Model

President Laura Fernandez says mega-prison is part of ‘tough-on-crime model’ embraced by her government.

Costa Rica has announced the opening of a new mega-prison amid near-record homicide levels and growing organised crime, as countries across the region embrace police crackdowns that have proven popular but often weaken key civil liberties.

President Laura Fernandez opened the High-Containment Centre Against Organised Crime, or CACCO, on Wednesday. The prison will have capacity for 5,100 people, equivalent to about 20 percent of the country’s current prison population.

“The CACCO will force criminals to face a new model – a tough-on-crime model. Costa Rica will become a global benchmark for prison security,” Fernandez said during an inauguration ceremony.

Candidates across Latin America have embraced mega-prisons, seeking to replicate the policies of Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, who has won widespread popularity through a campaign of mass arrests and the suspension of basic rights in the name of combating crime.

Costa Rica, long spared from high levels of violent crime compared with its neighbours, saw a record-setting 905 homicides in 2023, followed by 876 in 2024 and 873 in 2025.

Analysts say that is partly due to increased fighting between criminal groups over lucrative drug routes.

The first transfers to Costa Rica’s new mega-prison will take place at the end of October, with Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar saying the facility will help the government reassert control over the prison system and diminish infiltration by organised crime.

Right-wing leaders in other Latin American countries have also sought to replicate the mega-prison model.

Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori, inaugurated in July, has announced plans to tour El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT), in anticipation of creating a similar facility in her country. CECOT can hold about 40,000 people.

In Colombia, meanwhile, newly elected leader Abelardo de la Espriella campaigned for the presidency, in part, on a pledge to build 10 mega-prisons. He took office in August.

Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, is currently in the midst of its own presidential election, and right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has advanced to the final round of the vote. His platform also includes building five mega-prisons, citing the Salvadoran model.

El Salvador first imposed a “state of exception” under Bukele in 2022, expanding police and military powers.

That emergency declaration has been credited with a sharp drop in that country’s homicides, but rights groups say it has led to severe rights abuses and has been weaponised against critics of the government.

The “state of exception” has also resulted in mass arrests and mass trials, with rulings delivered against hundreds of defendants at a time. Some defendants have been detained without charge.

While the Bukele administration frequently touts its success in dismantling the gangs, the government has continuously extended the state of exception since it was first imposed.

Critics have warned that conditions inside mega-prisons are often poor, with imprisoned people facing overcrowding, due process violations and alleged torture in facilities like CECOT.

King Juan Carlos I summons party leaders after the failed 1981 coup. From left to right: Santiago Carrillo (Communist Party), Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún (Defence Minister), Adolfo Suárez (Prime Minister), Juan Carlos I, Felipe González (PSOE) and Manuel Fraga (People’s Alliance, later PP).

(“Gosh, no! Not another hyper-comparative article about two distant political conflicts…” Apologies. We’ll try to make it a fun read).

More often than not, our intellectual circles have felt tempted to look at alien historical episodes in a never-ending search for resolute answers that shed light on our present. In 2023, when Maduro flirted with attacking US-supported Guyana, some revisited the Falklands War as a sign that a serious military incursion would be a fatal mistake that would lead to the dictatorship’s downfall. Then came the road to the 2024 presidential election; many feared (rightfully, in the end) that the country would plunge into the “Nicaragua scenario” if the dictator refused to recognize his defeat. Others momentarily wondered if enough external pressure could give way to a Guatemala-style transfer of power and a weak transition government.

The days of terror seem to be behind us, yet there’s no progressive reformer like Raúl Alfonsín steering the wheel of justice. Instead, Donald Trump gave us the Pizza Hut scenario. Here, Delcy Rodríguez has become the poster girl of the MAGA international franchise. Here, too, US geopolitical ambitions and business interests at times seem to be competing with the need for free elections and a democratic regime.

