Japan Adds Public-Play Royalties, NO FAKES Act Moves Toward US Law, Publishers Take Termination Fight to Supreme Court
How The Music Business Works - Issue #67
June 25, 2026
Welcome back to How the Music Business Works.
This week’s stories center on how rights are being defined, enforced, and challenged across different parts of the music business.
Japan has moved to create a new royalty right for performers and record companies when recordings are played in public spaces, while major publishers are asking the US Supreme Court to review a termination ruling they say could disrupt global rights ownership. In the US, the NO FAKES Act has taken another step forward as lawmakers continue to address AI-generated voice and likeness replicas.
This issue also looks at platform accountability, from Spotify’s dismissal of a fraudulent-streaming lawsuit to Canada’s first music industry site-blocking order against stream-ripping services.
Here’s what to know this week.
US music publishing revenues hit $7.3B in 2025
Japan has revised its Copyright Act to create a new payment right for performers and record companies when commercial recordings are played in public spaces, including cafes, shops, hotels, and gyms. Until now, only songwriters, composers, and music publishers were paid when recorded music was used as background music in Japanese venues, while performers and labels received nothing for those public plays. The new record performance and communication right adds a neighboring-rights payment alongside the authors’ right already collected by JASRAC. A body designated by the Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs will collect fees and distribute them to rightsholders, though fee levels have not yet been set. The reform is also intended to support overseas earnings for Japanese music, since reciprocal public-play rights had not previously applied to Japanese performers and labels in many markets.
NO FAKES Act takes another step toward becoming US law
The NO FAKES Act has moved closer to becoming US law after passing unanimously through the Senate Judiciary Committee. The proposed legislation is designed to protect the voices and visual likenesses of individuals and creators from unauthorized AI-generated digital replicas. This latest version follows earlier attempts that ran out of legislative time and now includes coverage for deepfakes on streaming music platforms. The bill has support from Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, the three major labels, and several music industry bodies. YouTube’s Lyor Cohen and Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. also welcomed the bill’s progress in a Variety op-ed, while pointing to YouTube’s likeness detection technology. The article notes that the bill’s progress arrives as AI policy debates continue around consent, platform responsibility, artist likeness protection, platform-wide enforcement standards, and whether creators can opt out of AI training.
Majors and BMG ask Supreme Court to review copyright termination ruling
The publishing arms of Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group, together with BMG, have asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that allows songwriters to reclaim worldwide rights under US copyright termination law. The dispute centers on Cyril Vetter’s effort to reclaim “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” which he co-wrote with Donald Smith in 1962. The Fifth Circuit ruled in January that termination under the Copyright Act recaptures worldwide rights, not just US rights. The publishers argue that the decision unsettles decades of industry practice, where termination has generally been understood to apply only to US rights, with foreign rights remaining with publishers. Their petition says the ruling could affect countless agreements backed by billions of dollars. The Supreme Court will decide whether to grant review after briefing is complete.
Spotify wins dismissal of fraudulent Drake streams lawsuit
A US federal judge has dismissed a proposed class action accusing Spotify of allowing billions of bot-generated streams to inflate play counts for Drake and other artists. The case was filed by Eric Dwayne Collins, the rapper known as RBX, who alleged that mass-scale fraudulent streaming diverted royalties from other rightsholders. The complaint focused heavily on Drake, claiming that some of his roughly 37 billion Spotify streams between January 2022 and September 2025 were inauthentic, though Drake was not named as a defendant or accused of wrongdoing. Judge Josephine Staton found that Collins had not shown Spotify owed him a legal duty to protect him from third-party bots and rejected his unfair competition claim. Spotify said it does not benefit from artificial streaming and invests in systems to remove fake streams, withhold royalties, and charge penalties. Collins has leave to amend.
Canada blocks stream-ripping sites
Canada’s Federal Court has issued the country’s first site-blocking order obtained on behalf of the music industry, targeting stream-ripping services that convert music from licensed streaming platforms into permanent downloadable audio files. The order was secured by Music Canada on behalf of Sony Music Entertainment Canada, Universal Music Canada, and Warner Music Canada. It requires nine major Canadian internet service providers, including Bell, Rogers, and TekSavvy, to block access to targeted domains through DNS blocking or rerouting for two years. The court found that the services had infringed copyright by enabling unauthorized reproduction and ordered the operators to stop infringing activity and deactivate named domains, including Y2mate.ws, YTmp3.lat, Savefrom.space, and Spowload.cc. Music Canada can also seek to add future copycat domains through a simplified affidavit process if ISPs do not object.
Random Ramblings:
- Olivia Rodrigo is launching a festival with an all-women lineup, with net proceeds going to nonprofits.
- Bailey Zimmerman’s self-destruct button appears to have been pressed in full view of the internet.
- “Go to hospice or get these lungs” is the blunt choice Muni Long says changed her life.
- Looking for new songs to love? Start here.