Digital and Mobile
Inside Track: Where Does Music’s Love Affair With Gaming Go?
Yes, you read that correctly. It’s not news that the music business wants in on that money. For years there have been collaborations across industries, including soundtracks for games like Grand Theft Auto IV way back in 2008 and ongoing partnerships spanning well over a decade to provide music for sports franchises like Madden and NBA 2K. But over the past two years, that relationship has rapidly expanded, reaching a fever pitch during the pandemic when gaming, in general, exploded around the world as people were confined to their homes and artists looked for new revenue streams (think Travis Scott partnering with Fortnite and Lil Nas X working with Roblox). Now many are wondering where this leads next. For rights holders, lawsuits are shifting to cooperation, most recently with the NMPA ...
In India’s Price-Sensitive Market, Will Customers Finally Pay For Streaming?
Only two countries — China (45% ad-supported), the seventh-biggest market, and Venezuela (58%), IFPI’s lowest-ranked sector — rely more on ad-supported audio streams than India (38%). And China, for the first time, generated more revenue last year from subscription-supported streams than ad-supported streams, IFPI figures show. Lodha, who previously was an executive at hospitality chain OYO Rooms, says it’s time to change India’s revenue paradigm. To help Gaana regain its edge in India’s crowded streaming market against its well-financed competitors, he’s focusing on boosting subscription income, which he says is more important than hitting Gaana’s target of 500 million MAUs — a figure at which he says the streaming platform would finally turn profitable. Subscription income fell from 33% ...
Tencent Music Spared From Forced Sales in China Regulatory Crackdown
The government action is part of a broader attempt by Beijing to regulate its domestic technology sector, which grew rapidly after years of relatively little regulation. Since last December, regulators have fined 11 companies, including Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba and ByteDance, for failing to disclose past acquisitions and investments. News of the regulatory fines sent shares of Tencent Music Entertainment on the New York Stock Exchange down more than 10% on Wednesday and Thursday to $12.69 a share. Shares of other Chinese tech companies listed in the U.S., including JD.com, Alibaba and Pinduoduo, also slid. (TME rebounded slightly on Friday, up 1.5% to $12.88.) Still, despite the sweeping penalties enacted, the lack of forced divestitures seemed to allay investor concerns that Tencent Music ...
Gregory Porter Channels His Inner Chef on ‘The PorterHouse’ Cooking Series
“Like music, cooking is another way to make somebody smile,” says Porter, one of eight children. “Growing up, I knew singing songs for my mother made her happy. And whatever I needed to do to help prepare the food and cook made her happy too. I’m just trying to express that through the things that I love.” For Porter that includes giving back. Episode six centers around donating food to a local ministry and soup kitchen operated by his brother Dionne. In addition, the series’ sponsor Citi has pledged an additional donation to longtime partner No Kid Hungry to provide meals for U.S. families in need. The day after the season finale, Citi will host an exclusive, hour-long virtual event on June 17. It will open with an intimate Q&A featuring Porter before the singer takes the stage to per...
European Commission Guidance Muddies the Waters for EU Copyright Directive
They include the requirement for platforms that rely on user-generated content — such as YouTube, TikTok or Facebook — to obtain “fair remuneration” license deals with rights holders and to make “best efforts” to remove unlicensed content and, most importantly, ensure that it stays down. But the document also introduces exceptions that music execs say streaming platforms could use to try and avoid liability for hosting unlicensed content — potentially replacing one safe harbor with another. “The guidance risks creating uncertainty and ambiguity by going beyond the scope of the directive,” says European authors group GESAC, which represents the rights of more than one million musicians, creators and rights holders. GESAC notes that while the guidanc...
The Revolution Will Be Digitized: How RAC Is Using NFTs to Empower Artists
Specifically, crypto advocates like Anjos want to create a better financial system for the music industry, which would increase transparency and make more accurate payments in real-time. The technology, as he and his fellow crypto fans see it, could even be used to stop ticket scalpers and hold the copyrights to songs and catalogs (the latter would be challenging to execute given music’s complex web of rights holders). “There’s tons of value that’s being left on the table or that’s going to the wrong people” in the music industry, he says. “This technology essentially enables [us to] replace a lot of the plumbing.” In 2017, Anjos discovered Ethereum, the blockchain on which the majority of NFTs are sold, and home to Ether, the second-most popular c...
