That’s why over the past few years, Spotify has been pushing five different paths to putting pressure on the labels to cut it a better royalties deal. They all hinge around the idea of making the labels need Spotify as much as it’s historically needed them. When Spotify launched in 2008, it had no power in the relationship since it had so few listeners. It needed to raise over… Read More
If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em. Apple is in discussions with Tidal about acquiring its music streaming app, which offers exclusives and early releases from big artists like Beyonce and Kanye West. The Wall Street Journal reports that the talks are still early and might not end in a deal, but Apple wants those exclusives to bolster its Apple Music streaming app that’s… Read More
Like a fly frozen in amber, the App Store’s fundamental deal has remained unmoving since its inception. As an enormous ecosystem swelled around it, crystalline structures of new rules and avenues of customer interaction have also grown — but not nearly fast enough for most developers. Read More
Music listeners are cheapskates. Few will pay Spotify or Apple $10 a month even to stream almost every song ever. Meanwhile, radio services like Pandora hardly scrape by on the meager ad rates after they pay out royalties.
So if Pandora wants to resuscitate the battered corpse of Rdio it acquired for $75 million last year, it can’t just be another unlimited monthly subscription. The… Read More
Pandora should revive Rdio as pay-for-what-you-want streaming