Loony House Production, Los Angeles, CA (2026)

08/29/2026

Beatport Hype costs $9.99/month. Here’s what it actually buys — and the fine print almost nobody quotes.

It buys ONE guarantee: Beatport’s curators will listen to your label’s releases. Everything else works in levels. Hype Top 100 charts and reserved home/genre zones — you become ELIGIBLE for those. Features, editorial, Label of the Month, playlists — those are “solely at Beatport’s discretion,” in Beatport’s own words. $9.99 does not buy placement.

Eligibility: up to, but NOT more than, $25,000 in Beatport sales in the trailing year from signup. Exactly $25k still qualifies. Cross it and Beatport can remove you from the platform at the end of that subscription month.

And $25k isn’t a loophole — Beatport can disqualify any label that “does not fit the spirit of this program,” its own example being an established artist launching a new imprint for their own project. It can also lower the threshold for certain genres.

Two more things labels miss: only releases from the last 365 days chart (subscribing doesn’t revive your back catalogue), and there’s no pause — fees are non-refundable, cancellation hits at the next renewal.

Swipe for the signup steps, the eligible genres, and exactly what Beatport calls a good pitch versus a bad one. Save it. →

crewport.io

08/27/2026

YouTube quietly changed what a “view” is — and every music campaign report you write from now on is affected.

Since Aug 24, a public view counts from the FIRST FRAME. Autoplay while someone hovers a thumbnail? Counted. A Short flashing past in the feed? Counted. One rule now covers Shorts, regular videos, podcasts and live.

The old metric didn’t disappear — it’s called “engaged views” and it’s in Analytics under Advanced Mode. That’s the one that matters, because Partner Program earnings still run on engaged views and engaged watch hours. A bigger public number pays you nothing extra.
The trap: old totals were NOT recalculated. So 80K before the change vs 110K after is not a 37.5% improvement — those were measured by different rules. Your July video and your September video aren’t on the same scale.

What to report instead: engaged views, watch time, retention (where exactly did they leave — the intro? verse two?), unique viewers, subscribers gained, traffic sources. And if you’re buying views from an agency, ask how “view” is defined in the contract — YouTube’s counter, Google Ads and agency billing may not describe the same event.

Swipe for the full reporting checklist. Save it before your next campaign wrap. →

crewport.io

08/27/2026

SoundCloud is testing direct sales — fans buy the file right on your profile, and the platform takes 0% commission. Beta is 200 US Artist Pro accounts, wider access planned for the fall.

Two things before you get excited. First: 0% commission is not 100% of the price. Processing fees, sales tax/VAT, currency conversion, refunds, withholding and the Artist Pro subscription all still come out. SoundCloud removed ITS cut, not every cost.

Second, and bigger: nobody buys a file they already stream. The MP3 that’s on Spotify isn’t a product. What sells is a reason — a WAV a DJ can load tonight, an 8-minute club mix that isn’t on streaming, an instrumental, a live version. Sell the extra, keep the standard release where people find you. Don’t pull music off streaming to force sales.

And the part nobody mentions: a paid download reproduces the composition, which can trigger mechanical obligations — and a cover licence for streaming doesn’t automatically cover selling downloads.

Swipe for the prep checklist before the button reaches your account. Save it. →

crewport.io

08/25/2026

Sony just sued Kroger over 392 alleged unlicensed uses of its recordings across social and influencer content. Mariah Carey, OutKast, Bill Withers, Harry Styles. (Claims in a new filing — no court has ruled.)
The misunderstanding underneath it: a platform can have permission to offer a song to certain users without giving every user permission to put it in an ad.

What actually applies — TikTok says businesses can’t use its general music library commercially and points them to the Commercial Music Library. Instagram says a Reel with licensed music can’t be boosted at all. An ad using a real song usually needs TWO licences: sync for the composition, master-use for the recording.

Buying the track or crediting the artist clears neither.
And “organic” isn’t a safe word. Sony’s complaint cites a TikTok with an ad disclosure and a $100 discount code. A post doesn’t become personal because nobody pressed Boost.

The detail worth stealing: Sony alleges Kroger licensed a song for SEVEN WEEKS in 2020 — and says a video was still live in August 2026. Put the takedown date in the campaign calendar before you publish.

Swipe for the clearance checkpoint and the four safer ways to source music. Save it. →

Not legal advice.

crewport.io

08/24/2026

The most sensitive file in your release campaign is probably sitting on someone else’s phone.

Ariana Grande’s lawsuit alleges hackers didn’t hit a label server — they went after the people AROUND her: a photographer’s cloud storage, a producer’s phone, and in 2024, a lookalike domain impersonating a familiar name to trick a technician into handing over files. 45 unreleased songs allegedly leaked in 2023 alone. (Allegations unproven — a judge just allowed subpoenas to unmask anonymous accounts.)

The lesson for every release team: your master is only as secure as the weakest account that can reach it.
What actually helps — send purpose-built packages, not the same downloadable WAV to everyone. Invite named accounts instead of open links (a link escapes without anyone hacking anything). Passkeys or hardware keys on every email that can reach unreleased material. Keep an access register so you can answer “who could reach the file?” in seconds, not by digging through old messages mid-leak. And split the archive: working / delivery / promo.

