For the last 14 years, the Big 3, the holy trinity SONY, WMG, and UMG have dominated the music industry, devouring all of the other labels, and scooping up music catalogs.

BMG, once a major label itself, though seemingly disappeared, has been kept alive by its parent company Bertlesmann, and it has sprung back to life joining with the old jazz label, Concord.

Both have been on a feeding frenzy of music catalogs owning 4.3 million songs, enough to claim a spot with the Big 3 labels ....(BMG would prefer to be considered the king of indies).

Though the headlines have broadcast the merger and the major shift with the Big 4, most haven't noticed that BMG is just a small part of the Bertelsmann empire, that with the merger owns Penguin Random House, the largest book publisher, 10,000 plays and musicals including Hamilton and Rogers and Hammerstein's works, and even classic movies like King Kong, Citizen Cane, and It's a Wonderful Life.

Along with the titles, Bertelsmann has large divisions of marketing, streaming, and yes...AI.

Regardless if it's one of the Big 4, or King of the Indies, it has moved up the food chain, and will undoubtedly have a major impact on the music industry.

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/05/another-shark-in-food-chain-big-4.html

The 1st AI Music Chart (versus Billboard charts)

The 1st Performing rights Organization (versus ASCAP, BMI, SESAC)

The 1st AI Streaming platform (versus Spotify)

Just three of the parallel music organizations in the rapidly expanding AI music industry.

(This is not an endorsement of AI Music...just reporting what I see)

"A new music industry is being built—with its own rules, its own economics, and its own definition of success. And for the first time in modern history… That industry doesn’t need the old one to survive." ChatGPT

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot....

This is the 3rd and last podcast linking 3 music biz events that I believe marks a change in access to the music markets. Indie distributors and labels being swallowed by majors, major labels and Spotify now allies working together to create an answer to AI music (and market control), and DDEX becoming the required meta data required for access to the new music ecosystem.

DDEX has added AI descriptions into the Meta data of song files. Spotify and the major labels have adopted DDEX as the sole source of Meta Data Spotify requires to accept new uploads. While this will gratefully screen out false or misleading AI generated music, it also gives them control...they make the rules. Meta data has been a mystery to most musicians and who have left it up to distributors like Distrokid and Record labels to create and add meta data to their songs based on the accuracy and truthfulness of the artists' submissions. Most music companies accepted the data without question.

Now, meta data comes into view with the dominant majors and Spotify creating a new collaborate music ecosystem controlling access to the market, with the DDEX standard becoming the sole accepted meta data source. Spotify's 'gatekeeper' now closely examines uploaded songs for DDEX before accepting them for streaming. Only labels and record labels can add DDEX data to your songs.

While the accuracy of the DDEX data created by indie distributors and indie labels may vary based the accuracy of info when submitted by the artist, requiring closer examination, Spotify knows that music presented by the major labels in their new agreement is 'clean', with legit AI use of licensed music and accurate song info, so fast-tracks the music into the streams.

It's imperative that musicians now learn the importance of meta data and providing accurate information when submitting a song to a distributor for upload to Spotify, publishers, etc. or risk their music being rejected. sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/04/ddex-and-new-music-world-order.html