9 Signals That Matter | Week of July 3, 2026

What you need to know in the music business this week

Quick note: I’ve added a new section at the end called What We Read so you can see some of the sources I often use to compile 9 Signals.

Enjoy - LP.

1. DATA POINT Spotify Is Gaslighting Artists on Royalties. Here’s the Proof.

Spotify’s director of global music policy recently wrote a letter to the Economist citing percentage growth rates as evidence that the platform helps artists at every level of the royalty pyramid. It’s a compelling-sounding argument. It’s also mathematically misleading.

Here’s why. Spotify pays royalties based on poolshare, meaning each artist receives a percentage of total streams in a given month. That’s a zero-sum system by design. One artist’s gain is another’s loss. In that context, citing percentage growth rates as evidence of broad artist benefit is like telling someone their slice of pie is getting relatively bigger while the total pie is being consumed by a smaller and smaller group of people at the table.

The actual numbers, drawn from Spotify’s own Loud & Clear data, tell a different story than the platform’s public narrative. Since 2022, $1.2 billion in royalties have shifted from working and mid-tier artists to the $2 million-plus earning tier. Fewer than 80 artists captured 81% of that shift. The middle of the market is getting hollowed out, not lifted up.

Spotify can point to percentage growth at the bottom of the pyramid all it wants. In a poolshare system, that number tells you almost nothing about whether smaller artists are actually earning more dollars. Ask any working artist how their royalty checks have moved in the last three years and the answer will tell you more than any policy letter to a British economics magazine.

2. ARTIST ALERT A Hacker Used Claude to Score Free Tickets to Nearly Every Major US Festival

A white-hat security researcher this week demonstrated something the ticketing industry would rather not have publicized: an AI exploit using Claude that gained full access to the systems handling ticketing for nearly every major US music festival.

This isn’t a theoretical vulnerability or a proof-of-concept performed in a lab. It’s a demonstrated breach of live infrastructure, the kind of systems that process millions of dollars in ticket revenue and protect access to events that represent a significant portion of many artists’ annual income.

The immediate takeaway for anyone operating in live music is simple: ask harder questions about the security of the ticketing systems you depend on. The broader takeaway is more uncomfortable.

As AI tools become more capable and more accessible, the attack surface on every piece of digital infrastructure in this industry is expanding. Security that was adequate last year may not be adequate today.

White-hat researchers finding and disclosing these exploits is genuinely valuable. The question is whether the platforms and vendors responsible for these systems are moving fast enough to close the gaps before someone with worse intentions finds them first.

3. POLICY WATCH Mechanical Royalty Rates May Stay Frozen Through 2032

A settlement proposal has surfaced in the Phonorecords V proceedings, the Copyright Royalty Board process that sets mechanical royalty rates for physical formats and permanent downloads in the United States.

The proposal, backed by major labels, the NMPA, A2IM, and others, would leave the existing Phonorecords IV rates in place through 2028 to 2032, with adjustments only for inflation. No meaningful rate increase. No structural reform. Just the current rates, held in place for another four to five years.

Critics are already pushing back, and for good reason. The mechanical rate for physical and download formats has been a source of ongoing frustration for songwriters and publishers who argue it hasn’t kept pace with the actual economics of music consumption. If this settlement proposal holds, that frustration has several more years to compound before the next rate-setting opportunity arrives.

If you’re a songwriter or publisher who had been expecting the Phonorecords V process to deliver a meaningful increase, this proposal is a signal to pay close attention to how the opposition forms and whether it has enough weight to shift the outcome.

4. CULTURAL SIGNAL Elton John Just Signed a Las Vegas Hologram Residency Deal

Elton John has signed a multi-million dollar deal to perform as a hologram at the new Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, set to open next summer.

Set aside whatever you feel about the technology itself for a moment and look at what this decision actually represents. A living legend, one of the most successful touring artists in music history, is actively licensing his AI-assisted likeness to perform in his place, creating a new revenue stream from his catalog and his image without requiring his physical presence.

The questions this raises are not small ones. What does live music mean when the performer isn’t there? Who benefits from the revenue a hologram performance generates, and how does that compare to what a traditional live show would have paid the broader ecosystem of musicians, crew, and local vendors? And perhaps most importantly, what precedent does a deal like this set for how artists at every level think about licensing their own likeness for performance contexts?

The Elton John hologram residency is the extreme version of a question the entire industry is going to be wrestling with for the next decade. It just arrived faster than most people expected.

5. POLICY WATCH Senators Revive the AI Labeling Act. SAG-AFTRA and Songwriters Are Behind It.

A bipartisan group of senators has reintroduced the AI Labeling Act of 2026, legislation that would require AI-generated audio, video, and images to carry visible disclosures identifying them as artificially generated, along with machine-readable metadata recording the system used and the time of creation.

The bill has real creative industry backing: SAG-AFTRA, the Songwriters Guild of America, Music Creators North America, and the Society of Composers and Lyricists are all supporting it.

