The National Music Publishers Association is making a new query into how mechanical royalties are calculated at Spotify and Amazon. The trade group sent letters to both businesses seeking information about their application of the three-tier rate formula from the Copyright Royalty Board. Continue Reading
Westwood One shared some recent insights about smart speaker use and ownership, including some Q2 2019 data from the Edison Research Share of Ear analysis. Rates of ownership show no signs of slowing, with 30% of Americans now owning a smart speaker in the second quarter of this year. Continue Reading
Japan has been an outlier when it comes to the global music trends. The country still remains anchored by CD sales, although streaming continues to grow its share of revenue. The Recording Industry Association of Japan released its second-quarter digital music sales, and all forms of streaming posted triple-digital increases over the first half of 2019. Continue Reading
The Lipstick & Vinyl podcast network announced a new addition to its roster. The operation has partnered with More Banana, a ten-podcast network focused on female perspectives. The deal includes ad sales representation from Focus 360, which recently took a minority stake in Lipstick & Vinyl. Continue Reading
DistroKid has added support for one of the most popular social networks. The company can now distribute to TikTok. The app’s popularity and power have also attracted attention from labels. Continue Reading
Bauer Media, one of the UK’s major media networks, has hired Maria Williams as its podcast editor. This is a new position for Bauer and reinforces the company’s interest in digital audio. Continue Reading
A Chinese regulator is investigating the music industry deals made by Tencent Music Entertainment, according to Bloomberg. The country’s antitrust authority, the State Administration for Market Regulation, will review Tencent’s deals with the three majors as well as other labels. Continue Reading
Voice technology has been a hot topic for the audio industry, with more and more parties getting involved. The latest is the BBC, which announced plans to launch its own voice assistant next year. The platform is attempting to offer a better understanding of regional accents in Britain. Continue Reading
Acast as secured a new round of financing from the European Investment Bank. The deal is a quasi-equity financing agreement for €25 million as part of the Investment Plan for Europe, also known as the Juncker Plan. Continue Reading
Spotify has seen its share of lawsuits, and the latest is targeting more than just the streaming service. Eight Mile Style, the publisher representing Eminem and others, has alleged that Spotify infringed on copyrights related to about 250 of the rapper’s songs. The suit also targets the recently passed Music Modernization Act. Continue Reading
Canalys has been tracking shipments of smart speakers for the past several years, and its report on the second quarter of 2019 revealed a shakeup in leading brands. Amazon remained the top brand with 6.6 million units shipped for its Echo line securing 25.4% market share. Baidu, based in China, took over the second spot with 4.5 million units. Continue Reading
Audible has drawn a lawsuit for its upcoming Captions feature. The Captions tool uses machine learning to transcribe the spoken words in Audible recordings. This update sparked a lawsuit from several publishers based on claims that Audible has not acquired the needed licenses to reproduce the content of physical books and ebooks. Continue Reading