Spotify's $3M Stream-Fraud Scandal, Primary Wave's $100M Atticus Bet — Friday, July 3

Spotify's artificial-stream scandal dominates Friday's brief after the platform stripped 500,000+ fake plays from a chart-topping track tied to a $3M prediction-market payout. Meanwhile, Primary Wave backs a new $100M literary and theatrical IP company, and Tidal draws a hard line against AI-generated music royalties — going further than any rival DSP. **Deals & M&A** • Primary Wave commits minimum $100M to Atticus Works, a new literary and theatrical catalog acquisition company. • Exceleration Music and NexTone acquire the full Ryuichi Sakamoto catalog in Exceleration's first Japan deal. • Logan Light joins Warner Music Group as Chief of Staff to CEO Robert Kyncl, effective March 2026. • WMG's ADA Central Europe signs exclusive distribution deal with Berlin indie label AIM Music. **Lawsuits & AI** • Judge Hellerstein blocks Sony Music's bid to add 30,442 recordings to its copyright suit against Udio. • Suno CPO announces a developer API, potentially embedding its sued AI engine into thousands of third-party apps. • Spotify moves to shift artist-attorney Mark Kratter's "undisclosed filtering" lawsuit to federal court. • T.I. and Tiny Harris awarded $0 in punitive damages in fourth OMG Girlz trial against MGA Entertainment. • Sydney beach brand Swim Shady defeats Eminem in trademark dispute over the Slim Shady name. **Streaming & Tech** • Spotify strips 500,000+ fake streams from Malcolm Todd's "Earrings" after $3M Kalshi prediction-market fraud. • Tidal bans royalties for 100%-AI-generated music and adds AI labels to tracks, effective July 15. • YouTube Shorts lets creators add up to 15 seconds of licensed music to image posts. • Irving Azoff's Global Music Rights excluded from Phonorecords V mechanical licensing settlement talks. **Live & Touring** • Illinois bans ghost tickets, bots, and junk fees; Live Nation publicly backs the reforms. • Security researcher used Claude AI to find a Front Gate Tickets vulnerability affecting Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and ACL; patched within 24 hours. **Artists & Releases** • Alexi Cory-Smith, founder of Bella Figura Music and former BMG UK chief, dies suddenly at 58. • Madonna releases her 15th studio album Confessions II today, reuniting with producer Stuart Price. **International** • OSN Streaming submits ~$10M take-private offer for remaining float of MENA platform Anghami at $3.39 per share. **Also Today** • Chord Music Partners launches first royalty ABS securitization covering Morgan Wallen, Diplo, and ZZ Top catalogs. • Weird Al Yankovic declines lucrative AI ad deal, saying he can't be the poster boy for AI. • Elton John reportedly developing a Las Vegas hologram residency featuring Dua Lipa and Kiki Dee. Five minutes, six categories, zero fluff.

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Today's Friday, july third, twenty twenty six. First up, deals and MA. Primary Wave Music is backing a new company called Atticus Works with a hundred million dollar commitment. Atticus focuses on literary and theatrical catalog acquisitions, marking Primary Wave's first major push beyond music into other IP categories. Meanwhile, Acceleration Music and the Tokyo-based firm Nextone acquired the full recording and publishing catalog of late Japanese composer Ryuchi Sakamoto directly from his estate. It's Acceleration's first major deal in Japan, and a rare Western-led catalog buyout in a market where legacy sales remain far less common than in the US and UK. And Logan Light, the son of CIA super agent Rob Light and previously a strategy director at Take Two Interactive, joined Warner Music Group as chief of staff to CEO Robert Kinsel. Moving to lawsuits and AI. A federal judge in New York denied Sony Music's bid to add more than 30,000 recordings to its copyright suit against the AI music platform UDIO. The judge kept the case limited to the original 333 works, a decision that significantly caps the potential statutory damages Sony could recover. Meanwhile, Suno, the AI music engine that's also facing lawsuits, announced plans for a developer API. That's an interface that will let third-party apps plug Suno's engine directly into their products. The company opened an early access intake form, which could scatter Suno across thousands of applications simultaneously. Also, Spotify moved to shift artist attorney Mark Crater's lawsuit over undisclosed filtering practices to federal court. And Sydney Beach brand Swim Shady won a trademark victory against Eminem, who argued the company's name was too similar to his Slim Shady Alter ego. Next up, streaming and tech. Spotify stripped more than 500,000 artificial streams from the song Earrings by Malcolm Todd after its surprise number one US chart run coincided with suspicious betting on the prediction market CalShi. A $3 million contract on CalShi had already paid out based on those fraudulent figures before the correction. Separately, Title announced it will ban royalties for 100% AI-generated music and label those tracks with an AI badge starting July 15th, going further than rival streaming services like Spotify, which still pays out on AI tracks. And YouTube Shorts now allows creators to add up to 15 seconds of licensed music to image posts, expanding the format beyond video only content. On to live and touring. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed three ticketing reform laws that ban ghost tickets, that's reselling tickets not yet in hand, along with ticket buying bots and junk fees. Live Nation publicly supported the measures even as it faces federal antitrust action. Meanwhile, a security researcher used Anthropic's Claude AI to uncover a critical vulnerability in Front Gate Tickets, the ticketing platform for Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and Austin City Limits, that could have enabled unlimited ticket issuance. The vulnerability was patched within 24 hours of disclosure. Now artist news. Alexi Corey Smith, founder and CEO of the catalog music company Bella Figura Music and former head of BMG UK, died suddenly at 58. Bella Figura confirmed her passing and said it will honor her vision. And Madonna released her 15th studio album, Confessions 2 Today, a sequel to her 2005 dance record, Confessions on a Dance Floor. She reunited with producer Stuart Price for the project. Finally, International. OSN Streaming, which controls about 67% of the MENA streaming platform Angami, submitted a preliminary take private offer of $3.39 per share, valuing the remaining shares at roughly $10 million. Angami has 3.5 million paid subscribers and 130 million registered users. A special committee has been formed to evaluate the offer. That's your music industry rundown. Have a good Friday.