Placed alongside the NO FAKES Act moving through the Senate, this represents a second legislative track running simultaneously. The NO FAKES Act addresses voice and likeness protection. The AI Labeling Act addresses disclosure and transparency. Together they’re building a legislative framework around AI-generated content from two different angles at once.

Neither bill is law yet. Both are moving with more genuine momentum than AI-related legislation has had before. For independent artists who’ve been waiting for the legal landscape to catch up to the technology, the pace is finally starting to shift.

6. INDUSTRY POWER Catalog Capital Is Still Pouring In

Three moves this week that belong together as a single picture.

Firebird Music launched a $750 million catalog acquisition fund backed by global investment firm Ares and The Raine Group. Primary Wave backed a new company called Atticus Works with a minimum of $100 million to acquire literary and theatrical catalogs, expanding the definition of what a music-adjacent catalog company is willing to own. And Virgin Music Group unveiled its new six-region global leadership structure integrating Downtown Music executives following the completion of its $775 million acquisition earlier this year.

Place these moves next to last week’s broader consolidation numbers, UMG/Downtown, Primary Wave/Kobalt, BMG/Concord, Sony/Hipgnosis, and the picture that emerges is consistent: sophisticated private capital with long investment horizons believes music and adjacent IP catalogs are among the most durable assets available right now. That conviction is not wavering. Every week the evidence gets harder to argue with.

7. ARTIST RIGHTS Illinois Just Banned Junk Fees, Ticket Bots, and Speculative Ticket Sales

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a new law this week banning junk fees, ticket-buying bots, and the resale of tickets that sellers don’t yet possess. Live Nation publicly applauded the move.

That last detail is worth sitting with. The same company that just survived a federal antitrust trial, the one where former DOJ attorneys went public with their outrage over the abrupt settlement, is now publicly praising state-level consumer protection legislation around ticketing. Whether that represents genuine support for fair ticketing practices or strategic positioning from a company that benefits from being seen as aligned with fans and artists is a judgment call you’re entitled to make yourself.

What’s not in dispute is that a state-level law with actual enforcement teeth on ticket fraud is a meaningful development. Artists and fans have been losing this fight for years at the federal level. States moving independently may be where real protection actually comes from.

8. MASTER BATTLES Ricardo Montaner Is Suing Universal Over Masters He Says Were Never Theirs

The major Latin star has filed suit in both the US and Venezuela, alleging that Universal Music is claiming ownership of five albums he recorded between 1986 and 1992. He says those masters were never legitimately Universal’s to claim.

This is exactly the kind of dispute that makes the Vetter v. Resnik Supreme Court case, which we covered last week, so consequential. Who actually owns recordings made decades ago, who controls the rights internationally, and what legal tools artists have to reclaim work they believe was wrongfully retained are not abstract questions. They’re playing out in real time across multiple jurisdictions for artists at every level of the business.

The Montaner case is also a reminder that master ownership disputes are not exclusively an English-language or American phenomenon. The structural dynamics that create these conflicts exist across every market where major labels operated during the recording industry’s consolidation era.

9. CULTURAL MOMENT The Michael Jackson Biopic Just Crossed $1 Billion

“Michael” has overtaken Oppenheimer to become the biggest biopic ever made, closing in on $1 billion worldwide and standing as the highest-grossing release in Lionsgate’s history. We first flagged this story when it crossed $900 million. The number is now impossible to dismiss as a fluke or a novelty.

Step back from the cultural conversation around Jackson himself for a moment and look at the mechanism. A well-executed film built around a legacy catalog doesn’t just generate box office revenue. It reactivates streaming numbers, resurfaces publishing royalties, revives merchandise, and introduces an artist’s work to an entirely new generation of listeners who may never have engaged with it otherwise.

That mechanism works at every level of the business, not just for superstars with complicated legacies and major studio budgets.

The artists and estates investing now in their story, their archive, and their visual legacy are building something with a much longer commercial tail than any single release cycle. The biopic is the extreme version of that thesis. But the underlying logic applies broadly, and it applies to you.

WHERE WE READ

Nine Signals is built from a curated stack of sources we trust to surface what actually matters in the music business. Here’s where this week’s edition came from:

Music Business Worldwide — The gold standard for music industry reporting. If it matters at the business level, MBW has it first and has it right.

Digital Music News — Fast, sharp, and willing to cover stories others avoid. Essential for legal developments and industry conflict.

Spotify Newsletter — Substack’s weekly digest of Spotify-specific news. Useful for platform moves, filtered heavily before anything reaches Nine Signals.

Infinite Catalog (Hunter Giles) — Independent analysis of streaming economics with real data rigor. This week’s royalty gaslighting tile came directly from his work.

Hypebot — Reliable coverage of the independent music space, distribution, and emerging platform developments.

Rock Paper Scanner — Curated innovation-focused digest from Dmitri. Good for funding, investment, and emerging revenue models.

AI Music Newsletter — Weekly digest tracking the generative AI music space. Essential for staying current on a story that moves faster than any single publication can cover alone.

We read widely so you don’t have to. If you’re building your own source stack, start here.

9 Signals drops every Friday at lpconsultingllc.music. If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe so you don’t miss next week.