Pandora made two announcements this week centered on its interactions with the industry. First, the company has partnered with Music Reports, a rights administration platform. Second, Pandora hired a new Head of Publisher Licensing and Relations. Continue Reading
A coalition of performers staged an event dubbed Fair Play Fair Pay Day, gathering at Capitol Hill in support of proposed legislation that would charge royalty fees for sound recordings played on terrestrial radio. T-Bone Burnett, Rosanne Cash, and more than 40 other artists participated in the press conference. Speakers addressed both the topic of payment for radio airplay and safe harbors in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Continue Reading
For the past several weeks, artists and labels have been making pointed statements about YouTube and the video platform’s financial obligations to the music industry. On Thursday, YouTube took a public stance against the charges, with a blog post penned by Christophe Muller, head of YouTube international music partnerships. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Forbes on podcasting; India and Internet radio; an oral history on CDs’ last days; call for “more innovators and fewer lawyers.” Continue Reading
The lawsuit filed by David Lowery against Spotify has gotten a new wrinkle today. Lowery’s legal team has filed a request to see all the correspondence sent by the streaming service to potential participants in the class action suit related to Spotify’s recent settlement with the National Music Publishers Association. Continue Reading
Pandora announced that it has paid out a total of $2 billion in artist and songwriter royalties. The streaming platform just hit the $1.5 billion milestone nine months ago. “The rapid acceleration of royalty payments from internet radio is very promising news for the industry,” Founder and CEO Tim Westergren said. Continue Reading
Intellectual property attorney Angus MacDonald was the first to calculate that Pandora paid more than half of all SoundExchange collections of royalties to record labels. In this column, he calculates a higher percentage for 2015, noting that the growth of SoundExchange royalty collections is tied closely to Pandora, and that the pace is slowing. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Will iHeartMedia Survive? To SoundCloud, Love Dave. Audio advertising changing the tune for advertisers. David Lowery talks streaming, royalties, and solutions. Continue Reading
The National Music Publishers Association has signed an agreement with Spotify centered on songwriting royalties. The arrangement allows publishers to claim and receive royalties for certain compositions on the streaming platform where ownership details were not previously known. It also establishes a compensation fund and a path for finding rights holders who should receive royalties. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Why Time Spent Listening has dropped; Omnifone’s personnel changes and new products; a round-up of the royalty lawsuits; the state of podcasting in Australia. Continue Reading
David Lowery has expanded his legal action against the streaming world over songwriter royalties to include Rhapsody. Over the weekend, Lowery’s legal team and fellow plaintiffs filed a proposed class action against Rhapsody in Northern California’s District Court. Continue Reading
SoundExchange is launching a new tool for seeking and finding data about international standard recording codes. The SoundExchange ISRC Search Site is a free resource for exploring the roughly 20 million ISRCs reported to the industry organization. From this new database, the ISRCs can be used for tracking and reporting use of sound recordings. Continue Reading