Apple Jabs At Spotify, YouTube With Proposal That Would Pay Songwriters Just $910 Per 1 Million Streams

The amount that songwriters are paid for streaming is diluted by the hundreds of millions of streams on ad-supported music services like Spotify free and YouTube. Apple has filed a proposal that would change that, and unsurprisingly also strengthen its own hand in its battle against its rivals. ________________________________________ Apple…

How Do Music Preferences Differ Place To Place? Pandora Shares State By State Data

How musical preferences differ from place to place? Who are the top ten top acts in California, and how do they compare to New York? Pandora analyzed mountains of listener data to see which artists had the most station adds in the last year. Some of the results are obvious…

Rhapsody Is Now Officially Napster, User Growth Flat At 3.5M Globally

[UPDATED] The planned transition uniting the Rhapsody and Napster music streaming services under the Napster brand is complete and with the announcement came paid subscriber stats. __________________________________________ This expected news came from Napster today: "All products operating under Rhapsody have been changed to Napster, forming one global brand across 34…

NMPA And Spotify Declare Victory, But David Lowery Says Fight Has Just Begun For Indie Songwriter, Publishers

This week, the National Music Publishers Association and Spotify declared the settlement over unlicensed tracks a smashing success, with 96% of NMPA members signing on. But the fight for fair compensation from Spotify is far from over for many indie publishers and songwriters; and David Lowery, who filed suit against…

8 Albums That Would ‘NEVER’ Be Streamed But Eventually Were

For a small but significant group of major artists, streaming is evil. While most will let their music go up on YouTube, they vehemently vow to keep it off Spotify, Apple Music and other on-demand music streamers. That is, until they change their mind… “Valuable things should be paid for….

Collecting Your Favorites: Vintage Music In The Digital Age

Before the ubiquity of streaming, many music fans spent a lot of time (and money) on amassing huge quantities of physical music. Here we look at how longtime fans can reconcile their preexisting stock with current technology. ________________________________________ In this fresh new article on MusicThinkTank, Rachelle Wilber looks at how…

How Much Are Pay Per Stream Royalties Really Costing Musicians?

Although differences in song length didn’t have much of an impact on revenue when physical album sales dominated the industry, this is no longer the case in the age of streaming, suggesting that it’s time to revisit how the revenue pie is being divided up. ___________________________________ Guest post by Bas…

Google To Copy Apple’s 2014 Family Plan, Expand Sharing To 6

Family Plans and multiple user offerings are one of the lures for the digital content marketing. And while 6 people on one account certainly lowers the per user payments to creators, they’ve proven to be an effective sales tool. Now Google is finally expanding their offering to match Apple’s. ________________________________________…

Spotify Takes On Apple’s Beats 1 With New Artist Hosted Radio Shows

Spotify announced artist hosted playlists and shows more than a year ago alongside the announcement that it was adding video. They’ve slowly built a portfolio of artist and media driven playlists, but two new ongoing series suggest a major expansion of the offering. ___________________________________________ Spotify has launched two new artist…

SFX Withdraws Beatport Sale

SFX would appear to be running out of options in its efforts to exit bankruptcy. After selling digital marketer Fame House and ticketer Flavorus to Universal Music Group, SFX withdrew its bankruptcy reorganization plan in favor of dealing directly with creditors. Now it’s withdrawn a proposed Beatport sale. _______________________________________ In…