Music’s $20M A Month Man: Spotify’s Daniel Ek Shows Tim Westergren How It’s Done

The industry gave a collective gasp of horror when founder Tim Westergren was pulling down $1,000,000 by selling of Pandora stock while simultaneously fighting artists with royalty loopholes. Chris Castle writes that Spotify’s Daniel Ek is leaving Westergren in the financial dust with a monthly windfall of $20 million. __________________________…

Copying Pandora’s Radio Feature, Spotify Redesigns Its App for Premium Subscribers

Taking a page out of Pandora’s playbook, Premium subscribers on Spotify can now download radio stations. Pandora hasn’t had too much success competing with Spotify. Last year, the company unveiled several premium subscriptions.  In a bid to compete wit…

Spotify + DistroKid On Road To A Two Sided Marketplace

With news that Spotify had invested in DistroKid and offer it as a distribution conduit to other music services, came speculation as to the music streamer’s greater motives. MIDiA analyst Mark Mulligan sees the move as part of Spotify’s strategy to work way up music’s value chain by "a) removing…

THU. BRIEF: Spotify Updates Premium, Wear Apps • SXSW Names Performers • Investor Sues Royalty Exchange • More

THURSDAY 10.18.18
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UK Watchdog Bans ‘Distressing’ Spotify Advertisement

Good job, Spotify.  You’ve just scarred a generation of children for life.  But, the real question remains – where exactly were the parents? Spotify has come under fire for an advertisement deemed obscene and traumatizing for children. In the one-minut…

SoundCloud Adds Lossless Music Streaming To $9.99 Tier

SoundCloud has upgraded the audio on its Go + $10 per month premium music streaming service. Dubbed HQ streaming, SoundCloud’s new Hiqh Quality streaming format is encoded in 256kbps AAC. That’s roughly the equivalent of an mp3 encoded in 320kbps. On Spotify, the usual streaming quality is 160 kbps. When…

Spotify Acquires a ‘Passive Minority Stake’ in Distrokid —And Gives Distrokid Subscribers Preferential Access + Distribution to Other Platforms

Spotify has just announced a serious alliance with digital distributor Distrokid — one that includes preferential access to Spotify and even distribution to competing platforms. Just last month, Spotify announced a beta-level feature that allowed artis…

Hospital Creates Spotify Playlist Perfect For CPR

A Spotify playlist created by NewYork – Presbyterian Hospital, contains only songs with 100 and 120 beats per minute, the perfect rate to perform CPR to. The diverse playlist includes wonderfully appropriate songs like the Bee Gees’ "Stayin’ Alive" and "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, and some so, like…

Spotify Announces DistroKid Investment, Integration

Spotify is strengthening ties to DistroKid with an investment and announcement of an integration that allows artists using Spotify For Artists’ new free upload service to then seamlessly distribute their music to other platforms through DistroKid. As part of this partnership, Spotify has also made "a passive minority investment" in…