Hypebot

The conversation around AI-generated music has largely been framed as an ethical one. Should streaming services allow AI music? Should it be labeled? Should artists consent before their work is used to train AI models? With its newly published AI policy, TIDAL moves the ball in a different direction: Should AI-generated music earn royalties?

This interview with Tobi Parks, Co-Founder of Tour Tech and D Tour, and the owner of Des Moines independent venue xBk Live. She's also an entertainment attorney and the Board Vice President for the National Independent Venue Foundation, the charitable foundation of NIVA. Tobi was named a "Woman of Live" by Pollstar and included in the "Next Generation of Live Music Professionals" by Billboard Magazine.

AI music powerhouse Suno is navigating a massive legal threat from the class-action law firm behind history's largest settlement and an escalating "pirate studio" backlash over user data while launching an incubator program that funds indie artists - provided they never criticize the company. Here is what it all means for artists and the independent music ecosystem. Suno also drew scrutiny when it recently acquired concert platform Songkick from Warner Music Group.

Unfortunately, no matter how popular the artist, every tour leaves behind some inventory that never finds a fan. Whether it's leftover sizes, outdated designs, canceled dates, or simply overestimating demand, tons of perfectly usable merchandise often ends up sitting in warehouses long after a tour wraps. Those garments have come to represent both wasted material and wasted revenue.

By Daniel Alexis of Midnight Rebels Is anyone actually listening to the music anymore? The short answer is no, at least not in the way we used to. When I look at the data driving our industry, the pivot away from long-form audio toward vertical video is staggering. According to the 2025 IMS Business Report, the global electronic music industry surged to a record 15.1 billion dollars in value.

By Ryan Blakeley It was a sweltering, sunny afternoon in Boston and the streets were bustling with people heading to the Orioles vs. Red Sox game. But just down the block from Fenway Park, in the Berklee College of Music’s Richard Ortner Studio Building, a different (admittedly nerdier) faceoff was unfolding over the future of music and AI. From June 3 to 5, the recently established Berklee Emerging Artistic Technology Lab (BEATL) held its inauguralAI Music Summit (AIMS).

When Metallica took the stage at Cardiff's Principality Stadium last night, few expected one of the night's most talked-about moments to come during the band's lighthearted mid-show tradition.

By Patrick George Wilson, Weezer drummer & CFO of OPUS I spent most of my life on one side of the music business. I play drums. I co-founded a band that somehow kept going for three decades. For years, the work was the work: write it, record it, play it, repeat. The money was something other people handled, until it wasn't. At some point I ended up in the CFO chair at Weezer Touring. That is where I learned the thing nobody tells you when you are twenty-two and just happy to be in the van.

*Thanks to Your Morning Coffee for covering a story we published on Hypebot last week! Subscribe to the Your Morning Coffee newsletter here.

SoundCloud and Twitch have teamed up to launch SoundCloud Sessions, a new recurring livestream performance series designed to help emerging DJs and creators grow their audiences across both platforms. The initiative combines Twitch's live streaming community with SoundCloud's music discovery ecosystem, giving DJs an opportunity to perform live while extending the reach of those performances long after the stream ends.