Shazam Entertainment officially announced that it’s landed a series of investments from many of the world’s biggest record companies, indicating that the music industry is looking at new and different methods of keeping relevant and present. Shazam, whose latest valuation was $500 million, said that Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment are each taking $3 million stakes in Shazam, which were purchased through a third party investor. These groups all also own a stake in Spotify, and have used the platform to push artists’ streams, and thus its likely we’ll see these music groups do the same on Shazam.
Tag: Record label
iTunes Radio Pays More Royalties Than Pandora
Many around the tech industry thought that Apple’s long negotiations with record companies leading to its release of iTunes Radio meant that they were trying to get copyright holdings for less. Instead, it turns out that Apple is paying more than its major rival, Pandora – to the tune of $0.13 per song, one cent more than Pandora. As well, Apple is paying out 15% of its advertising revenue over the first year of its contract, and that number will increase to 19% in the second year. Apple is offering music publishers more than twice as much in royalties than Pandora pays, meaning that iTunes Radio has the potential to be much more lucrative for record companies moving forward.
