BMI launches free service to help US songwriters and composers find healthcare coverage
BMI has launched a free service to help its US-based songwriters and composers find healthcare coverage for themselves and their families.
Called BMI Health Connect, the service has been created in collaboration with Gallagher Alternative Health Solutions, part of global insurance brokerage Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
It connects BMI‘s US affiliates with insurance advisors who provide one-on-one guidance on healthcare options, the company announced on Wednesday (September 16). Through the service, BMI‘s music creators can compare options including Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange plans, private off-exchange plans, and Medicare, as well as dental, vision, and other insurance offerings.
The service also covers plans eligible for cost-sharing subsidies, according to BMI.
The advisors are independent and have access to hundreds of plans, including some not available on state exchanges, BMI said.
“BMI Health Connect was created to help bring clarity to an often-complex process and connect our songwriters and composers with a trusted resource so they can spend less time navigating health coverage and more time doing what they do best.” BMI Health Connect is available now, with affiliates encouraged to contact an advisor before open enrollment begins, according to the company.
Medicare open enrollment for 2027 coverage runs from October 15 to December 7, 2026, while ACA open enrollment on HealthCare.gov runs from November 1, 2026 to January 15, 2027 – with December 15 the deadline for coverage starting January 1. Several state-run marketplaces set their own deadlines.
Affiliates who need immediate coverage can enroll in short-term medical plans, or in other plans through a Qualifying Life Event, BMI said.
Universal Music Sues DistroKid for Copyright Infringement and Deceptive Trade Practices, Says the Distributor ‘Is Flooding Platforms With AI-Generated Slop’
UMG submitted the 52-page action to a Delaware federal court today, and as many will recognize, the writing was on the wall here. Yesterday brought the announcement of the “Streaming Integrity Initiative” (SII), a program designed to decommission fake plays.
Though many distributors are on board with the majors-backed SII, DistroKid is conspicuously absent from the list of initial participants. So is Believe’s TuneCore, which only settled a $500 million Universal Music copyright suit earlier in 2026. And based on a pile of unauthorized-remix and AI slop evidence, it seems entirely possible that at least one other distributor avoided litigation by enrolling in the SII and agreeing to the practices at hand.
This is important because machine-generated audio is front and center in UMG’s DistroKid complaint, which alleges that today’s “digital music economy…has been co-opted by those trying to pass off mass AI-generated, SEO-optimized, and copyright-infringing slop as music created and performed by a real human.
“DistroKid promotes itself to the public and Digital Services as a leading music distributor for artist-backed releases,” the suit continues. “But DistroKid’s representations are made of air. In actuality, DistroKid is flooding platforms with AI-generated ‘slop’ that siphons revenue and listeners from the legitimate artists and
rightsholders.” By way of specifics, the legal text points to “bad actors” such as “Lofi Chill,” which is said to have “released 4,562 tracks in a single twelve-month period.” Similarly, “Chill Flow Radio” allegedly dropped 1,901 tracks during the identical stretch, against 1,615 for “Mellow Vibes Radio.” “Unsurprisingly, technical analysis of these artists’ immense catalogs confirms that the vast majority of their tracks (over 97% for Chill Flow Radio and over 98% for Mellow Vibes Radio) are raw outputs from the AI song generator, Suno,” UMG added.
American Music Tourism Act sent to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law
The US House of Representatives has passed the American Music Tourism Act, sending it to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature.
First introduced in 2024, the American Music Tourism Act returned to Congress in January last year. The bipartisan legislation aims to boost music-related travel and tourism in the US, with the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) working to promote live music events and music venues, as well as sites such as Graceland (the home of Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee).
Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) led the House companion, H.R. 617, which passed the House in April 2025, while Senator Masha Blackburn (R-TN) led the Senate companion, S.195, which passed the Senate in May 2025, supported by Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO).
“After more than two years of work, our bipartisan American Music Tourism Act is officially headed to President Trump’s desk,” said
Harshbarger. “As home to iconic destinations like Dollywood in Pigeon Forge and the Birthplace of Country Music in Bristol, Tennessee’s First District plays a vital role in the music tourism industry, and this bill will have a direct impact on a district that lives and breathes it. I’m grateful to Senator Blackburn for getting this bill through the Senate, and I look forward to President Trump signing it into law.”
Blackburn added: “The Volunteer State is home to so many iconic musical landmarks for tourists to experience – from Graceland in Memphis to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge.
“Music tourism has such a positive impact on Tennessee’s economy, and we need to ensure that fans from all over the world continue to celebrate our state’s rich history of music for generations to come. The American Music Tourism Act will promote and support the fast-growing music tourism industry, and I am pleased it is heading to President Trump’s desk.”
The country’s National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) has praised the decision to pass the legislation.
Suno hit with another proposed class action over data breach that leaked information of 55M users
Suno has been hit with another proposed class action over the November 2025 data breach that reportedly exposed the personal information of 55.3 million users.
The complaint was filed earlier this month (September 3) in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, where Suno is headquartered.
The named plaintiff is Michael Beckham, whom the filing describes as an adult domiciled in Huron, South Dakota. Beckham says he created a Suno account using his Gmail address no later than the summer of 2024, and that breach-notification service Have I Been Pwned identified that address as included in the stolen Suno dataset. The scale of the breach became public when Have I Been Pwned added the dataset to its database on July 20, and TechCrunch reported the following day that Suno had confirmed a security incident in November 2025 and did not dispute the number of users affected. Suno is separately defending copyright infringement claims from Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment in the same court, in litigation coordinated by the RIAA and first brought in 2024.
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”.
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.
