Just when you thought music piracy was dead and buried it comes roaring back as alive as ever. The reason? Exclusives by Kanye West, Beyonce and Prince on Tidal. These exclusives have been great for Tidal, as they have helped it to jump more than 100 places on the App Store most downloaded app chart, […]
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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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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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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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Many artists and bands will post a teaser video of their album before it’s released, or as a brief sampler afterwards. The problem is that there’s several schools of thought on how long the teaser should be. One school has it that shortest is best, since YouTube attention span is around 8 seconds. The second […]
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Facebook Live looks to be a boon to artists and bands everywhere who want to reach their Facebook fans. That said, there are some best practices in using the platform, according to Facebook’s Media Blog. Here’s what they suggest: 1. Alert friends and followers in advance about plans to broadcast live, in order to build up […]
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Facebook Live is about to the “next big thing” on the platform, and it seems like it will be a boon for artists and bands wanting to engage with their fans on the service. Since it’s so new, you may not be sure of exactly what Live is and what it will do. Here are […]
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I’m really pleased to have music attorney John Kellogg on the podcast this week. John represented acts like Levert and the O’Jays before becoming assistant chair of the Music Business and Management at Berklee College of Music. John knows the music business from an artist’s perspective as well, since prior to becoming an attorney, he […]
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After all these years, it’s surprising how popular The Beatles music still is, and the band’s presence on Spotify proves it. The Fab 4 have been on the streaming service for a mere 100 days, yet the it’s been one of the most popular, even more so than current artists like Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and […]
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