Is Rodríguez our Mikhail Gorbachev, trying to open the economy and political system just enough while attempting to save the chavista State from outright collapse? What if chavismo is already dead and she’s the Yeltsin of the Caribbean, the feeble leader who will give away the country’s riches to oligarchs in an arbitrary fashion, laying the ground for a new form of autocracy?

Or might Delcy be the chavista version of Adolfo Suárez, the not-so-brilliant and obscure but highly charismatic Francoist insider? Suárez finished the job after a remarkable run, surviving a period of meagre political support, declining approval rates and a coup d’etat that could have killed him. The comparison now sounds like an insult to the Spaniard. Like Gorbachev in today’s Russia, Suárez has become a sort of mythical statesman abroad while Spanish right- and left-wing critics dispute his legacy.

There are genuine similarities between the process currently unfolding in Caracas and the outset of Spain’s democracy, as well as room for gross contrasts. While 2026 has been insane for Venezuelans, Spain exactly fifty years ago was astonishing due to the speed at which Suárez acted in unilaterally dismantling the regime from within the regime. The dictator was finally gone, and as soon as he had the chance, the new King ordered a politician without strong ideological convictions to establish a full parliamentary democracy.

Suárez took office in June 1976. The Law for Political Reform, meant to pave the way for a new democratic legislature (with the King acting as a key enforcer), was through six months later. Spain held general elections within a year. That was just the start. What followed was a sequence full of the raw materials that tend to feed these history-making episodes: secret meetings and grand bargains between rivals and strange bedfellows, journalists acting like hinges, political violence, and leaders who soon become overwhelmed by their own decisions and actions.

How the transition worked out

When scholars praise the atmosphere of consensus that defined Spain in the 1970s, they generally speak of the close cooperation between regime reformers and opposition moderates in devising broad agreements that fastened democracy, fundamental rights and regional autonomy with the recognition of the monarchy. In doing so, these figures refused to address legal and moral responsibilities for the violence left by the Civil War and four decades of military rule (more on this later).

The spirit of the Transición is best encapsulated by the political partnership between Suárez and Santiago Carrillo, leader of the Communist Party (PCE) and the most prominent figure in a scattered opposition. Much like María Corina Machado this year, Carrillo was a key veto player in the transition’s inception. Suárez had the power; democracy just couldn’t be without the legitimacy carried by Francoism’s utmost rival. The government legalized the PCE only after it abandoned Marxist-Leninist doctrine and Republican (“anti-Spain”) symbols. As Javier Cercas recounts in the brilliant Anatomy of a Moment, the duo protected each other’s backs amid hardline pressures, in a climate of growing economic hardship and political violence where ETA and Far Right violence threatened to destabilize their project.

In Spain’s first elections since 1936, Suárez won and the renewed PSOE of a young Felipe González managed to eclipse the old-looking communists. Once the new democratic parliament was settled, Suárez and representatives from major parties signed the Moncloa Pacts, then framed as a national agreement to save the economy. Parallels with Venezuela’s Puntofijo Pact are there: the political class came together on monetary policy and wage regulation; welfare and public spending; and fundamental freedoms for citizens, workers and members of the press. An amnesty for political prisoners followed. In 1978, Spanish voters overwhelmingly voted to approve a new consensus constitution.

As is only natural during these processes, the position of Suárez before Francoist remnants in the State became untenable. Time exposed the true nature of his goals: he eventually crossed all the red lines of the inmovilistas, wiping out Franco’s ultra-conservative and nationalist institutions. Far Right groups, elites, the military and even newspapers plotted to jeopardize the transition and restrain its main characters. However, much of the groundwork for political action and breakthroughs was laid by domestic and outside backers who had an unequivocal pro-democracy stance.

In the Francois legislature, King Juan Carlos appointed his personal tutor and advisor, Torcuato Fernández-Miranda, as president. In the diplomatic arena, regional leaders and international actors favored Spain’s democratization and European integration. Willy Brandt, Francois Mitterrand and even Carlos Andrés Pérez encouraged PSOE’s social-democratic turn and the rise of González. Meanwhile, Carrillo had the endorsement of fellow Eurocommunists that had broken with the Soviet Union.

