Universal Music Group (UMG) and Hook announced a licensing partnership on Aug. 19, 2026, from Los Angeles and New York, United States, that allows fans to create and share content using UMG’s official recordings while giving artists and rightsholders control and compensation.
The agreement follows two years of collaboration and more than 30 artist campaigns across new releases, remixes, and social fan activations. UMG operates in more than 60 countries across recorded music, music publishing, merchandising, and audiovisual content.
How the licensing model works
Music is already one of the biggest drivers of user-generated content. Hook’s technology is built for how fans use music on social media: personalizing and sharing songs they already love. Unlike generative AI platforms, Hook does not generate new tracks. Instead, it enables fans to create user-generated content (UGC) with licensed music from UMG artists.
Each creation is licensed, attributed and tracked, so artists and rightsholders earn when fans create with their music and when that content is shared across social platforms.
Artist controls and campaign history
Artist control sits at the centre of the arrangement. UMG artists and rightsholders decide:
- which songs are available for creation or community features
- which creative experiences fans can use
- where the resulting content can be shared
Individual experiences such as remixes, sound effects, or video clipping can be switched on or off.
The two-year collaboration involved UMG labels including Republic Records, Capitol Records, Mavin and Virgin Music Group, and produced more than 30 artist campaigns across new releases, remixes, and social fan activations.
Executive comments
“We believe the biggest consumer use case for music creation isn’t making original songs that compete with artists. It’s about expressing yourself through the artists and songs you love while participating in the communities and culture they inspire. We spent the past two years working with UMG’s incredible labels and artists to figure out how to make that possible in a way that empowers artists and rightsholders,” said Gaurav Sharma, founder and CEO of Hook.
“Streaming has transformed how fans listen to music. Licensed fan creativity is an important part of the next chapter, combining artist control with responsible technology and new ways to create value. Gaurav and the Hook team have developed a dynamic, groundbreaking platform that respects artists and strengthens the music ecosystem. It’s exactly the kind of innovation we want to help lead,” said Michael Nash, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, Universal Music Group.
Hook’s platform and investors
Hook brings creation, consumption, community, and monetization into a single social music platform built around artists and their communities. Fans can legally remix and create with songs for social media, and Hook’s attribution and rights infrastructure is designed to ensure artists and labels earn from each piece of fan creativity it powers.
Hook’s investors include:
- Khosla Ventures
- Point72
- Imaginary Ventures
- Waverley Capital, co-founded by Edgar Bronfman Jr., who has led two of the world’s largest music companies
Rather than building on artists’ work and asking permission later, Hook spent its first years earning licenses and building the rights framework with the industry first.
“For too long, this industry has been asked to accept a false choice: that innovation in music must come at the expense of the people who make it. It never had to,” said Edgar Bronfman Jr., investor in Hook. “The technologies that endure in music are the ones that deepen the connection between artists and their audiences, not the ones that exploit it. Hook was built on that conviction from its first day.”
