Developers that brought in $1 million or less from their apps in the previous year will pay a 15 percent commission on those app sales starting next year, down from 30 percent, the company said. The move, which will have little impact on Apple’s bottom line, is an abrupt change from the company’s public intransigence over its fees.
Source: Apple Halves Its App Store Fee for the Smaller Companies
Universal and Cinemark announced a windows deal late Monday that shares a lot of traits with AMC’s breakthrough pact with the same studio earlier this year. It came after Cinemark was already implementing a “dynamic” approach to how long given titles stay in theaters given COVID-19 rates and theater closures in many markets.
Source: Cinemark Leads Movie Theater Stock Upswing As Wall Street Hails Windows Deal
In addition to News Corp, which already owns HarperCollins, a leading bidder is Penguin Random House, according to the people. Penguin Random House, the largest book publisher in the United States, is owned by the German media giant Bertelsmann. The French firm Vivendi, a minority owner of Hachette through the publisher Lagardère, has also made a bid.
Source: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Bids for Simon & Schuster
This acquisition is the first to follow the completion of Songtradr’s recent Series C funding round, which raised $30 million – valuing the company at $165m. With this investment, Songtradr plans to accelerate its global expansion plans, product development and fund key acquisitions, building out its ecosystem and further enriching its data capabilities.
Source: Songtradr acquires UK-based sync licensing company Cuesongs
Probably the biggest ask the union is making is that Spotify switch to a new payment system. The U.M.A.W. wants Spotify to introduce a user-centric payment system, where artists, labels, and rights holders are compensated on a per-stream basis.
Source: More Than 18,000 Musicians Are Demanding a Penny Per Stream from Spotify
Concerns around streaming economies have been simmering for some time, but it took the pandemic to bring them to the forefront. Previously profitable musicians have been hit hard with an abrupt halt to touring and the associated income. And with little hope of live music as we knew it returning until a vaccine, attention has turned to streaming, with many asking how it got so bad.
Source: Streaming platforms aren’t helping musicians – and things are only getting worse
Source: Exclusive: French music distributor Believe targets 2 billion euro IPO – sources
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer at the Walt Disney Company’s theme parks and studio entertainment divisions, the company announced in its fourth-quarter earning report that Disney Plus has reached 73.7 million paying subscribers as of Oct. 3, with the streaming service proving to be a bright spot for the entertainment giant.
Source: Disney Plus Subscribers Surpass 73 Million as of October
The $282m figure is $93m smaller than the $375m raise that Round Hill targeted last month in the announcement of the intention to float its new fund. Commenting on the IPO, Trevor Bowen, Chair of Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Ltd said: “When considered against the global turbulence prevalent during the IPO process due to Covid-19, this achievement clearly demonstrates a strong investor appetite for both the music royalty asset class… and the recognized expertise of the Round Hill team as an investment manager in this sector.”
Source: Round Hill fund raises $282m ahead of London IPO this Friday
Shutterstock’s acquisition of Amper strengthens its capabilities in artificial intelligence, particularly in content search and discovery of tracks composed by Shutterstock’s community of artists as well as editing tools for Shutterstock users. In addition, Shutterstock states that the acquisition will augment its R&D efforts to “bring valuable new innovations that enable faster and simpler content production”.
Source: Shutterstock acquires AI-driven music platform Amper Music