To people who care about literature, data is often seen as a neoliberal bogeyman, the very antithesis of literature and possibly even what’s ruining literature. Plus, people tend to think that data is boring. To be fair, data is sometimes a neoliberal bogeyman, it is sometimes boring, and it may in fact be making literature more boring (more on that to come, too). But that’s precisely why we need to pay attention to it.
Source: Where Is All the Book Data?
After seeing 30% more engagement with Reels on both Instagram and Facebook in the second quarter, parent company Meta is now offering royalty-free music for advertisers to use in Reel ads. Advertisers can pick out a song from Meta’s library or let the app select a track that best fits an a based on its content. They can also let Meta’s Ads Manager automatically choose the best track for an ad according to its content.
Source: Meta offers royalty-free music library to Instagram Reels advertisers
Pornhub has discovered the ‘holy grail’ to combat piracy on user-generated content sites. This remarkable achievement is exemplified by a historic 98% drop in DMCA removals. All that it took was the mandatory verification of uploaders’ identities. An impressive result that won’t go unnoticed by some of the largest media companies in the world.
Source: Pornhub Sees DMCA Notices Vanish After Enabling Uploader Verification * TorrentFreak
PRS for Music has announced that its October of 2022 distribution cracked a ‘highest ever’ total of £211 million. The 210 percent YoY gain is particularly noteworthy because PRS, despite posting a 22.4 percent revenue jump (as well as a nearly 60 percent improvement for income deriving from plays in public establishments) during 2021, stated that the public-performance total remained 38.1 percent beneath its pre-pandemic counterpart.
Source: PRS for Music Announces ‘Highest Ever’ £211 Million Distribution
It was inevitable, but it’s no less eye-popping: approximately 100,000 fresh tracks are now being uploaded to music streaming platforms every day. That’s according to two of the most influential figures in the modern music business: Universal Music Group CEO and Chairman, Sir Lucian Grainge, plus the outgoing CEO of Warner Music Group, Steve Cooper.
Source: It’s happened: 100,000 tracks are now being uploaded to streaming services like Spotify each day
Spotify’s current share price is around $87, which is 71% below its 52-week high. The stock price has shed 15% in the last month alone. Analysts believe Spotify will face higher churn rates due to inflationary pressures and turbulence in Europe and Asia. The company just launched audiobooks in September, but analysts believe they won’t be a significant revenue generator for the company.
Source: Ark Investment Management Dumps $18M Spotify Stock Stake
Apple Music celebrated the milestone of hitting 100 million songs this week — “more music than you can listen to in a lifetime, or several lifetimes”, global head of editorial, Rachel Newman, wrote in the announcement. Yet what is a celebration for Apple may ring alarm bells for many artists, who are finding it increasingly hard to break through in a market that just got even more oversaturated and hyper-fragmented.
Source: As Apple hits 100 million songs, the future of music discovery gets complicated
Songwriter organizations are demanding transparency into the precise terms of the Phonorecords IV settlement that was announced in August. Songwriters Guild of America president and MCNA officer Rick Carnes and Society of Composers & Lyricists president and MCNA co-chair Ashley Irwin just recently issued the call for transparency in a letter to the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB).
Source: Music Creators North America Demands Phonorecords IV Clarity
At George Washington University this fall, 269 students enrolled in a geography class were supposed to have free access to their course textbook via a link on the course’s Blackboard site. But when many clicked on the link, the book was unavailable. The book’s publisher, Wiley, had withdrawn the book, along with more than 1,300 other ebooks, from a large multidisciplinary ebook collection to which the university had a paid subscription.
Source: Publisher blocks access to ebooks; students, faculty scramble
In a coordinated call to action, more than 100 rightsholders and organizations spanning sports and other live entertainment are demanding action from the European Union to end live piracy – now. They want new legislation that will guarantee the swift removal and blocking of illegal streams. The signs suggest that intermediaries – not actual pirates – will be the targets.
Source: End Live Piracy Now: Massive Coalition Demands Immediate EU Action * TorrentFreak