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A little over a month after launching in the U.K. and Australia, Spotify has announced that its streaming audiobook service is now available the U.S., giving tens of millions of Spotify premium subscribers access to a catalog of more than 200,000 audiobook titles—including titles from all the Big Five publishers. Spotify officials say the catalog includes 70% of current bestsellers, and includes new releases like Britney Spears’ top-selling memoir The Woman in Me and Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend.

Source: Spotify’s Streaming Audiobook Service Launches in the U.S.

SAG-AFTRA is delivering its response to the studios’ “last, best and final” offer on Monday. In a message to members Monday afternoon, the union said it was working to end the strike “responsibly,” but that the two sides still have differences. “There are several essential items on which we still do not have an agreement, including AI,” the union said. “We will keep you informed as events unfold.”

Source: SAG-AFTRA and Studios Still Differ on ‘Several Essential Items’

Since then it raised a $57m funding round in February 2021, and then powered the launch of a new collecting society called RME focused on royalties from user-generated content. Now Pex is banging another drum to alert the music industry to a potential problem: ‘modified audio’. That means music tracks that have been modified: most famously with sped-up songs in apps like TikTok, but also other kinds of alterations designed to evade takedowns.

Source: Pex claims streaming services have a ‘modified audio’ problem – Music Ally

For streaming veterans like Netflix and Hulu, price hikes have become an almost yearly ritual. But for relatively young services, such as Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Peacock, and Apple TV Plus, the price increases have only just begun. That leaves cord-cutters with ever-increasing bills and one big question: when will the price hikes stop?

Source: That’s one pricey subscription

Web3 ecosystems, built on blockchain, are supposed to provide artists with greater control over how their work is distributed and the compensation they receive in return. But the reality isn’t so utopian. “The thing about smart contracts is that they’re neither smart nor contracts,” says Anne Rose, co-leader of the blockchain group at British law firm Mishcon de Reya. “You still have to rely on platforms to enforce them.”

Source: For artists to earn better compensation from NFTs, there needs to be more trust in Web3

Even as all the major music streaming services have raised their prices in the past year or so (with Spotify bringing up the rear, and Deezer out ahead with two price hikes), they’ve been outdone by the video streaming services, which have been raising subscription prices much more aggressively. Among those who’ve hiked prices this year are Disney+, Max (formerly HBO Max) and Paramount+. Now we can add Netflix to the list.

Source: Gap between music and video streaming prices widens as Netflix announces $3 hike to Premium subscriptions