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The Week In Music Commentary

• Copyright, Pre-1972 Sound Recordings and The Hypocrisy Of The Music Industry
• #Fangagement: Artists Crowdsourcing - Chris Robley Of CD Baby

 

Getting It Done: The Week In D.I.Y. & Indie Music

• Indie Labels Speak Out Against Negative Effects Of Major Labels On Record Store Day
• The Exodus From Social Media: Passover Symbolism In Our Own Musical Careers
• TuneCore Quarterly Artist Payments Hit $34 Million, Download and Streams Jump 75%
• De La Soul Sends Fans Of Their Free BitTorrent Bundle On A Record Store Day Easter Egg Hunt

 

MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: Self Publishing on YouTube

• Chelsea Ira | Self Publishing on YouTube

• Dave Cool | 13 Topics That Musicians Can Easily Blog About

REWIND: The New Music Industry's Week In Review

• Neil Young's Pono Kickstarter Ended Today With $6.22 Million Pledged
• Repetition Is Key To Writing Hit Songs
• Bonnaroo Plans Hackathon At Southland, Announces 5 Year Partnership With Red Bull Music Academy
• Apple To Integrate Shazam Song Recognition Into Siri, iOS 8
• Can Symbolic Objects Revive Music Collecting?

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Music & Entertainment Stocks Net Mixed Results This Week

The price of the top 10 music, music technology and related stocks at the close of the U.S. exchanges on Friday: 

AAPL - NMS	$524.94
Apple Inc.
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Indie Labels Speak Out Against Negative Effects Of Major Labels On Record Store Day

Earlier this year I wrote about concerns related to major labels' getting into vinyl and sucking up more of the limited time of current vinyl pressing facilities. However that's just one of the problems affecting indie labels and record stores for whom Record Store Day was created. But even if indie shops withdraw from RSD as some are doing, the crunch for vinyl pressing plants seems likely to increase as vinyl's audience grows.

Gramofon Adds Rhapsody and Napster

Sub-$50 music router and wifi hotspot Gramofon has announced that it will also stream Rhapsody and Napster in addition to Spotify. Backed by Fon, the creator of hugely popular free wifi hotspots, Gramofon connects select music streamers to home stereo systems. Mobile devices, including those of visting friends, serve as the remote control. 

Music Publishing News Weekly Roundup April 18, 2014: Imagine Dragons, Prince, Round Hill & More

Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons will receive the David Starlight Award at this year’s Annual Induction and Awards Dinner for the Songwriters Hall of fame. His Grammy-winning band released their album, Night Visions in the fall of 2012 to critical acclaim and Billboard success. Created in 2004, the Hal David Starlight award honors up and coming songwriters who are making an impact in the business. Previous winners are John Legend, Taylor Swift, and Benny Blanco.

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Hypebot Is Back Online!

We apologize for the outage over the last 18 hours. Our platform provider Typepad was suffering from a denial of service (DOS).  

Everything seems to be fine now and we're back to posting!

FRI. NEWS BRIEF: Prince Returns To Warners, Labels Sue Pandora, RadioPlayer Canada, Skrillex & More

FRIDAY 4.18.2014

Music Business News & Views From Around The Web 

 CLICK HERE Updated Continuously @ Hypebot's More News Tab 

Apple To Integrate Shazam Song Recognition Into Siri, iOS 8

Apple is working with Shazam to integrate its popular song recognition technology into its Siri iPhone and iPand voice recognition system, according to Bloomberg.

Cupertino's experimentation with Shazam comes as sales of digital downloads have slowed under increased competition from music streaming.

Jacobs Media's Techsurvey10 Finds Radio Occupying "Both Sides of the Digital Tipping Point"

Jacobs Media's latest survey of radio listeners, Techsurvey10, finds that "radio is on both sides of the tipping point." That sounds painful but, as it turns out, they're saying that many listeners are still tuning in to broadcast aka terrestrial radio via traditional sources while a growing number are listening to those stations digitally. It's one of the more interesting points of a survey which I feel could use a glossary for those of us who find radio important to the music industry but aren't part of the radio industry.

MusiXmatch Adds Lyrics To YouTube Music Videos

MusiXmatch has added lyrics to all sorts of places from Spotify to karaoke mics and now to YouTube music videos. This week the fully licensed lyrics company released an extension for Google's Chrome browser that adds lyrics to any YouTube music video for which they have the lyrics which is a lot of songs. Given the popularity of lyrics videos it should be a welcome addition to those who want to follow or sing along while still seeing a fancy music video.

Spotify Is Phasing Out P2P Streaming

Spotify is changing how it delivers music to users from peer to peer networks to streaming via its own dedicated servers. P2P delivery cut costs for the startup and delivered songs almost instantaneously, both impressive features back when Spotify launched.

