British music licensing company PPL revealed today (September 30) that it has paid out £30.4 million (nearly $40m) in international revenue collected from 48 collective management organisations (CMOs) around the world as part of its Q3 2020 distribution.
Source: ‘The pandemic has shown our industry at its best, coming together to help those in need.’
The search giant on Monday said it will no longer give high-profile app developers a pass on its 30 percent app store fee starting next year. Google said it will start enforcing its policy requiring developers to use its payments system starting September 2021.
Source: Google gives Netflix, Spotify a year to start paying app store fees
The new report has fresh material on the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has been having on independent musicians, from their incomes to their creative processes, based on responses from 376 artists. 68.3% of artists surveyed for the study said they have spent more time writing and making music since they went into lockdown, while 56.7% said they have been creating more content for social media.
Source: Amuse / Midia report explores Covid-19 lockdown trends for musicians
The patent, which lists Spotify Research Scientist Rachel Bittner as the inventor, is for “Media content playback based on an identified geolocation of a target venue.” The “target venue” in this instance is a sound source, and the “venue”, explains the patent, can be a business “such as a coffee shop or a concert venue”.
Source: New Spotify patent reveals company’s 3D Audio ambitions
Researchers informed almost 600 participants about how AI art is created and asked who should receive recognition for the work of art. The individual answers varied greatly. But on average, people who humanized AI and did not perceive it merely as a tool also felt that AI should receive recognition for the AI art and not the people involved in the creation process.
France, among Europe’s most lavish patrons of culture, cinema and literature, has criticised the European Commission over how it plans to apply landmark copyright rules that pit YouTube and Instagram against the creative industries, saying its approach may weaken the rules. The criticism, following accusations from Europe’s creative industries earlier this month that the EU executive is rewriting the rules.
Source: France says EU Commission approach may compromise copyright rules
Twitch announced today (September 30), that its been developing a new creator tool for the past year called Soundtrack by Twitch, offering rights-cleared music for livestreams via partnerships with a number of labels and distributors.
Emerging companies are developing ways to connect artists and their fans, including compressing avatars of stars into tiny packages that devotees can include in their own social media posts. In other words, avatars are working harder than ever, and perhaps setting a blueprint for how the pop stars of the future will handle the work of fame, outsourcing some of the labor to digital look-alikes.
Source: Will Pop Music of the Future Rely on Actual Musicians, or Avatars?
Spotify’s relationship with Google has been much friendlier than with Apple. The companies have teamed up on smart-speaker giveaways, and Spotify has used direct credit-card billing for subscriptions in its Android app without also offering Google’s in-app purchases. There may be trouble ahead.
Source: Spotify could face an Apple-style payments fight with Google