Notes from Spotify’s Zoom call to discuss Apple antitrust investigation
Earlier today, the European Commission launched two formal antitrust investigations of Apple, including one spurred in part by Spotify’s complaint to the EC last year.
This afternoon, Spotify held a Zoom call for journalists where its head of global affairs and chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez discussed the investigation, with added comments from external counsel Thomas Vinje, of Clifford Chance, who is Spotify’s lead counsel on the case.
Gutierrez spoke on the record, while Vinje spoke on background. You can read up on the specifics of Spotify’s complaint here, and Apple’s rebuttal last year here. But here are some of the key points made by Gutierrez during this afternoon’s call.
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Source: Music ally
Fortnite creator Epic Games tipped for valuation of $17bn
Epic Games isn’t just the publisher of Fortnite: it also owns also-popular-with-the-kids game Rocket League; video-chat app Houseparty; the Unreal Engine game development engine; and its own digital games store. No wonder its valuation is high: Bloomberg reported that Epic Games is about to raise a $750m funding round that values the company at around $17bn. That’s […]
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Source: Music ally
Cameo now helps fans buy a Zoom call with celebrities
Cameo is the app that lets people pay for celebrities to record personalised video messages for them (or friends and family as a gift). We wrote about it last June when the company raised a $50m funding round, noting that Snoop Dogg and Ice T were among the musicians available on Cameo. Now it has launched […]
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Source: Music ally
EC launches formal antitrust investigations of Apple – one sparked by Spotify complaint
In March 2019, Spotify filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission, accusing the latter company of anticompetitive behaviour in the way it managed its App Store and in-app purchases. 15 months on, the EC has now launched a formal antitrust investigation of Apple.
In fact, it has launched two, although they’re not just focused on Spotify’s complaint. The first will assess “whether Apple’s rules for app developers on the distribution of apps via the App Store violate EU competition rules”, and was sparked by Spotify’s complaint as well as another unnamed ‘e-book / audiobook distributor’.
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Source: Music ally
Sony invests $4.5m in sample clearance site Tracklib
Tracklib has been around since 2016, helping artists and producers to find and clear music for sampling. The company has just announced a $4.5m funding round from Sony Innovation Fund – the early-stage investment arm of Sony Music’s parent corporation – and Eelko van Kooten, founder of dance label Spinnin’ Records. Sony Innovation Fund had already […]
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Source: Music ally
Covid-19 tipped to spur 21% drop for French recorded music biz
Earlier this year, Spanish industry body Promusicae predicted a €100m hit to recorded music revenues in Spain this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now French body SNEP has come out with a comparable prediction for its own market, suggesting that recorded music revenues will fall by €235m this year due to Covid-19 – a drop of […]
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Source: Music ally
Linkfire’s latest streaming data partnership is with Deezer
Music marketing firm Linkfire has announced a deal with Deezer to access data on what music listeners do after following one of its ‘smart links’ to the streaming service.
Artists, labels and marketers using Linkfire will now be able to see, for example, whether fans have gone on to play a song, add it to their library or to one of their playlists on Deezer.
It’s the latest such ‘attribution’ or ‘conversion’ data partnership for the company, tackling the longstanding problem of understanding how clicks/taps on smart links translate into streams and other fan actions: data that helps to judge whether marketing budget has been well spent or not.
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Source: Music ally
#TheShowMustBePaused next steps: ‘Potentially a moment for real change’
Friday’s Music Ally TV Show focused on the #TheShowMustBePaused campaign, and the next steps that the music industry needs to take as a result. Our panelists were Mulika Sannie, Keith Harris and Estée Blu.
Sannie is VP of business affairs at Kobalt, and also founded the UK Black Music Lawyers Network in 2018.
Harris is the longtime representative for Steve Wonder, with an industry career ranging from EMI and Motown Records to PPL and UK Music’s Diversity Taskforce. Last week, he published an open letter to the music industry calling for last week’s day of action not to be another false dawn.
Estée Blu is an artist and trustee of educational organisation Sound Connections. Last week, she also addressed the topic of how racism, sexism and colourism affects Black women in music, in a post on Instagram.
“This is definitely potentially a moment for real change. The reason I say that: this is the first time I ever remember major companies coming up with real money to try to do something,” said Harris, as the show kicked off.
“Obviously a lot depends on how that money gets spent, and over what period of time, and on attitudes inside the companies.”
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Source: Music ally