Hook, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered music remixing app, has signed a licensing deal with Universal Music Group (UMG) to bring a range of the major label’s catalogs to its social-first platform. The agreement expands a multiyear relationship between the two companies and gives UMG artists a presence in short-form fan remixes shared on Instagram and TikTok.
The app lets users create minute-long clips that remix or mash up licensed tracks, then share them on social platforms. It does not generate new music. Fans apply filters to existing songs and produce “Hooks” for their own videos, with artists retaining ownership and earning from uses of their work.
Deal scope and catalog access
The UMG deal covers catalogs from sublabels including:
- Republic Records
- Capitol Records
- Virgin Music Group
Hook has existing agreements with labels such as Glassdoor Records and Downtown Music. Its catalog already includes songs featuring artists such as Justin Bieber, Teddy Swims, the Weeknd, Ty Dolla $ign, Kendrick Lamar and Charli xcx. The UMG deal will significantly expand that roster, though both companies declined to share which new artists will be immediately available.
Executive comments
Gaurav Sharma, CEO of Hook, said the company worked with UMG to ensure artists have control over security needs for everything created on the platform.
“What we made sure is that [for] everything created on Hook, the artists have full control around the security needs that they have adhered to,” Sharma said. “All the things that we had to do in figuring out streaming back in 2010 is effectively what we spent the last two years working on with UMG. So the idea of these sorts of licenses are possible through collaboration. It doesn’t need to be artists, labels, tech companies fighting each other.”
Michael Nash, UMG’s executive vice president and chief digital officer, said the collaboration reflects fans’ focus on social media as a way to engage with artists. He described social platforms as a sector that has been “significantly under monetized and substantially disrupted by short format.”
“We’re eager to collaborate with innovators that are targeting purpose-built technology to go after some of the predominant use cases that empirically exist right now in the social sphere,” Nash said. “Invoking Oscar Wilde here, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then perhaps co-creation is one of the sincerest forms of fandom.”
Backing and industry context
Hook is backed by Khosla Ventures, Point72, Imaginary Ventures and Waverley Capital, the firm led by former Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr., among others.
Bronfman said Hook offers a different approach from generative AI music tools. “That, I think, is very different than what I would call sort of generative AI or AI slop, which is just music’s [that’s] been written, and some AI algorithm changes it up,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a lasting phenomenon. I think people care about artists. They want to go see artists. They believe in artists, and artists believe in in them.”
Bronfman declined to comment on Warner Music Group’s settlement with Suno. UMG and Sony Music remain in active litigation against Suno for alleged copyright infringement.
The UMG deal also follows a legal settlement with Udio and a May agreement with Spotify to power the streaming service’s AI remixing and covers tool. Nash called the two deals “extremely complementary partnerships” in line with UMG’s “partnership portfolio approach.”
“Hook is enabling the specific, empirically demonstrated, very prominent and popular use cases of fan interaction, and it’s all about social,” Nash said. “It’s just a very specific targeted use case that is unique in our partnership portfolio.”
Sharma said Spotify’s approach to remixing represented “validation.”
“Hook is focused on social, on community-driven creation and consumption,” he said. “When a user creates on Hook and they share to their TikTok, and these creations also exist within communities on Hook, tied to the activities, the feelings expressed in the larger [user-generated content] that that person made. So when we say social music, it’s not just the music; it’s the larger expression that the person has with the video and everything else around it… I believe that people will go to Spotify to hear how artists express themselves through music, and our hope is Hook can be that destination where people hear how social media expresses through music.”
