page document was filed on September 1 in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. On the technology at the center of the claim, Suno says it “presently lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief” about YouTube‘s “intent in designing any particular technology.”  On the scale of its training, Suno admits that its model was built by showing the program “tens of millions of instances of different kinds of recordings gathered from publicly available sources.” Starting September 3, Suno is capping monthly downloads at 20 for Pro subscribers, 60 for Premier, and 7 in total for free users.

 

The importance of keeping your studio gear in tune and producing their best tone
Making an inspired recording can be challenging enough without having to wonder if your musical equipment is up to the task. Whether it’s guitars, keyboards or percussion, here we review the importance of keeping all of your instruments in tune and producing their best tone, using fresh strings, adjusting playing action as necessary, avoiding worn batter heads, plus having electronic tuners and tuning keys at the ready. Start with Fresh Strings, Keeping Tabs of Your Tuning, Good Batter Heads Matter,Acoustic Piano Care.  Click here to read the entire article.

 

AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them? (for all the AI proponents)
Alarming warnings from industry insiders increase pressure for curbs on artificial superintelligence
Does artificial super intelligence really pose a risk greater than nuclear weapons? Is there a significant chance of “a Chernobyl-sized catastrophe”. Might there even be a greater than 10% chance that AI could “kill all humans” in the next decade?  These warnings were issued over the past 48 hours on both sides of the Atlantic about the potential impact of a technology that most people still think of as a more talkative search engine.  Some of the threats were raised in the UK as MPs and peers began to wrestle with the danger of AI outperforming human capabilities. The nuclear warnings came from Des Browne, a former defence secretary, and Prof Stuart Russell, an eminent Berkeley computer scientist.  Beatrice Fihn, who won the 2017 Nobel peace prize for leading the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told parliamentarians: “It is not the first time we’re confronted with abilities that could end up killing us all.” On Tuesday night, a senior employee at Anthropic admitted he believed there was a greater than 10% chance the technology could “kill all humans” in the next decade and warned that his AI company did not have a plan to ensure ASI was aligned, meaning it did no harm. Predictions for when ASI might be reached vary from several years to more than a decade. Evan Hubinger, alignment science lead at Anthropic, posted the comment after Jacob Coxon, a 28-year-old researcher at the San Francisco company and previously at OpenAI, resigned, claiming “neither company was acting responsibly”. He said they were “gambling with our lives”.

 

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell sue Anthropic in multi-billion dollar lawsuit: ‘One of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.’
With Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music launching their own suit as plaintiffs, the publishing arms of all three major music companies are now litigating against the Claude maker.
Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO sued Anthropic in Nashville in October 2023 over roughly 500 songs, in a case later transferred to California.  The same publishers filed a second suit in January 2026 covering more than 20,000 works and seeking over USD $3 billion.
BMG brought a third case against Anthropic in March 2026 over 493 compositions, and Round Hill Music filed a fourth on August 17.  Sony and Warner are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work willfully infringed, plus up to $25,000 for each alleged removal of copyright management information. 
Among the innumerable copyrighted works Defendants illegally harvested to fuel Claude are thousands upon thousands of Music Publishers’ copyrighted musical compositions, including such beloved songs as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “All I Want for Christmas is You,” “Eye of the Tiger,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” and “Paper Rings.” In blatant violation of copyright law, Defendants have unlawfully acquired troves of Music Publishers’ musical compositions, and then systematically copied those works multiple times, including as the inputs to train Anthropic’s Claude AI models and in the outputs those models generate.” The complaint identifies “tens of thousands” of the publishers’ allegedly infringed compositions – a characterization that would place Anthropic‘s theoretical statutory exposure in the multi-billion-dollar range.

 

Recording/Posting Performances Online
A common misconception is that permission to perform a musical work live also grants permission to further record and post performances on the internet. Under the Copyright Act, recording and posting a performance of a copyrighted work implicates other exclusive rights like the right to reproduce, distribute, or further publicly perform the copyrighted musical works beyond any original licensing term or what an exception permits. The recording effectively contains a reproduction of the underlying musical work and posting it online could implicate the distribution right where the recording could be further downloaded by a public audience. Recording and posting performances and rehearsals online is an increasingly common practice, whether on public platforms such as YouTube or private password-protected pages for students and parents. Although these recordings are often for legitimate reasons, such as letting families view concerts they missed or allowing students to review rehearsals, some of them could result in unintentional infringement. Livestreaming performances could have similar issues (even if there is no permanent recording made from the stream), especially if the original license permitting the performance in the first place was limited to in-person live events with no additional livestreaming or other forms of digital public performances. Accordingly, one should familiarize themselves with the licensing policies of the publishers whose music they perform and, when in doubt, request permission before recording or distributing performances. 

