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The MLC and Pandora clash in opposition briefs as mechanical royalties battle nears decisive stage
The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) and Pandora Media have each filed opposition briefs in their legal battle over whether the streaming service has underpaid royalties owed to rights holders.
Both filings landed on March 5 in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, one month after each party filed competing motions for summary judgment in the two-year-old lawsuit. The case centers on whether Pandora’s ad-supported radio service, Pandora Free, qualifies as an “interactive service” under the Copyright Act — and is therefore subject to mechanical royalty obligations for the entirety of its streams.  The MLC, established by the Music Modernization Act of 2018, serves as the sole entity authorized to collect and distribute “mechanical royalties” due for the reproduction and distribution of musical works. The collective argues that three features available on Pandora Free — personalized music programs, the ability to skip and replay songs, and on-demand track selection — each independently qualify it as an “interactive service” under the Copyright Act.  “Pandora does not just give users access to all three features, Pandora advertises that it gives users access to all three features,” the MLC said.

 

US radio broadcaster Cumulus Media files for bankruptcy to shed $600M in debt
Cumulus Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday (March 5), seeking to shed about $600 million in debt through a prepackaged restructuring.  The Atlanta-based radio broadcaster, which operates 394 radio stations across 84 markets, entered into a restructuring support agreement with an ad hoc group of lenders holding the company’s 2029 term loans and senior secured notes also due in 2029, according to an SEC filing.  Under the plan, existing equity will be eliminated, while creditors will exchange their claims for new equity in the reorganized company and $50 million in convertible notes. Additionally, the company’s asset-based revolving credit facility will be amended and restated to provide continued liquidity, the company said.

 

YouTube’s Ad Revenue Exceeds That of Its Four Largest Traditional Media Competitors Combined
New research from media firm MoffettNathanson has determined that YouTube is now the world’s biggest media company, with advertising revenue that exceeds that of its four largest traditional media competitors—Disney, NBC, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)—combined. The Google-owned streaming giant also runs circles around its rivals in U.S. TV viewership.  It’s a significant change from 2024, when YouTube’s ad revenue clocked in at $36.1 billion, just behind the $41.8 billion total from Disney, NBC, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery. YouTube’s $40.4 billion in ad revenue last year exceeded the $37.8 billion combined from its four closest traditional media competitors. But with the addition of fifth-place rival Fox, the traditional media companies would be just ahead of YouTube at $44.8 billion.  The Google-owned streamer keeps nearly half of its ad revenue, paying creators a 55% cut on ads from standard videos. But ad revenue isn’t the only area in which YouTube is dominating in 2025 and onward. But the worst part for the Hollywood media giants is that YouTube is uniquely positioned to thrive as AI-powered videos and short-form clips proliferate. According to MoffettNathanson analysts Michael Nathanson and Robert Fishman, YouTube is “one of the only” media companies that “will become stronger in the age of AI.”

 

Apple Music launches AI transparency tags — but only if labels and distributors declare them
Apple Music is introducing a new set of metadata requirements designed to bring greater transparency around AI-generated content to the music industry.  The platform has launched what it is calling Transparency Tags — a system of disclosure labels that record labels and music distributors can begin applying to content delivered to Apple Music immediately, and will be required to use when delivering new content in future. The Composition tag covers AI-generated lyrics or other compositional elements, while the Music Video tag applies to any visual content, whether bundled with albums or delivered as standalone.  Labels and distributors can apply multiple tags simultaneously. 

 

What’s Investor Sentiment on Music These Days? Now There’s a Study for That
Fourth Pillar’s Music Investment Barometer offers the first dedicated study into the views, behaviors, and outlook of global music investors — and the mood is decidedly bullish.  Corporate and financial strategic communications firm Fourth Pillar has announced the findings of its inaugural Music Investment Barometer, the first dedicated study designed to track sentiment across the global music investment community.  Drawing on responses from 125 decision-makers and senior advisors across five continents, the Music Investment Barometer illustrates that music rights dealmaking is expanding in volume, appeal, and sophistication, driven by music’s positive growth outlook. The survey measured market confidence, capital allocation intentions, deal flow and valuation trends, the factors driving investment decisions, sources used when assessing catalog acquisitions, obstacles to expanding capital deployment, and investor sentiment on emerging risks—including artificial intelligence.  Respondents comprise the highest levels of institutional leadership; 72% of those surveyed operate at Managing Director level or above. Collectively, the respondents oversee more than $3.24 trillion in assets under management. The survey was conducted over four weeks in Q4 2025 and captured responses from senior decision-makers from music investment platforms (24%), investment managers (16.8%), private capital firms (16.8%), music labels and publishers (12.8%), investment banks (11.2%), and law firms (9.6%). Geographic distribution included North America (74.4%), Europe (21.6%), Asia (2.4%), Oceania (0.8%), and South America (0.8%).

