Streaming – Page 4 – RightsTech Project

Streaming Deal Between ABC, Warner Bros. Signals Change for SVOD Rights

March 23, 2016By admin

In the trench war between TV networks and streaming services over series stacking rights, ABC has broken through enemy lines.

On March 18, the network announced a deal with Warner Bros. Television that will make all in-season episodes of any future series from the studio available on ABC digital platforms. Networks tend to stack five rolling episodes for most shows.

The ABC-Warner Bros. deal acknowledges the continued shift toward time-shifted viewing and binge watching.It also gives ABC a victory over the digital competition — in particular Netflix. The streaming service has asserted often that it will not pay top dollar for shows that don’t come with exclusivity, making it difficult for networks to secure stacking rights.

Source: Variety

Bad Data Is The Worm In The Apple For Streaming Music

March 15, 2016By admin

2016 is proving to be tricky year for streaming rights. No sooner did it start to look like artists and labels were beginning to feel comfortable with streaming then along come a veritable flood of songwriter class action suits in the US, against TIDAL, Rhapsody and Spotify, twice.

At the heart of the legal action is the issue of streaming services not paying mechanical rights to songwriters because they have not identified and / or not been able to identify, all of the the songwriters.

The streaming services counter that they a) have been adhering to the rules as they stand and b) that it is difficult / impossible for them to track everything. It is a complex issue that may even have some of its underlying assumptions turned upside down (in favour of streaming services). For a good introduction to the issues see this balanced MusicAlly piece. Whatever the legal intricacies though, there is a crucial underling issue: bad data.

Or, to be more precise, a complete lack of data.

International music licensing is highly complex and anyone who tries to tell you differently is either wrong or lying. That is not to suggest for a moment that music services should somehow not have an obligation to invest time, effort and resource into licensing music, far from it. But it does mean that the current system is not fit for purpose.

Source: MIDiA Research

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

February 18, 2016By admin

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

Will Streaming Music Kill Songwriting?

February 17, 2016By admin

As the music industry has been slowly and agonizingly stretched across the rack of the digital age, the songwriter’s comfortable spot amid music’s royalty flow has steadily slipped away.

Source: The New Yorker