One honest note: a watermark names the copy, not the culprit — that person’s account may have been breached too. Investigate before you accuse.

Swipe for the full checklist and the first-hours response plan. Save it. →

Not legal or security advice.

crewport.io

08/21/2026

A world-class studio can capture more detail, space and character. It cannot decide which chorus is final, find your missing sample licence, or tell the drummer which ending the band chose.

Real World Studios is offering unsigned artists free studio days — and they’re right to accept rough phone demos when picking talent. But once the door opens, the standard changes. Every hour spent hunting for the right tempo version is an hour you paid for.

Before the clock starts: lock structure, key, tempo map and endings. Send ONE brief — not three files named “final.” Render anything plug-in-dependent and test the export in a new empty project. Rehearse the version you’re actually recording (3 BPM changes phrasing, pocket and the weight of a chorus). Sign the split sheet in the room. And name ONE person whose call is final, or the control room becomes a meeting with a microphone in it.

Swipe for the full pre-session checklist and what to leave the studio with — hint: more than a stereo bounce. Save it before your next session. →

08/17/2026

BMG just licensed its whole catalog to Suno — recordings AND publishing. Participation is optional for its artists and songwriters. That’s genuinely better than silent ingestion.

But look at what wasn’t published: royalty rates, permitted uses, consent procedures, withdrawal rights, and how money for training that already happened reaches individual creators. “Creators will be compensated” is a principle. A royalty statement needs a formula.

The part worth tattooing on your forehead: “opt in” should never be one checkbox. Training, generation, voice & likeness, fan-facing products and promotional use are five separate business decisions. And don’t let anyone bundle them — especially voice. Owning your master doesn’t automatically license a digital replica of your performance.

One more, the sharpest practical point: you should not have to approve FUTURE training just to get paid for training that already happened. Different periods, different consents. Keep them separate.

Swipe for the five permissions and the questions to ask before signing anything. Save it — you’ll meet these same clauses in a distributor amendment long before a major label calls. →

Not legal advice.

08/17/2026

Same song, new light — that’s a cover. You record it all yourself, so the master is yours. The composition still belongs to its writers, and that’s the part you licence.

In the US, Section 115 gives you a compulsory mechanical licence: the owner can’t just say no. But it only holds if the song was already released with authorization, you cut a brand-new master, it’s audio-only, and you keep the basic melody and character.

Where people get caught: Spotify’s blanket licence via The MLC is US digital audio ONLY — it doesn’t cover CDs, direct downloads, or video. Pressing 500 CDs of one cover costs $65.50 in mechanicals at the 2026 rate. Translating a verse or rewriting a hook makes it a derivative work needing the publisher’s yes. And your audio licence never clears a music video — that’s sync, negotiated separately. A Content ID claim is not a licence you hold.

One session, four different rights questions. Swipe for the full breakdown, the metadata rules that break royalty matching, and the pre-delivery checklist. Save it. →

Not legal advice.

08/12/2026

AI can now pull a finished song into vocals, drums, bass and “other” — right inside Ableton, Logic and Cubase. Losing your multitracks used to end a project. Now it just changes the workflow.

But two things the hype skips: an extracted stem is NOT your original session — it’s an estimate rebuilt from the mix, complete with reverb residue and invented textures. And extraction is not permission. Being able to separate someone else’s record grants zero remix rights — “no copyright infringement intended” fixes nothing, and screenshots from your stem-splitter prove how you got the audio, not that you were allowed to.

The clean rule: if you control the material, the tool reopens options you thought were gone. If someone else controls it, the ease of extraction changes nothing. Owning the song ≠ owning the recording — check both.
Swipe for what you can safely do with your own catalog, when a separated version needs a new ISRC, and the dossier to keep. Save it. →

Not legal advice.

08/11/2026

That trending song sitting in the TikTok/Instagram music picker? The button being there is NOT a license for your business.

Brands keep learning this in court — DSW, Bang Energy, Marriott. Warner’s DSW suit reportedly cited 200+ works, and statutory damages can reach $150K per work. The catch: platforms license their catalog for personal content and often exclude ads. TikTok has a separate Commercial Music Library; Meta bars ordinary library music in Reels ads. And no, switching your Business account to “personal” doesn’t turn an ad into personal use — the purpose of the post is what counts.
A few things most teams miss: a song needs TWO clearances (composition + master), “original sound” isn’t a rights category, boosting an organic post can break the rights, and “the influencer picked it” is still your risk.

Swipe for the 5-question check to run before you post — and save it for your next campaign. And if you’re an artist who owns both sides of your song: this is your opening to be the easy, one-stop yes brands are desperate for. →

Not legal advice — the DSW case is still ongoing.

Loony House Production

08/29/2026

08/27/2026

08/27/2026

08/25/2026

08/24/2026

08/21/2026

08/17/2026

08/17/2026

08/12/2026

08/11/2026

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Establishment

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Listing takedown request