Music Business Worldwide News

1. From Sony Music’s 260,000 deepfake takedowns to Suno’s live music expansion… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-Up

   The biggest headlines from the past few days...

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2. Meta bans TikTok parent ByteDance from advertising on its apps in the US and six other countries

   The ban also covers campaigns from third-party advertisers that direct users in those markets to TikTok or to other ByteDance-owned services.

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3. Suno hires Ticketmaster’s Michael Chua to lead its live music team, including Songkick

   In the role, Chua will lead the AI music company's live music operations, which include concert discovery platform Songkick.

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4. Five-time Grammy winner Drake did not submit any of his three 2026 albums for consideration – joining BTS and Stray Kids in sitting out the 2027 awards (report)

   Sources told Billboard that the rapper did not submit any songs from Iceman, Habibti, and Maid of Honour to the Recording Academy.

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5. Warner Chappell Chair and CEO Guy Moot joins NMPA Board of Directors

   The NMPA announced Moot's appointment a week after he became sole chair of Warner Chappell on October 1.

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6. Live Nation to sell $730M and €600M of bonds to refinance its 6.5% notes due 2027

   The new notes will retire the $1.2 billion of 6.5% debt Live Nation raised in May 2020, during the pandemic concert shutdown.

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7. Spotify is expanding audiobooks to more than 180 markets and says its Audiobooks+ add-on has passed $100M in annual recurring revenue

   Spotify said more than 750 million people will be able to stream or buy books on its platform once the rollout is complete.

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8. Live Nation hit with class action lawsuits over data breach involving Social Security numbers and health records

   Live Nation's statement came five days after Ticketmaster customers across the US ran into problems with ticket transfers.

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9. Elon Musk says Grok Bot will use Suno’s AI music models, alongside Anthropic’s Claude and Midjourney

   Suno does not currently offer an official public API. MBW reported in July that the company was exploring the launch of one.

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10. Pacific Music Group expands to Tokyo with launch of PMG Japan, signs Japanese rapper JP THE WAVY

    PMG says JP THE WAVY is PMG Japan's first major signing and that he will begin releasing new music through the partnership this fall.

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