Spotify Will Now Notify You Of New Releases

Spotify is introducing a feature that will notify listeners when their favorite artists and podcast producers have a new release out. Taking the form of a bell icon you’ll find at the top of the app’s home interface, the What’s New panel collects new
releases from bands, musicians and shows you follow on the platform. Spotify plans to roll out the feature to all Android and iOS users over the coming weeks.

Apple, Spotify And Others To Fund New Music Royalties Collective

Apple, Spotify and other major music streaming services have agreed to fund a new licensing collective created by the Music Modernization Act to collect and distribute so-called mechanical royalties to songwriters and publishers, reports Law360 (you need a subscription to read the article).

The collective will collect royalties from streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify and distribute the money to songwriters, publishers, and other music copyright holders.The streamers will pay $33.5 million for startup costs and anticipates $28.5 million for costs in 2021, the first year that the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) will be active, the collective and the streamers, represented by a newly designated nonprofit Digital Licensee Coordinator.

Bloomberg Law says this is a critical step toward ensuring rights holders receive their share of streaming revenue, which now composes 63% of all music revenue, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. The existing system, where streaming services must seek permission from individual rights holders to use their songs, created a trail of unpaid musicians and lawsuits.

Microsoft Says Goodbye To Groove Music, Switching Customers To Spotify

Microsoft has announced that it's saying goodbye to  its Groove Music services after December 31st, 2017. Unlike in the past, there isn't another Microsoft-branded service waiting in the wings. Instead, the company is transitioning everyone over to Spotify. The Groove Music app will offer to migrate your collection and playlists through an update, starting with a preview version this week and more broadly on October 9th. Groove Music Pass subscribers will have the option of migrating to Spotify until January 31st. And if you paid for Music Pass beyond December, you'll get a refund for the amount of time you didn't get to play. Thoughts ?

Apple Music Rumored To Be Getting A Price Cut Soon

According to Digital Music News, Apple Music may be preparing for a major price drop. The changes are still under discussion, and if implemented, the decrease could be as much as 20%, which would put the monthly regular rate below $8. Thoughts ? Would be very interesting to see. 

Spotify Now Has 40 Million Subscribes

Spotify has announced that it has reached 40 million subscribers. The company is far ahead of competitor Apple Music, which only has 17 million paying subscribers. CEO Daniel Ek had this to say on Twitter: 

40 is the new 30.
Million. 😄

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) September 14, 2016

Spotify has been growing for the past 2 years at a steady rate. In March, the company hit 30 million paying subscribers, and it had just 15 million subscribers back in January 2015.  

Spotify Now Features Full Tour Dates List To Artist Page

Spotify has added a full tab to its Artist pages that lists all upcoming shows. The listings and ticketing links are thanks to Songkick, and part of their expanding partnership. Spotify and Songkick already let fans know when artists are playing near them via personalized concert recommendations and a geo-targeted “On Tour” section. The “Concerts” tab is now available to all users in the Spotify desktop app. 

Spotify Now Has A Dedicated Gaming Section

The music streaming service Spotify has launched a new segment dedicated to gamers. Spotify Gaming will be a separate section on Spotify and app that features curated playlists, soundtracks, and contributed song lists from notable personalities from the gaming world. 

Apple May Have Purchased Omnifone, A Cloud-Based Music Provider

Apple has apparently purchased Omnifone, a cloud-based music provider in a deal worth $10 million, according to MacRumors.com. Omnifone is the company behind MusicStation, a cloud-based global media platform that provides back-end solutions for digital music services. Omnifone claims to be the only independent music platform provider to be in 45 countries across 5 continents. Omnifone has had partnerships with companies like Sony, Samsung, Vodafone, and PonoMusic. Samsung, for instance, used Omnifone's technology for Milk Music. The company declared bankruptcy in May after losing Sony and Blackberry as clients. It's not clear why Apple would want Omnifone, given that its own streaming service (Apple Music) is well-established. What do you think of this possible deal ?

Soundcloud Launches GO Subscription Service

SoundCloud has announced SoundCloud Go, a subscription streaming service promising perks on top of its regular free listening options. While many established musicians already have a presence on SoundCloud, until now they have typically used it to promote singles, remixes, or B-sides. Go is ad-free, and also adds offline caching of tracks and playlists. A notable difference from some services, like Apple Music, is that listeners can optionally make all current and future favorites available offline automatically. A Go subscription is $9.99 per month through there website, or $12.99 when purchased through the SoundCloud iOS app. 

Apple's iTunes Radio Will Soon Charge You To Listen

Apple will no longer offer its ad-supported radio stations and instead charge you $10 to use the service starting on January 29. Customers who've been enjoying iTunes Radio's ad-supported broadcasts since the service launched back in 2013 will now need to pay a monthly subscription fee for access. iTunes Radio grants users access to over 200 stations. Users previously had the option to subscribe to the iTunes Match service to listen to the radio stations ad-free. Why Apple would do this is beyond me. It makes no sense and it’s kinda messed up and they’re just driving away users from there service. What do you think of Apple doing this ? 

Apple Is Closing Beats Music At The End Of The Month

Apple has confirmed that it will shut down the Beats Music streaming service on November 30. The news comes just days after Apple Music arrived on Android. Apple has  made it easy for Beats Music users to migrate their profile to Apple Music, but if you don’t migrate before November 30, your subscription will end and your Beats Music account will be closed. 

Spotify’s New Privacy Policy Will Make Users Switch To Apple Music

Looks like Spotify is facing some backlash over its new privacy policy, which gives the company the right to read personal information on users' phones, including photos, contact information and location data. The policy says: "With your permission, we may collect information stored on your mobile device, such as contacts, photos, or media files." It adds: "Depending on the type of device that you use to interact with the service and your settings, we may also collect information about your location based on, for example, your phone's GPS location or other forms of locating mobile devices." The new terms of service concludes by telling users: "If you don't agree with the terms of this privacy policy, then please don't use the service." Compared to Apple’s policy to respect the privacy of its users Spotify may be losing some customers to Apple today.  What do you think ? Do you Use Spotify ? After seeing this are you going to switch to Apple Music ? 

Apple Starts To Advertise Around The World

Apple has started a worldwide advertising campaign for its new streaming music service, with advertisements showing up in cities around the world like San Francisco, Toronto, Los Angeles,Mexico City and Tokyo. The banners has the same images that have been used to advertise Apple Music on Apple's website, featuring desaturated pictures of artists overlaid with the Apple Music logo in a variety of fonts. It is not clear when Apple started to push Apple Music advertising, but the banners and signage appear to have gone up over the last few days. As Apple begins advertising Apple Music around the world, Billboard has announced that songs streamed from Apple Music will now count towards the Billboard 200 and the Billboard Hot 100. Apple was recently added as a streaming provider and Apple Music songs will influence the August charts. The Billboard 200 lists the 200 most popular albums each week, based on direct sales, digital downloads, and on-demand streaming. where as the Billboard Hot 100 tracks individual songs using the same method, ranking popularity on a weekly basis. New charts for both the Billboard 200 and the Billboard Hot 100 come out each Tuesday.