Music Business Headlines You Need to Know: Warner, ADA, Estates & AI | Billboard On the Record News

Name: Music Business Headlines You Need to Know: Warner, ADA, Estates & AI | Billboard On the Record News
Uploaded: 2026-10-05T20:10:05+00:00
Duration: 36 min 45 s
Channel: Billboard

00:04Hello and welcome to On The Record, a music business podcast from Billboard and Sickbird

00:08Productions. As always, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and today we are doing our first

00:13ever monthly news update episode. While we love doing our episodes every single week

00:19where we basically invite in a top executive or artist or other creative to come in and

00:24talk to us about a specific topic in the music industry, I really wanted to make sure that

00:29we were doing more to let you guys know about the headlines that are coming on Billboard.com

00:34every single week. So I am now going to be doing this at the top of every month. We're

00:39going to invite on one of my colleagues to come and talk shop with me. And for this first

00:44edition, we are joined by the lovely executive editor of business, Dan Rice. Hey, Dan. How

00:49are you? I'm all right. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. All right. Are you ready to get started?

00:55Let's do it. Okay. So I'm going to read off a headline and then we're going to talk through

01:01it and all the stuff that you guys need to know about it. So our first headline is Val

01:07Blavatnik, named to Warner Music Group executive team, Elliott Grange named chair of ADA. Okay,

01:14Dan, you were the one who reported on this one. Can you tell us a little bit more about why

01:18this headline matters? Well, first of all, any major changes at a major label are always

01:26big news. This one is particularly big because it is one that was telegraphed for the last

01:35couple of years, I'd say. Val is the son of Len Blavatnik, who is the majority owner and

01:44vice chairman of the Warner Music Group. Bought Warner over a decade ago, helped bring it public

01:51during the pandemic. And Val has long held roles at Warner. He started at Warner Chapel. He was a music

02:02manager. For the last two years, he's been a special advisor to CEO Robert Kinsel. And everyone had been

02:10expecting him to take a larger role once he graduated from Harvard Business School, which he did this past

02:17spring. And so this is the formalization of something that a lot of people had expected,

02:24which was Val coming in in a senior executive role at Warner. And one of the things that is

02:33most interesting, I think, is his purview, which he is overseeing corporate development and

02:41is a managing director for the United States and UK. And what that will entail is him working to

02:51bridge the gaps, any gaps that exist between those two territories and looking to sort of make

03:00everything work more seamlessly and more collaboratively between the two.

03:07Yeah, I'm really interested to see what kind of role he ends up taking on over the next few years,

03:11because I do feel like we've been talking about this coming for a long time. It seemed very,

03:17very clear that of everything that his father, Len Blavatnik, owns, Val's passion was music and

03:24Warner Music Group. So it seemed clear that that's where he was going to be slotted in eventually.

03:30But I mean, Val's only 28. So very young. And one of the other things that they've noted that Val's

03:38been part of, and we've heard murmurings about this in the industry for a long time, is that

03:41Val had a hand in Elliot Grange's promotion to be the CEO of Atlantic Music Group. It's unclear

03:47exactly what the role was in all of that, but it seems like the two of them are close.

03:52So, yeah, I mean, I would say you noted that Val is 28. Elliot himself is 32. This is a

04:00huge

04:01generational change at the Warner Music Group, of course. From my understanding, Val helped

04:07coordinate the acquisition that Warner made of 10K, which was Elliot's company several years ago.

04:15Um, and then, as you said, had a role in Elliot taking over Atlantic Music Group, um, which was two

04:24years ago, kind of this week, I think, actually. Um, yeah, you're right. And so, yeah, it's at that,

04:31but that was part of some monumental changes, I guess we could say, um, in the executive leadership

04:37team that have happened at Warner Music Group over the last two years. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I feel

04:44like so much has changed at Atlantic. You noted that this is essentially the two-year anniversary

04:48this week, as this episode is going live, of Elliot taking that appointment. Can you tell me a little

04:54bit more about what that exactly means? Like, what kind of sea change did you see as art label reporter?

