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As artificial intelligence’s influence continues to spread deeper into pop culture, major record labels are starting negotiations with AI companies to ensure theyand their artistsare properly compensated when their music is used to train large language models. Sony, Warner Music, and Universal Music Group reportedly have begun talks with Suno and Udio, a pair of generative AI startups that allow users to compose new tracks. That could set the bar for how much artists and labels will be paid for their influence on AI-created musicand set up a tracking system that ensures they are accurately compensated for the frequency of use. The negotiations come as Suno and Udio are facing a lawsuit from the Recording Industry Association of America, which accuses the two companies of copyright infringement. The labels also filed suit against the AI companies last year, a case which is still pending. Suno, though, in its answer to the complaint, stopped just short of saying it had used copyrighted materials to train its models, saying its training data includes essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet, abiding by paywalls, password protections, and the like, combined with similarly available text descriptions. Suno and Udio argued that their use of the material falls with fair use exemptions. What the major record labels really dont want is competition,” Suno wrote in its response to the suit from the labels. Where Suno sees musicians, teachers, and everyday people using a new tool to create original music, the labels see a threat to their market share. The record labels are pushing to develop fingerprinting technology that would determine how and when a song is used in the creation of AI music. They’re also looking to be included in the music products Suno and Udio release, with influence over the development and parameters of new products. Universal Music Group, which is home to Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Drake, has a history of being particularly rigid during these sorts of negotiations. Last year, the company’s standoff with TikTok resulted in it pulling its songs from the short-form social media juggernaut, then demanding the app remove any music credited to a songwriter signed to UMG. There must not be free rides for massive global platforms that refuse to meaningfully address issues around AI, platform safety, or pay their fair share for our artists and songwriters work, CEO Lucian Grange said at the time. All of the labels are also demanding that artists have the option to opt out of select AI use cases. Several artists, last year, signed an open letter that was critical of AI, including Billie Eilish, Billy Porter, Jon Batiste, and Jon Bon Jovi. The letter called for controls on AI music that would infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists. Also included among the signatories were the estates of Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley, which have seen those artists revived through AI to cover songs from other artists. Music companies are the latest to negotiate with AI firms after initial resistance. Several book publishers and news organizations have agreed to deals, including News Corp., Politico/Business Insider publisher Axel Springer, Reuters, The New York Times and Vox Media. While the talks are still early (and are being done independently by each of the labels instead of as a collective group), should they be successful, they will likely end with the music labels taking an ownership stake in the startups (as they have in streaming services like Spotify). There will also likely be some sort of financial settlement to end the existing lawsuits.
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E-Commerce
Meta has signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to keep open its Clinton Clean Energy Center nuclear facility in Illinois, a move that will help feed the tech giant’s enormous power needs in the artificial intelligence era. The deal takes effect June 2027, right as Illinoiss zero-emission credit (ZEC) program expires and the energy center loses its ratepayer-funded financial assistance for being a carbon-free facility. By keeping the plant in operation until at least 2047, the center will directly provide power to the local grid and support Metas clean energy goals of matching its energy use with solely renewable energy. This deal will expand Clintons clean energy output by 30 megawatts through plant uprates, preserve 1,100 high-paying local jobs, deliver $13.5 million in annual tax revenue, and add $1 million in charitable giving to local nonprofits over five years, Joseph Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, said in a statement. Big tech’s power play Metas deal comes as a number of Big Tech companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, are seeking out nuclear energy alternatives to power AIs growing demand. Although the center will be using the power to support the regional grid in central and southern Illinois, the tech giant will purchase 1,121 megawatts of nuclear energy from the facility, nearly all the energy the center will have the capacity to produce. Urvi Parekh, head of global energy at Meta, said the partnership will secure the clean reliable energy that is necessary to advance Metas AI ambitions. We are proud to help keep the Clinton plant operating for years to come and demonstrate that this plant is an important piece to strengthening American leadership in energy, Parekh said. Following the announcement on Tuesday, Constellations stock price (Nasdaq: CEG) increased around 1%. However, the stock was largely flat by midafternoon. Shares in Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META), parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, were also flat on Tuesday.
