American Federation of Musicians

And, uh, the next, the next story is actually like really, uh, relevant based on the conversation you're just having, which is, uh, the musicians union says that AI, uh, deals were paid, built on unpaid work on August 21st, 26th, 26th.

The American Federation of Musicians published a status summary of its suit against Universal Music Group, Atlantic Recording Corporation, and Warner Records, filed June 5th in the Southern District of New York, July 24th filing corrected Warner's corporate name.

The claim is a breach of the sound recording labor agreement.

Its quote-unquote new use provision requires labels to notify the AFM and pay the original performers whenever a recording is repurposed or licensed for a new format.

But when Oklahoma opened, there was a recording strike.

The American Federation of Musicians refused or were enjoined to refuse to play backup for any popular hits on the radio for, in some cases, depending on the label, 10 months, 12 months, 14 months.

And Oklahoma had opened, and boy, did people want to hear songs from that show.

So they got Bing Crosby and a woman named Trudy Irwin to sing at a cappella.

She was a union lady, too.

She was in the American Federation of Musicians.

Oh,

right on.

Traditional musicians completely scoffed at them.

The American Federation of Musicians actually tried to ban them from studios in certain contexts.

They did.

People said, that's not real music.

So compensation to Warner Music Group, BMG, Believe, that- that's all gonna be structured as a revenue share, with each company deciding internally how to distribute those payments to their artists and songwriters.

The American Federation of Musicians, you know, that's the union representing session musicians, well, they're suing Warner Music Group over lack of transparency on how Suno compensation will actually flow to its members.

Any future Suno products that remix or sample existing recordings using an artist's name, image, or likeness would require individual artist opt-in since most record contracts don't grant labels those rights.

Suno has not announced a launch date for its planned remix and sampling products, with Shulman saying only that something will roll out in the coming months.

What would you want the public to know about musicians' unions and the work that goes into your job?

Musicians across the U.S. have been unionized since the 1960s in the American Federation of Musicians.

Here we're a member of Local 4, and I fully believe that audiences across this country have access to great classical music today because of those union organizing efforts going back to the 1960s.

And Elena, we do know that the orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, voted last week to authorize a strike in the event that a new labor agreement is not reached by September 23rd.

So yeah, that definitely, they need to figure that out.

It looks like, I think we talked about this last week, is that the American Federation of Musicians has sued Universal and Warner, alleging those labels received significant compensation from AI settlements and licensing, but did not share the proceeds with the musicians.

So yeah, I mean, if the...

If the people who...

Um, You know, in terms of the U.S. thing, they're in the process of setting up a sister organization in the United States.

Like in music, the American Federation, there's the American Federation of Musicians and the Canadian Federation of Musicians.

And that's how they crossed the border.

They're just sponsored by that association so that they can go and work.