04:59Obviously, him taking over for, um, Julie Greenwald and Craig Coleman, who had run Atlantic Records for

05:07almost 20 years, that in and of itself was a massive shakeup. It's hard to talk about Elliot and his

05:14influence without saying that, of course, he is the son of Lucian Grange, the chairman CEO of

05:19the Universal Music Group. Um, so in some ways, that means that he certainly grew up in the music

05:26business, um, and has been around it for the entirety of his life. Um, and, you know, he had

05:33definitely some tangible successes at 10k, which was his indie company that he had founded before

05:39Warner bought it. Um, but still, any way you cut it to, to then immediately take over one of the

05:46most

05:46storied record labels in the history of the music business, um, is a massive jump. Um, and, you know,

05:53as part of the Val, the Val announcement, um, there were several executive changes that Warner announced,

05:59one of which was that Elliot would also be overseeing ADA in the United States moving forward. Um,

06:07that it's also significant ADA being Warner's distribution, um, wing because distribution has

06:14become increasingly important to the major labels in the last couple of years. Through ADA, Warner is,

06:20uh, firmly in third place behind Sony and Universal. So there is a lot of power that Elliot has

06:29amassed in just two short years. Um, you know, through Atlantic records, through 10k, through

06:38oversight of 300 and now ADA, um, it is, his, uh, purview has just gotten broader and broader in a

06:45very, very short amount of time. Yeah, it's true. And I mean, distribution is not the sexiest part of

06:51the industry, but it's becoming, like you said, a super important part of these major music companies.

06:56And it's been said for a long time that ADA has struggled in comparison to some of the other

07:01distributors that are owned by majors. And so I see Elliot being appointed as chair of ADA in the US

07:08as kind of like a, we're willing to dive in here and try to fix some of the problems and

07:14try to revamp

07:14this and make it a more attractive offer. Cause they're, I imagine they probably lost some people

07:20that they wanted to work with at ADA just due to the fact that there's a lot of competition in

07:24this

07:24space and ADA hasn't been seen as one that's been super competitive so far. So I'm curious to see

07:30what he does there. Um, and then the last thing I'll note before we move on is, uh, very importantly,

07:35as part of this Warner music group shakeup, um, I come from the publishing side of reporting and

07:41are the COO co-chair of Warner chapel music also recently, uh, announced that she was departing the

07:48company that's Carrie and Marshall. Uh, this was shocking to me. I was actually with her the week

07:53before and I did not see that coming. Um, she has been kind of seen as part of the duo

07:58that was

07:59leading the company. It was her and the other co-chair slash CEO guy moot. Um, they were really

08:05seen as a good team. I think a lot of people really liked her, but what communication I got

08:11from the company is that this is just part of a restructuring. And also they're moving away from

08:16a co-chair model at Warner music group as a whole. We have seen that in a couple other instances

08:21as well,

08:22the co-chairs have gone away at the company. Um, but I definitely have my eye on carry on to

08:29see

08:29what she does next. She comes from the indie publishing world and she comes from the sync

08:33licensing or film TV licensing world. I wouldn't be shocked. I have like no Intel on this, but I

08:39wouldn't be shocked if she started her own company and it ended up becoming a good player and like the

08:43independent publishing space, but only time will tell. So. Yeah. I mean, I think in the last,

08:49probably starting about 10 years ago, although the Atlantic one goes back further, you saw a lot of

08:54the record industry shift to this co-chair model of, you know, you bring in usually an A&R focused

09:02CEO and then a more operations focused COO. Of course, obviously that's, that's what that role

09:07requires, but, uh, more of like a marketing or promo person as the COO name them both co-chairs.

