Streaming

Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney Petition Digital Copyright Reform 

For the last three months, the music industry has been fighting — or at least negotiating in public — with YouTube. Now, artists are adding their voices.

In an ad that will run Tuesday through Thursday in the Washington DC magazines Politico, The Hill, and Roll Call, 180 performers and songwriters are calling for reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which regulates copyright online. A range of big names from every genre signed the ad — from Taylor Swift to Sir Paul McCartney, Vince Gill to Vince Staples, Carole King to the Kings of Leon — as did 19 organizations and companies, including the major labels.

Source: Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney Petition Digital Copyright Reform | Billboard

Merlin hails 73% rise in streaming revenues for indie labels

PrintThe survey offers a positive picture of the indie market, with 65% of surveyed labels saying their businesses grew in the last year, and 79% saying they are optimistic about their future prospects.

Digital is key to this, as you’d expect: 62% of Merlin’s members say digital is now more than 50% of their revenues – for a third, it’s over 75% – with 39% of labels saying that more than half of their digital income came from outside their home market.

Source: Merlin hails 73% rise in streaming revenues for indie labels

From YouTube to the blockchain: how music and tech are colliding in 2016 

The annual Midem conference, which turned 50 this year, used to be a glamorous affair where more than 10,000 music execs gathered to strike deals and flaunt their (large) expenses budgets in the hotel bars of Cannes.

In 2016, Midem is much smaller – “4,400 or so” delegates according to its organiser – and with many fewer high-rollers in the bars, but a lot more discussion on conference stages about the digital present and future for music.

Source: From YouTube to the blockchain: how music and tech are colliding in 2016 | Technology | The Guardian

Putting Hollywood on the Blockchain

screenshot-singulardtv.com 2016-06-07 15-21-38The blockchain is a hot topic in the music business these days, featured on panels at nearly every industry conference and gobbling up acres of paper and pixels in the industry press. But it hasn’t gained nearly as high a profile in the TV and film business.

That’s in part because, while Hollywood has its problems, the film and TV business isn’t nearly as broken as the music business, and movie and TV people are simply not as hungry for radical fixes as many musicians are today. Unlike the music business, where the consumer’s embrace of streaming is blamed for pushing down profit margins and diluting artists’ earnings, the popularity of video streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime has sparked an explosion in scripted TV production and a boom in jobs and pay scales for actors, writers and other behind-the-camera personnel.

Even the major studios, who have watched subscription VOD services erode their once highly profitable DVD business, have benefited from re-selling back catalog to Netflix, Hulu and others.

That doesn’t mean there might not be better ways of doing business, however, or that blockchain won’t play a role in TV’s future. Startup SingularDTV is betting both will happen, in fact, and has set out to prove it.

NeuLion acquires Saffron Digital 

saffron_neulion_7_June_2016NeuLion believes that the combined synergies derived from adding its experience in delivering live TV channels and live sports to the Saffron assets acquisition can transform the over-the-top (OTT) challenges faced by owners and rights holders of sports, entertainment, films and TV channels.

It adds that the combined entity can now reduce project complexities for all content rights holders of existing and new OTT services by decreasing the number of vendors involved in their projects and ‘significantly’ decrease time to market for new OTT and TV everywhere services in comparison to other technology options.

Source: NeuLion acquires Saffron Digital | OTT | News | Rapid TV News

WMG buys X5 Music as major labels double down on playlists

Yesterday’s news that Warner Music Group has bought X5 Music – with reports in Sweden suggesting the price may have been $25m – is the latest sign of major labels doubling down in their efforts to do more with playlists and streaming curation.

WMG, remember, already bought British startup Playlists.net in October 2014, and has adopted its Topsify brand as the imprint for the label group’s own playlists on Spotify.

Source: WMG buys X5 Music as major labels double down on playlists

Spotify, Musixmatch End Lyrics Partnership Over Unfavorable Terms

Lyrics disappeared suddenly from Spotify last Friday; and now we know the reason: the partnership between the music streamer and lyrics provider Musixmatch has ended. The partnership was terminated when the two companies could not come to terms over payments, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.

Musixmatch also suggested that unfavorable terms are behind the split. “We regret the end of this partnership, but we must keep to our product and our users above all else. We will not allow anybody to ignore our business model'” said Max Ciociola, CEO & Founder of Musixmatch. “We want to focus on what is right for us, to protect all of you, our users. We don’t want to run the risk of Musixmatch no longer existing… What we want is to create a stand alone experience with a healthy business model that allows us, to support ourselves and our rights owners.”

Source: Spotify, Musixmatch End Lyrics Partnership Over Unfavorable Terms: “We will not allow anybody to ignore our business model” – hypebot

The Playlist That’s Helping Spotify Win The Streaming Music Battle 

The quest to give people what they didn’t even know they want has been the holy grail for streaming services, and Spotify succeeded almost by accident.

Discover Weekly actually began as a Hack Week project, but it was the technology they had from acquiring “music intelligence” firm The Echo Nest which allowed the idea to flourish. What’s genius about Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists is its personalization. It’s capable of delivering content from artists the listener hasn’t heard but should like based on their established tastes.

Source: The Playlist That’s Helping Spotify Win The Streaming Music Battle – Vocativ

Spotify Cuts Dubset Deal To Add Millions Of Mixes – hypebot

Dubset Media announced today that it has reached an agreement with Spotify to use its MixBANK distribution platform. The deal makes it possible for DJs to upload and legally stream their mixes and single track remixes.  In addition, the new agreement is expected to enable Spotify listeners to stream radio shows and other user generated mixes that have not been previously legally available to music fans.

The announcement was made today at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, Spain.

Source: Spotify Cuts Dubset Deal To Add Millions Of Mixes – hypebot

Revelator launches playlist analytics app 

Revelator_logoRevelator has developed a data management platform, with a dashboard to monitor individual or multiple tracks and artist playlist performance over time and across countries and cities.

The new Playlist Analytics function is available on Revelator’s web interface and is designed to track playlist activity on both Spotify and Apple Music, with other digital music services to follow.

“We are delighted to deliver another first to market with our Playlist Analytics offering, and honoured to be among the twenty finalists at this year’s MidemLab,” said Bruno Guez, Founder and CEO of Revelator. “Playlists are without doubt an essential marketing tool for rightsholders and successful playlist performance has become one of the key influencers of a track’s chart position and revenue-earning potential.”

Source: Revelator launches playlist analytics app | Music Week

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