The 5 Richest Hip Hop Artists [FORBES]

Forbes is out with its latest ranking of rich musicians. Diddy again leads a list of 5 Richest Hip Hop artists with his estimated fortune of $700 million, a jump of $120 million over his net worth last year. As with most of the artists on the list, much of the earnings come from ventures outside of cutting new tracks and touring. Here's the full list and what each has banked:

De La Soul Sends Fans Of Their Free BitTorrent Bundle On A Record Store Day Easter Egg Hunt

Building on the success of the March release of their free "Smell the D.A.I.S.Y." BitTorrent bundle, De La Soul are rewarding fans with a contest that combines Record Store Day and a classic easter egg hunt in honor of  J. Dilla.  Every fan who unlocked the BitTorrent bundle by submitting their email address, will receive a message today that limited edition vinyl of previously unreleased material from Dilla has been planted in records stores in select cities.

13 Topics That Musicians Can Easily Blog About

I love blogging. I would love nothing more than the spend more of my day writing - but sometimes, you just get stuck. I have been on a personal hiatus for exactly one year but have found my way back into writing by finding my inspiration in what's going on around me. What inspires you? What motivates you? What moves you to create the music you create? How do you share those experiences and that music with your audience? Blogging.

Tech Forward Music Videos from Cut Copy, Kodaline, Rob Cantor, Tropkillaz

I've been posting about creative music videos for the last couple of years at Hypebot. Generally I feature videos using new tech, particularly consumer web apps, to create music videos. Today's batch features a Cut Copy video that utilized 3D printing, a fanshot video by Kodaline using FanFootage and two music videos that use edited GIFs, one from Rob Cantor and one from Ilan Benjamin who created an unofficial video for Tropkillaz.

Copyright, Pre-1972 Sound Recordings and The Hypocrisy Of The Music Industry

By Mike Masnick of Techdirt.

Yet another story of hypocrisy by the recording industry? Why yes, indeed. For years now, we've been covering the issue of pre-1972 sound recordings. When Congress wrote the 1909 Copyright Act, it did not cover sound recordings, because Congress didn't think that sound recordings qualified for copyright. In a statement released by Congress with the Act, it said it deliberately chose not to cover sound recordings, believing that they weren't covered by the Constitutional limitation on "writings" for copyright protection:

#Fangagement: Artists Crowdsourcing - Chris Robley Of CD Baby

By C. Vincent Plummer, co-founder and social strategist for Bedloo.com

I'm here today with Chris Robley. He's a producer, songwriter, father, and a published poet. By day, he works as the marketing coordinator for CD Baby and BookBaby, where he manages the DIY Musician Blog which sees over 100k unique visits per month... 

Kerrville Folk Festival Founder Rod Kennedy Passes

Rod Kennedy, founder of the Kerrville Folk Festival, died on Monday in hospice care. He was 84 at the time of his passing. Kennedy launched the festival in 1972 as an offshoot of the Texas State Arts & Crafts Fair and the event has since become one of the longest running festivals in the U.S., presenting more than 1,500 artists on its stages over the years. Past performers at the festival include Peter Paul & Mary, Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Michelle Shocked, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Robert Earl Keen, Lucinda Williams, and Nancy Griffith among numerous others.

THU. NEWS BRIEF: Clear Channel Layoffs, New FCC Rules, Siri + Shazam, Is Record Store Day Too Big? & More

THURSDAY 4.17.2014

Music Business News & Views From Around The Web 

 CLICK HERE Updated Continuously @ Hypebot's More News Tab 

OpenAura Adds Content Partners Like The AP, Pitchfork, Beggars Group To Artist Platform

OpenAura is an interesting new project from IODA founder Kevin Arnold that, most noticeably, aggregates images from musicians' official web presence. Artists can claim those pages or "Auras," add additional content and monetize them. Today OpenAura added The Associated Press, Pitchfork Media and others to the mix. Content owners can add additional pics and info to artists' Auras and join in the hoped for monetization.fest.

Why It's Important To Know What Visitors Do Once They Reach Your Music Website

You're a smart musician who's got an official website so that you're not just building up somebody else's social network. You check out site states probably emphasizing how many visitors you're getting, where they came from and, as much as you can, why you got sudden surges or drops. Though that puts you ahead of many, there are deeper level to the site stats aka analytics game worth considering. I recently came across a treasure trove of information from Chartbeat that makes a clear case for what to do next.

Can Symbolic Objects Revive Music Collecting?

Collecting music in the digital age is often perceived as an individual problem, which it is because collecting is personal, but it's also a problem for musicians as a whole who benefit from the human compulsion to build collections. Losing a connection to collecting doesn't devalue music as art but it does undermine a force that can help support the business of music. As Gilles Poupardin of Whyd points out companies like his are attempting to create digital spaces for collecting music. While Qleek, a project currently in the design stage, offers an unlikely physical solution that one can use to inspire new responses to such issues.