09:12And then you have a leadership team. You had that at Atlantic with Julie Greenwald and Craig

09:16Coleman. You had it at Warner records until recently with Aaron Bayshuck and Tom Corson,

09:21Tom Corson then was just promoted to COO of the entire Warner music group, but you also had it in,

09:27at publishing, as you said, with Guy and Carrie Ann and also in Nashville. Um, and over the past two

09:33years, you've seen all of that go away and, um, at least at Warner. And, um, I think in other

09:41companies that is also kind of shifting in that direction to away from sort of executive teams,

09:48uh, not to say that, you know, you know, you still need a team to run a company, of course,

09:52but away from teams that are co-chair people and more towards the sole kind of leader at some of

10:00these

10:00companies. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. You point that out. I actually didn't piece together,

10:04but now it seems like such an obvious pattern. Guy Moot, uh, speaking of Warner chapel music,

10:09Guy Moot is the A&R guy. He's the front facing kind of, you know, charismatic shake your hand kind

10:15of guy. Carrie Ann's like the operator. Um, and I think that's how people really saw that team

10:20coming. She was coming more from the licensing side, um, which is super detail oriented. Um, so that

10:27makes a lot of sense. Um, but yeah, I'm interested to see what she does next, but let's move on

10:32to our

10:32next headline. Shall we? Let's do it. Okay. Dolly Parton carefully planned her estate to avoid

10:39family mess, but a legal fight is brewing anyway. Okay. This honestly makes me sad. Uh, Dolly Parton

10:47has not been dead for more than a month or so. I can't, I don't, I can't even keep track

10:52of time,

10:52but obviously dearly beloved country music figure, Dolly Parton, she passed away from cancer,

11:00um, just recently and her family is now fighting over her estate, but it's interesting. She talked

11:06to us in 2020, uh, for a billboard cover story where she was talking about how she advises all

11:13artists to really make sure they have their affairs in order before they pass. And then,

11:18you know, she, she tried to do it and yet this fight is brewing anyway. So can you tell us

11:22a

11:22little bit more about what you're seeing in this story? Yeah. I mean, it's, it is really sad and,

11:27um, that it's, and it's surprising, you know, and I think a lot of people in the industry have been

11:33talking to me about this too, in the exact same terms. It's just that like, this is the one thing

11:38that Dolly did not want to happen. Um, and you, you referenced that 2020 cover story, um, by our

11:45amazing colleague, Melinda Newman, that, that story is so fascinating in so many different ways,

11:51especially now because she, Dolly did speak at length about how, you know, she saw other icons in

11:57the music world. I think fortunately one of the, the most glaring examples is Prince, right? Where he

12:04died suddenly, um, and without a will and that estate battle dragged on for years, years and years and

12:11she did not want that to happen. She took pains to get her affairs in order to make sure that

12:18that

12:18would not happen. And then as you said, just weeks after she died, it kind of happens, um, where a

12:26nephew, um, you know, has started to say that her longtime manager was, um, not handling things

12:35correctly is a fight that unfortunately, as often as the case boils down to money. Uh, and it's just,

12:42it's, it's been tough to, to watch that happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you, you mentioned, um, this,

12:48this relative of hers, Brian Seaver. And I think what's really interesting about this, this is where

12:52the legal battle is brewing. Brian Seaver was the one to make that video that announced Dolly's

12:57death. So he was definitely very close to her. He was head of security for her. Um, and interestingly,

13:03I, I, I would like to know more about this, but he has a background in military contracting and arms

13:08dealing. So interesting, colorful guy. Um, but you know, he apparently, according to this lawsuit that

13:16was filed against him, uh, has said stuff like, quote, I'm a killer quote, all I do is warfare trying

13:24to send these violent messages, threatening to go to billboard even with information about Dolly in

13:31this estate. I mean, it all boils down to money, it seems, but, uh, it's just, it's sad to see

13:38a

13:39family kind of get torn apart like this, especially when the person did try to avoid this at all costs.

