<\/p>\n
This week, a US federal judge dismissed Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> against Universal Music Group<\/a> over master recording ownership.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge<\/a> issued his 2026 memo, warning against \u201cirresponsible business models\u201d in AI music that devalue artists.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, HYBE America appointed Ethiopia Habtemariam<\/a> as its new President of Music.<\/p>\n Also this week, ERA<\/a> reported that UK music streaming subscription revenues grew by 3.2% YoY in 2025, matching the country\u2019s inflation rate.<\/p>\n Here are some of the biggest headlines from the past few days\u2026<\/p>\n A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Grammy-winning rap duo Salt-N-Pepa against Universal Music Group, ruling that the artists never owned the copyrights to their sound recordings and therefore cannot reclaim them.<\/p>\n Judge Denise Cote of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion and order on Thursday (January 8) granting UMG\u2019s motion to dismiss both claims in the case, which you can read in full here.<\/p>\n Cheryl James and Sandra Denton, professionally known as Salt-N-Pepa, filed the lawsuit in May 2025 seeking to regain their copyrights and physical master recordings. The duo attempted to exercise their termination rights under Section 203 of the Copyright Act, which allows artists to reclaim copyright ownership 35 years after an initial transfer\u2026 (MBW<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Universal Music Group Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge has issued a stark warning about \u201cirresponsible business models\u201d in AI music, declaring that UMG will not tolerate deals that \u201cdevalue artists\u201d and \u201cpromote the exponential growth of AI slop on streaming platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n The comments appear in Grainge\u2019s annual New Year memo to UMG staff, sent on Thursday (January 8) and obtained by MBW, in which he celebrates a successful 2025 for the world\u2019s biggest music rights company and its artists, while outlining strategic priorities for 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cValidating business models that fail to respect artists\u2019 work and creativity, and promote the exponential growth of AI slop on streaming platforms, is a grave disservice to artists, songwriters and all of us who work in music,\u201d writes Grainge.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me be clear: UMG will not stand by and watch irresponsible business models take hold, models that devalue artists, fail to provide adequate compensation for their work, stifle their creativity and ultimately, diminish their ability to reach fans.\u201d\u2026 (MBW<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n HYBE America has appointed veteran music exec Ethiopia Habtemariam as its new President of Music.<\/p>\n Habtemariam, known most recently for having headed up Universal Music Group\u2019s Motown Records, will help advance HYBE America\u2019s long-term growth strategy, spearhead A&R and artist development across the company\u2019s label ecosystem, and identify new creative and commercial opportunities, HYBE America said in a statement on Thursday (January 8).<\/p>\n Habtemariam will be based in Los Angeles and in Atlanta, her hometown and an epicenter of global hip-hop into which the South Korea-headquartered HYBE tapped via its 2023 acquisition of label Quality Control<\/a>\u2026 (MBW<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The amount of money spent on music subscriptions by UK consumers grew modestly last year, up 3.2% YoY. That\u2019s according to new preliminary stats from the UK\u2019s Entertainment Retailers\u2019 Association (ERA), whose members include Spotify<\/a>, Amazon<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, and SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to ERA\u2019s data, some GBP \u00a32.045 billion (USD $2.69bn) was spent on music streaming subscriptions in 2025, up from GBP \u00a31.982 billion in 2024. In monetary terms, that represented a YoY increase of GBP \u00a363.0 million\u2026 (MBW<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Universal Music Group has struck its latest major AI partnership. The world\u2019s largest music rights company announced on Tuesday (January 6) a strategic collaboration with AI computing giant NVIDIA, the world\u2019s most valuable company by market capitalization, currently valued at approximately $4.56 trillion.<\/p>\n According to a press release, the partnership will see NVIDIA and UMG \u201cundertake collaborative research and development to promote shared objectives of advancing human music creation and rightsholder compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n The release added that the collaboration will combine NVIDIA\u2019s AI infrastructure with what the companies describe as \u201cthe world\u2019s leading music catalog comprising millions of culture-defining tracks\u201d to pioneer what they call \u201cresponsible AI for music discovery, creation, and engagement.\u201d\u2026 (MBW<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Partner message: MBW\u2019s Weekly Round-up is supported by BMI<\/span>,\u00a0the\u00a0global leader in performing rights management,\u00a0dedicated to supporting songwriters, composers and publishers and championing the value of music.\u00a0Find\u00a0out more about\u00a0BMI<\/span>\u00a0here<\/span>.\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/a>Music Business Worldwide<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.musicbusinessworldwide.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to Music Business Worldwide\u2019s Weekly Round-up \u2013 where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW\u2019s Round-up is exclusively supported by BMI, a global leader in performing rights management, dedicated to supporting songwriters, composers and publishers and championing the value of music. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2191452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2230819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/From-Epidemic-Sound-suing-Meta-again-to-Robert-Kyncls-new-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2230819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2230820,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230819\/revisions\/2230820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2191452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2230819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2230819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2230819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. SALT-N-PEPA LAWSUIT AGAINST UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP OVER OWNERSHIP OF MASTER RECORDINGS DISMISSED<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n
2. SIR LUCIAN GRAINGE TALKS AI MUSIC, SUPERFANS IN 2026 MEMO, TAKING SWIPE AT FIRMS \u2018VALIDATING BUSINESS MODELS THAT FAIL TO RESPECT ARTISTS\u2019 WORK\u2019<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n
3. ETHIOPIA HABTEMARIAM APPOINTED PRESIDENT OF MUSIC AT HYBE AMERICA<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n
4. UK MUSIC STREAMING SUBSCRIPTION REVENUES GREW BY 3.2% YOY IN 2025. SO DID INFLATION.<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n
5. UMG\u2019S LATEST MAJOR AI PARTNERSHIP ARRIVES VIA TECH GIANT NVIDIA, WITH PROMISE OF \u2018ANTIDOTE TO GENERIC AI SLOP\u2019<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n