 

When It Rains, It Pours: SOCAN Sues Suno for Allegedly ‘Engaging in Rampant Copyright Infringement on a Massive Scale’
SOCAN submitted the straightforward complaint to Canada’s Federal Court today, moments after activist artist David Lowery as well as Latin label Gerencia 360 fired off distinct actions against Suno in the U.S.
(Also, late July saw GEMA secure a copyright legal victory over Suno in Germany; the defendant is appealing.) Despite the clear-cut differences between those plaintiffs and to some extent their precise claims, the suits touch on the same main points.  Letting the SOCAN action take the wheel, Suno allegedly “acted in bad faith by helping itself to a massive number of SOCAN Works” – meaning the works of its members – “without first seeking or obtaining a license to do so.”  And that allegedly enabled the well-funded AI upstart to create its models, develop a huge userbase in part by dealing in “identical or substantially similar” outputs, and “build a commercial enterprise that is now worth billions of dollars.” Regardless of where the cards fall here – actually, some stateside courts have been receptive to the idea that training models on protected media constitutes fair use – it’ll take a while yet for a precedent to emerge.  More immediately, the past month has also seen Suno resolve a couple copyright cases and prevent a BMG/Concord confrontation by inking a licensing pact.

 

Why CDs May Be Making a Comeback
You may have heard about the uptick in CD sales in 2026, so here's why the format may be making a comeback, according to a vinyl industry expert. Luminate's mid-year report came out in July and noted that CD sales outpaced vinyl during the first half of the year in the United States. Sales of the former format increased over 16 percent and the latter only grew by 2.4 percent from last year. Nearly 10 percent of the spike in CD sales was due to K-pop releases, but even without K-pop, the disc still saw a 6.7 percent increase. The popularity of the CD as a format started to wane in the 2000s and then digital and streaming services took over as the predominant platform for music consumption for some time as vinyl slowly started to make a comeback. LP sales spiked in 2007 and have been steadily climbing since then — but it seems that its ascent may have finally started to slow down as we're seeing an uptick in CD sales again. It began in early 2022 when Billboard reported that, for the first time since 2004, CD sales improved year-over-year in 2021 (albeit by a 1.1 percent increase, but up is up). What's happening? Why does the popularity of the formats seem to shift back and forth? Will vinyl cease to be the most popular format and CDs make a real comeback? There's no real way to predict the future and what's going to change within the world of music consumption, but we wanted to speak with someone who works in the vinyl industry and see what they think about these trends to get a better idea. We reached out to a longtime veteran of the music business with deep ties to indie retail and the vinyl format, who will remain unnamed for privacy reasons, to ask whether the rising cost of vinyl records has anything to do with the spike in CD sales, whether they think CDs will become the leading music format again and more.

 

How Songwriters Get Paid
Songwriter royalties in America are dictated by processes imposed by the Federal Government! Songwriters cannot increase their mechanical and performance royalty income even if their cost of doing business increases. Outside of negotiated “synch” agreements, songwriters can only deny a license for the first use of a song. Subsequent uses are under a “compulsory” license.  Mechanical Royalty – A songwriter receives a mechanical royalty from the sale of a song on an album, a legal digital download or any physical product. This rate is set by a Copyright Royalty Board made up of 3 judges who meet every 5 years to set rates. The original mechanical royalty was established in 1909 and set at 2 cents. Today, the current rate is 12.4 cents (typically split with co-writers and publishers) for songs under five minutes long. Songs longer than five minutes receive a royalty of 2.39 cents per minute. A cost-of-living increase will happen periodically. In the United States songwriters can join the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) who will collect their digital royalties for no charge since streaming companies are required to fund the MLC.

How Much Streaming Platforms Pay Per Stream in 2026

Performance Royalty – A songwriter receives a performance royalty when their song is performed on terrestrial broadcast radio, television, in a live performance venue or business, or via online streaming services. In the United States, performance royalties are paid through Performing Rights Organizations (PRO) such as ASCAP, BMI, GMR, SESAC and smaller PROs. ASCAP and BMI are governed by consent decrees through the U.S. Department of Justice from WWII requiring them to go to rate court who sets payments.  Synchronization Fees – A songwriter receives a “synch” fee when his/her song is licensed for use to synchronize with video (i.e., television, movie, YouTube). This fee is negotiated in the marketplace and is typically split 50% to the writers and 50% to the artist and record label. Depending on the specific agreement synch placements may or may not also produce royalty income.  There are other unique payments for song dramatic song uses such as plays, opera, ballet, etc.--called “Grand Rights.” Those rights are generally negotiated with the producer. Key Takeaways: Qobuz pays the most per stream at roughly $0.015 to $0.019, followed by Tidal ($0.013 to $0.015), Apple Music ($0.007 to $0.01), Deezer ($0.005 to $0.007), Amazon Music (around $0.004), Spotify ($0.003 to $0.005), and YouTube Music ($0.001 to $0.002).  Premium subscriber streams pay roughly two-and-a-half to three times more than ad-supported streams.  No platform pays a flat rate per play. Each service splits a revenue pool by every artist's share of total streams.

