Spotify and Merlin announced a licensing agreement on 4 August, before 15:50 UTC, covering fan-made covers and remixes built on the catalogues of Merlin's members. It is the second such deal after Universal Music Group in May 2026, and the first to reach the independent sector.
Scale
Merlin represents more than 30,000 independent labels and distributors in over 70 countries, about 15% of the global recorded music market, on a 1.5% administration fee. Spotify's parallel Q2 results, published the same day, put the service at 300 million subscribers and 777 million monthly users on revenue of €4.8 billion.
The word that is missing
Spotify's release does not contain the term "AI" anywhere. It says "fan-made covers and remixes." The AI framing comes from the May UMG agreement, which both parties described as powered by generative AI, and from management's own remarks. That gap is worth preserving rather than papering over: the company is deliberately positioning this against generative music, insisting on "real artists, not fake artists." This is remixing licensed recordings, not generating tracks from nothing.
A licence is not a launch
Nothing has shipped. The feature is a research preview for a subset of users, priced as a paid add-on, with no launch date from either side. And participation is described as an option — member labels choose whether to opt in, so the licence establishes a possibility rather than a catalogue. Spotify's Charlie Hellman says participants will be "credited and compensated"; co-president Alex Norström framed the terms as wanting "artists to be consenting." Neither statement quantifies the split.
The other track
Four days earlier a Munich court ruled against Suno in a case brought by the German collecting society GEMA, ordering disclosure of revenue and damages. The industry is running licensing and litigation simultaneously.