Photo Credit: Hook
Following “two years of close collaboration” on artist campaigns, Universal Music Group (UMG) and authorized-remix platform Hook have finalized a “landmark” licensing deal.
The major and the self-described “social music app” reached out with word of their agreement this morning. And overall, the pact means that Hook users can now remix participating UMG artists’ recordings and build in-app fan communities around these same professionals.
“We believe the biggest consumer use case for music creation isn’t making original songs that compete with artists,” added Hook founder and CEO Gaurav Sharma, whose company partnered with SoundCloud last year. “It’s about expressing yourself through the artists and songs you love while participating in the communities and culture they inspire.”
A bit beneath the surface, the release also provides a real sense of Universal Music’s collaborative approach to AI licensing.
(“AI” and “artificial intelligence” are barely mentioned in the announcement message and seemingly Hook’s website as well. But users are, in fact, utilizing the tech to put a spin on the platform’s more than one million existing tracks. Besides ex-Warner Music head Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s Waverley Capital, the startup, having closed a $10 million Series A in February, counts as a backer early OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla.)
Attribution, permission, and “artist control” factor prominently into said release, which emphasizes that individual features like remixes and sound effects “can simply be switched on or off” by rightsholders.
“Rather than building on artists’ work and asking permission later,” Universal Music added for good measure, “Hook spent its first years earning licenses and building the rights framework with the industry first.”
This sentence certainly makes sense when considered alongside UMG’s current AI licensing deals, including tie-ups with Klay Vision (which opted for the “building the rights framework” approach), Udio (which initially chose the opposite path), and Spotify.
But more generally, a growing pile of evidence points to noticeably different gen AI strategies among the industry powers that be. Udio is facing a supersized lawsuit from Sony Music, and the high-stakes litigation may well put a damper on the upcoming release of its licensed product in collaboration with the other majors and Merlin.
That BMG and Warner Music are alone in licensing Suno (now fending off a Round Hill copyright complaint to boot) likewise stands out – as does the conspicuous presence of just one major, Universal Music, as a partner on Spotify’s upcoming AI remix and cover add-on.
It’s been three months since the DSP and the leading label announced their collaboration, and probably not coincidentally, Spotify brass during the company’s latest earnings call emphasized that the offering can launch without a full catalog in place.