However, royal and international support were neither constant nor salient enough in the Spanish case. Domestic variables and the consequences of political opening made Suárez grow weaker in 1979, and his government could have fallen apart. In Venezuela, where the level of tutelage in place is more decisive than in Spain back then, the approach of the United States remains gradual and its supervision restrictive for opposition actors. The speed of reforms also seems to be contingent on the diverse interests of the Trump administration. Unlike in Spain at this stage, elections don’t appear to be around the corner, and new policies and initiatives are either limited in scope or yet to show results.

The transition’s key omissions

When comparing the Spanish transition with the Venezuelan process, significant details reveal mistakes whose lessons should serve to prevent their repetition. The transitional justice model, the control of the security forces, and the polarization that affects public opinion after decades, are some of the aspects that can be adjusted to learn from what Spain did well. However, we must keep our eyes open regarding the issues left unresolved.

Six years after Franco’s death and following many important reforms, the Spanish government did not have control of its security apparatus. As a result, a group of Guardias Civiles led by Antonio Tejero, stormed the Congress of Deputies on February 23, 1981, taking Suárez, Carrillo and the entire government hostage while tanks occupied the city of Valencia. The coup failed, but it became clear that the nascent democracy was fragile and that military, police and political elements were able to undermine it. Just like Venezuela in the early sixties.

A change in government, even one negotiated and backed by the US, does not guarantee control over the Venezuelan armed forces. During the transition process, the loyalty of the military must be built and put to the test. There is no guarantee that Venezuela will not experience an episode like Spain’s 23-F; the only way to ensure otherwise is to include representatives of the military high command at the negotiating table from the very beginning.

Then we have the famous Pact of Forgetting. As the opposition basically got everything it wanted, la Transición did not establish any special justice mechanisms. Reconciliation was built on a pacto del olvido, an implicit agreement between regime reformers and a large part of the opposition that consisted of not judging the past, not establishing truth commissions, and adhering to a logic of equivalency between the Two Spains: the Republican Left and the Nationalist Right, the losers and the winners of the Civil War.

The “pact of forgetting” is far from what we Venezuelans aspire to. The victims of Francoism were unable to access mechanisms for reparations during the first 25 years of democracy. Later, the Ley de Memoria Histórica (Historical Memory Law, LMH) and the Ley de Memoria Democrática (Democratic Memory Law, LMD) were enacted to fill that void. The reality is that justice came too late, was biased, and failed to meet international standards on truth, memory, and non-repetition.

One only needs to take a close look at the 1977 Amnesty Law. It passed almost unanimously; its original intent was a genuine desire to bring closure. However, the same law granted amnesty to those who were politically persecuted as well as to “authorities, civil servants, and law enforcement officers” for violations against the rights of Spanish citizens. To an extent, these are the same flaws that have been criticized in the Venezuelan amnesty law enacted in January 2026.

Forgetting and silence created wounds in Spain that were not fully healed and vulnerable to political manipulation throughout this century. A 2008 study found that 55.7% of those surveyed stated that the victims of the dictatorship had not received the recognition they deserved. That sense of injustice has fueled the narrative promoted by the Spanish Left that the transition was a “deal” between elites rather than a pacted rupture with the regime.

Venezuela’s amnesty law bears the same risk and exacerbates it by ordering the destruction of records and criminal histories. Erasing the evidence that will one day be needed to reconstruct the patterns of repression is the opposite of reconciliation. The construction of memory is the only thing that can guarantee that in 2050, Venezuelans will not be having the same disputes that Spain continues to have about Franco. For our process to move toward transformation, we must establish special justice mechanisms that include both reparations and forgiveness. Without this, at best, the next generations will be prone to forgetting.

