Marketplace

Paramount’s blocked sale of Simon & Schuster marks an early win for an emboldened DOJ’s antitrust enforcement while a reported renewed look at Live Nation could be a worrying sign for media chiefs playing a scale game. “Anybody who is looking to do sizable M&As in the media sector where you’re going to lose a player should be concerned after this,” the head of a mid-major studio, speaking under the condition of anonymity, tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Source: Fear for Your Megamergers: The Justice Dept. Is (Finally) Taking Action

Deutsche Grammophon, a division of Universal Music Group, announces the launch of STAGE+, a classical music subscription service that offers livestreams, an impressive video archive, and new audio releases on one platform. STAGE+ will be available as a mobile, web, and TV app for subscribers, with much of its video content offered in 4K and Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res Lossless audio “virtually indistinguishable from the original studio recording.” 

Source: Deutsche Grammophon Launches Classical Music Streaming Service

While there are other ways to access pirated materials, Z-library is especially popular with college students and academics for several reasons. Now, the shutdown has left many students, particularly in the global south, scrambling for access to research and educational materials.

Source: Z-Library Was a Lifeline for Students on Shoestring Budgets—Until the Feds Shut it Down.

Among its key stats: the average fan spends 20.1 hours a week listening to music, up from 18.4 hours in 2021. Also noteworthy: the claim that “63% of all time spent on short-form video apps are on videos where music plays a central role”. That clearly plays into the current grumblings from IFPI members about TikTok’s licensing deals.

Source: IFPI explores 2022’s music-listening trends in its new report – Music Ally

Royal, one of the biggest names in the burgeoning music NFT space, has finally launched its long-promised marketplace for music royalty rights. The Royal marketplace pulls bid data and purchase history from top overall NFT marketplace, OpenSea, plus its dashboard aggregates streaming data from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music, Tidal, and SoundCloud Premium.

Source: 3LAU’s Royal Debuts Marketplace to Bring Music NFTs to the Masses – Decrypt

YouTube is quadrupling the amount of licensed music that can be used in its short-form videos. Previously, Shorts snippets were limited to 15 seconds; now, that max has been extended to 30 seconds “for most tracks” and up to 60 seconds for some. Individual music publishers will decide whether to offer 15-, 30-, or 60-second chunks to creators.

Source: YouTube’s new Creator Music service just got a big upgrade – Tubefilter

If you’re fed up with streaming behemoths like Spotify, there’s now another place you can go to discover new music: your local library. Over a dozen public libraries in the U.S. and Canada have begun offering their own music streaming services to patrons, with the goal of boosting artists and local music scenes. The services are region-specific, and offer local artists non-exclusive licenses to make their albums available to the community.

Source: Libraries Are Launching Their Own Local Music Streaming Platforms

U.S. subscription streaming revenue grew by 17.3% in the third quarter to nearly $7.7 billion, a slight acceleration from the 16.9% growth rate for the domestic “SVOD” industry in the same period of 2021, according to new figures from the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG). Year to date, paid U.S. streamers were up 17.5% to $22.3 billion. The industry was up 19.5% at this time last year.

Source: U.S. Subscription Streaming Growth Remains Steady Amid Inflation

A music streaming service dubbed TikTok Music is rumored to be launched by ByteDance ‘soon.’ Here’s what we know about a potential new DSP. According to a snippet of code discovered, user data may sync between Resso and TikTok Music. Also referenced in the code is the URL ‘music.tiktok.com,’ which currently leads to a 403 (Forbidden) error for US users.

Source: New Details About TikTok Music Revealed – What We Know

Over recent decades, theatrical movie release windows have shrunk significantly around the world. In France, however, movie fans still have to wait more than a year before they can stream the latest blockbusters. The MPA flags this mandatory release window as a potential trade barrier, with the potential make piracy even worse.

Source: MPA: Mandatory Release Windows Could Exacerbate Piracy * TorrentFreak