Bits & Bytes 9/10

INFLUENCING EMERGING MUSIC TECH CULTURE

View this email in your browser

THIS WEEK IN MUSIC x TECH

AUGUST 10, 2015

Dr. Dre released his first album in 16 years exclusively on Apple’s streaming platform. Musically, the album is well worth the listen. However, Dre’s release has also shifted the conversation over (or back to) to the power of premieres and exclusivity. It’s all starting to make sense for Apple Music now. Beats1 premieres new music through the station to their international audience, making those listeners the first people to hear a song. If artists play smart, they’ll use the Connect function to give their fans access to a new song that was debuted on Beats1. As TechCrunch said - "...through Connect and Beats 1 Radio, Apple Music has built a strategy that attracts debuts from the biggest artists in the world and makes them available to everyone for free." I personally think that strategy makes the most sense for everyone. Exclusive premieres and then ubiquity from there.I think it’s likely that debuts such as Dr. Dre’s album will show Apple Music users the value of being on the service and give them reason to actually pay for it. However, it’ll be interesting to see Apple’s drop-off rates after users’ free trial periods end. Right now Apple Music is FREE and there's only 11 million people subscribed. Even though it’s only a few weeks old, these are telling signs that hint at the importance of the freemium model. We’ll see where the dust settles. In the meantime, more and more music is available at our finger tips and readily accessible to share. - Jesse K // CEO, NUE Agency 

Is Spotify planning a new ‘Premium Tier’ to fight off Apple Music? According to Digital Music News, certain releases will only be available to paying Spotify subscribers in a new ‘gated access’ model. It is thought that this could also mean that some major new releases may only be accessible to non-subscribers for a limited time before going ‘premium-only’.

This could be the summer that fried SoundCloud, thanks to increasingly-contentious and deteriorating discussions with major music labels and publishers. In some ways it’s looking a little bit like what happened to Grooveshark. Can they do damage control?

So Facebook is pushing video. This is no surprise to anyone. At first glance, you’d think Facebook is even beating YouTube at the video war. It makes sense. Anyone can share a video to their own profile with one click – accelerating the viral factor. But learn why this is too good to be true. 

Prince has an interesting take on record deals: "I'm gonna say the word – slavery". He objects to record company contracts as they give artists little control over distribution and the revenue from new deals. 

"I would tell any young artist ... don't sign." 

That puts it in sixth place behind Pandora, Spotify, iTunes Radio, SiriusXM and Deezer. Is 11 million Apple Music subs anything to brag about? Learn what this means, in the context of other music services and of Apple's overall base. A case of win some & lose some. 

Beatport has said that it will pay “trapped” royalties to labels this week, after indefinite money delay due to parent company SFX Entertainment being taken back into private ownership. It has denied preferential treatment to the major labels, but it's more complicated than that. 

Launched in a flurry of excitement in 2011, single track recommendation service This Is My Jam has announced that it is to close next month. The site will stay live – becoming a “read-only time capsule” – though users will no longer be able to recommend new songs.