Good morning producers 👋🏼

It's finally here! Summer, that is. If you thought we were still talking about dime[mb], then you probably knew that yesterday was the last day to get our special intro price! Aw.

Though, now that you bring it up, our friends over at Plugin Boutique have a "Mastering Month" thing going on for the month of May. So, since they asked nicely (and because we really love our plugins and want as many people to get their hands on them), we are joining Plugin Boutique's Mastering Month with a Spring Sale.

That's all we'll say about that since you're so clearly already in the loop. A huge thanks to everyone who grabbed dime[mb] so far – the feedback has been incredible and it's fuelling our work for the next plugin. Yes, that's right, we've already started cooking. Mostly Moe that is. I've been busy writing this newsletter. Alright, let's get into this past month's developments.

Can we own our voice with the TRUMP AMERICA AI Act?

The legal battle for the ownership of our voice just moved from the courtroom to the Senate floor. Last year, we covered an instance of the British R&B artist Jorja Smith and a song released by the artist HAVEN titled "i run", which featured an uncredited AI vocal unmistakably similar to Jorja Smith. It triggered a lot of debate, and ultimately HAVEN re-released the track with a real singer. Now, there is actual legislation that might intervene with situations like these.

In March, the White House released a framework titled "National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence". This is a 4-page document with legislative recommendations for Congress. None of it is law at the moment. In parallel to this, on March 18th, Senator Marsha Blackburn put forth a discussion draft formally titled "The Republic Unifying Meritocratic Performance Advancing Machine Intelligence by Eliminating Regulatory Interstate Chaos Across American Industry Act", quickly dubbed the "TRUMP AMERICA AI Act" for obvious reasons. The irony is that the two documents don't necessarily see eye-to-eye. This is a 291-page document designed to create a federal rulebook for AI. Here are a few major takeaways as it relates to music:

1. AI training on copyrighted material (Title XV)

Title XV, "Artificial Intelligence Copyright, Transparency, and Training Data Accountability," explicitly excludes AI training from the "fair use" defense that many tech companies currently rely on and specifies output liability:

• Training: Section 1501 states, "The unauthorized reproduction, copying, or computational processing of copyrighted works for the purpose of training, fine-tuning, developing, or creating artificial intelligence shall not constitute fair use under this section."
• Output liability: It further clarifies that, "Generation by AI of content that reproduces or derives from copyrighted works constitutes infringement."

2. Voice and likeness protection (Title XII)

Title XII, "No Fakes Act of 2026," seeks to create a first-of-its-kind federal right to control your own voice:

• Establishment of rights: Section 1202 establishes, "Voice and visual likeness rights."
• Platform liability: It specifically targets the sites hosting this content, "in the case of a provider of an online service that has not undertaken a good faith effort to comply with subsection (d), $5,000 per display, copy made, transmission, and instance of the unauthorized digital replica[...]"

3. Transparency and data accountability (Title XIII & XIV)

Title XIII, "TRAIN Act (Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks Act)" and Title XIV, "Requiring Transparency with Respect to Content and Content Provenance Information; Protecting Artistic Content" seek to provide copyright holders with the right to information on whether their content is being used as training data:

• Subpoena power for creators: Title XIII (the TRAIN Act) enables copyright holders to "request the clerk of any United States district court to issue a subpoena to a developer for disclosure of copies of, or records sufficient to identify with certainty, the copyright works, or any portion thereof, likely owned or controlled by the legal or beneficial owner that were used by the developer to train the generative artificial intelligence model."
• The following section specifies that copyright holders can only request subpoenas on behalf of their own work.
• Content provenance: Title XIV promotes research and development of a "program to enable advances in measurement science, standards, and testing relating to the robustness and efficacy of technologies for synthetic content and synthetically-modified content detection, watermarking and content provenance information."

We tried to pull some of the most interesting things to know from this 291-page document. The document itself is largely made up of definitions, which is to be expected from legislation tackling such new technology. Important to note that the document is very much still a discussion draft, so we'll have to see how it evolves. What do you think of this so far? Not a bad start, huh?

The music industry is growing fast... just not in North America (or Europe)

The 2026 IFPI Global Music Report just confirmed that the industry has hit a massive milestone: global recorded music revenue reached US$31.7 billion in 2025, the first time these revenues have surpassed US$30 billion. However, where the growth is happening has shifted slightly. Latin America was the fastest growing region, with a 17.1% growth in 2025. China has also overtaken Germany to become the world's 4th largest music market with a whopping 20.1% growth from last year, making it the fastest-growing market in the top 20. This leaves the Top 10 music markets of 2025 at:

1. United States of America
2. Japan
3. United Kingdom
4. China
5. Germany
6. France
7. South Korea
8. Brazil
9. Canada
10. Mexico

While streaming continues to increase its global footprint, revenue growth from physical formats outpaced digital for the second time in history (the first time being in 2021). Physical sales saw a growth of 8%, though it's important to note that last year physical sales dropped by 3%, so the delta is less impressive than it seems. Nevertheless, the growth was driven primarily by vinyl sales which had 13.7% growth and marked the format's 19th consecutive year of growth. Most of this growth is driven by Japan, the world's largest physical market.

So what's up with North America and Europe? It's mostly about market saturation. The USA & Canada continue to be the largest recorded music region (and still increased revenues by 3.5% in 2025), accounting for 38.7% share of global revenue. So while other regions are growing fast, North America and Europe remain the first and second largest regions in the world. Ultimately, growth in our industry is good no matter where it happens. Hopefully, this results in a more unified and globalized music industry.

Honourable mentions

• Jury finds Live Nation & Ticketmaster a monopoly
• Minor update from CEO of Native Instruments
• Judge orders Anna's Archive to pay $322 million for scraping 86 million tracks from Spotify

Thanks for taking the time, and as always, feel free to reach out via email or Discord for any questions or feedback!