Coming to terms with post-chavismo

It’s important to make a clarification regarding our case. Today, chavismo is not a force that polarizes the country, capable of winning elections like Suárez did, but a political elite that faces widespread rejection. That does not mean it will disappear from the political landscape. On the contrary, the mere fact that chavismo continues to rule may hint that it will remain part of public life. Eventually, the heirs of chavismo could try to reframe the legacy of Chávez, “saving” him from the discredit brought on by Maduro-era atrocities. The Maduro-Flores faction and a few other figures will likely be erased from chavismo’s new narratives. They will be portrayed as a deviation from chavismo’s original ideas. They will try to bring in new faces, and perhaps Diosdado Cabello will hand over the PSUV to some new figure, such as Héctor Rodríguez and a crop of young, “converted democrats.”

Yet the suffering caused by the chavista project cannot be so easily erased from the memories of millions of Venezuelans who endured hunger, exile, repression and imprisonment.

The wounds that remain fresh among Venezuelans can be as deep as those borne by the older generations in Spain, who faced the destruction and trauma of armed conflict. Like Franco, Chávez and Maduro spent two decades trying to build a “new man” through the military and partisan occupation of public life. However, the nature of the crimes and mismanagement in 21st-century Venezuela is different from that in Francoist Spain, where thousands of dissidents were systematically persecuted and killed. Like in Cuba and the USSR, economic and social devastation has been so severe that it led to mass starvation and exodus. Our remaining task and the lesson learned from what was lacking in the Spanish transition, is to build a historical memory focused on ensuring that anything resembling that does not happen again, and that whoever wants to enter the political arena can do so according to the rules of democracy.

Bonus: Delcy vs. Suárez

Adolfo Suárez became prime minister in 1976, having emerged from the very structures of Francoism and State-owned media. He was certainly not a reformer, much less a democrat until Juan Carlos appointed him to lead the transition. Suárez eventually acted on his own volition, seeing the process through to the end. Delcy, as Maduro’s “Super Minister” and his last vice president, has been a far more prominent figure in the chavista State, and also more deeply involved with the repressive apparatus than Suárez was, as UN reports can attest). In the case of Delcy, US military intervention has pushed her to change certain policies, cool down repression and engage with a sector of the opposition, part of a strategy for political survival where her regime needs to balance Washington’s demands with avoiding chavismo’s downfall. That has nothing to do with a “democratic” conversion.

The comparison is still vague, but Venezuelan historians can re-assess if this process leads to its much-needed destination.

Timeline (optional read)

1973: A decrepit Franco steps down as PM, separating the headship of state and the presidency of government for the first time. He names his loyal right-hand man, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, as Prime Minister, with jurist Torcuato Fernández-Miranda as Deputy PM and conservative Carlos Arias Navarro at Interior. The global oil shock strikes Spain, ending fifteen years of economic boom (the Spanish Miracle) and unleashing severe inflation. In December, ETA assassinates Carrero Blanco in Madrid. Arias Navarro succeeds him with the backing of Franco’s family.

1974: Knowing that Franco’s death was imminent, the regime starts to split between moderates and hardliners while ETA consolidates as a lethal enemy of Madrid. Arias Navarro promises freedom of association, but under pressure from hardliners, the proposal ends up being a sham. The opposition favours gradual reform away from Francoism. European leaders encourage PSOE’s social-democratic turn, appointing a young Felipe González as Secretary General. Communist Party (PCE) leader Santiago Carrillo and other exiled figures call for a peaceful, democratic rupture with the regime.

1975: Franco dies in November. King Juan Carlos I is crowned head of state and reinstates Arias Navarro as PM, maintaining an impossible cabinet of both regime hardliners and moderate reformers like Manuel Fraga. ETA and left-wing terror groups step up attacks, while public strikes and protests demand amnesty and democracy. González enters Spain; Carrillo remains abroad.

1976: Arias Navarro’s sluggish reforms cause political deadlock and social unrest. Pressured by the King, he resigns in July. Juan Carlos appoints Fernández-Miranda as President of the Cortes and Torcuato’s former pupil, Adolfo Suárez, as PM. Suárez promises elections for 1977 and skilfully passes the Law for Political Reform through the Francoist parliament, dismantling the regime from within. Suárez tries to build democratic credibility by engaging with González. The more prominent Carrillo remains sidelined, leading the Communists from clandestinity, until he forces the regime to briefly arrest and release him.

