Prof Snyder's Music Biz News

Part 2 of 3: Once they competed, now they work together for the first time to create a new music ecosystem built around AI. Spotify, WMG, UMG, SONY Music, Believe, and Merlin joined forces in reaction to AI.

The labels have licensed their music to Spotify to be used in Spotify's new AI tools being developed. All in theory to better serve musicians and copyright holders, except of course those who aren't paid royalties because their song didn't achieve 1,000 streams in 1 year (where do those royalties go?)

What will happen to artists outside the new ecosystem? Part 3 will be the new DDEX AI music standard they agreed on. Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/04/spotify-and-labels-create-new-music.html

A brilliant (my opinion) world-wide promotional campaign by Taylor Swift for 'Life of a Showgirl' became tainted as her fans began to notice videos with 'A bartender's hand passing through a napkin. A disappearing coat hanger. A carousel horse with two heads.' Sure signs of AI residue, and fans weren't/aren't happy.

Will Smith, T Swift, and even Katy Perry, (at least their promo teams), are learning you can't fool the fans, and if you use AI for anything, quality control is imperative!!!

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/03/ai-and-orange-door.html

This is Part 1 of 3 podcasts of recent events that I believe are connected:

1. The Majors Swallow the Indies

2. Major Labels and Spotify's Agreement for Total Domination

3. New DDEX Standard for AI Influence in Music May Affect Music Uploads and Streaming

Universal Music Group, and the other majors, are buying indie music companies at a rapid pace. CDBaby, once seen as an alternative distributor for indie musicians, is now part of the corporate system. What does this mean for artists, maybe you, who preferred the freedom from corp ownership? UMG now represents BOTH its artists and (formally) independent musicians. Who do you think they might favor? It could be a big boost, or the silent fade of indies. All of the data, and future, of the indie companies, are now in the hands of the majors.

But...before you leave CDBaby and pull your music, be aware of the consequences that will have on your music. It's called the 'stickiness factor.'

(If you or anyone you know, are using any of the indie music companies, please share this podcast...be aware of what is happening to your music)

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/04/cdbaby-now-owned-by-umg-washing-of.html

Agentic AI. "AI that doesn’t solely rely on human prompts nor require human oversight."

Meta (Facebook) just bought the 1st all AI social media network, Moltbook. AI agents interact and talk to each other, even creating new religions for AI bots, humans aren't welcome.

Agentic AI agents are already creating music (a brief example is at the end of the video), new genres, and they're uploading to Spotify on their own.

They not only create music for human consumption, they create music for other bots to listen to.

There has already been a court case about if bot-to-bot music can be copyrighted. Will 10 years from now, or in a year, humans using SUNO with their pathetic human prompts to compose, be left behind as agentic AI bots, that 24 hours a day, on their own, create and upload a flood of license free music?

AI exclusive sites are spreading with all AI streaming platforms like MoltDJ, and other social media sites like MoltGram.

We humans can watch, but that's all. 2026 is the year of Agentic AI.

sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/03/2026-year-autonomous-bots-compose-music.html

YouTube

Ticket Scalpers for a Charles Dickens Reading Tour were called 'Sidewalk 'Men'.

The term scalper was first used in a book about the railroad.

The first bot scalper was used for U2's Vertigo Tour.

Now Ticketmaster/Live Nation are in court (now settled) because of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour ticket fiasco, the first time AI was used to scalp tickets for resale.

AI Scalping Bots have learned, and continue to learn, how to imitate humans. CHAPTAs aren't effective anymore, as AI Bots can even mimic frustrated humans trying to solve the puzzles. AI Ticket Scalpers have changed the ticketing industry forever as they constantly learn how to overcome obstacles, and there isn't anything (yet) that can stop them.

(As a sidenote...CHAPTAs collect more information about you than you're probably aware of!)

sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/03/live-nationticketmaster-go-to-court-ai.html

While AI detection tech is improving, SONY announced it has the tech that can identify the original music in AI generated songs by percentages...“30% of the music used is by the Beatles and 10% is by Queen.” Should artists begin the celebration? It may be too late!

The Internet is being divided up by the record labels into 'walled gardens,' charging tech companies to slip into the gardens and train AI on the music. It may be too late.

