And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - And The Update Is...Universal's Big Week: AI, TikTok While Drake Dominates

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to And the update is I'm your host, Ross Golan. Here's some news today for the week of May 25th, 2000 and 26. Spotify and Universal Music Group Strike an AI music licensing deal

for covers and remixes. That will trigger some royalties for both the originators on the recordings and the publishing. But, I also know this pissed off a whole ton of artists who don't want a bunch of remixes to compete with their own art. This is going to be a much louder story if this happens. There are a lot of people working on this to see if there's anything salvageable from this.

Will Spotify do a deal with Warner? Will they do a deal with Sony? I don't know. but for 100% universal artists and songwriter generated composition, it looks like Spotify soon will be able to allow users to do their own AI remix. I think that's exactly what you guys probably think it is. Okay, YouTube introduces automatic labels for AI generated videos. Now we're talking.

Now we're talking. Now we know who humans are. Let's applaud that and keep that going. It's probably so they don't have to pay out royalties, but, you know, still good for the creative. Udio reveals new details on an AI music app Starstruck. That licensed platform will let fans cover Reimagined remix and create songs by participating artists. Very similar to the Spotify thing. I get the feeling Spotify will be in all-in-one place soon enough.

Universal Music Group and TikTok sign a new global licensing agreement. Now, you know, credit where credits do. Universal is the 800-pound gorilla, and they're the ones who are pushing TikTok to make sure that they're actually paying writers. Now, this multi-year deal continues the TikTok's access to UMG's music catalog while expanding artist marketing and fan engagement tools while working together to remove unauthorized AI generated music from TikTok. I wonder if X will actually take down any of the things that they've put up.

They've been terrible. For any of you who use X, you should call them out. Not that Elon gives this shit about what any of us think, but that guy's been using your copyrights without paying you for a very long time. And NMPA is suing them. That's a whole other story. That's not even part of the news. It's just information for you to,

consume. All right, let's go to, uh, let's go to some other news. Uh, we're going to go with some signings. Galantus signs with Connor Records. Now, Galantus has been, you know, uh, underneath the Atlantic umbrella for a while. So that, that's interesting as far as you EDM fans are concerned. But maybe the biggest news in the Warner building is that after 15 years, Ed Sheeran, Ed Sheeran is leaving Warner Music Group. Uh, there are a report. Uh, there are reported rumors of a Universal music group deal, but that seems, this seems like this week is brought to you by Universal. Speaking of Universal, Drake, Drake, as you know, after releasing those three albums and

getting out of his Universal deal, part of Universal is getting these songs. So all the people who were feeling like he took advantage of Universal, Universal is getting their share of the number one song on Billboard Hot 100. Jan has shut the up. And Ice Man by Drake is number one on the Billboard 200 chart. So, you know, I think everybody again made out pretty nicely. This is definitely Drake's world this week and we are living in it. Globally speaking, Olivia Rodriguez debuts number one on Spotify's top song debut,

Global Chart with The Cure, still putting up big numbers by That Woman, also under Universal Music Group. Billy Jean by Michael Jackson is number one on Spotify's top song, Global Chart. Never heard of it. Pretty good, pretty good song. Just heard it on New Music Friday. It's a really, really strong, strong song, strong artists. I bet he's going to do some things in his life.

Pureflow, part one, by LaSerafam, debuts at number one on Spotify's. album's debut USA chart. That's right. The K-pop group debuted at number one on Spotify's top albums debut USA chart. That is impressive because, you know, you've got a band that isn't all over Top 40 radio that is singing in different languages and is number one on Spotify's top albums debut U.S.A chart. And of course, Olivia and Drake clean up the rest of the charts because that's what they're doing

these days. But of course, Ariana Grande just dropped a song last night and yours truly co-wrote a Frey Sky song called London. Check that out too. All right, that's all the news that I got for you today. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Check out our interview with Miles Smith last Tuesday. Oh, man, is that a wonderful sit-down?

He is such a lovely person with such a worthy story for all of you to hear. Great for any songwriter who's up and coming right now. And don't forget, next Tuesday, we have another beggar. Super excited about that. Okay, stick around. We'll talk to you soon. Shout out, Georgia Webbush. Great notes as always.

Talk to you soon. Bye.