Downtown Music Holdings faces a $375 million lawsuit from Blast Off Media alleging breach of contract and fraudulent inducement related to its UMG merger.

A lawsuit from users alleges that the streaming giant falsely represents that playlists and recommendations are tailored to listeners when they're actually subject to influence from major labels.

Forbes estimates that the "King of Pop," Michael Jackson, has earned more than $3.5 billion since his passing in 2009 and has featured 13 times as the highest-earning celebrity since Forbes began tracking them in 2001. Moreover, he has remained the top earner beyond the grave for three consecutive years since 2022. *From sales, streams, licensing deals, estate acquisitions (made or announced), and other sources between 1 Oct 2024 and 30 Sep 2025 Source: Forbes

Spotify saw double-digit growth on its free and paid-subscription tiers for the third quarter of 2025, as the audio streaming delivered results that met or beat Wall Street forecasts.

The company’s added 5 million paid Premium subscribers, up 12% to 281 million. Overall monthly active users grew 11% to 713 million, a better-than-expected 17 million net gain.

Total Spotify Q3 revenue increased 7% to €4.27 billion, while advertising revenue declined -6% (or flat year-over-year on a constant currency basis). Growth in music and podcast advertising sales — driven by growth in impressions sold — was offset by “softness in pricing and optimization of our podcasting inventory in our Owned & Licensed portfolio,” Spotify said in announcing earnings.

Rapper RBX is suing Spotify after the streaming platform supposedly ignored bots and fake users boosting Drake’s streams.
The rapper has accused Spotify of streaming fraud after alleging that world-renowned rapper Drake benefited from billions of fake streams.

The lawsuit, as seen by NBC News, alleges that from January 2022 to September 2025, Drake’s songs were boosted by “billions of fraudulent streams” created by fake users and bots.

Social network Bluesky, which on Friday announced a new milestone of 40 million users, will soon start testing “dislikes” as a way to improve personalization on its main Discover feed and others.

The news was shared alongside a host of other conversation control updates and changes, which include smaller tweaks to replies, improved detection of toxic comments, and other ways to prioritize more relevant conversations to the individual user.

Two rarities during the musical performances on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend: actual rock ‘n’ roll was performed. Even rarer than that, Thomas Jefferson was quoted — prominently and at length — in the spot where a guitar solo might have gone.

During Brandi Carlile‘s performance of the hard-rocking, U2-styled “Church & State,” Carlile offered a spoken recitation between choruses about the title subject. Viewers might have thought the words sounded familiar, but hard to exactly place. From the Constitution, maybe?

The Las Vegas Grand Prix has announced that former One Direction member Louis Tomlinson, Kane Brown and more are set to headline the Formula 1 weekend.

Vavo, DJ Pee Wee (the DJ alter-ego of Anderson .Paak), Steve Aoki, Kaskade will also join the line-up for performances pre- and post-race.

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is set to take place from November 20-22.

Luke Combs is now the highest RIAA certified country artist in history with 168 million units sold. 

Of the achievement, Combs shares, “When my team first told me about this, my initial reaction was, ‘Are you sure? There’s no way.’ It was only 8 years ago that I got my first plaque for ‘Hurricane’ going gold. I knew then, without a doubt, I had the best fans in the world. The song had gone platinum before they could even give me the gold plaque. I’m super humbled by the fans’ belief in me and support of my music today and over the years. I know this does not happen without them. This achievement is more so theirs than it is mine. All I ever hoped and dreamed of from the beginning of this crazy ride was to make music that made people feel something and I can’t wait to continue making country music for the rest of my life.” 

A federal judge rules that Fugees rapper Pras Michel must pay over $64 million to the US government on the charges for which he was convicted in 2023. Pras Michel—the Fugees rapper who was convicted on illegal foreign lobbying and conspiracy charges two and a half years ago—must pay the U.S. government a staggering $64.9 million for his crimes, a federal judge ruled on Thursday (October 30).

It’s official: Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai, Aimee Lou Wood and Mia McKenna-Bruce have joined the cast of “The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event,” playing, respectively, Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, Pattie Boyd and Maureen Starkey, who each married one member of the Fab Four at the height of the band’s fame and success in the 1960s.

