Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:
Four things songwriters should keep in mind about royalty rates: Casey Rae, Executive Director of the Future of Music Coalition, holds forth about the recently concluded ASCAP vs. Pandora royalty-rate trial, in which ASCAP lost its attempt to raise Pandora’s music licensing rate. Rae notes that the trial tells only a small part of the songwriter royalty story, and that even in Pandora’s victory, it pays songwriters more than terrestrial radio does.
The most popular music keys on Spotify: In an interesting study (for musicians, anyway), Eliot Van Buskirk reports on an internal Spotify analysis of its 3o-million song library to determine the distribution of music keys. Spoiler: G major wins the prize as the most common key in all of Spotify. Major keys outnumber minor keys substantially.
Apple’s back-room attacks on streaming: antitrust, or just business?: It’s a question swirling through industry online groups, regarding the rumor that Apple is attempting to influence label negotiations with Spotify, to gain favorability in its own business plans for streaming music. Glenn Peoples of Billboard rounds up knowledge of the situation.