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Who Gets Paid When The Machine Sings?

Good Morning,

Follow the money in music today and it loops back on itself. Universal Music is sounding out investors for a roughly $1.5 billion bond sale (Business Times) at the exact moment the Musicians’ Union sues Universal and Warner over the licensing deals they’ve struck for AI training (Pitchfork). Meanwhile a new study finds a striking share of working musicians already reaching for AI in their own work (The Hollywood Reporter) — the same tool the lawsuit treats as the enemy. Fast Company christens this “the imagination era,” where creativity is the currency (Fast Company). The harder question is who gets to profit from it.

In repression news: An Iranian court has upheld a prison sentence for Cannes winner Jafar Panahi (Deadline), and Utah quietly banned its 35th book — Alice Sebold’s Lucky — from public schools (Book Riot).

And off the Norwegian coast, archaeologists hauled up an intact 18th-century ship still loaded with porcelain (Smithsonian).

All of our stories below.

Doug

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