Complete Music Update

1 week ago | completemusicupdate.com | Chris Cooke |Sam Taylor

An influential member of the European Parliament, who chairs a committee that oversees competition issues within the European Union, has formally asked the European Commission to comment on Universal Music’s proposed acquisition of Downtown Music, specifically referencing the major’s influence over streaming business models and the “mass demonetisation of certain music”.

1 week ago | completemusicupdate.com | Chris Cooke

A group of ten law professors have submitted a so called amicus brief as part of the AI copyright legal battle between several authors and Meta setting out the arguments for why training AI models with existing content does not qualify as ‘fair use’ under American copyright law. It follows the recent submission of another amicus brief by four different professors who argued the opposite.

1 week ago | completemusicupdate.com | Chris Cooke

The deadline for submissions to the UK government’s consultation on secondary ticketing was earlier this month. In the twelve weeks that ministers were accepting submissions, one of the biggest ticket resale platforms, good old Viagogo, continued to “engage in misleading and potentially unlawful practices”, according to a leading pressure group.

1 week ago | completemusicupdate.com | Chris Cooke

A letter signed by thousands of music creators and publishers has expressed concern that the latest US Copyright Office inquiry into the country’s performing rights organisations, like BMI and ASCAP, was prompted by correspondence from three Congress members that “focused solely on the perspective of music licensees and failed to consider our perspective as songwriters, composers and music publishers”.

1 week ago | completemusicupdate.com | Chris Cooke

Boom Radio has welcomed a provisional ruling from UK media regulator OfCom that the BBC should not be allowed to launch a new golden oldies radio station that would utilise the Radio 2 brand. The proposed new music service, OfCom says, would likely have a negative impact on commercial broadcasters operating similar services, especially Boom Radio, and that impact is not justified by any public value that the BBC golden oldies station might deliver.