Hi-Res Streaming Service Qobuz Launches In Australia, NZ
Australia’s recorded music is thriving right now, largely due to streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Streaming powered the market to a sixth consecutive year of growth in 2020, according trade data published by ARIA in March. Subscription platforms, a category that includes Spotify and Apple Music, generated A$362 million in the calendar year 2020, up 14% from the previous year. The market is far from saturated at the high-res end, notes Fornay. Qobuz is “offering something uniquely different to the other platforms out there,” he enthuses, namely the ability to download or stream at CD quality or Hi-Res “studio quality” audio (24-Bit up to 192 kHz). In addition to its catalog of 70 million tracks, Qobuz also offers album reviews, artist biographies, music...
Lindsay Lohan Launches Her New Single ‘Lullaby’ as NFT Auction
Lohan has “fully invested herself in dropping this song as a NFT with a sole objective of delivering a message of empowerment,” the description continues. The catchy three-minute dance song is currently available for download on the site. As of press time on Sunday afternoon, the bid for “Lullaby” had reached 400,710 TRX (about $25,400). Tech entrepreneur Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain, tweeted Saturday that he had bid 300,000 TRX for the song. The auction ends in four days. Lohan has been a strong proponent of cryptocurrency as of late. The former Disney actress recently sold a Daft Punk NFT on the digital marketplace Rarible, and has signed a partnership with Sun’s Tron. “It’s only a matter of time till everyone in Hollywood and beyond gets invol...
OnlyFans Launches Creator Fund For U.K. Music Artists
Over the past year, artists from Cardi B to The-Dream and Rico Nasty have all joined content subscription platform OnlyFans — and Beyoncé even gave the platform a shout-out during her verse on a remix of Megan Thee Stallion‘s “Savage.” Now, the London-based company is leaning further into the music world with the launch of a new creative fund for artists in the U.K., announced today (March 17). The fund will award four aspiring artists grants of £20,000 (roughly $27,800) each, plus mentorship from a “music industry professional,” to help them kickstart their careers in music. Artists can enter to win the funds online through April 13 using an application process that includes uploading a 90-second performance video. OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely wil...
‘NFTs for People’: BitClout Sells Coins Based on Celebs Without Their Permission
In a FAQ published on the site before it was taken down Friday afternoon — due to “overwhelming support,” a note on the now-empty website states — BitClout describes itself as a social network that allows users to “speculate on people and posts with real money.” BitClout claims to be a fully open-sourced project that built a custom blockchain using architecture comparable to Bitcoin with “no company behind it” that will allow users to purchase a new asset class called “Creator Coins” for accounts on the site, which includes celebrities, musicians, and influencers. “They were on there mostly without their permission,” a source tells Billboard. Current users can buy and sell coins that will increase and decrease in value depending on the “social clout” of the user the coin is based on, or ho...
After Selling Spinnin’ Records for $100M, Eelko van Kooten’s New Focus Is Influencers
It wasn’t long, however, before the Dutch exec started plotting his return to the music business. “I didn’t want to start a label or a publishing company, for me that was not special enough,” he says. “So I looked around at what was going on on the horizon of the music industry.” What he saw was a fast-evolving digital market where independent artists struggle to get their songs heard amid all the noise — and where social media stars have the power to break an unknown track or artist worldwide, often overnight. The solution van Kooten came up with was Ledo, a global digital distribution platform that partners artists, producers and songwriters with social media influencers to enable both parties to reach new audiences through creative collaborations. The Amsterdam-based platform laun...
The New Science Of Superfans
With fan data suddenly in the hands of artists, a revenue revolution is brewing. Deep Dive looks at the startups that are forging new paths for musicians to establish sustainable — and profitable — relationships with their fans; the tools that digital service providers are building to identify them; and other ways that rappers and rockers are turning their devotees into dollars. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
