News and Trends

Michael Smith's lawyers argued that his scheme caused only "tiny, immeasurable losses" spread across millions of songwriters and artists, Billboard reported. Source source https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/man-who-pocketed-8m-using-ai-songs-and-bot-streams-asks-for-no-prison-time-arguing-no-artist-suffered-any-perceptible-harm/

The decision points the case toward a jury trial, four and a half years after it was filed by Sound and Color, LLC. Source source https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/sam-smith-and-normani-must-face-a-jury-over-dancing-with-a-stranger-as-judge-refuses-to-end-copyright-case/

As part of the merger, OTM will incorporate the team and roster of Left Music, the publishing company Partisan set up with Craig Michie in 2022. Source source https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/partisan-acquires-firebirds-interest-in-indie-pubco-otm-music-merges-it-with-its-left-music-publishing-arm/

Epidemic Group, the parent company of Epidemic Sound, has named Erik Wahlberg as its Chief Executive Officer. Wahlberg is the founder and CEO of Blenda Labs, a Stockholm video production technology company that Epidemic Group bought in July 2026. He takes over from Sara Börsvik, who moves from interim CEO into the joint role of … Continued Source source https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/erik-wahlberg-appointed-ceo-of-epidemic-group-as-sara-borsvik-takes-on-joint-coo-and-cfo-role/

Figures come from Global Music Pulse, a new report from Chartmetric, which tracks 14m artists across streaming and social services Source source https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/us-uk-share-of-worlds-superstar-artists-has-fallen-from-55-7-to-40-7-since-2021-chartmetric-data/

HYBE CINE FEST 2026 will run in theaters from October 24 through October 31. Source source https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/hybe-cine-fest-expands-to-over-60-territories-with-two-live-bts-broadcasts-and-concert-films-from-seventeen-tomorrow-x-together-and-enhypen/