Instrumental Intel - Ep 113 Beats & the Music Biz Brief (6-27-26)

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Achickwitbeatz presents ⁠the Instrumental Intel podcast⁠, bringing you information instrumental to your artistic career including music industry news & tips, insights & interviews, and beats for your inspiration. Listen on Saturdays at 7 pm EST on ⁠⁠⁠Grander Radio⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Achickwitbeatz.com⁠⁠⁠.
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Instrumental Intel - Ep 113 Beats & the Music Biz Brief (6-27-26)

Achickwitbeatz

Instrumental Intel Podcast

Achickwitbeatz brings you information instrumental to your artistic career including music industry news, insights, interviews, and beats for your inspiration. Listen on Saturdays at 7 pm ET on ⁠⁠⁠Grander Radio,⁠⁠⁠ Achickwitbeatz.com⁠⁠⁠, and your favorite podcast platform.

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Transcript Generated by Riverside

00:00

Hey, thank you so much for tuning into Instrumental Intel. I'm your host, music producer, Achickwitbeatz, and I'm glad that you've joined me. Today's episode has music industry news and instrumentals by me for your inspiration. So pretty much a light episode with tons of information, but enough to keep you going.  All right, before I go ahead and drop that first beat, I gotta give a shout out to my home station, Grand Radio out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. And with that,  let's go!

[BEAT BREAK]

17:05

Hey, this is music producer Achickwitbeatz, and you're listening to my podcast Instrumental Intel.

 [BEAT BREAK]

26:26

Hey, I'm Achickwitbeatz, multi-genre music producer and strategist to indie artists and labels. Visit achickwitbeatz.com for resources for artists and instrumentals in various genres available for songs, vlogs, blogs, podcasts, themes, TV, film, commercials, and more. Once again, that's achickwitbeatz.com. That's A-C-H-I-C-K-W-I-T-B-E-A-T-Z.com. Let's make something happen.

26:56

Hey, I'm music producer Achickwitbeatz, back with the music biz brief. First up,  an open letter to music labels and publishers to stop misusing creators' rights and AI deals was published by a coalition of 31 groups representing songwriters, artists, and music managers. Coordinated by the European Music Managers Alliance, the letter addresses the new practice of adding AI rights clauses to deals as a condition of signing.

27:20

says consent shouldn't be imposed through default opt-ins, but artists should have the right to decline without fear of being penalized. It requests no default opt-ins, no forced AI clauses, and no use of the artist's work, voice, performance, likeness, or creative identity without meaningful consent, fair remuneration, and full transparency. The BMG and Concord merger was approved by regulators in Germany and the US,

27:46

and is expected to close in Q4 of this year, creating what Reuters calls the world's fourth-largest music company. The combined company will keep the BMG brand, with its publishing and recording branches named BMG Publishing and Concord Records, respectively. Bertelsmann will own roughly 67% and longtime Concord investor Great Mountain Partners affiliates will own 33%. The latter will receive a one-time $1.16 billion cash payment for the transaction.

28:15

Concord CEO Bob Valentine will be CEO of the newly formed company with BMG CEO Thomas Colesfield serving as chairman and in January of next year, CEO of its parent company, Bertelsmann. Music and lyrics annotation company Genius has appointed executives to oversee its expansion into music data licensing, consumer products, sales, and brand partnerships. Chief revenue officer Jackie Vignone, not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, will focus on converting its audience reach

28:45

cultural currency, and proprietary music data into revenue opportunities across the music ecosystem. VP of Marketing and Creative Strategy, Sarah Kern, will manage the go-to-market strategy for data-driven artist tools and other business-to-consumer and business-to-business products. Music Partnerships and Development Lead, Gabe Silverman, will manage relationship growth across DSPs, publishers, labels,  distributors, and music brands.

29:10

The major labels and BMG want the ruling allowing songwriters to reclaim the worldwide rights to their music to be overturned. They've asked the US Supreme Court to reverse the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision claiming it will cause “chaos” for the music industry. Until January of this year, the US Copyright Act of 1976 only allowed creators to regain their US rights after 35 years or 56 years if it was created before 1978.

29:38

with publishers retaining overseas rights. It's anticipated that the court will decide whether to accept the case or not within the next few months. Influence Media Partners won its bid to purchase Anthem Entertainment's music assets for over $650 million.  Pending approval from Canada's federal cultural department, Canadian Heritage, the deal includes its music publishing catalogs, master recordings portfolio, and Sony Pictures Entertainment publishing catalog. According to Billboard,

30:06

Roughly 50 % of the asset's revenue comes from publishing, 30 % from film and TV catalog, and 20 % from passive artists royalties. Spotify is beta testing direct artists music video uploads in the Spotify for Artists dashboard.  In direct competition with YouTube, the company says videos will be chart eligible.  Originally, music videos were only accepted through labels and distributors, but the current beta gives the option to tens of thousands of artists.

30:33

Lyric videos, visualizers, and multi-song concerts aren't supported at this time.  And I would urge you, if that's something that you're interested in, if it's available to you, kind of consider what could happen if Spotify begins to undercut YouTube in this area,  considering they pay their creators quite differently. So you kind of don't want them to cut out the competition that pays you a little bit better than Spotify does. Anywho.