A nonprofit company you probably haven't heard of, Common Crawl, has been silently crawling and archiving the Internet for decades, and allows free access to the data. It is now the source of 80% of the data used to train AI, there wouldn't be a ChatGPT without it. I.E., everything on the Internet has already been gobbled up by AI. Can you name a song that hasn't been on the internet? Is walling off their existing IP and charging for AI access to the data, that AI probably already has, a way to provide legal cover for the AI tech companies? Does this mean there will be less 'free' Internet available after it is carved up by big corps?

And if you're not signed to a label, you're music is outside the walls and is open game for AI!

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/02/carving-up-and-raising-walls-on-web.html

A historical dive into the demise of live local music.

(Note: This is not an endorsement of drinking)

Looking back to the glory days when band's were prolific and there were plenty of venues to play in, packed with fanatical music lovers. Small local venues were a proving ground for emerging artists, where they could build a following from high school age, and expand the boundaries of music performance. Label A&R reps prowled local clubs looking to sign the next big band. Most live local acts now mostly consist of singles or duos starting and ending early for early-to-bed boomers, tribute cover bands playing for those same boomers, and lounge troubadours playing for non-locals.

There are three primary reasons that the venue habitats, and thus bands to play in them, have all but disappeared:

- The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984

- Now six Performing Rights Organizations demanding payment by local venues

- Covid Epidemic

As Mary Hopkins sang: Those were the days, my friend We thought they'd never end We'd sing and dance forever and a day

I ask anti-AI musicians if they had ever had actually checked out what it's capable of, most say no.

So I decided to demonstrate how over 70+ million Alexa subscribers can now ask Alexa to write a song, by just talking to an Alexa enabled speaker. You'll hear the conversation between me and Alexa as we discussed creating a Valentine song for my cat, Jonesy. Listen to the song. Do you think it's AI slop? Personally, I think it's scary good. (It also created the artwork).

When Amazon announced the new Alexa +, it's integration with Suno was barely featured, but now that it's open to any Prime member, they are beginning to publicize it. “Using Alexa’s integration with Suno, you can turn simple, creative requests into complete songs,” “Looking to delight your partner with a personalized song for their birthday based on their love of cats, or surprise your kid by creating a rap using their favorite cartoon characters? Alexa+ has you covered.”

Instead of streaming typical songs played at weddings, now a couple can ask Alexa to create original love songs for each other. It will be interesting to see Suno membership grow as Alexa points users to Suno to download or see the lyrics of the song.

I do this not to promote AI music. There is definite copyright infringement. But I encourage musicians to at least check out what somebody, with no musical abilities, can instantly create. Tik Tok is next. Ignore this at your own peril!

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot....

After music publishers lost the 1st round against Anthropic and Claude last year, they're back with a vengeance!

Anthropic failed to reveal it had used BitTorrent to download millions of lyrics, songbooks, etc. Even though they did inform the book publishers who had also sued and won 1.5 Billion dollars. The judge wouldn't let them bring that into the case though. They had sued for a paltry $75 Million before. This time it's a whopping $3+ Billion dollars!

Anthropic is now worth $350 Billion. Assuming they settle like the book publishers, when can songwriters and lyricists expect to cash in? Previous Anthropic Podcast:

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/02/let-biggest-baddest-copyright-lawsuit.html

ElevenLabs and Spotify just released an album, The 11 Album featuring Liza Minnelli, Art Garfunkel, and others all using AI in some way. "This is the first known direct deal between Spotify and an AI company to easily and directly distribute AI songs on the streaming platform" ...and it won't be the last.

This led to my learning more about ElevenLabs (created 2023), the large cloned voice market, and the surprising web of AI partners:

• ElevenLabs is known for cloning voices of celebrities that can be licensed. It created a Voice Market Place.
• ElevenLabs licenses the actual voices, pre-cloning, from CMG Worldwide that represents the estates of dead celebrities
• ElevenLabs partnered with Meta (Facebook)
• ElevenLabs, has partnered with Merlin, et.al that represents multiple artists and record labels, providing the music to train AI
• Merlin has partnered with UDIO, expanding its AI content
• UDIO has partnered with Universal Music Group

Without a lot of studio editing, easily using a clone of your voice, or that of the dead to sing your song, is probably the next big step in music AI...it's already begun. sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot....