Music Business Roundup: Pandora Launches Audio Messaging, Tumblr Cracks Down On Infringement, and More

Each week on Songwriter U, Songspace recaps the top stories in the world of music business. Here’s everything you need to know from the week ending on February 20th.

Pandora Launches Audio Messages From Artists
The streaming service has announced the launch of a new feature that allows artists to pre-record messages such as a reminder about tour dates or new music that will play at the end of one of their tracks. This is part of a continued effort by Pandora to target artists and get their support, as this offers a way to directly communicate with the artist’s listeners.
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Tumblr Cracks Down On Copyright Infringement
The social media site Tumblr has always had a three strikes rule regarding uploading content that violates copyright laws, but due to increased pressure from the RIAA and IFPI they are becoming more strict about the policy. If a user posts a video with copyrighted music they will receive a strike and notification, and after three their site will be taken down. Generally users that post copyrighted material aren’t aware that things like unofficial YouTube videos constitute copyright infringement.
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Drake’s Surprise Album Sets Streaming Record
Drake launched a surprise album on Spotify, which set a record for the streaming service for most album plays in its debut week in the US. Songs from the album tallied 17.3 million plays in just three days, beating a record Drake also held. Though the album had such large streaming numbers, it is also likely to do well on the Billboard charts with 500,000 sales expected.
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Rhapsody Makes A Comeback In The Streaming Market
With competition from other services like Spotify and Pandora, Rhapsody has had a difficult time competing and gaining customers. However, since an investor came into the picture in 2013 they have seen subscription numbers jump from around 800,000 to 2.5 million as of last week. The company is one to watch, after all they did invent the music streaming market.
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