AI Music Licensing is a "Trojan Horse": Giants Take Hundreds of Millions, Open Source Crushed
matdryhurst · x · 2026-07-03
Commenting on AI music licensing deals, Mat Dryhurst points out the unequal distribution of the "$15 per song" model: major record labels can take $250–300 million, the top 1,000 catalogs/estates receive over $100 million, and rights societies extract $35–65 million in fees.
He emphasizes that these giants also hold equity in the AI model companies, granting the latter legal certainty while both sides collectively squeeze out open-source models. Therefore, he views such licensing as a "Trojan horse"—ostensibly legitimizing AI music but actually consolidating the power of major labels and closed-source models.
More from Safety
- ExploitGym may have only 60–70% solvable tasks, fueling the OpenAI cheating debate — max_paperclips · 2026-07-27
- Shared AI artifacts are being indexed and exposing sensitive company data — niloofar_mire · 2026-07-27
- Post-Hugging Face, labs may stop running rigorous dangerous-capability evals — Miles_Brundage · 2026-07-27
- Open models may beat closed ones for cyber defense, researchers argue as Kimi K3 impresses — eliebakouch · 2026-07-27
- Meta Accused of Letting Fake AI Doctors Sell Quack Cures on Its Platforms — jonerp · 2026-07-27
- India’s AI policy is favoring compute and foundation models over frontline health workers — Paimaamu · 2026-07-27