As
expected, the three major labels, ABKCO, and the RIAA filed
a copyright infringement lawsuit in New York state court
against Pandora for playing pre-Feb. 15, 1972 recordings
without making any royalty payments. This suit is a
follow-up to the one
filed against SiriusXM last September.
The
integration will be across the mobile operating
system and will likely integrate closely with the
iTunes Store and iTunes Radio, which has been
rumored to be a separate app in the next version of
iOS.
Streaming
services continue to take heat from all
kinds of musicians, but that isn’t slowing
Apple down. In fact, it looks like Apple is getting
ready to take iTunes Radio global. The service is
currently limited to the United States and Australia.
Music
services are partnering up with carriers faster than
dancers at a hoedown, the latest is a reported
hook-up between Spotify and Sprint. So what do
telecoms bring to the dance?
Rep.
Tom Marino (R) Pennsylvania: Thank you
Chairman, and thank you to the panel members for being here.
I hear dozens and dozens of war stories from creators
who have come to personally see me, and they’ve shared
their nightmares with me, almost exactly the way
[Grammy-winning songwriter] Ms. Schneider has genuinely and
eloquently stated what she has been going through.
TuneCore,
a self-serve music distribution platform used by
independent artists, paid out $34.1 million in the
first quarter of this year, up 75% over the same
period last year.
The
growth of NEXTRADIO continues unabated. Just two weeks ago
(NET NEWS, 3/31), ALL ACCESS reported that a
quarter-million NEXTRADIO apps had been downloaded and
almost 8,000 FM stations had been tuned in by users who
listened for almost 200,000 hours.
Google
has bought Titan Aerospace, a maker of solar-powered
drones, saying it could help bring Internet access
to remote parts of the world as well as solve other
problems
Yahoo
Screen, the tech company's trending video portal,
has extended its partnership with Vevo, the
companies announced today. Content is currently
available in the U.S. and Canada on desktop
computers and will open into the U.K., Germany,
France, Spain, Italy and mobile apps within a few
weeks
It
seems we’ve waited ages for music bundling with major
mobile carriers to help fire up the streaming on-demand
business, and suddenly everyone’s talking to everyone
else. The latest is
market leader Spotify finalizing a deal with Sprint, the No.
3 U.S. mobile carrier, to bundle an on-demand music service
with Sprint family plans -- similar to the AT&T packages
Beats Music launched
with in January.
For
the first time, U.S. Internet advertising revenue
has surpassed that of broadcast television thanks to
sharp growth in mobile and digital video ads.
After
nearly a decade and a half of buildup, streaming
music services are finally poised to make the leap
from niche market to mainstream acceptance. That
leap is likely to coincide with the introduction of
new services by large, diversified tech companies,
rather than venture capital-backed music specialists
such as Spotify that have largely built the market
thus far.
The
major record labels including Warner Music,
Universal Music, Sony Music and Capitol Records have
filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against
Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van
der Kolk.
As
Dropbox shows off its newest application,
photo-sharing app Carousel, it teases plans to turn
its utilitarian folders into a series of more
specialized experiences. With 275 million users
worldwide, is a music app in the offing?
Look’s
like last year’s declining digital download trend is going
to continue. Billboard
has reported first quarter Nielsen SoundScan numbers.
Surprise to no one, on-demand streaming continues to rise,
eating into sales.
SESAC
is reshuffling its debt to achieve cost savings in
interest payments and will see the privately held
performance rights organization take on $5 million
more in debt since it was acquired by private equity
firm Rizvi Traverse in leveraged buyout deal in
early 2013.
Walmart,
the largest retailer of CDs in the United
States, plans to downsize the amount of
space it devotes to discs by 40 percent and
could reduce selection proportionately, say
label sources.
What
do you do when you have the most unfashionable brands in the
fast growing, cutting edge music streaming business? The
answer seems to be that you team up with mobile carriers and
bundle your service.
That
at least seems to have worked for Rhapsody International,
which owns the Rhapsody and Napster brands in the U.S. and
around the world.
