Apple’s free and forced distribution of U2’s new album is the gift that keeps on giving. The epic pushback by Apple users has turned the incident into a meme with hilarious side effects. Click through for a few minutes of Friday fun — Apple’s imaginary damage control solution from Conan O’Brien. Continue Reading
THIS WEEK: RAIN Summit Indy awards. Clear Channel becomes iHeartMedia. The epic Apple/U2 saga. BMI reports revenues. A broadcaster lawsuit. Podcasting is more important than you think … and is still getting sued. A new audio ad network. Continue Reading
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), a performing rights organization that collects and distributes music royalties on behalf of publishers and composers, announced record-breaking revenue and distribution for the fiscal year ended June 30. Revenue totaled $977-million, and royalty distributions were accounted at $840-million. Continue Reading
Four days after our initial coverage of Apple’s forced distribution of U2’s new album, the controversy continues to swirl. A good deal of media punditry has concluded that the marketing gambit, in which Apple put the band’s new album, Songs of Innocence, into the music collections across the iOS mobile landscape, was an outright failure. But 33-million people listened to the album, making the experiment a large success. Continue Reading
A Virginia magistrate recommended dismissing the lawsuit filed by VerStandig Broadcasting against SoundExchange. Magistrate Judge Joel Hoppe suggested the dismissal due to a lack of controversy between the two parties, according to Radio World. VerStandig filed a suit against the royalty collector on claims that its use of geo-fencing should exempt it from needing to pay copyright royalties. The broadcaster claimed that it could use this technology to cap streaming content within 150 miles of its transmitter. Continue Reading
Clip Interactive, a mobile platform for radio stations, released a slew of announcements of new partners and increased revenue for existing partners. We took the opportunity to speak with CEO Michael Lawless about the product and its recent news. Continue Reading
This guest column was contributed by Mike Spinelli, a third-year law student at Quinnipiac University School of law, where he is studying music transactions and music licensing. He previously worked at SoundExchange. Where does the future lie for music services — human curation of playlists, or data-driven music selection? Continue Reading
Research from Localytics confirmed that mobile is still the rising trend for music services. In the company’s analysis of app usage over the past year, people spent 79% more time in their music programs, which translates to 64 more minutes per month. Compare that with the average increase of 21% for time spent across all apps. The next closest category to music was health and fitness, which posted a 51% rise for time spent in-app. Continue Reading
Spotify introduced its Insights blog earlier this month, and its creative take on data has already been taking the music world by storm. The latest missive delves into the listening habits of college students. Spotify listed the top 40 schools with the highest rates of sign-ups for its student deal last semester, then ranked them by number of song plays. Arizona State University secured the top place on the Most Musical Universities in America list, followed by Auburn University and Brigham Young University in second and third, respectively. Continue Reading
RAIN Summit Europe, to be held in London on November 4, is the largest meetup of Internet radio and online audio professionals. It is a day-long event featuring panels and presentations, speeches and networking. The London conference marks the third annual European RAIN Summit. RAIN is pleased to announce the topic agenda for the event. Continue Reading
Tidal, the hi-fi streaming service from WiMP slated to arrive soon in the U.S. and UK, has a new head of marketing. Daniel Green assumes the top marketing job, joining Tidal after five years as director of digital strategy at Viacom International. In discussing the new appointment, Tidal CEO Andy Chen highlighted the company’s stance for offering a hi-fi service, noting that Green’s past experience covered the “consumer lifestyle” and “luxury” fields. Continue Reading
Bop.fm announced the addition of several music services to its agnostic listening platform. Pandora, Xbox Music, Rhapsody, and Napster are now a part of the program. Bop.fm allows its members to share songs across platforms, and to create playlists from music. This makes the Pandora relationship particularly interesting, since it’s a lean-back service. Continue Reading