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All the latest news in music, tech and apps: 10/12/2018
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The Digest 10/12/2018

Hello all - 

We've covered Tencent's IPO on the US stock exchange for some time now, so it was a surprise to see that the company has now pulled the plug on the whole thing for the time being. The reason given is apparently market volatility, with Wall Street suffering its single biggest drop in 8 months... but as Music Ally point out below, this might also spook investors and could even wind up scuppering the IPO altogether. The very act of postponing the IPO will shake confidence, and that in turn could lead to a botched effort should Tencent still go through with it. Ergo, what might have been a very interesting bellwether for the music industry (all the more so given Spotify's direct listing and Deezer's cancelled attempts some time ago) may not now come to pass. 

On a wider level, it is not a surprise to see that - as expected - Google is the main beneficiary of Europe's GDPR laws coming into effect. Experts had predicted this so it is hardly a shock, but the news dovetails nicely with another article below from Democratic Silicon Valley representative Ro Khanna, asking whether we need a new Internet Bill of Rights that would enshrine the protection of data (and clear, plain English explanations of how personal data is being used) into law for US consumers. This is something I've felt has been a long time coming, and whilst the article is only an op-ed, one wonders how long things can continue before moves are made to bring the likes of Facebook and Google to heel. And if they don't - well, we're already seeing the fallout of that where Facebook is concerned, as all signs suggest that the cultural capital of the platform is now in terminal decline.

Have a great weekend, 

D.  

Contents:

Make Royalties Great Again: President Donald Trump signs Music Modernization Act into law

The Music Modernization Act reforms mechanical licensing through the creation of a Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), paid for by digital companies, which will offer digital streaming services a blanket license in return for improved payments to songwriters and copyright owners. The bill also improves the rate standard by which songwriters’ mechanical rates are considered and makes improvements to the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees. Additionally, the bill ensures pre-1972 legacy artists are paid for their work when played on satellite and digital radio and codifies the process through which producers and engineers are paid.
 
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/make-royalties-great-again-president-trump-signs-music-modernization-act-into-law/
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Albums in the streaming era: ‘Think of it as a blank canvas for telling stories’

Page had some new stats to wield. In the UK, on Spotify alone, more than five million people a week stream music from album pages – as in the pages on Spotify that house an album and its full tracklisting, rather than from playlists, charts or artist profiles. He added that according to research firm Kantar, that’s more people than were buying digital albums at the peak of the music-downloads era, in 2013 – and that was on a yearly basis. (There’s a discussion to be had around how meaningful this stat is. It’s not a like-for-like comparison of ‘album listeners’, or even of modern-day ‘album streamers’ and past-times ‘album buyers on all formats’ after all. And as Page pointed out, we don’t have historical data on how those past album purchases related to actual listening after they were bought.)
 
https://musically.com/2018/10/11/albums-in-the-streaming-era-just-think-of-it-as-a-blank-canvas-for-telling-stories/
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Tencent Music IPO on hold amid market turbulence?

The story appears to be that TMEG met with its underwriters this week and decided to postpone the IPO amid fears that any sell-off could negatively affect its pricing. The immediate result – predictably – was that its stock value tumbled on the Dow Jones. The timeline for the IPO was supposed to involve a roadshow to investors kicking off next week, with trading to begin the following week. There is still no official confirmation from Tencent that this is how it played out or any indication of what will happen now: if the IPO will be quickly rescheduled for a new date (there are suggestions it could now happen in November, assuming spooked potential investors can be placated); or if the whole plan is going to be quietly mothballed.
 
https://musically.com/2018/10/12/tencent-music-ipo-on-hold-amid-market-turbulence/
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Genius is bringing lyrics to Apple Music - but it's also sticking with Spotify

New York-based lyrics platform Genius has made Apple Music its official music player. Starting today, Apple Music subscribers who visit Genius will be able to play any song in full right from the song page, by signing into their Apple Music account. In addition, users of Apple Music will be able to access the Genius lyrics database via the streaming app across thousands of hit songs. MBW understands, however, that Genius is continuing to power Spotify’s popular ‘Behind the Lyrics’ feature.
 
