Music Business Roundup: Pandora vs. BMI Explained, Soundcloud Streaming, & More

Selena

Videos by American Songwriter

Pandora’s Payment to BMI Explained
Following last week’s decision regarding Pandora paying BMI, the judge that was on the case explained why it was decided that 2.5% of revenue was the right amount. For one thing, he made it clear that Pandora is a different kind of service compared to others such as Spotify and terrestrial radio. Another factor was that Pandora has not been profitable, due to the high costs of obtaining music and the small amount of advertising sold.
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SoundCloud Still Planning Streaming Service
Even though more and more streaming services keep launching (Tidal and Apple’s service this year), the music platform SoundCloud is said to still be planning to start one of their own by the end of this year. During a keynote speech, the founder talked about a subscription streaming service being part of SoundCloud’s future.
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Shazam Launches Visual Recognition
The popular music identifying app Shazam has announced a new feature: visual recognition. Similar to QR codes, the user can point their phone camera at a poster or billboard registered with the app and certain content will appear. This could be an interesting addition to advertising in the music industry.
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Wolfgang’s Vault Copyright Infringement
Known for its large amount of of live music, Wolfgang’s Vault has not been licensing the music it shares according to the National Music Publishers’ Association. The website is very profitable, which is in large part due to the fact that they supposedly do not license the music properly.
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Selena Estate Settles With UMG
The late singer’s estate was reportedly suing Universal Music Group for royalties from digital recordings, however it seems that the two parties have agreed to settle the lawsuit.
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Lyric Of The Week: Clifton Chenier, “I’m Coming Home”