13:46I mean, Dolly Parton was from a very impoverished family. And this happens a lot with artists who come

13:52from impoverished backgrounds or even not impoverished backgrounds where they become the breadwinner for the

13:57entire family. Uh, my understanding is that Dolly was employing a lot of family members and close

14:02friends at Dollywood or in various other areas of her team. And so she was really the matriarch for

14:08everyone and to have her pass. I mean, now it's just, it puts everything in limbo for, for the entire

14:17family. Um, so it's really sad to see it, but you see it a lot. Jimmy Buffett's estate is currently

14:23going through this. Uh, who's another one? Oh, Tony Bennett, Tony Bennett, uh, his, uh, I believe

14:29his kids are fighting over who should have what of his estate. So another that we have been reporting

14:37on lately that we've done extensive reporting on over the past decade or plus, uh, is the Aaliyah

14:43estate. Um, her estate itself is, is controlled by her mother. Um, but her music is controlled by

14:51her uncle and the two of them don't see eye to eye. Five years ago, after a decade out of

14:58print,

14:58her music finally became public again. Then it just, uh, we just, our colleague Rachel Scharf

15:03just wrote a story saying that like that, which was supposed to be the end of the legal battle

15:10has erupted in more legal battles. And it's, it's one of these things that, as you said, you know,

15:14we see time and time again, and it's just, uh, it's tough to see that kind of stuff spill out.

15:20Um, when it's just not really, um, what anyone would have wanted necessarily.

15:27Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Let's go on to our next headline. So this headline reads AI generated

15:33slop. UMG sues DistroKid for flooding streaming platforms with junk music. So this is a federal

15:40lawsuit from September 15th. And basically UMG is accusing the $2 billion plus distributor,

15:46DistroKid, of flooding streaming platforms with mass AI generated SEO optimized and infringing

15:52tracks passed off as human made music, which they say is diverting royalties from legitimate artists.

15:58And they cite this one artist in the lawsuit that has gone through DistroKid that is titled

16:03Lo-Fi Chill. Um, and that Lo-Fi Chill has essentially released over 4,000 tracks in a single year,

16:10which they say is like, you know, from a human standpoint, it's not physically possible to make

16:14that much music in that short of a period of time. This is not the first lawsuit that's similar to

16:19this. So Dan, can you tell us a little bit more? Ever since, uh, these AI music generators have

16:24really come on the scene in the last two years or so, um, there has been an increasing, uh, concern,

16:30uh, from the music business over just the, the sheer scale of AI generated music that is now winding up

16:38on streaming services. Um, the big issue being that if they are then garnering streams that would

16:46dilute the royalty pool for, uh, legitimate artists to use or who get a lot of revenue from Spotify,

16:53um, and Apple music and those kinds of things. Uh, this is generally been kind of perpetrated through,

17:02uh, open DIY distributors like DistroKid and like TuneCore. Um, and there, that has resulted in

17:12these, in these big lawsuits by Universal has really been leading the charge, um, in trying to shut down

17:20essentially the AI slop. And, uh, they are going after the distributors because they are, have a model

17:28that is unfortunately easy to exploit, um, to do that. And, you know, they are essentially trying

17:36to force the distributors to take a more active role in, uh, policing what goes through their

17:43platforms. And, you know, I think that there's a legitimate reason, uh, for that and that, and that,

17:50you know, they're not necessarily wrong. I wonder whether these lawsuits are designed to go to trial

17:56or whether they are, um, sort of designed to, to, uh, force a settlement in some way, um, that will,

18:06that could result in things such as, um, upload caps or things like that, that, uh, would at least

18:14stem the, the tide right now. Um, you know, I don't, I don't think that anyone really wants to say,

18:21you know, let's just ban AI music right now, because I think it's still this nebulous thing

18:28that nobody really knows where it's going to go. Um, but it's like, let's, it's almost designed to

18:34be like, let's slow down, you know, let, hang on a second. Let's, let's get a handle on this,

18:38um, before we just let it kind of take over everything essentially.

