Music Industry News Roundup For The Week Of 5/5/17

Music Industry News Roundup Here’s the Music Industry News Roundup for the week ending on May 5th, 2017. There was much less about streaming this week, and believe it or not, Spotify was barely in the news. Let’s get into it.

SoundCloud is making a last ditch effort. It’s running a campaign of 3 months for $1 to try to get more paying subscribers. Too little too late?

Sony Music made less money than last year. But like other major labels, more than half of its revenue came from digital.

Apple is planning to launch its own version of Amazon’s Echo. It’s expected to be shown at WWDC in June and available early next year.

Musical.ly will soon be getting its music from Apple Music. The video social network app now has over 40 million users, so this is quietly a big deal.

Kickstarter now has funded over 25,000 music projects. And raised over $175 million from over 2 million contributors.

Both Pandora and Amazon Music are betting on country music. Country music consumers haven’t gotten into streaming so much yet, so both companies hope they can get new subscribers if they focus on the genre.

Meanwhile, Amazon is making headway in the home. That’s the growth area in the future. It also is trying to keep everything simple, as compared to other services.

Spotify launches “Spotify For Artists” data insights. It’s a set of tools to help artists, labels, and management know more about their fans.

Not much money is being made from streaming in Asia. Despite over 120 million users, services are floundering because of piracy, limited consumer income, and grandfathered unlimited data plans.

The FTC is getting tough on “influencers” shilling for brands. Often the fact that a popular YouTuber or Instagramer is being paid is buried in the fine print or hashtags, but the FTC has sent out warnings that’s no longer acceptable.

Canada is taking a stand for Net Neutrality by nixing an unlimited music plan. It’s putting smaller services at a disadvantage.

New York City pushes live music. It makes June “Music Month.”

That’s the Music News Roundup of what went on in the music industry last week. Have a great week ahead!

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