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump wants his big, beautiful bill of tax breaks and spending cuts on his desk to be signed into law by the Fourth of July, and he’s pushing the slow-rolling Senate to make it happen sooner rather than later. Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House early this week and has been dialing senators for one-on-one chats, using both the carrot and stick to nudge, badger and encourage them to act. But it’s still a long road ahead for the 1,000-page-plus package. His question to me was, How do you think the bill’s going to go in the Senate? Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said about his call with Trump. Do you think there’s going to be problems? It’s a potentially tumultuous three-week sprint for senators preparing to put their own imprint on the massive Republican package that cleared the House late last month by a single vote. The senators have been meeting for weeks behind closed doors, including as they returned to Washington late Monday, to revise the package ahead of what is expected to be a similarly narrow vote in the Senate. Passing THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL is a Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around, Trump posted on social media. He urged them Monday to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY. Thune, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, has few votes to spare from the Senate’s slim, 53-seat GOP majority. Democrats are waging an all-out political assault on GOP proposals to cut Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments to help pay for more than $4.5 trillion in tax cuts with many lawmakers being hammered at boisterous town halls back home. Itd be nice if we could have everybody on board to do it, but, you know, individual members are going to stake out their positions, Thune said Tuesday. But in the end, we have to succeed. Failures not an option. Weve got to get to 51. So well figure out the path forward to do that over the next couple of weeks. At its core, the package seeks to extend the tax cuts approved in 2017, during Trump’s first term at the White House, and add new ones the presidents campaigned on, including no taxes on tips and others. It also includes a massive build-up of $350 billion for border security, deportations and national security. To defray the lost tax revenue to the government and avoid piling onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt load, Republicans want reduce federal spending by imposing work requirements for some Americans who rely on government safety net services. Estimates are 8.6 million people would no longer have health care and nearly 4 million would lose Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP. The package also would raise the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s bill “is ugly to its very core. Schumer said Tuesday it’s a lie that the cuts won’t hurt Americans. Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth: tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy paid for by gutting health care for millions of Americans,” said the New York senator. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to soon provide an overall analysis of the package’s impacts on the government balance sheets, particular its rising annual deficits. But Republicans are ready to blast those findings from the congressional scorekeeper as flawed. Trump Tuesday switched to tougher tactics, deriding the holdout Republican senators to get on board. The president laid into Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning deficit hawk who has made a career of arguing against government spending. Paul wants the package’s $4 trillion increase to the debt ceiling out of the bill. Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). Trump posted. The July 4th deadline is not only aspirational for the president, it’s all but mandatory for his Treasury Department. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned Congress that the nation will run out of money to pay its bills if the debt ceiling, now at $36 trillion, is not lifted by mid-July or early August to allow more borrowing. Bessent has also been meeting behind closed doors with senators and GOP leadership. Thune acknowledged Tuesday that lifting the debt ceiling is not up for debate. Its got to be done, the South Dakota senator said. The road ahead is also a test for Thune who, like Johnson, is a newer leader in Congress and among the many Republicans adjusting their own priorities with Trump’s return to the White House. While Johnson has warned against massive changes to the package, Thune faces demands from his senators for adjustments. To make most of the tax cuts permanent particularly the business tax breaks that are the Senate priorities senators may shave some of Trump’s proposed new tax breaks on automobile loans or overtime pay, which are policies less prized by some senators. There are also discussions about altering the $40,000 cap that the House proposed for state and local deductions, known as SALT, which are important to lawmakers in high-tax New York, California and other states, but less so among GOP senators. We’re having all those discussions, said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., another key voice in the debate. Hawley is a among a group of senators, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who have raisd concerns about the Medicaid changes that could boot people from health insurance. A potential copay of up to $35 for Medicaid services that was part of the House package, as well as a termination of a provider tax that many states rely on to help fund rural hospitals, have also raised concerns. The best way to not be accused of cutting Medicaid is to not cut Medicaid, Hawley said. Collins said she is reviewing the details. There’s also a House provision that would allow the auction of spectrum bandwidth that some senators oppose. Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.
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