Spotify

Spotify today has been hit with a pair of lawsuits that accuse the streaming service of “staggering” copyright infringement. Spotify is no stranger to issues with royalty payouts and licensing problems, and while the company has taken steps to improve in those areas, these lawsuits claim it still has a long way to go…

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Spotify has succeeded in negotiating a reduced royalty rate to Sony Music Entertainment, and is hoping to do the same with Warner.

The service is not, however, getting the deal without offering something in return …

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Spotify this week has acquired a music artificial intelligence startup called Niland as it looks to improve its music recommendation backend. Spotify announced the acquisition on its website, saying that AI can be instrumental in improving music search and recommendations.

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The European Union is planning a new law to address what it describes as ‘unfair contractual clauses’ following a complaint by Spotify, Deezer and others.

While Apple was not specifically named in the complaint, Spotify considers it unfair that Apple takes a 15% cut of in-app subscription purchases, arguing that this makes it less competitive against Apple Music …

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Spotify is launching a new feature called “Spotify Codes” that will generate a unique, QR-like code for anything on Spotify, which the company hopes will be used for sharing and discovery of new music. (via TechCrunch).

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Spotify has long been the subject of discrepancies of unpaid royalties to artists, as well as the actual rates it pays. For instance, the latest RIAA report showed that the company pays artists less than half of what Apple Music pays. Spotify has now, however, made an acquisition that will ideally help with those problems…

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The folks over at Spotify had to have been impressed when Andrew Chang first revealed Spotty, a third-party Spotify companion app for the Apple Watch. We went hands-on with Spotty back in early February, and were likewise impressed by the app’s full-featured design, offline Spotify playback ability, and workout integration.

After being met with some initial legal pushback over Spotty’s name and close resemblance to the official Spotify app, it was unclear what the future might hold for Chang’s highly-anticipated creation. Since then, the app has been visually updated and rebranded as Snowy.

But give credit to Spotify, because instead of overreacting and using the company’s significant legal resources to shut the project down, the Stockholm, Sweden-based company has agreed to collaborate with Chang to help fill in an obvious void on Apple Watch.
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Both Spotify and Apple Music users today have noticed that albums from hip-hop artist Jay-Z, who happens to be owner of competing music streaming service Tidal, have been removed from the services.

It appears that most of the artist’s original albums have been removed while some content where he is a featured artist or collaborator, and perhaps not the sole owner of the content, remains available for streaming. Tidal representatives have not officially announced the move, but Spotify’s support team is confirming the removal to users of the service on social media (via MacRumors).

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Ahead of the debut of Apple’s previously announced Carpool Karaoke TV series on Apple Music next month, Spotify today announced what sounds a lot like a knockoff of the series with its own show called “Traffic Jams.”

But instead of having celebrities and musicians perform a song karaoke-style, Spotify is going to have artists produce a song in a moving vehicle (innovation!). It’s hosted by comedian DoBoy who will also drive the vehicle while the artists perform in the back. So, in other words, it’s exactly like Carpool Karaoke. Not a great look for Spotify’s answer to Apple’s original content plans if you ask me.

The first show is set to debut April 4th and feature artists T-Pain and Southside:

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Spotify is considering a move that would mean some of its biggest new releases will be restricted to paid users, according to a new report from Financial Times. The decision would come as part of a negotiation with record labels that would reduce the amount of royalties Spotify pays for songs and also allow the company to prepare for an initial public offering, the report claims:

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This week Pandora is launching its on-demand music service with features like what other subscription services including Apple Music and Spotify offer. Before now Pandora has primarily served streaming radio stations based on artists and tracks. Pandora Premium opens the service’s catalog of music up to on-demand access for a monthly fee.

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According to a leaked slide obtained by The Verge, Spotify is planning to introduce a more expensive price tier that offers higher quality lossless audio streaming. The tier is said to be priced at $10 more than Spotify’s standard offering, meaning it will come in at $20 per month.

Would you pay more for lossless support with Apple Music streaming?

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If you’re a Spotify Premium user with an Apple Watch, you’re well aware of a big glaring omission as far as watchOS apps are concerned. Indeed, we’re approaching two years since the Apple Watch arrived in stores, and there’s still no official Spotify app for watchOS.

Developer and second year undergrad CS student, Andrew Chang, is aiming to lessen the void when he releases Spotty — a currently-in-beta, free third-party app that will allow Spotify Premium users to sync playlists and albums for offline playback.

That’s right; the app’s offline mode lends users the option of leaving their iPhones at home or in the car while engaged in Spotify-powered music workouts.

Spotty is a super-impressive app that works with all models of Apple Watch. Watch our hands-on video walkthrough as I take the app for a test drive.
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Spotify has updated its Mac client app today featuring integration with the new MacBook Pro Touch Bar for the first time, with a similar experience to the iTunes Touch Bar interface. Spotify continues to lead in the streaming music space with 40 million paid subscribers, Apple Music currently touts 20 million customers on the $9.99/month subscription plan.

The Spotify app now shows transport, shuffle and search controls in the Touch Bar whilst the app is frontmost as well as integration with Now Playing for persistent access to playback options whilst music is playing in the background. Moreover, Spotify now supports the Apple AirPods auto-pause feature.

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There have been multiple reports of Spotify Free ads launching malware on all platforms – including in Safari on Macs. This is not the first time the issue has occurred, the company apologising after a previous incident back in 2011 …

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According to a new report from the Financial Times, Spotify is in “advanced talks” to acquire SoundCloud, the popular user-focused streaming music service. Details of the acquisition talks are unclear at this point, the report comes the same day as Apple Music was ranked #1 for customer satisfaction by J.D. Power in its first streaming music study.

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Spotify may still comfortably be the market leader in streaming music, with 30M paid subscribers against only half that for second-placed Apple Music, but it’s had a full decade to reach that number – against just over a year for Apple’s service. Playlists are a key battleground in the competition between the two, and Spotify’s latest weapon is Release Radar.

Release Radar, launching today, is a personalized For You-style playlist updated weekly. Unlike Discover Weekly, a playlist focused on discovering new music, Release Radar focuses primarily on the artists you already know and love …

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If Apple versus FBI was the big story to start the year, then it looks like Apple versus Spotify will be the hot battle of the summer. Yesterday a letter surfaced in which Spotify accused Apple of being anticompetitive with its App Store policies and holding back a Spotify update in order to benefit Apple Music. This letter is likely what prompted Senator Elizabeth Warren’s negative remarks about Apple earlier this week.

Now Apple is pushing back and without mincing words. Apple’s top lawyer Bruce Sewell has issued a three-page response to Spotify (via Buzzfeed) in which he accuses Spotify of “resorting to rumors and half-truths about our service.”

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Spotify has become very vocal in recent weeks about Apple’s business practices for its App Store. Apple recently revamped its subscription policy for iOS developers, offering a 85/15 split if developers keep customers for more than a year, but Spotify is still not happy with proceedings.

In a letter to Washington seen by Recode, the company now says Apple is being anti-competitive by rejecting its latest update to the Spotify app in order to encourage sales of its own $9.99 Apple Music subscriptions. Spotify is making a lot of noise to suggest Apple is using illicit business practices to elevate the success of Apple Music, by crippling Spotify and other third-party services.

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