Spring 2023 Internship

Former Sony Music Finland and Teosto ceos join Vandall advisory board. Vandall, the platform helping music teams manage collaboration and release workflows, has named its advisory board, bringing together former and current executives from Sony Music, Finnish PRO Teosto, and the European music-tech sector. Former Sony Music Finland CEO Wemppa Koivumäki joins former Teosto CEO Katri Sipilä, Music Tech Europe co-founder Turo Pekari, former Sony Music Finland and Baltics CEO Henri Lanz, and Petri Rahja. Koivumäki led Sony Music Finland between 2012 and 2018, having spent around a decade running EMI Finland before that. He has also chaired the board of Music Finland. Henri Lanz was CEO at Sony Music Finland and Baltics from 2019 to 2024 and under the name MGI has produced for 50 Cent, Sia, and Pitbull. Katri Sipilä was CEO of the Finnish PRO Teosto for 17 years. Turo Pekari co-founded Music Tech Europe and was previously at Teosto and Music Finland. Petri Rahja has worked across Utopia Music, Ferratum and OP Financial Group. The board will advise on industry strategy and product development, as Vandall expands its work with labels, publishers and artists internationally. Vandall has also hired Bas Grasmayer to work across product and growth. His background spans independent music and streaming, including serving as Head of Platform at COLORSxSTUDIOS and holding product leadership roles at IDAGIO. Rasmus Hauta-Aho, co-founder and CEO of Vandall, said: "It's rare to get this much senior music-industry experience around one table. Between them, Henri, Wemppa, Katri, Turo and Petri have run labels, built artist careers, managed rights, worked with creators and helped shape the infrastructure the industry relies on. Having that level of perspective around Vandall is incredibly valuable as we grow." Vandall was founded in 2024 by Rasmus Hauta-Aho, a multi-platinum producer and songwriter who has worked across Universal, Sony Music and Warner Music. The company says its platform supports music from work-in-progress through to release, bringing versions, metadata, split sheets and agreements into one place for labels and their teams. It is available on web, iOS and Android, and is currently running pilots with BMG publishing partner Nordic Bridge Music, Music Box Helsinki, Teosto, and others.

Udio fires back against supersized Sony Music suit, emphasizing its fair use defense and acknowledging 'that it acquired some of its training data by utilizing YT-DLP' Udio fires back against supersized Sony Music suit, emphasizing its fair use defense and acknowledging 'that it acquired some of its training data by utilizing YT-DLP' dylan smith august 31, 2026. Udio has fired back against Sony Music's supersized copyright suit - including by doubling down on its fair use argument and by accusing the major of engaging "in anticompetitive activities that extend an unlawful monopoly over the production and commercialization of music." The AI music platform just recently offered a formal answer to Sony Music's complaint, which set sail in late July. As reiterated in the suit, Udio now has licensing pacts in place with Universal Music, Warner Music, Merlin, Kobalt, Believe, and the NMPA. But if the present courtroom confrontation is any indication, Sony Music won't be joining the list in the near future. With far more allegedly infringed works at issue here than in their ongoing first action against Udio, the filing parties are seeking a mountain of damages for alleged training-related infringement, DMCA violations, and more. Though decidedly serious, these claims aren't exactly unique at this stage of the game. Multiple AI developers are grappling with far-reaching copyright allegations from rightsholders, with giants like Anthropic staring down a number of distinct complaints. Despite the apparent overlap - some of it stemming from Sony Music's above-noted first Udio case - a few things stand out in the platform's newly filed response, which is essentially a point-by-point refutation of the major's allegations. First, the defendant has once again acknowledged obtaining "audio data from YouTube for use as training data" and acquiring a portion "of its training data by utilizing" stream-ripper YT-DLP. Does this mean Sony Music will ultimately prove that Udio violated the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions when doing so? Time will tell, but it's noteworthy that the defendant is readily acknowledging the stream-ripping itself - especially because similar claims are alive in different suits, all tending to invoke each other's precedents and decisions. (Without spilling too much ink on the involved subject, as we previously broke down, the DMCA is said to allow for the bypassing of "copy" but not "access" controls. The jury's out regarding which category houses YouTube's anti-circumvention measures; AI giants are adamant that "copy" is an apt descriptor.) Next, as highlighted, Udio has rallied behind the longstanding "fair use defense" by maintaining that its "AI tool uses a back-end technological process, invisible to the public, in the service of creating an ultimately non-infringing new product." And this tech process "is quintessential fair use," per the platform, which is still alleging "copyright misuse," tying back to the initially mentioned "anticompetitive activities" of Sony Music. The latter position appears as one of Udio's many affirmative defenses, and the all-encompassing nature of these arguments (the major's "remedies are barred at least in part by the applicable statutes of limitations," to name one) suggests that the potential trial is a ways off. Notwithstanding the possibility of a quicker schedule in the second Sony Music v. Udio case due to the first's sweeping discovery, the original suit is now over 26 months old; the court last week scheduled a status conference for late October. Naturally, the facts raise additional questions about the litigating major's precise objectives as Udio, currently licensing patents from Universal Music to boot, prepares to launch a rightsholder-supported product.