1977: Carrillo and Suárez negotiate a pact in person. Suárez legalizes trade unions and, in a risky move during Holy Week, legalizes Carrillo’s PCE. The Communists abandon its Marxist-Leninist doctrine and traditional Republican symbols. In June, Spain holds its first free general election since 1936: Suárez’s UCD wins, closely followed by the renewed PSOE of González. Major parties sign the Moncloa Pacts to stabilize the economy. An Amnesty Law releases political prisoners.

1978: Parliamentary committees draft a consensus constitution guaranteeing fundamental rights, regional autonomy, and a constitutional monarchy. In December, Spanish voters overwhelmingly approve the new Constitution in a national referendum, formally ending the Francoist State and establishing Spain as a modern parliamentary democracy. The government discovers that some security officials are plotting a coup against Suárez, including Guardia Civil Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, but the main conspirators receive minor penalties.

1979: Spain holds its first elections under the new Constitution: UCD wins again but fails to secure an absolute majority. Regional autonomy statutes pass in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Economic trouble, internal UCD infighting, and rising ETA violence create growing political instability and unrest within the military.

1980: Suárez faces worsening economic crises, mounting regional tensions, and a vote of no confidence tabled by the PSOE. Suárez survives the vote, but his authority inside the UCD collapses as cabinet ministers and faction leaders publicly break ranks, making his government increasingly untenable.

1981: Exhausted by political crisis and plots, Suárez resigns in January. During the parliamentary vote to appoint Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as his successor on February 23, Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero leads an attempted military coup (23-F). King Juan Carlos rejects the coup on national television, securing army loyalty and saving the young democracy.

1982: Calvo-Sotelo navigates Spain into NATO despite widespread public opposition. Disintegrating from internal factionalism, the ruling UCD collapses. In the October general elections, Felipe González leads the PSOE to a historic landslide victory, marking the first peaceful transfer of power to a left-wing government and consolidating Spanish democracy.

1983: The newly inaugurated PSOE government launches major economic restructuring and industrial modernization plans to prepare Spain for European integration. Simultaneously, the State initiates decentralisation by establishing the final Autonomous Communities, completing Spain’s territorial map under the 1978 Constitution.

Barbara Palvin and Dylan Sprouse have welcomed their first child together.

The new parents shared their happy life update in a joint Instagram post Monday featuring the public social media debut of their new bundle of joy.

“We took Labor Day literally this year,” Palvin wrote in the caption accompanying a photo of she and Sprouse holding their baby girl between them. The snapshot captured the family of three from the back as they watch a Dodgers game on TV while wearing matching jerseys.

The model debuted her baby bump in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where the couple posed together while walking a red carpet. They also announced that they were expecting on social media. Sprouse later shared in a July episode of his “Wildmen” podcast that they would be having a baby girl and that he was “excited to be a girl dad.”

On Tuesday, the actor once again took to his podcast to share some new tidbits about his daughter and life as a new parent.

“She’s very lovely, her name is Sylvie,” Sprouse said of his daughter. “Sylvie Sprouse. And she’s a very well-behaved baby.”

The former Disney Channel star also shared some details about Sylvie’s birth including some of the different options at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

“There’s moments when I look at Sylvie and I’m like, ‘This is the coolest thing ever,’” Sprouse said of being a new dad. “She’s looking at me and her eyes are opening … she’s looking at me and she smiles or something and it’s the cutest thing. My heart like jumps out of its chest.”

The “Suite Life of Zack & Cody” star and Victoria’s Secret model first met in 2017 and have been in a relationship since 2018. They were married in 2023.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

OpenAI has cancelled the release of its latest AI model over safety concerns, according to media reports.

