• Copyright Law May Allow Taylor Swift, Prince et al to Pull Covers from Spotify and Streaming Services As Well

    Taylor Swift made headlines during the end of 2014 by pulling her catalogue from Spotify, preventing listeners from checking out her sick beats without shelling out for the song or album 1989. She's not the only one who's keeping their wares off of the streaming service and others like it...The Beatles and Apple Records have yet to release the band's discography to the service. Yet many fans know a loophole, if they're willing to ignore subtle differences in quality: There are covers of the songs on Spotify, performed by bands aiming to sound exactly like The Beatles. Perhaps not for long however, as the U.S. Copyright Office is looking to allow performers to prevent covers of their work from being streamed as well.

  • Spotify Given Valuation of $5.7 Billion, According to New Report

    The news of Spotify's growth continues to roll in seemingly every week. The streaming giant just announced a deal with PlayStation and Sony that would launch a revamped service PlayStation Music across and PlayStation Network by connecting users's Spotify accounts to their gaming accounts. With all of the expansion that company has gone through in the past year or two, it has become one of the darlings of the music industry and tech startup world, where money flows like water. Spotify is seeing the payoff of that expansion with increasing valuations of its company, despite not being able to turn a profit. The latest valuation, according to a report from market research company Manhattan Venture Research, according to "Billboard," now has the Swedish streaming service sitting at $5.7 billion.

  • Spotify and Sony Partner With Playstation To Launch Playstation Music

    Spotify and Sony have teamed up with gaming giant, Playstation to launch Playstation Music. Playstation Network users will be able to link their Spotify accounts to their current accounts with their consoles. Users can import their current Spotify settings, including favorite artists, playlists etc., onto their Playstation 3 and 4 and Xperia smartphones and tablets. The move integrates Spotify's 30-million song library and over 1.5 billion playlists into the new network, which boats a membership of 64 million users.

  • Rdio Officially Launches Service in India

    Spotify streaming competitor Rdio has officially launched in India as per a statement. Rdio takes a big step with this move to increase its user base by adding the second most-populace country in the world of 1.25 billion people as potential listeners. Rdio boasts a library of more than 32 million songs in 43 languages from global, regional and local labels, and with the move into India will be working hard to recruit local content providers into vast networks.

  • Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" Speech and More Included on Epic Spotify Playlist with Music by Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, John Legend and More

    Spotify and the role it plays in the spread of music in the modern era will continue to inspire controversy and legal battles into the future. No one, listeners or musicians alike, can deny that the streaming service's playlist in honor of Martin Luther King on the Civil Rights leader's national holiday is spot-on. Spotify has assembled an epic playlist of King's most influential speeches and the music inspired by his actions, available for listening now.

  • Spotify Now Has 15 Million Premium Subscribers

    Spotify has announced that it has expanded its premium subscriber base to 15 million users. In a statement on the company's website, it revealed its year-end subscriber numbers for 2014. The company has grown to 15 million paid, premium users and 60 million active users in total.

  • Spotify Done with Topspin for Musician Merch, Don't Expect It to Pop Up at Beats Music Either

    Roughly eleven months ago your correspondent was excitedly working on a short article detailing Spotify's announcement that it would be teaming up with Topspin to allow performers to peddle their merchandise on the streaming service via their official band pages. It was at least a mild relief knowing that musicians could make money some other way via Spotify since the royalty payments-per-stream are on the low side. Eleven months later, your correspondent is back to let you know that Spotify is done with Topspin.

  • Apple Deletes White-Power Music from iTunes Following Report; Amazon and Google Have Yet to Respond

    Apple recently took down work on iTunes from bands that was deemed "white-power" or "racial-supremacy" music by the Southern Poverty Law Center in a new report. The company came under fire for offering the hateful music as well as giving customers more options with the "Listeners Also Bought" feature. According to "Rolling Stone" and "Noisey," Apple deleted 30 of the 54 bands last week that the SPLC pointed out in the report, but other online vendors like Amazon and Google have yet to do so."The racist music industry, a once lucrative source of funding for the white power movement, is a shadow of its former self," the report reads. "Over the past decade, it has become increasingly fragmented and disorganized in the wake of the collapse of several major labels and distributors. Concerts have become scarce and those that remain have been driven even further underground. However, the ever-resilient white power music scene has found new hope and new profit amidst the wreckage of a once multimillion-dollar industry from an unlikely source: the world's largest music vendor, iTunes."Apple's Terms and Conditions page for iTunes restricts submissions of work that is "obscene, objectionable or in poor taste," but that apparently was not strictly enforced.

  • Spotify Reveals Most Popular Peformers Played in Ten Cities Where Uber Users Control Playlist during Ride; From New York to Singapore

    As Music Times reported a while back, streaming service Spotify has teamed up with taxi app Uber so that not only can you flag down a cab with minimal hassle, you can force the driver to listen to your music while you go. Spotify has released the data from the ten cities that are currently Spotify/Uber enabled and created short eight-song playlists to show what's been stuck in drivers' heads recently.

  • Spotify Launches Thanksgiving 'Time For Turkey' Playlist Generator [LISTEN]

    Spotify has a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. The Swedish music streaming company recently posted its financial statements, which showed a 74 percent increase in revenue in 2013. So despite negative headlines from artists against the streaming model, it looks like things aren't too bad for the company. In the spirit of giving thanks, Spotify has launched a new program to help you out this Thanksgiving called the Time For Turkey playlist generator.
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