Indian music service Gaana suffered an invasive hack of its membership files, and the service is shut down while the problem is assessed and remedied. An individual publicly took responsibility for the hack on Facebook. Seven and a half million Gaana users had their passwords accessed. Continue Reading
U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez has approved class action status for Flo & Eddie’s lawsuit against Sirius XM. The new class action certification means that other artists whose music was recorded before the advent of federal copyright law can join the lawsuit to seek damages. Sirius XM had argued that it would be difficult to calculate damages for the different artists joining the suit, but was unable to convince the judge. Continue Reading
The time to register is now for the latest RAIN Report: Programmattic Fast-Tracks Revenue Growth for Digital Audio, a free webinar and whitepaper produced in collaboration with WideOrbit. Click through to register.
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StreamGuys, a SaaS (software as a Service) company which provides stream services to broadcasters, has added a silence detection feature to its SGalerts toolset. The company calls dead air “the costliest technical issue to the business of broadcast.”
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The Download on Podcasts is a weekly feature sponsored by PodcastOne.
One bifurcation of the podcast market illuminates a new level of professionalism: Informal chatting vs. highly produced infotainment shows. What is the future of “chatcasting”? A suggestion for iTunes.
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App Annie released its April 2015 index of the top performing mobile apps in the U.S. Pandora held the top spot for top app by downloads and revenue, followed by Spotify. SoundCloud was fourth by downloads and iHeartRadio was fifth. In terms of revenue, Beats Music was the No. 3 app, while Rhapsody secured the No. 6 place. Continue Reading
Asian streaming platform KKBOX has inked a partnership with Merlin, an independent digital rights agency. As a result of the deal, some of the 20,000 independent labels and distributors represented by Merlin will be featured on the Taiwan-based streaming service. The deal covers Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan. Continue Reading
Android Auto is making its first appearance in new car models this week. The system will debut in the 2015 Hyundai Sonata. Although this is marks Android Auto’s launch in new cars, it became available as an after-market product through select Pioneer models beginning in March. Continue Reading
Standard Media Index (SMI), released growth statistics for Internet radio advertising, charting strong gains for April and the first quarter of this year. The data apply to U.S. ad spending only. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the Internet: Spotify’s new competitive strategy; YouTube and the music industry; finding therapeutic potential in Pandora’s Music Genome. Continue Reading
Irish ad representation company Adforce.com announced today that it has signed with TuneIn to market TuneIn’s audience and inventory to key European markets. In its announement, Adforce.com promises to combine rich media and innovative audio formats. Continue Reading
James Cridland Weekly Links is a column by the U.K.’s radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: A problem with a Kuala Lumpur simulcast, and many more links from Africa, the U.K., and the U.S. Continue Reading