18:43Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it has been a longstanding issue on streaming services that, you know,

18:52you know, DIY distributors have allowed in a lot of material that has eventually been used in kind

18:58of what are called streaming fraud schemes, where essentially you get a bot farm and you drive up

19:03the streams on something and that takes money away from the royalty pool. Um, but yeah, AI has made the

19:09issue much worse, according to streaming fraud experts that I've been speaking to. This is an area

19:14of interest of mine. Um, and yeah, basically like the whole thing about this AI generated music that

19:20makes the fraud so easy to perpetuate is that the whole bottleneck for streaming fraud in the past was

19:27that you want to be able to spread out your botting across a larger number of tracks. So it seems

19:33less detectable. It seems really obvious and the streaming services do know how to catch it now

19:38when you have one song that has no prior success that randomly like gets a million streams overnight.

19:44So the idea is with AI generated music, now the bottleneck is gone. Like you just have a ton of

19:49material, which you can spread fraud out on. Um, and you know, it's, it has become a more hot

19:57button issue, I think in the age of AI because of that. Now that, that gets into this whole debate

20:03about like, who's responsible for stopping this. Is it the user just being a bad actor? Is it the

20:11distributor for allowing the bad actor to use their service? Um, which in this case would be

20:17DistroKid, but this happens across every platform, frankly, every distributor.

20:21Is it the streaming service for, you know, allowing it, um, the platform that they're hosting? And I

20:26think, yeah, that's, it's a very good point. And I think for the last couple of years,

20:30as the stream, as the streaming fraud conversation has bubbled to the service,

20:36there's been a lot of everybody kind of standing in a circle, like the Spider-Man meme, just kind

20:40of pointing at each other. Like you deal with it, you deal with it. You know, it's not my fault.

20:44It's

20:44not my problem with how quickly AI has really kind of come to the forefront. It's now we're starting to

20:51see people be like, hold on, we do actually have to do something about this. And you know, now it's

20:57sort of like, uh, you know how penguins, uh, they don't like jump into the ocean. They all just sort

21:05of like, they crowd together and then somebody pushes, gets pushed, and then they all jump in.

21:11Um, it sort of seems like we're all standing on that precipice and everybody's sort of jostling

21:15and pushing, and then something will go over the edge here and somebody will start to, you know,

21:21be, um, we'll find a, we'll find a way towards policing this sometime in the next year, I would say.

21:27I mean, I would like to see it. I do feel like this has been an issue. I, I do

21:33want to be fair

21:33to like everyone though, that there have been efforts in the past. It's not that everyone's

21:38been ignoring it and been like, oh, you know, I can't do anything. Uh, streaming services have

21:42certainly been telling me for years that they have been consistently trying to figure out what the

21:47next scheme is and to try to combat that. The problem with fraud, which I, I don't want this to

21:52be used as a dismissal, but the problem with fraud is that always mutates. People are smart.

21:58They'll figure out, okay, Spotify figured out how to stop this kind of fraud. I'm going to

22:02do a little bit of a mutation on that, that they don't actually know how to catch yet.

22:05And then they'll try to catch up and then it just keeps getting more and more complicated and more

22:11and more difficult to detect. Um, so it'll be interesting to see if there is going to be a way

22:17to actually stop this or not. Um, but like I said, even though fraud mutates, I don't think

22:22that should be used as an excuse to not try. Um, so, and you know, to, to that exact point,

22:28that's, what's been so frustrating for us, um, as journalists, uh, trying to report on this because

22:35we have sources all over the place. You and I both, you know, in the rest of our team, you

22:39know,

22:41telling us fraud is an issue. This is a problem, like, you know, giving us various estimates as to

22:46how big the scale of this is, but nobody wants to talk to us about it because that exact thing

22:52that you were just saying, fraud mutates. So the second that billboard goes and reports,

22:57this is how DistroKid is trying to police this. This is how Spotify is trying to police this.

