Archive

Monthly Archives: April 2016

Your Cover Songs May Not Be Streamed

Mobile Cover Songs

Doing a great cover version of a hit song has been a successful tactic in helping to raise the visibility of an artist or band for some time, but that practice may soon come to an end thanks to new efforts by iTunes, Spotify and other streaming services. More and more, digital streaming services are […]

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Apple Music Up To 13 Million Subscribers

It looks like all the naysayers were wrong. Apple reported on its recent earnings call that its Apple Music streaming service was now up to 13 million paid subscribers and still growing. Much of that growth has come recently in fact, as it was reported that 2 million subscribers signed up since February alone. The present growth looks to […]

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What Do People Listen To On Their Smartphones?

Smartphone listening

Edison Research recently completed a study on smartphone usage and discovered that the listening habits of users isn’t quite what we believed it to be. in fact, the results were pretty surprising. 54% listened to a radio channel 16% listened to music they own 15% listened to Pandora or other radio-like streaming services 7% listen […]

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Prince Passes, Record Store Day and Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire On My Inner Circle Podcast

Paul Wiltshire

As those of you who are songwriters or copyright holders know, you make money when people use your songs, especially on television, films or commercials. It’s not easy to get placement though, but it’s getting easier thanks to Songtradr, a marketplace that matches songs and cues to people and brands who are looking for them. […]

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Major Labels Say That Content ID Not Effective Enough

Copyright content ID

The 3 major labels are furthering their attack on YouTube, the platform they love to hate. With licenses up for renewal soon, the majors are trying their best to gain some leverage in the negotiation, so they have filed a submission to the US Copyright Office claiming that YouTube’s Content ID is ineffective in identifying uploads using […]

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Tidal Subscribers Sue Kanye West For Posting On Other Services

Tidal $84 million

Here’s an interesting twist in the Kanye West/Tidal story. He’s getting sued by Tidal subscribers who claimed they were duped into paying for the service. It all stems from when the performer released his latest album The Life of Pablo exclusively on Tidal. At the time, West claimed that the album would never appear on […]

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Amazon Prime Music Takes Another Baby Step

Amazon_Prime_Music_logo

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I’ve been saying all along to watch out for Amazon Prime Music as the next big disrupter in the streaming music space. Why? Prime Music is part of the popular Amazon Prime subscription service that already has a reported 75 million […]

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Facebook Finally Launches Its Version Of Content ID

Facebook Rights Manager

Content creators have been complaining for months that many of their YouTube videos have been showing up on Facebook posted by someone else – an action called “freebooting.” In an effort to alleviate the situation, Facebook has now officially launched its version of YouTube’s Content ID called Rights Manager.  This is an admin tool for Facebook […]

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April 15, 2016

Keep Your Eye On These Next 3 Social Trends

3 Social Media Trends

Social media is the lifeblood of so many artists, bands, musicians and record labels in terms of engaging and growing their fanbases. That means it’s important to stay current on the latest developments so you don’t get left behind. With that in mind, there are 3 new trends in social media that are really heating […]

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IFPI Releases New Global Music Industry Sales Figures

Global Music Sales

The IFPI (the organization that tracks global music sales) finally released its annual report on the sales for 2015. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, none of the figures surprise you. Here are the numbers right out of the report. Digital revenues now account for 45 per cent of total revenues, compared […]

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April 13, 2016

YouTube Has All The Leverage In New Label Negotiations

YouTube

If you’re a record label, or an artist, band or publisher for that matter, the one thorn in your digital side is YouTube. Why? It’s by far the most widely used streaming service for consuming music, yet it pays the least of all the services. However, it’s come to light that YouTube’s licensing agreements with the three […]

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