• YouTube Subscription Service Music Key to Launch Today

    YouTube's new subscription music service, Music Key, is set to launch today, Nov. 17. The service will allow paying customers access to licensed music videos without the hassle of advertisements. Users will even be able to watch music videos without an Internet connection.MTV News points out that, like Spotify's pay model, users will pay a monthly fee of $7.99 — $9.99 after the promotional offer expires — for the service.It has been a long road for YouTube's streaming experiment, the company has been working on the project for more than a year. Many of the major labels signed licensing agreements early on with the music video giant, but indie labels were not as eager. Trade organizations representing the indies said that the deal was unfair because they were being offered less money than the major labels.Last week, the two parties reached an agreement, giving YouTube the last piece of the puzzle.

  • Video of 12-Year-Old Taylor Swift Belting the National Anthem at a Philadelphia 76ers Game Surfaces [WATCH]

    Taylor Swift had the makings of a star even when she was a 12-year-old. Old video footage of the young "Shake It Off" singer performing the national anthem at a Philadelphia 76ers game in Pennsylvania recently went viral.Swift, a native of Reading, Pennsylvania, is shown in the brief clip below belting the last few lines of "The Star-Spangled Banner," including the challenging "o'er the land of the free" part, "The Huffington Post" reports. The singer does a spectacular job, considering her age at the time. I am sure no one knew Swift would one day rule the charts after listening to her performance, but she had plenty of years to improve. The next T.Swift is out there, though, so do not disregard any youngster you see belting out the beloved song.In case you missed it, New Zealand singer Lorde was also an excellent singer at age 12.

  • Spotify Co-Founder Responds to Taylor Swift, Says Singer Could've Made $6 Million from Streaming

    Taylor Swift pulled her catalogue from Spotify last week, which set off a nationwide debate over the music streaming service."If I had streamed the new album, it's impossible to try to speculate what would have happened," Swift said. "But all I can say is that music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment. And I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music. And I just don't agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free."On Tuesday, Nov. 11, Spotify co-founder Daniel Elk offered a rebuttal and estimated that Swift would have made $6 million from Spotify streaming by the end of the year.His argument included "three myths," including "free music for fans means artists don't get paid."Elk believes that Spotify's free service leads to more premium subscribers, and therefore more cash for artists.

  • Adele's Manager Is Pro-Spotify: 'Streaming Is the Future'

    Adele's manager Jonathan Dickins is a music industry power mover who also represents Jack Penate, Jamie T, London Grammar and Paul Epworth, among others.The 42-year-old Brit recently shared his thoughts on Spotify and other streaming services in lieu of Taylor Swift's decision to ditch that model."Streaming is the future, whether people like it or not. Within five years it will be ubiquitous," he said at a Dublin Web Summit conference that also featured pro-Spotify speaker Bono, according to "Billboard."

  • High-Quality Audio Service Tidal Enters the United States Market

    Audiophiles, rejoice! If you have been looking for an alternative to the average to low-quality sound being streamed by services like Spotify, Beats Music and YouTube, then a new audio service called Tidal is here for you. The service launched in the United States market last week as the first streaming service to offer only high-quality audio.Deezer Elite, which launched in the United States last month, offers high quality as part of its package, but you must be hooked up to Sonos to get the quality. Tidal streams high-fidelity lossless quality, which means it is at 1411 kilobytes per second. To put that in perspective, Spotify streams at 160 kbps for standard desktop and Web player users, iTunes downloads at 256 kbps and Beats Music at 320 kbps, widely considered to be the threshold for good quality for an MP3.Tidal has a library of 25 million songs, comparable to Spotify and Beats Music, and comes with a curation aspect as well. The service creates playlists and gives you recommendations from their editorial team. Not only do you get high-quality music, but you also get HD video for music videos as well.

  • Spotify Royalties Overtake iTunes in Europe, According to Kobalt Music; Will Taylor Swift Be Back Soon?

    Music industry heads might not have been shocked at the announcement this week but the news was still monumental: According to royalty disbursement agency Kobalt (via TechCrunch), streaming royalties from Spotify have surpassed the totals of iTunes for the first time during the last quarter. The company reported that the average performer received 13 percent higher payouts from streaming royalties than that of downloads.

  • Taylor Swift Pulls Entire Music Catalog from Spotify, Report Blames Big Machine Sale

    Taylor Swift's entire music catalog was pulled from Spotify this weekend, and the company was on its knees to try and get her back."We hope she'll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone," a blog post on the site read. "We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy. That's why we pay nearly 70 percent of our revenue back to the music community."An anonymous source told Billboard that the pending Big Machine sale is responsible for the decision.
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