23:03All of a sudden that's not an issue anymore because the quote unquote bad actors have moved

23:07on to a different scheme. And so it's so hard to get our hands around how big of an issue

23:13this is,

23:13how extensive the mitigation, um, efforts are, all of that kind of thing, because it'll just

23:21change. Yeah. And I mean, also as a journalist, what's frustrating to me is all of this stuff is

23:26essentially like private information that the streaming services only, only they really have

23:32probably a grasp on this. And obviously they're not going to share that information with us. So

23:36it just, it makes it hard to verify when the occasional person will speak up and say fraud is

23:43this big of an issue and, you know, insert figure here. And I'm like, I can't fact check that. I

23:48don't

23:49know, but it does seem to be a persistent issue. It basically, I mean, the way that royalties work

23:54is just that everything goes into a pot and then it gets divided up from there. So if people are

23:59stealing

23:59from that pot, although it feels in some ways like a victimless crime, as some of these fraudsters have

24:06said before, um, it's, it's not, uh, but it only is stealing a little bit from everyone. Um, but yeah,

24:14it's, it's a really persistent issue. There's currently like the first ever streaming fraud

24:19case going on in the U S right now against this guy named Michael Smith. And I've been following that

24:23one really closely. And I think that's really interesting because that was Michael Smith's argument

24:27just this past month was that basically, yes, I did it, but also it's not, I'm not actually

24:35stealing that much from anyone. It's kind of victimless. I, I, I find that to be such an

24:40interesting argument to make, but he stole $8 million, but not from one person from however

24:47many millions of people that he just took a little bit, you know? Yeah. And I mean, it's crazy

24:52that this is the first ever streaming fraud case that is going on in the U S, but the reason

24:56why it, it is according to experts I've been speaking to is that a lot of times streaming

25:02fraud schemes that happen abroad, it's very rare that this is in just one country where

25:07you can really nail one person. Um, and so Michael Smith is kind of the first example of

25:12a much larger scale issue that people feel is going on and has been going on for a long

25:17time. Um, but yeah, the IFPI recently announced that they are starting a, uh, like a streaming

25:23fraud initiative of their own. Um, IFPI is essentially the global trade organization

25:29that represents the recorded music industry. Um, so we're definitely seeing movement. I'm

25:34curious to see what happens in the future, but yeah, I say we go on to our next headline.

25:39Let's do it.

25:40All right. Okay. So our final headline of the day is as Suna rolls out, it's new AI models

25:46with industry licenses. What does that mean for the music business? So y'all thought you

25:53were going to get through a whole episode of on the record without talking about AI, but

25:57we've already talked about it. I guess, I guess we have, um, with like the, with the streaming

26:02fraud conversation, but yeah. So, I mean, the big thing of the past month in the AI music

26:07world was that Suna rolled out V6, which is its new launch. They they've retired everything

26:12in their past. Now they have V6. V6 was the way that they touted it was that it was made

26:18quote in partnership with the music industry. And we've done a lot of reporting on this,

26:24you know, rollout since then. Um, and you know, while Suna does have industry partners

26:30who lent some of their catalog to be training data for V6, which does mean it is in somewhat

26:36of a partnership with the music industry. It's only three companies. It's Warner Music Group,

26:42BMG and Believe. Those are the three that they have partnerships with right now. Um, this has

26:47been a really slippery thing to report on, uh, lots of jargon being used when they talked

26:52to me. Uh, so I've had to parse through all of that, but, um, you know, we've seen since

26:58then that, you know, it, while it seems like Suna wanted to make nice to the music industry

27:03and that, you know, it was time to turn a new page. Uh, there's still a ton of litigation

27:08happening against them and there's even new litigation after this. So, uh, Dan, what,

27:14tell me about the newest litigation against Suna.

