music streaming

Pandora calls artist royalties flap an orchestrated 'lie'

Pandora struck back against critics Wednesday, calling accusations that the streaming radio service is trying to shortchange musicians "a lie."

In a blog post Wednesday, Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren accused the Recording Industry Association of America, the organization charged with defending the interests of musicians, of orchestrating and funding a "misinformation campaign" involving well-known artists. The RIAA believes artists should be paid more than they currently receive for their songs being played on the streaming service and has accused Pandora of trying to persuade musicians to accept a substantial reduction in royalties.

While saying he bore … Read more

Apple said to be enticing indie labels for iTunes Radio

While Apple has sealed the deal with the three major music recording labels for its upcoming iTunes Radio service, the company is now looking to lure independent labels.

The tech giant has reportedly been talking to various indie music labels, letting them know how the royalty pay scale will work on the new service, according to the Wall Street Journal. Labels will be paid on how many listens each song gets, along with ads that Apple sells.

According to the Wall Street Journal, labels will get 0.13 cent every time a song is played and 15 percent of ad … Read more

At last, Apple's answer to Pandora

As was widely speculated, at WWDC 2013 today Apple unveiled iTunes Radio, its entry into the already-crowded streaming-music field.

Like the popular streaming-music service Pandora, iTunes Radio lets you create personalized radio stations based on one or more artists, albums, songs, or genres of your choice. This makes it an attractive alternative to your iTunes library if you're looking to discover new music. And if you are already using iTunes or the built-in Music app on iOS as your media player of choice, then jumping onto iTunes Radio is almost a no-brainer, since it will come built into these … Read more

'The Pirate Cinema' snoops on torrent downloads in the name of art

The Pirate Cinema chaotically visualizes the most popular video torrent files found on The Pirate Bay in a mesmerizing and sometimes visually overwhelming way.

Created by artist Nicolas Maigretto and programmed by Brendan Howell, the cinematic collage involves a custom-programmed box that intercepts real-time peer-to-peer file sharing among the top 100 torrent files (on The Pirate Bay) and projects flashes of the actively downloaded video content on one of three screens.… Read more

Spotify's latest feature makes discovering new music easier

Making good on its promise to make new music easier to discover, Spotify announced Tuesday that it has rolled out its Discover page to the public.

With this new feature, Spotify users can get personalized recommendations, see related music, find touring dates for favorite artists, and more.

"We've made your listening experience more personal, more social, and more current," Spotify Chief Product Officer Gustav Soderstrom said in a statement.

The Discover page originally was announced in December and has been in beta until now. In addition to giving users personalized recommendations based on listening history, the streaming … Read more

Spotify debuts weekly top 50

This week the most streamed song on Spotify in the U.S. is "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and the most shared song on social networks is "Lift Me Up" by Five Finger Death Punch.

How did this information become available?

Spotify launched a new feature Tuesday that provides weekly updates of the 50 most streamed and viral songs within its music-streaming platform.

Dubbed Spotify Charts and available in 28 countries, this top 50 feature also shows how many plays each song has to date. ("Can't Hold Us" is … Read more

Google beats Apple to it with streaming music service

Google launched a music streaming service Wednesday, taking its first stab at the growing industry with a new service linked to Google Play for Android.

The All Access service costs $9.99 a month and you get a 30-day free trial. And it's launching Wednesday in U.S., with additional countries coming soon. If you sign up by June 30, you get it for $7.99 a month.

The move puts Google in direct competition with music streaming companies like Pandora and Spotify, and also potentially with Apple, which has been inching in that direction. Just last week, for … Read more

Songza 3.0 for iOS: The single best music-streaming app?

Not to gush, but I've loved Songza from the moment I installed it on my iPhone -- way back in June, 2012.

In fact, it has displaced both Pandora and Slacker as my music-streaming app of choice. That's because Songza builds playlists based on whatever activity I'm currently engaged in (working, making dinner, fighting commuter traffic) or mood I'm in (gloomy, happy, romantic), and does so without interruptions or money. You read that right: the app is free, and the music plays commercial-free.

With version 3.0 for iOS, Songza just got even better. (It's also available for Android, but hasn't been similarly updated yet.) It's sporting a vastly improved UI, handy new search and navigation features, and the promise of better audio quality.… Read more

Does it still make sense to buy music?

About a year ago I asked readers if it still made sense to buy CDs, what with DRM all but dead and MP3 albums typically selling for less than their disc-based counterparts.

The response was incredible, with some pretty passionate defense of the seemingly antiquated CD. For some users, it's all about sound quality. For others, it's about the security of owning physical media.

Lately I've been wondering if it makes sense to own music at all. Make no mistake: I grew up accumulating LP and 45 records (a crate of which I recently donated to charity), … Read more

For labels, Apple's iRadio deal could be sweeter than Pandora

Apple is close to striking a streaming deal with two of the major music labels that could end up far sweeter for the music industry than what the labels currently get from Pandora, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

Much has been made in recent weeks of Apple trying to squeeze the labels on terms, and the deals do have Apple paying the labels a per-stream rate that's half of what Pandora pays. But CNET has learned that Apple's planned music service would offer new revenue streams as well.

That includes a quick way for consumers … Read more