The move to scrap the release of GPT-6.1 Astra, reported by the Wall Street Journal and CNN on Monday, comes amid heightened concerns about AI’s potential to do catastrophic harm following a slew of incidents involving AI agents going rogue.

More to follow…

Two years ago, the biggest record labels took artificial intelligence music generators to court for copyright infringement. Now several of them are licensing their catalogs to those same companies, and the deals are starting to turn into products.

The latest example came earlier this month, when Suno, an AI music company valued at $5.4 billion, released its first models built with licensed music from Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe. Rival Udio has licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Warner.

The companies are pitching AI as a new revenue stream for artists. But so far, none of them have disclosed what artists will be paid, how many artists have opted in, or how much input individual musicians have over whether their work is used. And some musicians and songwriters are fearful of how these AI deals might affect livelihoods.

“It’s sort of a creepy and ominous cloud,” said Matt Evans, a 35-year-old Pasadena resident who’s played brass instruments on shows like “The Late Late Show With James Corden” and Netflix’s “Dr. Seuss’s Red Fish, Blue Fish.” “The fact that I could do something once and then it could be reused, and if that’s not negotiated in a contract, then I never got to make a choice to receive additional compensation. It all comes down to the loss of money.”

The American Federation of Musicians sued Universal and Warner in June, alleging the labels licensed recordings its members played on to Suno and Udio without paying those musicians or telling the union which recordings were involved. The labels have moved to dismiss the case.

In 2024, Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner sued Suno and Udio for copyright infringement, alleging the AI companies trained their models on copyrighted songs spanning many artists, genres and time periods. The settlements began the following year. Universal settled with Udio in October and became its partner, and Warner settled with both Udio and Suno in November, signing licensing deals with each.

“The reason why they would settle this is they think they’re going to profit more from licensing music to them rather than from the outcome of a lawsuit,” said Jane Davidson, an entertainment attorney at Nolan Heimann who specializes in copyright and trademark infringement.

More deals followed. Udio signed with Merlin, which licenses music on behalf of independent labels, and with independent publisher Kobalt. Suno signed with BMG in August and with Believe, owner of the DIY distribution platform TuneCore, this month. Spotify, which wasn’t part of the lawsuits, struck deals with Universal and Merlin.

Not everyone is settling. Sony filed a second lawsuit against Udio over more than 30,000 recordings, and it is still suing Suno alongside Universal, which is licensing its music to Udio and Spotify at the same time. Sony and Universal also filed a new lawsuit last week alleging that Suno’s latest model still infringes on their copyrighted works. In July, a Munich court ruled against Suno in a case brought by GEMA, which collects royalties for German songwriters and publishers.

The deals between labels and AI music platforms — on which consumers can create full songs from text prompts — share a basic promise. Artists signed to the participating labels can opt in and will be credited and paid.

But each company is building something different. Udio operates under a “walled garden” model favored by Universal, in which songs made on the platform can’t be downloaded or distributed elsewhere. Spotify’s tool, a planned paid add-on for Premium subscribers, has no launch date. Suno lets users download what they make and release it elsewhere, with download caps and watermarks meant to curb abuse; songs made with its new models can be distributed through Believe and TuneCore.

Whether an artist opts out depends on who owns the rights. Songs typically carry two copyrights — one for the composition, usually held by songwriters and their publishers, and one for the sound recording, usually owned by the label. Every contract is different, so it’s unclear how AI products will handle music where those rights are split.

Waveforms of audio files from various instruments are displayed on a computer screen during the making of an AI musical piece at Suno.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

“These companies are able to make deals on behalf of their artists, and their control over their music is pretty significant based on what major label contracts typically say,” Davidson said. “But I expect that we will have some artists that push back against this and say that they didn’t authorize the use of their music for this purpose.”

Warner’s agreement with Suno, for example, lets artists opt in to having their names, likenesses, voices and compositions used in AI-generated music. But Jack Brody, Suno’s chief product officer, acknowledged that labels “ultimately have their contracts in place that will have some say in what an artist can and can’t do.” It’s also not always clear whether opting out keeps an artist’s recordings out of AI training, or only out of fan-facing features.

