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Fox Corp. Expects to Launch New Stand-Alone Streamer by End of 2025

Fox Corporation expects to launch a new stand-alone subscription-based streaming service by the end of 2025, as the company, which has resisted the call to plunge millions into developing premium content for broadband audiences, sees new allure in the business. The plan, said Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, would be to launch a new broadband outlet that helps “put our content in front of everybody who wants it on any platform.”

Source: Fox Corp. Expects to Launch New Stand-Alone Streamer by End of 2025

DeepSeek gives Europe’s tech firms a chance to catch up in global AI race

DeepSeek’s emergence is changing the landscape for AI, offering companies access to the technology at a fraction of the cost, according to interviews with more than a dozen startup executives and investors. It also has the potential to push other AI companies to improve their models and bring down prices. Europe’s tech startups had struggled to adopt the new technology at the same rate as U.S. rivals, which have easier access to funding.

Source: DeepSeek gives Europe’s tech firms a chance to catch up in global AI race

Google owes UK news industry £2.2bn from 2023 alone, claims new research

New research has suggested UK news publishers are owed £2.2bn by Google for their contribution to the search platform in 2023 alone. The Public Interest News Foundation worked with FehrAdvice to calculate the value of journalism to Google with a survey of 1,484 people which observed their internet browsing habits. Google responded that such studies are “misleading” and have been “debunked”, insisting it makes very little money from news content.

Source: Google owes UK news industry £2.2bn from 2023 alone, claims new research

Online publishing revenue trends: Audio rising, video stalls, data is golden

In a new quarterly series AOP managing director Richard Reeves analyses online publishing industry revenue trends. Five years ago, subscriptions accounted for just 22% of digital publishing revenue, dwarfed by the 42% delivered by display advertising. Today, the gap has narrowed significantly, and subscriptions may soon match or exceed display advertising revenues.

Source: Online publishing revenue trends: Audio rising, video stalls, data is golden

Bookshop.org challenges Amazon with new e-book platform 

Bookshop.org and Libro.fm have emerged as alternatives to Amazon, sharing a cut of sales with independent bookstores around America. But for e-book readers, it’s been challenging to buy new titles without going through Amazon’s ecosystem. Bookshop.org’s expansion into e-books gives consumers a long-awaited option to buy these digital books while also supporting small businesses.

Source: Bookshop.org challenges Amazon with new e-book platform | TechCrunch

Digital Checkouts Rose 17% at OverDrive

Digital borrowing of e-books, audiobooks, and digital magazines rose to more than 739 million checkouts at the libraries and schools who use OverDrive’s Libby and Sora apps. Some 366.2 million e-books were borrowed last year, the most of any format, but the rate of increase, 7%, was the slowest among all formats.  Downloads of digital audiobook rose 19%, to 278.3 million checkouts.

Source: Digital Checkouts Rose 17% at OverDrive

Roc Nation partners with South Korea’s Musicow to launch royalty trading platform in US

The new platform, scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2025, will allow music rights owners “to securely fractionalize royalty revenue from their songs and sell shares, enabling fans to earn alongside them,” Roc Nation said on Thursday (January 23). Musicow purchases the copyright of a song from its original creator and splits the rights into smaller portions, allowing members on the platform to buy shares in the copyright royalties.

Source: Jay Z’s Roc Nation partners with South Korea’s Musicow to launch music royalty trading platform in the US

Spotify and Universal Unveil New Deal That Improves ‘Bundling’ Payment Structure  

Spotify and Universal announced a new deal that sources say improves the payment structure for the streamer’s controversial music-audiobooks ‘bundle.’ A Spotify rep said in a separate statement, “Spotify maintains its bundle, but with this direct deal [with UMPG], it has evolved to account for broader rights, including a different economic treatment for music and non-music content.”

Source: Spotify and Universal Unveil Far-Reaching Deal That Improves ‘Bundling’ Payment Structure  

10,000 AI tracks uploaded daily to Deezer, platform reveals

France-headquartered music streaming service Deezer has launched a new AI detection tool – after filing two patent applications for the technology in December. On Friday (January 24), the company revealed that its new tech has already discovered that roughly 10,000 ‘fully AI-generated tracks’ are being delivered to its platform every day.

Source: 10,000 AI tracks uploaded daily to Deezer, platform reveals, as it files two patents for new AI detection tool

TikTok Uncertainty Prompts the Book Business to Envision an Even Better Future

On January 20, hours after President Donald J. Trump was inaugurated, thousands of readers lined up for one of the 1,100 midnight release parties held across the country for Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros. The book, which is the third in the TikTok-beloved Empyrean series, received a 2.5 million copy first print run according to the book’s publisher, Entangled Publishing. Today, many in the industry are wondering: will we see its like again?

Source: TikTok Uncertainty Prompts the Book Business to Envision an Even Better Future

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