Episode 633 – Labels, Streaming, YouTube, And Gear News And Views

Music industry professionals still betting on major labels to develop artists should know the system has structurally exited that business.

On this week’s episode I break down the data showing UMG and WMG now redirect spending toward catalog acquisitions rather than new careers. . .

. . . have made AI licensing deals explicitly designed to reduce artist relationships. . .

. . . and then kept the copyright settlement money those deals generated without passing any of it on to the artists whose music was used for training.

I also looked at:

• TikTok trying to fill this development vacuum, but 59% of its new-user feeds are already AI-generated content, so even that alternative is narrowing fast.
  
• Spotify’s global top 50 fell from over 90% new releases in 2019-2020 to roughly 70% by early 2026, and by May seven of the top ten songs were more than two years old.
  
• Luminate found that 56% of 13-to-24-year-olds regularly listen to music made before 2000, with 25% of that group favoring tracks from the 1990s or earlier.
  
• Hip hop, which held roughly 30% market share at its late-2000s-to-2020 peak, has gone entire months without a single Billboard top 10 placement.
  
• Suno raised $400 million at a $5.4 billion valuation while battling UMG and Sony in federal court over training data.
  
• Tidal announced it will pay zero royalties on fully AI-generated tracks and badge them for listeners.
  
• The AFM’s lawsuit against Warner and Universal over withheld AI settlement money gives artists a concrete legal precedent to cite when evaluating any publisher or label deal where royalty flow-through terms are left unstated.
  
• YouTube’s argument that uploading a video constitutes blanket consent to train Google’s Lyria 3 model shows why reading platform terms of service before posting has become a practical rights-management step, not a formality.

On the gear side:

• Dean Guitar’s parent Armadillo Enterprises filing for Chapter 11 after a Gibson trademark loss illustrates how intellectual property exposure can collapse a company faster than market conditions,
  
• while Höfner’s acquisition by GEWA Music suggests bankruptcy does not always end a legacy instrument brand
  
• Royer Labs finds a new home
  
• and a new honor for Jimi Hendrix in New York City

You can hear it via Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Mixcloud, Spotify, Deezer, TuneIn Radio, or RadioPublic.

Also, a video version of this podcast is now available on YouTube as well.

Chapters:

00:00:00 – Coming up…

00:00:52 – Why older songs are dominating streaming again

00:01:53 – Has hip hop passed its commercial peak?

00:02:33 – Why major labels want catalogs more than new artists

00:03:17 – TikTok builds its own music distribution and artist pipeline

00:04:22 – How much of TikTok is actually AI slop?

00:06:31 – AI generated artists are already earning real money

00:07:28 – Tidal draws a hard line on AI royalties

00:07:57 – Why Suno raised $400 million and what it really means

00:09:14 – The NMPA licensing deal with Udio and what artists are not being told

00:10:30 – YouTube claims uploaded videos can be used for AI training

00:11:47 – Starstruck lets fans remix songs but will anyone actually use it?

00:13:54 – Spotify stock slides 40 percent

00:14:21 – Dean Guitars files for bankruptcy after losing to Gibson

00:15:10 – Höfner bought out of bankruptcy and Royer Labs finds a new home

00:15:54 – Jimi Hendrix honored with a street in New York City

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