27:17So V6 really comes down to that. They retrained their model, as they said, on partner music and

27:27user behavior. Um, partner music is what, uh, they were allowed to use through those partnerships

27:36you mentioned with Warner, Believe and BMG. And then user behavior is, um, basically what

27:44they had said to us was how users interacted, um, or chose which was better of two options

27:51based on previous models. Um, the problem there being that, um, all of their previous models

28:00were, you were, uh, trained on music that they did not have licenses for, uh, which was

28:09the basis of the litigation that the majors had brought against, you know, in the first

28:13place. Uh, the new lawsuits that were then filed after the release of V6 is saying, essentially,

28:21wait a minute, you said that this was, uh, all licensed music, but that quote unquote user

28:27behavior is actually, I can't quote unquote synthetic data because it is essentially laundered

28:34through illegal usage of illegal prior models. And I say illegal as allegedly, because there

28:43is no actual, uh, case law on this yet as these lawsuits work their way through the courts.

28:48However, that is the, uh, basis of the new lawsuits that universal music group and Sony

28:53music have filed against, you know? Yeah. So they called it, um, fruit of the same poison

29:00tree, which I thought was a nice little dramatic touch. Yeah. We love our Shakespeare here. Yes.

29:06Oh yeah. Uh, one lawyer felt really good about writing that sentence, I think, but yeah. So

29:12to explain what synthetic data is for some people who don't understand synthetic data typically

29:17refers to AI generated content that is being used to train an AI model. So, uh, you know,

29:24traditionally, uh, generative AI models are mostly trained on like human made material. And that's

29:29kind of the, that's like the gold standard for training data. But as time goes on and these

29:35models get better, they sometimes will train on their own supply essentially of AI generated music.

29:41It's very circular in certain ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Suno just gets hit with a new

29:46lawsuit. It feels like every few days. Um, and it's a lot to keep track of, but universal and Sony,

29:53I think what really this lawsuit, this new lawsuit against Suno proves is that universal and Sony are

29:58absolutely not ready to come to the table with Suno while Suno has been able to get things across the

30:03line with Warner music group, BMG and believe UMG and Sony are not letting up. It's not like they are

30:10currently close in settlement talks and they're about to come to the table and, you know,

30:15the partnerships between Suno and the music industry are going to expand. It seems like UMG

30:19and Sony are like, we're serious about this. We're ready to fight this. We're ready to go to court.

30:25We'll fight it to the end. Um, so I am really curious to see what happens as this all shakes

30:31out.

30:31An interesting additional point to add in here is also that V6 was touted to me as, you know,

30:40the fastest model, highest fidelity, like this was really seen or, or it was really,

30:46it was really portrayed to me as this huge step forward for the AI model. So not only was it

30:52trained

30:52on licensed material, but it's also better than anything we've ever had. Um, and I've seen so far

30:57that people are not loving V6 and I want to be careful here and say like, I don't know what

31:04every

31:04single Suno user feels about this model. There's no way for me to really know, but just based on like

31:09trolling through Reddit, talking to folks who use these tools every single day, um, it has not been

31:16quite as exciting as people thought it was going to be. Um, I even spoke with this, this one AI

31:24music

31:25creator who was saying that they were going to try out 11 labs, uh, AI music model now, um, which

31:30was

31:31shocking to me. I do think I just want to put on everyone's radar to watch 11 music. They have

31:36a lot

31:36of partnerships with the music industry. Um, and it seems like their model is getting quite good.

31:42I also want to put on the radar that I think stability AI is one to watch. I think they

31:47have

31:47been working towards some pretty impressive models for a while now, and I think they have more to come.