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/genius-is-bringing-lyrics-to-apple-music-but-its-also-sticking-with-spotify/
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Facebook combines Messenger and Groups

There are tens of millions of Facebook Groups. And starting today, they’re all going to get a new feature: integration with Messenger, which lets members chat in real time. A new Chat tab will let members start a new conversation; up to 250 people can participate in any specific thread. The new feature sounds like a logical extension of group-chat features that Messenger launched back in March.
 
https://www.fastcompany.com/90249782/facebook-combines-messenger-and-groups-invents-the-chat-room?partner=feedburner
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Deepfakes helped Charli XCX imitate the Spice Girls in her latest music video

But here’s evidence that deepfakes could also be used for mainstream video editing: the latest music video from Charli XCX uses the technology as a special effect. The “1999” video is a perfect use case for deepfakes. In it, Charli and singer Troye Sivan pay homage to various 1990s touchstones, like Steve Jobs, TLC’s “Waterfalls” music video, Titanic, the Nokia 3310, The Sims, and so on. At two points, the creators of the video used the same basic deepfakes algorithms to paste Charli and Sivan’s faces onto dancers imitating the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys.
 
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/11/17963166/charli-xcx-1999-video-spice-girls-deepfakes-ryan-staake
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Apple plans to give away original content for free to device owners

Apple is preparing a new digital video service that will marry original content and subscription services from legacy media companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Owners of Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV will find the still-in-the-works service in the pre-installed "TV" application, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details of the project are private. The product will include Apple-owned content, which will be free to Apple device owners, and subscription "channels," which will allow customers to sign up for online-only services, such as those from HBO and Starz.
 
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/10/apple-plans-to-give-away-original-content-for-free-to-device-owners.html
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Believe buys majority stake in rock and metal label Nuclear Blast

Believe Digital has acquired a majority stake in 31-year-old rock and metal label, Nuclear Blast, for what MBW understands is an eight-figure sum. The wide-ranging deal sees Believe become a distribution partner and shareholder of Germany-born Nuclear Blast – one of the biggest existing label brands in rock music. Company founder Markus Staiger also remains a shareholder.
 
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/believe-buys-again-acquiring-majority-stake-in-rock-and-metal-label-nuclear-blast/
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Instagram tests tapping instead of scrolling through posts, first in Explore

Tap to advance, pioneered by Snapchat, eliminates the need for big thumbstrokes on your touch screen that can get tiring after awhile. It also means users always see media full-screen rather than having to fiddle with scrolling the perfect amount to see an entire post. Together, these create a more relaxing browsing experience that can devour hours of a user’s time. Instagram doesn’t show ads in Explore, but tap-to-advance could save your thumb stamina for more feed and Stories viewing where it does earn money.
 
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/11/instagram-tap-to-advance/
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The Facebook Breach Shows We Need an Internet Bill of Rights

First, you should be able to know and access what personal data of yours companies collect. Instead of reading a long and convoluted legal document, it should be clear and in plain language what information of yours is being collected. Second, you should be able to opt-in and consent when that personal data is being collected and shared. It should be clear exactly what you are consenting to, but such prompts shouldn’t be relentless to the point of fatigue.
 
http://time.com/5421850/facebook-google-internet-bill-of-rights/
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Study: Google is the biggest beneficiary of the GDPR

For users this means that while the number of trackers asking for access to their data is decreasing, a tiny few (including Google) are getting even more of their data. This is not least due to the fact that many consent management tools use manipulative UX design (so-called dark patterns) to nudge users towards particular choices and actions that may be against their own interests. They trick the users into clicking away these pesky privacy consent notices and thus “consent” to any kind of data collection.
 
https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/study-google-is-the-biggest-beneficiary-of-the-gdpr
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Other recent articles:

SoundCloud expands direct monetization program to hundreds of thousands of users
Looking for the Music in Tencent Music
Can Snapchat's Original Shows Keep Users From Disappearing?
‘Ethical Pool’ idea could let fans choose user-centric royalties
Rob Stringer talks Spotify, A&R, YouTube... and the possibility of a major label-owned streaming service
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