 

Warner Music Group signs new $1.645bn credit agreement with JPMorgan, refinancing existing debt
Warner Music Group‘s subsidiary, WMG Acquisition Corp., has refinanced its existing credit facilities through a new $1.645 billion credit agreement with JPMorgan Chase, according to an SEC filing published today March 11.  The deal replaces and consolidates WMG’s previous credit arrangements — which date back to 2012 and have been amended multiple times over the years — into a single, freshly restated package. The new credit agreement comprises a $1.295 billion term loan, the proceeds of which will be used to pay off WMG’s existing term loan debt and related fees, and a $350 million revolving credit facility available for general corporate purposes. Both mature on March 11, 2031. JPMorgan Chase serves as the administrative agent on the deal, heading a broad syndicate of banks that includes BofA Securities, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Fifth Third Bank, RBC Capital Markets, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation as syndication agents.  Those same banks, along with JPMorgan and Citigroup Global Markets, also serve as the deal’s joint lead arrangers and joint bookrunners.

 

US appeals court overturns BMI rate hike on concert promoters, ruling rates were ‘unreasonable’
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday (February 24) ruled that the rates imposed on concert promoters in Judge Louis Stanton’s 2023 decision – which more than doubled the royalty rate songwriters receive from live concerts in the US – were “unreasonable”, and vacated the ruling.
BMI had celebrated the original decision as a “massive victory” that ended “decades of below-market rates for songwriters, composers and publishers in the live concert industry.”  The ruling gave songwriters a 138% rate increase, from around 0.21% to 0.5% of concert revenue. The previous rate had been set at 0.3% for venues under 10,000 seats and 0.15% for larger venues.  However, the appeals court found that Judge Stanton erred on multiple fronts.  You can read the decision in full here.

 

Supreme Court Declines to Review a Monumental AI Copyright Decision — Leaving the ‘Human Authorship’ Standard In Place
The Supreme Court has opted against hearing a case concerning an attempt to copyright AI-generated artwork – thereby leaving in place an appellate court’s determination that the Copyright Act “requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being.”  That cert rejection surfaced (along with a number of others) in a Supreme Court order list yesterday, just shy of one year after an appeals court unanimously ruled against the appellant. Said appellant, computer scientist Stephen Thaler, initially sued in 2022 after the Copyright Office rejected his 2018 registration application for an AI image entitled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise.” In its decision, the appeals court pointed to all manner of Copyright Act elements – required signatures, protections tied to the creator’s lifespan, an inheritance provision, and more – implying human authorship as a condition for registration.  “Because many of the Copyright Act’s provisions make sense only if an author is a human being, the best reading of the Copyright Act is that human authorship is required for registration,” Circuit Judge Patricia Millett summed up.What about protections for human-recorded covers of AI music? Or human-captured photographs of AI art? Not to mention situations where registrants “borrow” heavily from AI and then claim authorship.  Well, the appeals court acknowledged a lack of firm answers to these and similar questions; Thaler’s case, the opinion spelled out, only addressed AI’s being listed as the sole author of a work. “Those line-drawing disagreements over how much artificial intelligence contributed to a particular human author’s work are neither here nor there in this case,” Judge Millett wrote. “That is because Dr. Thaler listed the Creativity Machine as the sole author of the work before us, and it is undeniably a machine, not a human being.”

Suno is a feral pig rampaging through a well-tended garden, say creator organizations

A coalition of music creator advocacy organizations has borrowed the incident as the starting point for a stinging open letter about Suno, the AI music generation platform that trained its models on copyright protected recordings scraped from the internet without permission. The letter - signed by the US Music Artists Coalition, the European Composer And Songwriter Alliance, the Trichordist’s David Lowery, artist and Duke University practitioner-in-residence Tift Merritt, producer and ECR Music Group president Blake Morgan, North Music Group’s Abby North, and Chris Castle of the Artist Rights Institute - was published on Music Technology Policy on Sunday, and asks music fans, and the music industry, to “Just say no to Suno”. And, even worse, “every time artists’ creations are used by the platform, those creations have just unwittingly been contributed to the creation of endless derivatives of artists’ own work, not to mention AI slop, with limited or no remuneration back to the human creators”. There is another problem for anyone using Suno to make music. The US Copyright Office has been clear that generative AI outputs are largely ineligible for copyright protection. AI-generated music also “dilutes the royalty pools of legitimate artists”, the letter argues. The open letter asks the music community to “say no to Suno”. The music industry’s executives, one by one, appear to be saying “yes”. Dealin' with the Devil!

 

Who Are the Biggest Music Pirates in the Land? United States Trade Representative Releases Latest ‘Notorious Markets Report’
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) released its annual Notorious Markets Report, revealing digital and physical markets where widespread copyright piracy is taking place, and identifying the biggest offenders.  With the United States co-hosting the FIFA World Cup, we are particularly attuned to sales of counterfeit merchandise and illicit streaming of sports broadcasts,” said Ambassador Jamieson Greer. “Not only do such activities amount to intellectual property theft, they also harm consumers, such as through purchasing substandard goods that can present health or safety concerns or downloading malware when visiting sites engaged in these activities.” The 2025 Notorious Markets List highlights 37 online markets and 32 physical markets that are reported to engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy. The Notorious Markets List reveals both widespread and evolving trends in counterfeiting and piracy, and identifies a wide variety of sites, including e-commerce and social commerce sites, as well as “bulletproof” hosting providers, streaming sites, or other piracy-enabling sites for copying and distributing content. Cyberlockers make up the bulk of the notorious markets on the list, while popular names of old like RapidShare and MegaUpload have been taken down—like a hydra several others have popped up to fill the gaps. Also on the list are several ecommerce sites responsible for creating counterfeit merch and goods, especially on China’s version of TikTok, Douyin.