31:52Um, but Suno obviously by and large is still the dominant force in AI music. I'm just really

31:59curious to see as these, you know, kind of licensed models come more to the fore for Suno, um, if

32:08they're able to keep impressing their users. Um, so we shall see. Well, and I think that that becomes

32:14existential, right? Um, because we talk a lot about use case for AI, generative AI. Um, I think that

32:22a lot of these companies are still trying to figure out what their user base is. Um, so there

32:28is going to be natural churn while that happens, um, as, as people, uh, like start trying out the

32:34service and then, you know, say, eh, maybe it's not for me. That's all fine. And well, uh, if it

32:41becomes, uh, this service is not for me and I'm going to go to one of its competitors, that's,

32:46that's an existential churn. Um, and so that will be something to keep an eye on for sure.

32:51I think the other aspect of this is, you know, to your point, we're seeing a split in how the

32:56music

32:56community looks at these models. Now, um, you're seeing universal and Sony saying the training

33:02initially is illegal and that's, we can't, that's untenable to us. And then you're seeing these other

33:10companies saying, listen, you stole from us. You got it. The horse, the horse has left the barn.

33:18Let's think about how we can now make money together. Um, and I think that that is a really

33:24interesting kind of fork in the road that we're at right, right now. Uh, we're still seeing this

33:29develop and, you know, Suno would, would very much like to say, Hey, look, we're going to be

33:36bringing all of this stuff on now that will bring more incremental revenue to the music business.

33:43Um, and they have some partners now who are like, yeah, okay, let's do that. Let's bring in more

33:48money. And then there are still, uh, some really large companies saying, but hold on a second,

33:56you stole from us and we're not going to let that go. And, and that presents the current kind of

34:02issue

34:03that they're dealing with. Yeah. I think one of the most interesting things to keep an eye on is

34:08like Suno's take that Mikey said this to me several times, this idea of growing the pie that they're

34:14not taking away from the pie, like kind of going back to that streaming royalties pot that we're

34:17talking about earlier with streaming fraud. Mikey's take is that we're growing the music industry

34:23and there's going to be more to go around for everyone. This is a new, like we're ushering in all

34:28these new creators who weren't able to make music before we're finding these new revenue streams,

34:32but I think the traditional music business more sees this as right now, at least it feels like

34:37they're stealing from the pie that already exists. Um, so it will be interesting to see how this all

34:42shakes out. Um, but I think that concludes our roundup of some of the biggest stories of this past

34:48month. Um, and I'm going to end things off by saying one thing that I think is something to look

34:54out for, for the end of the year, cause we're already getting close. Uh, I think we're going to see

34:59at least one of these AI remix models come out. So that's my prediction for the next month,

35:04maybe two months. We always see a lot of buzzer beaters in the music industry, like right around

35:09the end of the year when I'm trying to relax, everyone's like, Hey, what if we just released

35:13all of our news right before Thanksgiving? We saw that last year. There were a ton of AI music

35:18licenses that were struck, including Warner's with Suno. Um, I think we're going to see one,

35:24at least one of these AI remix models that has been promised from UDO, Spotify, Clay, something.

35:33Um, so look out for that as the end of the year approaches. And Dan, I'm wondering, do you have

35:38any

35:38predictions of things that you foresee for the end of the year?

35:41It will be a race to the finish line. And I also, uh, the, every single year there's the line

35:49does not

35:49end December 31st. Uh, it goes straight through the Grammys. So this next four months, I think will

35:55be, uh, a bit of a whirlwind. And if, if I were to say that I know how it will

36:01shake out, I would

36:02be lying to you. Um, but it is, it is very, very capital, capital letters, busy season right now.

36:10It is busy season. Well, Dan, thank you so much for coming to on the record, our first ever

36:14monthly news episode. It was great to have you. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening

36:19to this bonus episode of on the record, a music business podcast from billboard and sickbird

36:23productions. As always, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson and tune in later this week for another

36:27regularly scheduled episode of the podcast. You're not going to want to miss this one. See you then.

36:44Bye-bye.

36:45You

Music Business Headlines You Need to Know: Warner, ADA, Estates & AI | Billboard On the Record News

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