 

Young People are Making CDs Cool Again.
Compact discs are back, with searches for players up 96%. With more than 800 million people subscribing to a music streaming service, wireless speakers have become a familiar sight in homes. But expect to get reacquainted with a different object to play music soon: the CD player, once consigned to obsolescence, is back. This tallies, of course, with sales of CDs themselves. A report this year found that the growth of CD sales is up 16%, compared with vinyl’s 2.4%. HMV reports that sales of CDs are up 10% year on year – thanks to artists often providing unique content on the format. The CD revival is part of a wider fashion for retro tech. As well as the vinyl resurgence and cassettes becoming popular items to buy, there’s the vogue for wearing wired earphones over AirPods.  Arguably, the CD is the final revival available to young people – it’s the last format for music before the MP3 arrived in the early 2000s. 

 

Our Culture Is Filled With Music With No Place for Musicians…Is Supply and Demand Upside Down?
QUESTION: Can a culture be filled with music while musicians become economically disposable? The answer seems to be an overwhelming “yes”.  In fact, that may be the defining contradiction of the modern music business. We are way past the demand of music, folks.  Music is everywhere. It plays in stores, restaurants, gyms, offices, films, television shows, video games, podcasts, social posts, waiting rooms and elevators. It wakes us up, helps us work, sells us products, regulates our moods and fills every uncomfortable silence. We consume more music in more places, for more hours of the day, than any previous generation could have imagined.  Yet the people making that music are increasingly treated as though they are incidental to the process. The modern economy wants music constantly, but it does not necessarily want musicians. Music files have no such demands. They can be stored, copied, streamed, licensed, repackaged and placed into playlists without ever asking who benefits.  The business has learned to separate the value of music from the value of the person who created it. Music remains culturally essential, but musicians are told they are replaceable. (THANK YOU AI!) That separation is not accidental. It is the business model. This is what happens when your product is scalable but your workforce is not. (HELLO..McFLY!!) Streaming platforms need an endless supply of recordings. Social platforms need sounds that keep users watching. Advertisers need music to create emotion around products. Venues need performers to attract customers. Technology companies need creative work to train systems that will generate more creative work. Everyone needs music, but each part of the system is designed to minimize what it pays the musician. The (virtual) shelves are full. The playlists never end. The soundtrack plays everywhere. But the people who create the music, sweat the details and hope for the best have been priced out of their own industry — maybe forever…let's hope not!

 

90,000 AI tracks flood uploads daily – passing 50% of all new music uploads for the first time
The volume of fully AI-generated music being uploaded to streaming services has surged yet again.
According to eye-opening new stats revealed by Paris-headquartered streaming service Deezer today (July 21), fully AI-generated music accounted for more than half of all new tracks uploaded to its platform for the first time in June.  Deezer says it was receiving nearly 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day in June.  On peak days, that content made up more than 50% of all new music delivered to the service. The 90,000-a-day peak marks an escalation from the 75,000 AI tracks a day, or 44% of daily deliveries. The trend has prompted a  record-industry push for transparency, with the RIAA and IFPI campaigning to label AI tracks as either “AI-generated” or “AI-assisted” across the world’s streaming services. Deezer says it detected and tagged more than 13.4 million AI tracks across 2025, and that its tool can identify fully AI-generated music from generative models including Suno and Udio.

 

AI Could Use as Much Water as 1.3 Billion People by 2030
The water used by artificial intelligence is expected to equal the needs of 1.3 billion people by 2030—threatening natural resources for billions around the world. That’s according to a new report from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) which quantifies the carbon, water, and land footprints of AI's electricity use around the globe. The report finds that AI’s environmental cost is often mismeasured—focusing solely on carbon emissions. However, cooling and generating power for data centers comes with a “water footprint,” while the energy infrastructure and supply chains to build the data centers have a “land footprint.” These are important factors to consider, the report says, when analyzing the stressors a region might be facing due to data centers. By 2030, the report finds, global data centers powering artificial intelligence are projected to consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity. This is nearly triple the combined annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria—countries that together are home to more than 650 million people. The water footprint of data centers is projected to equal the basic domestic water needs of all 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa for a year, while their land footprint could exceed 5,590 square miles.But switching to cleaner sources of energy isn’t as simple as it sounds. Minimizing one footprint could come at the expense of magnifying another, researchers say. For example, switching from coal to bioenergy cuts electricity’s carbon footprint by 70%—but increases its water footprint more than 30-fold and its land footprint 100-fold. For a number of communities around the globe, AI is already using up significant energy resources. In 2025 alone, data centers consumed an estimated 448 terawatt-hours of electricity, the report found—more than the country of Saudi Arabia. In many cases, this excessive energy use comes at a cost to those who reside near them.