Prominent Middle Eastern Spotify rival Anghami has entered into a definitive merger agreement with publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Vistas Media Acquisition Company Inc. The deal will result in Anghami listing on the NASDAQ in New York, with the combined company set to operate under the Anghami name and trade under the new symbol ANGH.
Source: Spotify rival Anghami to list on NASDAQ via merger with Vistas Media Acquisition Company
Grimes is the latest artist to get in on the NFT gold rush, selling around $6 million worth of digital artworks after putting them up for auction yesterday. The bulk of the sales came from two pieces with thousands of copies available that sold for $7,500 each. The works, titled “Earth” and “Mars,” are both short videos featuring their titular planet with a giant cherub over it holding a weapon, also set to original music.
Nearly 10% of annual global market share by volume on Spotify has passed from the major labels and Merlin to independent artists and labels outside of these structures within just the past three years. The annual pace of this decline is getting faster: in 2018, the majors and Merlin lost 2% versus the prior year; in 2019, they lost 3%; and in 2020, they lost 4%.
Source: Slowly but surely, the major labels’ dominance of Spotify is declining
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference on Monday, Walt Disney Company chief exec Bob Chapek said he’s “not sure there’s going back” to pre-pandemic theatrical windows. “I think the consumer is probably more impatient than they’ve ever been before,” said Chapek. “Particularly since now they’ve had the luxury of an entire year of getting titles at home pretty much when they want them.
Source: Disney’s Bob Chapek on the Future of Moviegoing, Disney Plus and Theme Parks
Facebook is launching its news product in Germany without media giant Axel Springer, which publishes the country’s most popular daily newspaper and says it won’t participate due to the “inappropriately low remuneration” offered for journalistic content.
Source: Top European media outlet refuses to join Facebook News | NewsChannel 3-12
Nearly half of local news outlets’ digital subscribers are “zombie” readers who visit the website less than once a month, according to a data analysis in 45 markets by Northwestern University’s Medill Spiegel Research Center. Concern is growing about this problem because even though the living dead may still pay for local news, they seem like a weak foundation to build a future on.
Source: Nearly Half of Digital Subscribers Are ‘Zombies,’ Medill Analysis Finds
One of the most hotly-debated concepts in the modern music rights business is user-centric licensing. This model sees streaming royalties paid out based on individual subscriber behavior – with a percentage of each subscriber’s subscription fee being distributed only to the artists/labels they have individually listened to that month.
On Feb. 16, Christie’s announced it would put a fully digital artwork backed by a nonfungible token (NFT) up for auction—the first time for such work at a major auction house. Two weeks later, SuperRare and Verisart are announcing a collaboration that stands to more thoroughly bridge fine art and NFTs: 10×10, a series of 10 auctions for 10 artists, conducted over as many weeks.
Artificial intelligence is breaking boundaries everywhere… including the production of original fine art. “ART AI” is a website that says it’s “the world’s largest gallery of AI-generated art,” which aims to “to democratize art by allowing more people to become owners of original, one of a kind artworks, as well as bring awareness to machine creativity and raise questions about the definition of art.”
Source: PHOTOS: Artificial intelligence, mimicking centuries of human art, creates masterpieces
In October 2020, Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile spent almost $67,000 on a 10-second video artwork that he could have watched for free online. Last week, he sold it for $6.6 million. The video by digital artist Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was authenticated by blockchain, which serves as a digital signature to certify who owns it and that it is the original work.
Source: A 10-second video clip authenticated by blockchain sold for $6.6 million