In 2018, Spotify launched Heart & Soul, a mental health initiative developed to provide support and promote deep knowledge about emotional well-being. As conversations around mental health take center stage in the music industry, Spotify is deepening its commitment to artist well-being through our Heart & Soul, Mental Health for Creators initiative. In partnership with leading nonprofits, this global effort aims to provide meaningful support, challenge cultural norms, and ensure that artists, songwriters, and their teams can access the help they need—when they need it.

A late-night curfew in the downtown area implemented by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has forced businesses to cancel events, including shows at Walt Disney Concert Hall and Peacock Theater.

Bass issued a curfew June 10 covering one square mile of downtown L.A. after the mostly peaceful protests against recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, raids turned violent, with some businesses looted and damaged since the demonstrations began on June 6.

Performances from Vampire Weekend, Olivia Rodrigo, Luke Combs, Modest Mouse, Mt. Joy and Tyler, The Creator are among others included in the schedule.

The Recording Academy has revealed the key dates, deadlines and rule amendments for the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, taking place on Sun, Feb. 1, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, with nominations set to be announced on Fri, Nov. 7, 2025. 

Following its annual board meeting, it has also announced several new awards and changes to the awards process, effective immediately. The full Grammy rulebook can be accessed here.

Reddit is introducing some new features for comments, including the ability to share comments as posts, a comment insights tool to track things like upvotes and views, and comment drafts, according to a post from the Reddit product team. The features are rolling out today on Reddit’s native apps and on the web, and the rollout will continue “over the next few weeks.”

As we prepare for the upcoming Phonorecords V rate-setting proceeding, one thing is clear: there are long-standing but largely unexamined flaws in the streaming mechanical royalty calculation. Chief among them are bundling rates (currently being litigated) and the so-called “long song” formula for streaming—both embedded in the regulatory framework for years, yet only now drawing focused scrutiny. The recent Spotify bundling debacle, which delivered a substantial royalty haircut to songwriters and publishers, ensures that bundling will be a front-and-center issue going forward. (This stuff adds up: See Kristin Robinson’s excellent reporting on the $230 million cost of the little bundling mishap.) Assuming the case is ongoing when Phonorecords V starts next year, this active dispute will be vaguely reminiscent of Phonorecords III hangover which did exactly not make for a smooth negotiation in Phonorecords IV.

Streaming, merch, ticketing, and superfan platform OpenWav has officially set sail with an eye on “redefining the future of independent music.”

The self-described “next-generation music platform built for indie artists” formally debuted at A2IM Indie Week in New York. Established and led by 88 Rising co-founder Jaeson Ma – fellow OpenWav co-founder Eric Tu serves as COO – OpenWav launched as OP3N some years back.

Indian firm Zee Music Company has been awarded a ‘Red Diamond Play Button’ by YouTube to celebrate its main channel reaching 100 million subscribers on the platform. “Being only the second music label globally to receive the prestigious Red Diamond Play Button from YouTube makes this milestone even more special,” said its chief business officer Umesh Kumar Bansal. The first label being another Indian firm, T-Series, which received the award in 2019.

At the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) annual meeting held in Alice Tulley Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center, the organization revealed the true cost of Spotify’s bundling scheme to publishers and songwriters. According to the NMPA, the bundling change—which reclassifies Spotify Premium as a bundle including audiobooks—cost songwriters and publishers a staggering $230 million in lost revenue in the first year alone. The NMPA warned that if the practice is not stopped, the cumulative loss is projected to surpass $3.1 billion through 2032.

Formed in 2020 as the COVID pandemic threatened to decimate the live-entertainment business, the National Independent Talent Organization is a 501(c)(6) trade organization that represents hundreds of independent talent agencies and managers nationwide.

In a way similar to the National Independent Venue Assn., the organization sees people who were previously bitter competitors joining together for the common good — a goal that has continued after the pandemic lifted. After securing some $900 million in federal funding for agents and managers during COVID, it has expanded its purview to fighting excesses in the secondary market, issuing a report that shows resale tickets are two times more than face value on average; assisted in the banning of speculative tickets [the practice whereby tickets that don’t exist yet are put on sale] and deceptive ticket-selling practices in Maryland and Minnesota; filed a formal complaint with the FTC on World Ticket Conference and BOT Act Violators; all in the face of fierce lobbying from representatives on the secondary market.

