music.biz.tech.asia

Two unrelated but interesting stories from Asia this week. Firstly from China, Tencent and Sony Music have teamed up to create a new EDM label called Liquid State. This is reallyinteresting as it marks an early indication of where streaming services are heading (and must head), i.e. content ownership and not just distribution. Here's the MBW a...

There have been a couple of important stories in the last week or so. The first is the latest lawsuit against Spotify (here’s the Music Business World article and the Billboard article, plus the article on Apple also being sued). 

I’ve worked for artists and songwriters for 30 years, and they always have to be paid for their work. But it’s...

Really good piece on the new MMA legislation before Congress in the US. Not sure if it's the answer but a start. http://illusionofmore.com/can-streaming-ever-work-for-songwriters/ 

A really interesting (not so small) niche of the music industry. The challenge is taking a service which allows young music fans to create their own music video, to a service which finds real talent and plugs it into the existing ecosystem. And makes money (probably via brands). MIDia's article is here. 

Who knew? Read the full article here and get the report here.

Will we see the return of the record store? I used to love record stores, it was an integral part of the music experience which our kids are missing. My favourite was a store in Venice CA that was mostly chairs with headphones and a bunch of customer recommendations. You could spend an entire Saturday there. Maybe Amazon has the answer.

Artists like Drake are changing the way we listen to music. It used to be 3-minute pop songs to fit radio formats, then albums that allowed greater expression, and now playlists which are more like mixtapes than collections of an artist's own work. 

Paul Resnikoff from Digital Music News thinks Spotify should become a record label - which is not as silly as it sounds. 

It's scandalous that we're still talking about getting our act together on songs data. According to Digital Music News, Spotify are settling a lawsuit brought against them for failing to license all the publishing rights they need to run their streaming service. After nearly 10 years in the market, there's no excuse for Spotify not knowing who you...

Nice results from Warner Music, and good to see streaming really starting to kick in. Long may it last.

Go here for the original MBW piece: MBW