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Beats Music math: What Spotify and Pandora would be worth

Posted on by Brad Hill

File this under Friday Fun. Apple will pay $3-billion for all of Beats (the electronics and music-service divisions) when the deal closes later this year. Source reveal that the Beats Music portion of the merger is accounted at $500-million. Yielding to temptation, we ran the numbers and hereby propose (not with an entirely straight face) some stratospheric prices. Continue Reading →

David Oxenford: Deadline extended for commenting on webcast reporting rules

Posted on by admin

Broadcast-law attorney and RAIN contributor David Oxenford notes a piece of information important to all webcasters. The Copyright Royalty Board has extended the deadline for comment on proposed rule changes to how webcasters report the songs they’ve played, to SoundExchange, which collects and distributes royalties to labels and artists. Continue Reading →

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Kurt Hanson: Gift Horse

Posted on by Kurt Hanson

From Kurt Hanson’s blog

In the days of broadcast ownership caps, a radio broadcaster could own only seven AMs and seven FMs — across the entire U.S. It was an exciting and intense time to be in radio: If you could own only fourteen radio stations in the entire U.S., you cared very much about all fourteen of them.

Imagine if someone had offered you the opportunity to own a broadcast signal with complete national coverage! RAIN founding editor Kurt Hanson does imagine that, and contemplates looking at gift horses in the mouth. Continue Reading →

REVIEW: Prime Music

Posted on by Brad Hill

REVIEW by Brad Hill

Amazon’s gleaming-new music subscription service stepped into the market today, and we dove in quickly for a test drive.

Prime Music feels like a beta service on its first morning. We found problems with playing music, and an unwieldy system for streaming whole songs, albums, and playlists, which should be easy in an on-demand streaming service. The catalog is demonstrably small, with obvious voids in which one’s listening hopes are extinguished.

But all this might not matter to the intended audience, which is (for now, at least) existing Amazon Prime members. As of today, Prime Music is instantly one of the largest music subscription services in the world. Continue Reading →

Call for change in U.S. House committee hearing on music licensing

Posted on by Brad Hill

SPECIAL COVERAGE

On Tuesday the U.S House Judiciary Committee held the first of two hearings in its review of music licensing. These hearings potentially affect all stakeholders: radio stations, online music services, webcasters, performers, and creators.

Sharply-worded arguments politely flew around the House chamber. One congressman issued a powerful and comprehensive call for change. It was momentum vs. inertia, reform vs. status quo. Four main issues were in play:

  • Songwriters getting lower royalty rates than performing artists
  • Broadcast radio not paying artist royalties
  • Compulsory licensing that regulate music publishers
  • Pre-1972 songs that earn no royalties whatsoever