Undoubtedly the showstopper among the new Apple Music features is AutoMix. Leveraging the power of AI, this innovative tool has been designed to deliver a personal DJ experience like none other. It promises to execute seamless transitions through time stretching and beat matching, claiming to get the timing just right. However, while the concept is thrilling, we’ll have to wait and see how well it handles the switch between notably different music styles.

Shares of Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE: SPOT) surged in today’s trading session, with the stock price closing at an impressive 10.78, marking a 1.55% increase and underscoring strong investor confidence.

Making Vinyl just wrapped up its latest event in Memphis, where industry professionals came together to discuss the state of the vinyl business. From June 2-4, the Renasant Convention Center hosted panels and plenty of networking focused on vinyl record manufacturing, distribution, and new technologies.

Next up: Europe. Making Vinyl returns to Haarlem, the Netherlands, on September 24-26, 2025. The Philharmonie (PHIL) will once again serve as the venue, bringing people from across the vinyl supply chain together to share ideas and learn from industry experts.

Sony Group has been holding its annual ‘business segment presentation and fireside chat’ online event this morning, and one of the executives nattering over the burning logs was Sony Music boss Rob Stringer.

He highlighted the fact that Sony’s music business has broken its annual revenue record “for the ninth year in a row” while flagging up the company’s aggressive investments strategy.

Instagram is making it easier for users to express themselves through music, reels, and says it’s “exploring” ways to support posts that can appear on your profile without being pushed to followers’ feeds. A feature rolling out today allows users to automatically share the name and artist of the Spotify song they’re currently listening to in their Instagram Notes — the temporary status updates that appear above profile pictures in Instagram DMs.

Meta spokesperson Christine Pai confirmed that starting next week, Instagram is rolling out the ability for users to rearrange the order of posts in their profile grids. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri had previously teased these capabilities in January.

An in-depth investigation into large scale ticket touting in the UK by the BBC has seen claims come to light that now-convicted fraudsters received inside help when buying and selling large quantities of tickets for inflated prices.

Prolific touts Peter Hunter and David Smith were jailed in 2020 for fraudulently trading tickets between 2010 and 2017, while Maria Chenery-Woods (the so-called Ticket Queen), Paul Douglas, Mark Woods and Lynda Chenery were convicted of fraudulent trading offences in 2024. They all utilised resale sites StubHub, Viagogo and the now-defunct Ticketmaster-owned GetMeIn! and Seatwave, which were closed in 2018.

It’s not just Instagram shouting about its new features and tools for creators. Snap had some new things to share this week for its Snapchat app too.

They include a tool to create a video from their saved ‘Memories’ (snaps and stories that they have marked as not for deletion), and one to automatically save their public stories to their profiles.

Snap will also soon launch a ‘Timeline Editor’ to make it easier to edit videos, although for now this will be for US creators only.

While it is technically an annual conference for a trade organization, the National Music Publishers’ Association’s membership meeting has become more like a TV network’s upfront presentation: a major show in the music business with performances from top artists, strong visuals, updates on policies and ongoing battles, and fiery speeches primarily from the organization’s president-CEO of 20 years, David Israelite.

Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire, whose company’s MassiveMusic subsidiary now houses Big Sync, Resonance, 7digital, and Musicube. Photo Credit: Songtradr

Songtradr has reorganized its B2B divisions under MassiveMusic, which it’s touting as “the industry’s most comprehensive, innovative provider of brand and business-centric music solutions.”
Santa Monica-headquartered Songtradr reached out with word of the reorganization today, about four years after acquiring MassiveMusic. Before that, February 2019 saw the expansion-minded licensing platform purchase Big Sync Music, followed by deals for AI-classification company Musicube (June 2022) and then 7digital (March 2023).

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has strongly endorsed Disney & NBCUniversal’s lawsuit against AI company Midjourney. RIAA Chairman & CEO Mitch Glazier issued a statement that underscores the broader implications for creative industries. “There is a clear path forward through partnerships that both further AI innovation and foster human artistry,” Glazier said. “Unfortunately, some bad actors—like Midjourney—see only a zero-sum, winner-take-all game. These short-sighted AI companies are stealing human-created works to generate machine-created, virtually identical products for their own commercial gain

“As a company, we look at music as art, and we would never want to give away art for free. It makes no sense to me,” Apple Music head Oliver Schusser said during a keynote at the NMPA’s annual meeting Wednesday.

Speaking with DMN during his last Indie Week as President and CEO of A2IM, Richard James Burgess reflects on growing the event during his ten years with the organization. He also shares his fears that the industry might divide because of individual ‘micro interests.’ Burgess will be stepping down at the end of the year.