After dealing with grief and doubts about whether they could go on as a band without Keith Flint, The Prodigy are firmly back and in scintillating form, buoyed by a run of rapturously received shows with a huge tour and new music coming in 2026. As The Prodigy fire full force into this new era, Patrick Hinton speaks to Liam Howlett about nostalgia, AI, social media, the emotional impact of losing Keith Flint and the healing support of fans

Global songwriter royalties just hit a record $13.6 billion in 2024, find out what’s driving the surge and what it means for the future of music creators. Songwriters and music publishers saw another strong year in 2024, with global royalty collections reaching an estimated USD $13.6 billion. The figures, released by CISAC, show a 7.2% year-on-year increase and mark a new all-time high for creators represented by the network’s collective management organisations across more than 100 countries. Music remains the dominant contributor to CISAC’s collections, and digital revenues once again led the charge. Digital royalty income surpassed €5 billio

The Recording Academy has invited more than 3,800 members who are actively working in the music industry to join the Academy as part of its 2025 New Member Class, expanding the pool of qualified voters ahead of the 2026 Grammy Awards on Feb. 1.

Notably, invitations were also extended to all Latin Recording Academy Voting Members for the first time in history. With the aim of building a more globally representative voting body, Monday’s announcement revealed the accepted class is comprised of 50% of people 39 and under, 58% of people of color and 35% women.

AI companies are now fighting so many copyright lawsuits that a tech industry lobby group, the Chamber of Progress, last week called on President Donald Trump to sign an executive order directing federal attorneys "to intervene in legal cases" to defend the industry's practice of building generative AI tools by feeding them on copyrighted works.

Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation are the focus of another lawsuit filed earlier this week in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. According to a report from Bloomberg, the lawsuit alleges that Ticketmaster’s SafeTix mobile ticketing platform copies patented rotating barcode technology.

Live Nation and Ticketmaster have previously faced similar claims, but they were withdrawn last year. EChanging Barcode LLC has accused SafeTix of infringing US Patent No. 9,047,715 according to the report, which covers the use of rotating encrypted barcodes to block screenshot fraud.

Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl spends its first month atop the Billboard 200 chart, as it racks up its fourth straight week at No. 1 (on the chart dated Nov. 8). It earned 146,000 equivalent album units (down 25%) in the United States in the week ending Oct. 30, according to Luminate.

The Life of a Showgirl is only the second album in 2025 to spend its first month at No. 1, following Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem (which spent its first eight weeks atop the list, of its total 12 at No. 1). Swift’s own The Tortured Poets Department spent its first 12 weeks at No. 1 in 2024, of its total 17 weeks atop the list.

Last week we reported on a backlash from AI-music firm Udio’s community after it blocked downloads of their generated tracks with immediate effect after striking its deal with Universal Music Group.

Now the company has responded to the revolt. “Not going to mince words: we hate the fact we cannot offer downloads right now. We know the pain it causes to you, and we are sorry that we have had to do so,” it said in a post to the official Udio subreddit.

The Microsoft Zune is mostly just a footnote in tech history. Microsoft spent years — and vast sums of money — trying to create a true competitor to Apple’s iPod, without ever coming close to actually pulling it off. The Zune was simply too little, too late.

Bandsintown has launched a marketplace of integrated tools, helping independent artists stay on top of their game.

Bandsintown has launched a new marketplace bringing together more than 30 trusted partners to help artists manage their careers in one place. The update connects tools across distribution, marketing, fan engagement, and merchandise – all aimed at helping musicians grow their audiences and take control of their creative workflow.

Taylor Swift fans are putting their mobilizing skills to work to support those in need. The Swiftie coalition known as Swifties for Hope on X tweeted out on Friday that fans are encouraged to donate $13 or whatever they can afford to support those affected by the potential cuts of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).


Alongside an image with text referencing Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” song, “Father Figure,” the account wrote in a caption, “Swifties, we’re fundraising for @FeedingAmerica to help support food banks nationwide. Tomorrow, SNAP benefits will halt and the 42 million Americans who rely on them will need help.”

The follow-on from this week’s news of a deal between Universal Music Group and AI-music startup Udio continues.

While Udio grapples with a potential user revolt at its suddenly-introduced ‘no downloads’ rule, UMG’s next task is to ensure artists and songwriters are fully on board with its new partnership.

With that in mind, US nonprofit organisation the Music Artists Coalition (MAC) has posed some questions to the major label, with its founder Irving Azoff – yes, that Irving Azoff – voicing his concerns about how the deal will pay off for musicians.