In today’s CMU Daily: Universal Music has filed an explosive $500 million lawsuit against Believe accusing it of facilitating rampant copyright infringement by allowing fraudsters to illegally deliver tracks owned by the major to the streaming services, claiming royalties when those uploads are streamed 

Also today: A new AI Charter from German collecting society GEMA sets out the music industry’s usual demands of AI companies, but also discusses moral rights and imbalances in negotiating power; Songwriters allied to American collecting society SESAC will see an increase in royalties from radio airplay after an arbitration panel ruled on a new licensing agreement between the rights organisation and the US radio sector

Plus: cleopatrick are CMU Approved

Universal Music claims Believe has built its business on “industrial-scale copyright infringement” and wants $500 million

Just as things were looking a little quiet on the “Universal Music falling out with people” front, the major has filed an explosive lawsuit against Believe and the battle is on. 

The French distributor and label services business has, according to Universal, “been able to achieve dramatic growth and profitability in recent years by operating as a hub for the distribution of infringing copies of the world’s most popular copyrighted recordings”. 

The bombastic $500 million lawsuit accuses Believe and TuneCore, the DIY distribution platform it acquired in 2015, of facilitating rampant copyright infringement by enabling others to illegally upload recordings owned by Universal to streaming services and social media platforms, and then claim royalties when those versions of the tracks are streamed. 

That includes remixed, sped up and slowed down versions of Universal recordings, which the major claims often employ deliberate typos in artist names in a bid to avoid detection. 

The criticism of Believe in the lawsuit, which has been filed by ABKCO and Concord as well as Universal, is brutal. “From its inception, Believe recognised that it lacked the resources, creative talent and business acumen necessary to sign and develop top-level artists and create catalogue that could compete fairly” with the more traditional record industry, the legal filing states. 

As a result, it goes on, Believe made “the affirmative business decision to enter into distribution contracts with anyone willing to sign one of its basic form agreements”. As a result, the distributor’s client list is “overrun with fraudulent ‘artists’ and pirate record labels who rely on Believe and its distribution network to seed infringing copies of popular sound recordings throughout the digital music ecosystem”. 

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GEMA publishes AI Charter

German songwriter collecting society GEMA has published an AI Charter, setting out ten “ethical and legal principles” that it wants the AI sector - and law-makers regulating that sector - to adhere to. It says the charter is “intended to be thought-provoking”, while also providing a framework for “a responsible approach to generative AI that respects and protects the rights of creators”. 

“Generative AI provides opportunities but also carries significant risks for the rights and livelihoods of creators”, says the society’s CEO Tobias Holzmüller. “In our understanding”, he adds, “human creativity is at the centre and the use of musical works created by people in the context of generative AI must be dealt with in a transparent manner and must attract fair pay”. 

Several of the principles set out in the charter are basically demands frequently made by the music industry. AI companies must seek permission to use copyright protected works when training generative AI models and must be fully transparent about what works have been used in the training process. And creators must fairly share in any revenues generated by AI models trained on their work. 

“Copyright protects the creative human being and gives them the sole right to decide on the use of their works within the legal framework”, the charter declares. “This proven principle must also apply in the context of generative AI”. 

However, there are some other interesting statements within the charter that have not always been front and centre in the music industry’s AI conversations. For example, it notes that the generative AI sector is already dominated by a small number of companies that “have the necessary computing capacities, financial means and infrastructures to establish AI technologies quickly and successfully in the market”.  

US rights organisation SESAC welcomes 10% increase in radio royalty rate

US collecting society SESAC has secured a higher rate for its members when their music is played on American radio stations after negotiations with the Radio Music License Committee went to arbitration. However, both sides are claiming victory, because SESAC was aiming for a bigger increase. 

Ed Atsinger from the RMLC, which negotiates music royalty rates for much of the US radio industry, says, “Despite the fact that no increase was warranted, the arbitration decision constitutes a significant victory for RMLC-represented radio stations given SESAC’s demands, and comes at a challenging economic time for the industry”. 

The RMLC, he adds, “intends to continue to defend and protect the interests of its members at a time when all of the performing right organisations are seeking to aggressively increase their fees”. 

How radio stations pay royalties to songwriters and music publishers in the US is slightly more complicated than in most other countries, because there are five organisations representing the performing rights in songs: BMI, ASCAP, GMR and AllTrack, as well as SESAC. 

Each society represents a different repertoire, although there is plenty of crossover because co-writers on a song may be members of different collecting societies. 

The big two performing right organisations, BMI and ASCAP, are both regulated by the so called consent decrees, with any disputes between the societies and licensees going to special rate courts where a judge ultimately decides what each licensee - or group of licensees - should pay. 

🎧 Approved: cleopatrick

Toronto duo cleopatrick carved out a space as the raw voice of small-town angst, hailing from Cobourg, Ontario, where they honed a sound deeply rooted in a lo-fi DIY ethos.

Since forming in 2015, Luke Gruntz and Ian Fraser have built their reputation on raw, riff-heavy tracks with lyrics that capture the frustrations and humor of growing up in a quiet Canadian town with big ambitions. 

Their latest single, ‘HAMMER’, however, signals a pivot. Working with Brooklyn producer Philip Weinrobe (known for his work with Adrianne Lenker and Tomberlin), cleopatrick veer into a more contemplative space. The track trades some of their early abrasive energy for a sense of spaciousness, with its core riff having an almost bluesy pulse, looping with a hypnotic quality.

Gruntz describes the song as an exploration of surrender. “This song is about getting pummelled by the big guy”, he says. “Like really just completely flattened out. It’s about the act of not only accepting your beat down, but actually welcoming it. Waving to the cosmic hammer as it comes down on the top of your head”. 

“Guiding its aim for the sake of politeness and efficiency, of course”, he goes on. “Facilitating the expeditious destruction of your sovereign impulse, so that the powers above may move forward with whatever the next phase of their very important plan might be with greater speed. It’s not really up to you to understand much more than that - you actually shouldn’t ask those kinds of questions: just take it!”

🎧 Listen to ‘HAMMER’ here