The music industry and streaming leader Spotify have agreed that exclusive releases should be a thing of the past, and Apple Music has said that they are moving away from them. But Jay Z and TIDAL took a big check from Sprint and early this morning announced the "first in…
Category archives: Streaming & Cloud
Pandora’s Financial Hole: How Deep Is It?
Yesterday, we got word that losses at Spotify had more than doublded, and we’ve known for some time that Panora has its own money woes. Chris Castle takes an opinionated look at Pandora’s current financial plight, and how far it has to go in order to extricate itself from the…
Bob Seger’s Entire Catalog Finally On Spotify, Other Streamers
One of the last major streaming holdouts, Bob Seger, has put his entire back catalogue on Spotify and other music services worldwide. The complete catalogue includes twelve platinum/multi-platinum albums as well as Seger’s debut album, Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man. “Bob Seger wrote the soundtrack for generations of music fans lives. He’s…
Spotify Expands Concert Listings,Ticketing with Eventbrite, AXS Deals
Spotify has strengthened it link to live music, adding concert listings and tickets from AEG’s AXS and leading DIY ticketer Eventbrite. Presumably tickets from Ticketfly, which Eventbrite just aquired from Pandora, will soon be added, as well. To date, Spotify has featured over 150,000 artists with concert dates in more…
Spotify Expands Concert Listings,Ticketing with Eventbrite, AXS Deals
Spotify has strengthened it link to live music, adding concert listings and tickets from AEG’s AXS and leading DIY ticketer Eventbrite. Presumably tickets from Ticketfly, which Eventbrite just aquired from Pandora, will soon be added, as well. To date, Spotify has featured over 150,000 artists with concert dates in more…
Streaming Revenue Could Surpass Live Income For Many Artists, says Mark Mulligan
"Do not assume that we have arrived at your destination," writes music industry analyst Mark Mulligan, referring to live music rather than recordings as the primary income driver for most musicians and the industry. "Add together all the pieces and you start to create an environment in which artists can…
Spotify Revenue Up 54% In 2016, As Yearly Losses Grow A Staggering 133% To $600 Million
Alongside news that Spotify now has 140 million active users, comes new financial filings that show a company whose revenue grew 52% to $3.3 billion in 2016. But the music streamer’s losses grew as well, to a staggering $600 million. _____________________________________ New filings show that in 2016,Spotify lost $601.4 million,…
Spotify Passes 140M Total Users, About 2X Apple Music’s Paid Subscribers
[UPDATED] Spotify has announced that it now has more than 140 million active monthly users. That’s an impressive 40 million year over year increase. With the brief announcement, which came via Twitter, was no exact breakdown of paid vs. free Spotify users. But some simple calculations suggest that it’s twice…
SoundExchange Royalties: The Producer’s Cut
Attorney and artists advocate Chris Castle lays out how SoundExchange deals with royalties due to the producers of the sound recordings to which they hold the rights, and how their share is calculated and paid. ____________________ Guest post by Chris Castle of Music Technology Policy We often get questions about…
Apple Music Can’t Catch Up To Spotify And That Spells Trouble for Apple’s HomePod Smart Speaker
[UPDATED] Recently, Apple announced that Apple Music has 27 million subscribers. While impressive, it’s not enough to catch Spotify, who has more than 50 million paid subscribers, and continues to add users at an impressive space. That gap could be a problem for Apple’s newly announced smart speaker, HomePod. While…