After some early rumblings of label licensing drama for YouTube, the video platform has successfully inked a deal with at least one publisher. The company has expanded its licensing agreement with Downtown Music Publishing to include performance rights for streaming its tracks in the U.S. Continue Reading
NVPI, the Netherlands’ industry organization, announced the figures for the Dutch music sector’s performance in 2015. The music industry grew 12.5% to €136.9 million last year. All digital revenue totaled €72.2 million. Continue Reading
Leading spoken-word platform audioBoom announces today that Thomas Mancusi is taking the newly-created position of Vice President, Sales and Development. In this job, Mancusi will develop premium marketing campaigns around audioBoom’s most successful and high-profile programs. Continue Reading
Facebook has launched a Rights Manager tool to help monitor and protect copyrighted content on the social media network. The main focus of the discussion is “freebooting,” in which videos are easily ripped from the content creators and shared by Business Pages to grow their own online audiences to the loss of the original sources. At first glance, this isn’t an obvious musical development. But the comparisons between Facebook’s Rights Manager and YouTube’s Content ID programs are obvious and point to the broader consequences of this initial action by the social media company. Continue Reading
RAIN Summit West is this Sunday in Las Vegas, and there is still time to register before the price goes up. Here, a complete rundown of the day’s agenda. Continue Reading
Gen Media Partners announced the hiring of Jim Brandt as its new senior vice president of digital. In this position, Brandt will be tasked with capitalizing on revenue opportunities in digital platforms ranging from radio and streaming to TV and mobile. Continue Reading
SoundCloud has tightened its integration with Twitter. The online platform’s audio cards can now be embedded into tweets that appear in Twitter Moments. Continue Reading
Gracenote founder and chief strategist Ty Roberts is leaving the company he founded to join Universal Music Group as the company’s first chief technology officer. Gracenote was founded in 1998 as CDDB (Compact Disc Database) and built its reputation on its waveform-based identification of titles and other metadata of CD tracks. Continue Reading
The IFPI has released its 2016 global report, which points to streaming as the key reason behind music’s first year of significant total revenue growth since 1995. Global revenue rose 3.2% last year to $15 billion. Digital outperformed physical revenue for the first time, a result that echoes the U.S. trend highlighted by the RIAA’s annual report. Within that strong performance, streaming emerged as a powerhouse, accounting for 43% of the year’s digital revenue. Continue Reading
Apple Music is getting another exclusive, and while it isn’t a surprise, it is a big one. Drake’s upcoming project, Views From The 6, will only be on Apple’s platform when it drops on April 29. The scope of this exclusive release will make it a telling sign of the where the current streaming market is headed. Continue Reading
Audible announces a new audio initiative, and guest columnist Steve Goldstein notes that Audible’s scaling of podcast content will have a profound effect on the larger podcast industry in multiple ways. Continue Reading