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What Happens If SoundCloud Bites the Dust?

SoundCloud’s disappearance would create a powerful ripple effect across the world of recorded music. The most immediate consequence would be the loss of a massive chunk of the world’s independent music available online.

And though there are other sites, most notably Bandcamp, that let anyone upload their music instantly for no fee, they neither have the user base nor the social media aspect that SoundCloud has to develop fans and sales. In fact, many SoundCloud users employ them in tandem, using Bandcamp as a store to sell collections of music, rather than a place to share their latest tracks one-by-one.

Where Bandcamp is the independent music store du jour, SoundCloud is its promoter, employed by musicians to drive awareness and sales.

Source: Digital Trends

Aligning Incentives to Reduce Online Piracy

Last week, the movie industry, as represented by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), announced an agreement with Donuts, operator of the .MOVIE, .THEATRE and .COMPANY domain names, among others, “to help ensure that websites using Donuts-operated top-level domains (TLDs) are not engaged in large-scale piracy.” This agreement is significant in two respects.

First, it aims at perhaps the most important target in terms of combating online copyright infringement: domain names engaged in large-scale piracy. And, second, it illustrates the potential for the increased competition that has developed over the last few years among new entrants into the domain name space to yield innovative new services.

Source: TheHill

Dwolla is Back, But Focused on Blockchain, Not Bitcoin

After a series of mishaps working with bitcoin startups – including the infamous, now-defunct bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, Dwolla is once again hoping to work as the connector between the emerging technology and traditional financial worlds.

The alternative payment network has been quiet about its foray in the blockchain space, but Ben Milne, Dwolla‘s founder and CEO, says the company is working closely with startups building solutions for tracking assets on the blockchain.

As assets are sent from one blockchain to another or from one business to another, there will have to be a real-world payment in fiat currency to settle that exchange so people can pay their mortgages and purchase other things that can’t be bought with a cryptocurrency or digital assets, Milne contends.

Source: CoinDesk

Kamcord Now Lets Broadcasters Make Money On Its Mobile Game Streaming App

Kamcord, the Y Combinator startup that wants to do to mobile what streaming service Twitch has done to console and PC gaming, has rolled out an important update after it began allowing its most prominent broadcasters to make money on its service.

Twitch, which streamers more video to users per month than even YouTube, grew into a beast that Amazon bought for just shy of $1 billion. The e-commerce firm had to beat off competition from Google, which is working to develop its own game-streaming service, too. While both are focused on desktop PC and console gamers, Kamcord is fixing its gaze on mobile, and mobile only.

Source: TechCrunch

Digital Asset in Blockchain Tie-ups with Accenture, PwC, Broadridge

Dindexigital Asset Holdings LLC, a start-up specializing in the blockchain technology for the financial services industry, announced on Wednesday that it has entered into business relationships with Accenture, Broadridge and PricewaterhouseCoopers to ensure faster adoption of its product.

“These alliances will accelerate innovation, drive growth and broaden our reach in different segments across the world,” said Blythe Masters, chief executive officer at Digital Asset holdings and a former JP Morgan investment banker.

The partnerships show how the financial services industry is exploring the potential of the blockchain. In 2015, there was an explosion of interest in the bitcoin technology as a way to solve inefficiencies in financial markets. 

Source: Reuters

TuneCore Pays Artists $142 Million in 2015

IndepenTUNE-COREdent artists on TuneCore earned over $142 million in 2015, a 7% increase from 2014. TuneCore artists also earned $36.8 million from digital streams and downloads alone in Q4 2015.Publishing revenue for TuneCore artists was up 47% in 2015 and sync revenue up 57%, with placements in major feature films and network TV shows.

Since its inception in 2006, TuneCore artists have earned more than $648 million collectively.

Source: Music Week

Bitcoin and the Future of User Monetizable Data

big_data_analytics_thinkstock_470971869-100439197-primary.idgeWeb searches, page visits, online purchases, tweets, SMS messages, emails, phone calls, photos, videos, GPS coordinates – this is the data that makes up our digital lives.

For the past decade consumers have sacrificed their privacy, building giant banks of data for companies without any upside exposure to the value that they have created. Thanks to the Bitcoin Protocol and the 21 Bitcoin Computer this no longer has to be the case.

Billions of photos are shared every day by hundreds of millions of people using smartphones. Between the rapid development of high quality camera phones and the decreased cost for cloud storage, sharing photos from all around the world has become effectively free.

Building a library of stock photos once required an army of photographers working around the globe; now this naturally occurs over social networks such as Instagram.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine

SourceAudio Announces Launch of “SourceAudio Detect”

12652SourceAudio, a prominent B2B technology platform for music publishers, labels, broadcasters, production companies and creative marketing agencies, has announced the launch of its newest service, “SourceAudio Detect.”

SourceAudio Detect uses a unique, robust and inaudible digital identity (watermark) that is redundantly embedded directly into a piece of audio itself.

It is different from other fingerprinting-based monitoring solutions in that there is never any guesswork or doubt about the track identity because a truly unique code is woven into the fabric of each file that travels with it indefinitely.

That code will only reference the true identity given to the track by its owner or authorized licensor.

Apple Launches Mobile Payments in China

mobile-payApple introduced its mobile payments system to China through a partnership with China UnionPay, as the iPhone maker teams with the country’s largest payment and clearing network.

Users can sign up by adding their bank card information into the Wallet application on Apple devices. Customers of 19 lenders, including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China, will be able to use Apple Pay through UnionPay’s point-of-sales network, UnionPay said Thursday.

China is an increasingly critical component of Apple’s business, helping it sell a record 13 million iPhones during the September debut-weekend of its latest handsets.

Source: AdAge

Faster Payments Are Not Enough for Banks to Beat Digital Challengers

The digital pSolucionesFinTechayment revolution, though disruptive, does not have to be a game changer for financial institutions, but instead be a game saver for those that respond quickly.

To move forward banks and credit unions need to evaluate new solutions that take advantage of modern technology to create a safe, ubiquitous and faster payments experience. They should be looking into a single unified platform that reliably processes bill payment, P2P and A2A money movement transactions.

Source: PaymentsSource

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