International MusicAlly vor 18 hours

Just how many audio-streaming service users does India have?

During her keynote address at the All About Music conference in Mumbai in August 2025, IFPI CEO Victoria Oakley said that India had “192m users on free streaming in India, […] The post is from Music Ally.

International MusicAlly vor 24 hours

Live Nation loses its antitrust lawsuit – so what happens next?

When Live Nation settled with the US Department of Justice a few days into its antitrust trial last month, the expectation was that it would reach a similar settlement with the state attorneys general who were also suing it. It did not,…

International Complete Music Update (CMU) vor 2 days

Kanye’s world tour loses another date as French show gets postponed

Kanye West has voluntarily postponed a planned show in Marseille. There were reports that French ministers were planning on following the lead of the UK government, which withdrew permission for West to perform in the country after he was announced…

International MusicAlly vor 2 days

Spotify and labels win (notional) $322m from Anna’s Archive

We say ‘notional’ because there is surely very little chance of getting this money. Nonetheless, Spotify and the three major labels have won a default judgement against Anna’s Archive. That’s the site that announced before Christmas that it had scraped metadata and…

International MusicAlly vor 3 days

UMG’s Michael Nash sees ‘no audience’ for explosion in AI music

Universal Music Group’s digital chief Michael Nash sat down with Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava at last week’s HumanX AI conference, offering the latest insight into how both companies see the AI-music space. Nash went in hard on “the false narrative…

International MusicAlly vor 4 days

Report explores ‘streaming paradox’ for artists in five countries

The latest study exploring musicians’ views on the music-streaming economy comes from the Oxford Internet Institute and researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. They surveyed 1,200 musicians for a report that deliberately focused its attention beyond the…

International MusicAlly vor 4 days

Rethinking European music exports: it’s not just about copying South Korea

Guest column: Music Ally publishes guest columns voicing the opinions of notable authors, or advancing specific perspectives on important issues. These are chosen at the Editorial team’s discretion, are not paid-for, and do not necessarily reflect Music Ally’s own opinion.…

International MusicAlly vor 7 days

Discogs’ latest release is… a portable cassette player?

We’re now nearly two decades into the resurgence of vinyl as a music format, with the IFPI recently hailing a 19th consecutive year of growth for record sales in 2025. But recent years have also seen a sustained comeback – admittedly…

International MusicAlly vor 7 days

Ticketmaster joins the AI-discovery party with its ChatGPT app

Ticketmaster is the latest music-related company to launch a ChatGPT app, hoping to capitalise on the growing number of people using chatbots as search engines. “Fans can now discover events and explore ticket options directly inside ChatGPT, without needing to…

International MusicAlly vor 7 days

Spotify adds features to easily turn off its video content

Spotify has pivoted energetically towards video in recent years, particularly in its podcasts business. But the company appears to have now recognised that not every user is as enthusiastic about the shift. Its latest features make it easier to turn video…

International MusicAlly vor 1 week

Secretly buys Babel Ops in latest indie-indie consolidation move

Independent consolidation isn’t just about majors buying indies, nor is it just about acquisitions involving labels. Consolidation focused on tech platforms is also a trend in 2026 – and an encouraging one. The latest example sees Secretly Distribution acquiring tech firm…

International The Guardian Music Industry Blog vor 1 week

Universal Music, home to Taylor Swift and Drake, receives €55bn takeover offer

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square claims world’s biggest music company has suffered because of delay of US listingBusiness live – latest updatesBillionaire Bill Ackman’s hedge fund has offered to buy Universal Music Group (UMG) in a deal that values the world’s…

International Redaktion ORF.at vor 1 week

London verweigert Kanye West Einreise

Die britische Regierung hat heute US-Rapper Kanye West die Einreise nach Großbritannien verweigert. Seine Anwesenheit sei nicht im öffentlichen Interesse, wurde der Schritt laut BBC begründet. Im Vorfeld war es zu Kontroversen über seine Buchung als Headliner beim Wireless-Musikfestival in London gekommen. Die Organisatoren bestätigten inzwischen das Einreiseverbot und teilten mit, dass das gesamte dreitägige Festival im Juli abgesagt werde. West hatte in den vergangenen Jahren wiederholt mit antisemitischen Äußerungen empört.

International MusicAlly vor 1 week

YouTube’s Coachella 2026 coverage includes a 24/7 TV station

The Coachella festival begins on Friday (10 April) and as ever, YouTube is the event’s livestreaming-video partner – with a new traditional-TV-style twist to its 2026 coverage. YouTube will be livestreaming seven stages from the festival simultaneously, including a vertical feed of…

International MusicAlly vor 1 week

Impala has mixed feelings about WMG’s acquisition of Revelator

We wondered what independent music bodies would make of Warner Music Group’s announcement last week that it is buying B2B firm Revelator, whose services are used by a number of indie artists. Now European body Impala has offered its response, with mixed feelings…

International MusicAlly vor 2 weeks

The album is back

This week’s Sandbox dives into the album as a format, which is undergoing something of a cultural resurgence led by album-focused artists like Charli xcx, Lily Allen, Geese, Bad Bunny and Rosalía.  We spoke to music strategist, podcaster and author…

International MusicAlly vor 2 weeks

Create Music Group leads $2m funding for marketing startup Soundlink

Startup Soundlink launched in 2025 as a service to help music marketers solve “the attribution problem” – understanding how their social-media ads impacted streams. Having signed up more than 5,000 artists and labels, now Soundlink has raised a $2m seed-funding round, led…

International MusicAlly vor 2 weeks

Chartmetric warns 2025’s ‘pop slump’ has continued in 2026

Slump? What slump?! With global recorded-music revenues up 6.4% last year, the industry would be forgiven for taking a quiet moment to celebrate recently. However, analytics firm Chartmetric’s latest research may interrupt that, based on its analysis of the streaming charts. “Last year…

International MusicAlly vor 2 weeks

WMG to buy Revelator in wake of UMG’s Downtown Music acquisition

Two theories emerged when UMG completed its acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings recently. One was that the lengthy regulatory scrutiny of the deal might discourage major labels from other indie acquisitions – for a while at least. The other, though, was…

International MusicAlly vor 2 weeks

US music bodies weigh in to publishers’ Anthropic lawsuit

A group of music publishers are continuing to sue AI firm Anthropic for copyright infringement, focusing on its alleged use of their lyrics to train its Claude model, as well as some of its outputs. Now they have the backing…