Music Publishing News Weekly Roundup 9.12.14: Spotify Video Ads, ASCAP Workshop, ACM Honors
Spotify has introduced video ads as an attempt to generate more revenue from non paying users. The leading music streaming service’s “Sponsored Session” will be a15 – 30 second video ad followed by 30 minutes of uninterrupted music. The idea behind this new strategy is allow non paying users to have longer uninterrupted listening time in exchange for an up front video message. A similar campaign was launched for desktop Spotify users called “Video Takeover”. Company’s opting into this new strategy are McDonalds, Nike, Sprint, and Target among others.
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ASCAP has announced a new Songwriter’s Workshop in NYC. This year’s Jerry Ragovoy Songwriters Workshop as a tribute to historic ASCAP writer of hits such as “Piece Of My Heart”, “Cry Baby”, and “Get It While You Can”. The workshop will be held at ASCAP’s NYC offices and will span over 3 dates in October. During the sessions, a select few advanced songwriters will learn from guest speakers in A&R, Music Publishing, Management, and other facets of the industry. The deadline for applying for this event is September 26th, 2014. If you are interested you can learn more here.
The 8th Annual ACM Honors event was held at this week at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Hosted by Jake Owen, the show honored winners and nominees for for ACM’s that were not televised at the annual PBS ACM Awards. Among many winners was songwriter and ASCAP member Shane Mcanally who won Songwriter Of The Year. To celebrate this award, performances were held by Kelly Clarkson, HIllary Scott, Kacey Musgraves, and Kenny Chesney who all sang their hits written by the acclaimed songwriter. Producer Dan Huff also took home producer of the year.
Music Piracy has dropped by 20% in Australia. Spotify has always had the goal of competing with torrent and filesharing websites for music. because of this, they heavily monitor piracy rates for any new market they enter. After the platfor finished their first year of operation in Australia, they reported a 20% drop in piracy. Will Page, Spotify's Director of Economics determined this drop was mostly due to casual file-sharers while heavy pirates remained active. They also determined that BitTorrent users in Australia decreased.