Michelle Lewis, a songwriter and the co-founder and chief executive of the nonprofit Songwriters of North America, said the composition side of that copyright split is often the harder one to defend.

“With AI, it’s so much easier to tell if you’ve infringed on the sound recording. You know what Beyoncé and Drake’s voices sound like,” said Lewis, who wrote Cher’s “A Different Kind of Love Song,” Little Mix’s “Wings” and the music for the Disney Jr. show “Doc McStuffins.” “But songwriting is so much more nebulous, so much harder to sue.”

“From the creator side, nobody asked for this. We like our job,” added Lewis. “The job is the process and what makes it special, interesting and artful.”

Some musicians argue the deals can’t cover rights the labels don’t control. A proposed class action filed last month by Jason Isbell and other musicians alleges Suno lets users generate songs that evoke specific artists’ identities without their consent, a right-of-publicity claim the plaintiffs say belongs to performers no matter who owns their recordings. Suno disputes the claims.

Session musicians like Evans are pushing back through their union.

“By licensing our members’ performances to AI platforms like Suno and Udio without consent, credit, or compensation, companies like Universal, Warner Records, and Atlantic are bypassing the very human creators who made their catalogs valuable in the first place,” AFM International President Tino Gagliardi said in a statement.

The labels have disputed the claims and argue that these deals advance the interests of artists and songwriters.

Jonathan Wyner, head of artistic technology initiatives at Berklee College of Music’s Emerging Artistic Technology Lab, compared the AI deals to the arrival of streaming services. Wyner has advised Suno.

“It’s a good step, and I think it was an inevitable step, especially if you want to stay engaged with musicians and the creative community,” he said.

That comparison cuts both ways. Streaming grew the industry while fueling years of complaints about artist pay.

Damon Krukowski, a musician and the legislative director at United Musicians & Allied Workers, said the deals so far don’t seem to benefit working-class musicians and could be used to cut them out entirely.

“It’s a new technology, but it’s not a new corporate story,” Krukowski said. “But the tools are even more powerful. It seems within their possible reach to destroy the labor market. The major labels are just seeing dollar signs without any regard to the long-term health or sustainability of this industry, because they’re envisioning an industry without artists who can push back.”

Brody disputed that, saying Suno is building ways for independent and unsigned artists to benefit, such as its deal with Believe and TuneCore.

With terms under wraps, it’s too early to know whether any of this will pay off for artists. The tests are still ahead — whether Sony and Universal win or settle, and what the first payouts actually look like.

“A label making a deal and an individual artist having a choice are not necessarily the same thing,” said Drew Silverstein, the senior advisor for AI at music tech company BandLab Technologies. “Our music industry has a long history of new revenue streams coming into existence that benefit certain folks, and create great financial opportunities for rights holders.”

Presley Gerber, the son of supermodel Cindy Crawford and her husband, businessman Rande Gerber, died Sunday at a rehab facility at age 27, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner.

Few details were available late Sunday.

Gerber worked as a model, including in 2018, at age 18, as the face of Calvin Klein Jeans’ global advertising campaign, along with his sister, Kaia Gerber.

A year later, he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, according to USA Today. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to complete a DUI program, TMZ reported.

Kaia, left, and Presley Gerber in Paris in 2017.

(Kamil Zihnioglu / Associated Press)

The death was confirmed to the Associated Press by Allie Jenkins, a representative for Crawford and Rande Gerber, who were married in 1998.

“The family is asking for privacy during this very difficult and painful time,” Jenkins said.

In an Aug. 11 interview with Vogue, sister Kaia, a model and actor, spoke of her older brother struggling with drug addiction, which he described in a since-deleted Instagram video in December.

She told the magazine that she was proud of him.

“My parents … were very, very private,” she said. “Now we have this absolute teacher, my brother, who said, ‘I’m gonna be very human for everyone.’”