31:01

Totally up to you, that's my two cents. Let's keep it moving. Tringbox, an Indian AI background music startup that works with hotels, cafes, bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, also offers QR-based solutions for consumer song requests. With what the company calls an AI-assisted messaging and request layer between guests and DJs, patrons can use the QR codes in the venue to ask an artist or DJ to play a song. If it passes Tringbox's AI vibe check,

31:29

which is criteria specified by the venue's music policy. It will be visible to the performer in the Tringbox partner app, where they can accept or decline the requests, earn through tips, and more. The Reserve by Spotify ticket reservation system is now available in the U.S. for premium subscribers 18 and up. The initiative identifies an artist's top fans and holds two tickets for them before general sales open to the public. Currently, it's only available for artists playing at Live Nation shows, and tickets are purchased through Ticketmaster.

31:58

Spotify says it won't collect transaction fees and plans to add international users and additional partners, including small venues. The platform says it'll monitor signals to prevent users from using bots or AI agents to abuse the system. Bose is expanding beyond audio equipment and launching Bose Records to promote new and under-exposed artists and use their music for free in Bose commercials.

32:22

Their chief marketing officer says the company doesn't want to own the artists' masters or take a percentage of streams or sales, and artists can sign with other labels. The company plans to offer a YouTube series, podcasts, and live music events, most of which present opportunities to generate ad revenue. So just something to be aware of. Deezer launched Remix Lab, offering fans the ability to remix music from major artists with full rights compliance and in agreement with the artists through contests.

32:52

Initially launched in France, it could potentially be available internationally in the near future.  The platform says it's the first music streaming service to do so, and that every stream generated from the remixes will compensate the artist in connection with the original work. Contests can be found in the app, either in the Deezer Club or the artist's page, and remixes will become immediately streamable and can be added to playlists. Winners will be announced in September, have the remix on a featured playlist,

33:20

receive two tickets to a Deezer Purple Door event and merch from the artist they remixed. So this seems to be a great answer to what Spotify has done with AI remixes on their platform, especially since Deezer has a very strict policy against completely AI-generated music. Media Research's Music Subscriber Market Shares report says the global number of subscribers hit 921.6 million in 2025, up 10% from 2024.

33:48

Spotify holds the largest share at 31.4%,followed by Tencent Music Entertainment at 13.8%, Apple Music at 12.6%, YouTube Music at 12.4%, and Amazon Music at 8.5%. Globally, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tencent Music all lost market share in 2025. Percentage-wise,  YouTube Music saw the fastest growth and is projected to top Tencent Music and Apple Music this year.  In the mental region,

34:17

YouTube Music already took the number one spot bump in Spotify down the list. According to Media, was the fifth consecutive year that Latin America, Asia Pacific, and what they call quote unquote rest of world collectively accounted for over 70 % of global music subscription growth.  Suno,  an AI music platform being sued for training its models on copyrighted music without permission, is launching a new quote unquote incubator program for independent artists called Spark.

34:45

In what could be seen as an attempt to improve its public perception amongst music creators, the company says it'll offer grants, mentorship, and marketing to help artists grow quote-unquote both on and beyond Suno. Do with that information what you will. If that's something that you're interested in, I would urge you to be careful. TrackSource teamed up with AI Detection Company Sound Patrol and SH Labs to properly identify and classify music sent to the platform.  Beginning July 1st,

35:14

Fully AI-generated music will be flagged for removal, while AI-assisted or human-made music will be labeled accordingly. Traxsource previously stated that AI could be acceptably used as part of the human-driven creative process, but 100 % AI-generated music does not belong on their platform. They want listeners to be able to make informed decisions according to their personal preferences concerning AI-assisted music. Traxsource has a rebuttal process in place to submit disputes for mislabeled music.

35:43

Stockholm-based music tech company, Reaction Music, won €2.5 million (which is $2.86 million dollars) in grant money from the European Innovation Council through the EIC accelerator. Specializing in music for video games, the tech firm's patented Reaction Music engine enables players to personalize in-game music and developers to make soundtracks that react in real time without changing master recordings.

36:08

The awarded funds will be used to scale commercially with the potential to receive up to 9 million euros, which is about $10.3 million, from the EIC, as the council has allocated up to $7.45 million in prospective equity to match future capital. 10 K-pop agencies were chosen for South Korea's government-funded Global Leap Forward support project to help them expand overseas.  Each will receive up to 300 million won, which is  $197,000.

36:37

annually for up to three years to use for international touring, marketing, and music videos.  According to the Ministry of Culture, global K-pop exports grew 32.4% last year, and the “Big Four” K-pop conglomerates spend an average of 29 times more than smaller agencies. So the project aims to reduce the gap and add 10 agencies annually. And finally,

37:00

trade association Music Canada won the country its first-ever site blocking order against those that ripped copyrighted music from licensed streaming platforms like YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify. For two years, major Canadian internet service providers must use DNS blocking or rerouting for the offending domains, displaying a notification alerting visitors why the site isn't available anymore. The operators were ordered to cease infringing activities and deactivate the domains.

37:27

Music Canada may expand the block list in the future without a new hearing should similar domains arise later. Alright, and that's a wrap for the music biz brief. I'm going to get back to the beats, and then I'll be back to close out the episode with you. Keep it locked!

[BEAT BREAK]

51:33

Hey, this is music producer Achickwitbeatz, and you're listening to my podcast Instrumental Intel.

[BEAT BREAK]

59:30

Alright, and that's a wrap for this episode of Instrumental Intel. I've been your host, music producer Achickwitbeatz. And once again, I wanna thank you for tuning in. I wanna thank my home station, Grander Radio out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.  If you've enjoyed any of the music that you've heard, please do find and follow me on your favorite music platform. I got more goodness coming your way. And same thing with the podcast, more goodness lined up for next week as well. So, till next time, you know where to find me. Tune in, tell a friend, and I'll see you then.  Peace.