Link - PAGE 18

SoundCloud Changes Policies Around AI Training

Soundcloud
Jason Tate

Kyle Wiggers, writing at TechCrunch:

SoundCloud appears to have quietly changed its terms of use to allow the company to train AI on audio that users upload to its platform.

As spotted by tech ethicist Ed Newton-Rex, the latest version of SoundCloud’s terms include a provision giving the platform permission to use uploaded content to “inform, train, [or] develop” AI.

And, SoundCloud responded:

The February 2024 update to our terms of service was intended to clarify how content may interact with AI technologies within SoundCloud’s own platform. Use cases include personalized recommendations, content organization, fraud detection, and improvements to content identification with the help of AI technologies.

Trump Fires Top US Copyright Official

Jason Tate

Ashley King, writing at Digital Music News:

“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” said Morelle. “It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

Morelle also linked to a pre-publication draft of a US Copyright Office report released last week—the third part in a longer report—that focuses on copyright and artificial intelligence. The report outlines that, while each case’s outcome cannot be pre-judged, there are limitations on the amount that AI companies can count on “fair use” as a defense when training their large language models (LLMs) on copyrighted work.

‘Breaking Bear’ Animated Series Voice Cast Announced

Tom Delonge
Jason Tate

The voice cast for the Tom DeLonge produced animated series, Breaking Bear, has been announced:

Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer),  Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek), Elizabeth Hurley (The Royals) and Josh Gad (Frozen) will lead the voice cast for Tubi‘s new adult animated series Breaking Bear. 

The series parodies the tropes of mobster dramas, comically combining elements of characters like Yogi Bear with series like The Sopranos. It hails from Julien Nitzberg (The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia), Evoke Entertainment (Creepshow, Twelve Forever, Day of the Dead) and Tom DeLonge’s To The Stars Media (Monsters of California, Unidentified).

Underoath Talk With Revolver

Underoath
Jason Tate

Underoath sat down for a lengthy chat with Revolver:

“Every record we’ve ever done, people find a way to hate it,” he continues. “When an artist makes something that I don’t understand right off the rip, especially if it’s an artist that I love, I want to listen to it and understand why. Not until all five of us are stoked does a song make it out of the studio. That’s how it is every time we make music … Whatever you [eventually] hear in your speakers is exactly what excites Underoath at this moment.”

The All-American Rejects Discuss Future

All American Rejects
Jason Tate

The All-American Rejects talked with Variety:

The Rejects decided to leave Interscope on their own terms. “We weren’t dropped,” notes Ritter. “We negotiated our way out of that building because it didn’t feel like it was a home for us anymore. They had Imagine Dragons records.” The band continued to tour relentlessly, and the burnout set in. “We did a couple of tours in that break and they just didn’t feel right at all,” says Gaylor. “By the end of them, we were like, I don’t want to do this. Packing on the bus to go home like…” He widens his eyes as if stunned, staring into the abyss.

Turnstile Talk With NYT

Turnstile
Jason Tate

Turnstile sat down with The New York Times to talk about their upcoming album:

“There is something exciting about being able to make music in a way where there’s no formula, there’s no expectation,” Yates, 35, said. The band’s 2021 album, “Glow On,” propelled it from the upper echelons of the underground into a dramatically larger landscape that included TV commercials, Grammy nominations and a spot opening for Blink-182’s arena tour. With a new album, “Never Enough,” due June 6, Turnstile is pushing its sound further, and the stages are set to get even bigger, leading to an inevitable question: Can the group retain its magic (and its mission) as it grows?

Jack Antonoff Named Songwriter of the Year

Bleachers
Jason Tate

Jack Antonoff has been named ASCAP’s “Songwriter of the Year.”

Antonoff was recognized for his co-writes on songs like Sabrina Carpenter’s smash hit “Please Please Please,” as well as for his work on Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” “Fortnight,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)” and “Karma.” One of the most prolific songwriter-producers in the industry, last year he produced Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, as well as several tracks on Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet.

Variety Talks With Green Day

Green Day
Jason Tate

Variety talked with Billie Joe of Green Day:

“You have to live life to write songs about your life,” says Armstrong. “I do like to take my time with the lyrics to make sure that they project the way I feel, internalize what’s going on in my own life and what’s going on in the culture. So that’s important. We live in such a crazy world. Now, everything is wide open. So I think it was at a pace of every four years, but now it’s like you put out a song or an EP, an LP, whatever it is, and with streaming there are no rules.”

Vinyl, Me Please In Trouble

Jason Tate

The Denver Post:

“It seems VMP has stopped shipping records entirely and they’re still charging for memberships that promise new releases,” he continued, echoing more than 100 complaints reviewed by The Denver Post across Reddit, social media, YouTube, and VMP’s Discord server. “There has been zero communication and no response from customer support for over a month now.”

Spotify Stock Drops on Latest Earnings Report

Jason Tate

Bloomberg:

Spotify Technology SA shares tumbled on Tuesday after the streaming company gave a muted outlook for profit and subscriber growth in the current quarter. 

The Stockholm-based company forecast gross profit margins of 31.5% in the second quarter, missing analysts’ average estimate for 31.6% according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Spotify sees monthly active users rising to 689 million, less than the 694.4 million analysts expected.

Jack Black’s ‘Minecraft’ Song Shortest Hot 100 Hit Ever

Billboard
Jason Tate

Billboard:

Hit songs are generally quick — Billboard Hot 100 top 10s ran an average of three minutes and 40 seconds in 2024, according to Hit Songs Deconstructed — but no Hot 100 hit has ever been as brief as Jack Black’s “Steve’s Lava Chicken.”

The track — at just 34 seconds in its original form (with a still-swift 1:15 extended mix also released) — breaks the record as the shortest Hot 100 hit ever by run time, dating to the chart’s Aug. 4, 1958, inception. The cut from the soundtrack of A Minecraft Movie debuts at No. 77 on the list dated May 3, 2025.

Code Orange Go on Hiatus

Code Orange
Jason Tate

Code Orange are on hiatus:

Morgan says “Code Orange is on the shelf, and I think it’s there for a good reason, for many reasons. I think you can put two, two and four together, and you’ll probably come to the answer.”

Regarding Landolina’s health issues, he continues: “One [circumstance] that I am happy to speak about is my guitar player, Dominic – he’s one of my best friends in the world – was dealing with a really hard genetic condition that really started damaging his hand, and his neck, and his foot, and that was the primary cause for us to have to cancel our first tour on the record.”

The All-American Rejects Talk New Single

All American Rejects
Jason Tate

Tyson of The All-American Rejects talked a little with Stereogum about their new single:

To be able to walk away from it for a second was — a lot of people are afraid to do it. I mean, I was afraid to do it, but I was so burnt out. There’s a big difference between a crafter and an artist. People that craft put in their 10,000 hours and they excel at their work. I felt like we were turning it into a craft as opposed to an artistry. I know that might sound silly coming from a guy who wrote “Dirty Little Secret,” but I was 22 when I wrote that. I think now being on the other side of 30, I have a perspective that I didn’t have when I was younger. Having this ability to inherently be able to craft a song is something that a lot of people lean on and just keep pumping out and serving the beast and shaking the purse strings for a commerce as an end result.