business
Taylor Swift Sets Records, Completes Chart Double In Australia
Taylor Swift is the absolute champion of Australia’s charts this week as Folklore (Republic/Universal) bows at No. 1 on the national albums survey and its lead track “Cardigan” rules the singles tally. “Cardigan” opens at the summit of the ARIA Singles Chart, giving Swift her sixth leader and her first since “Look What You Made Me Do” hit the top in September 2017. Swift trails only Rihanna (7), Delta Goodrem (9), P!nk (9), Kylie Minogue (10) and Madonna (10) in the list of female solo artists with the most chart toppers, according to ARIA, and she’s the only artist among them to land five No. 1s the last decade. {“nid”:”9427594″,”type”:”post”,”title”:”Taylor Swift\u2019s \u2018Folklore\u2019 Reigns In U.K.”,”rel...
Microsoft Exploring TikTok Acquisition
Microsoft said Sunday (Aug. 2) that it would continue to explore an acquisition of TikTok after discussing the matter with President Donald Trump. The statement follows Trump’s Friday evening comments to reporters that he would take action as soon as Saturday to ban the app over national security concerns. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke to Trump over the weekend, the company disclosed. “Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s concerns,” reads part of the company’s statement. “It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury.” {“nid”:”9428152″,”type”:”...
The 1975, Niall Horan, Little Mix & More U.K. Artists and Music Industry Figures Unite Against Racism, Antisemitism
Hundreds of key players in the U.K.’s music industry, including artists, managers, producers and record labels, are co-signing an urgent call to speak out against racism and intolerance. A letter, supported by the likes of The 1975, Niall Horan, Little Mix, Nile Rodgers and Lewis Capaldi, major U.K. labels Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music and a number of industry figures — and accompanied with a call-to-action hashtag, #NoSilenceInMusic — was released Saturday night (Aug. 1). It can be read in full below. “We, representatives from the music industry, write to demonstrate and express our determination, that love, unity and friendship, not division and hatred, must and will always be our common cause,” the statement begins. “In recent mont...
President Trump Says He Will Ban TikTok From U.S.
The president made the remark on Air Force One on Friday evening. President Donald Trump said he will take action as soon as Saturday (Aug. 1) to ban TikTok, a popular Chinese-owned video app that has been a source of national security and censorship concerns. Trump’s comments came after published reports that the administration is planning to order China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok. There were also reports Friday that software giant Microsoft is in talks to buy the app. “As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told reporters Friday on Air Force One as he returned from Florida. Trump said he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to enforce the action, insisting, “I have that authority.” Reports by Bloomberg News and the Wall...
AI-Driven Rights Management Agency Muserk Forms Joint Venture to Reduce Piracy of Japanese Content
Muserk, the AI tech-driven global rights management agency for music and video, has partnered with leading Japanese marketing and media research company Video Research on a new joint venture designed to cut down on piracy of Japanese content worldwide. Dubbed Muserk V.I.D., the venture “will service, manage and protect the online rights of the major broadcasters, networks, and production companies of Japan, around the world,” according to a release announcing the deal. Through the partnership with Muserk, Video Research – which provides marketing, media and TV audience research for leading media firms and advertisers in Japan – will utilize Muserk’s AI technologies, M-Match and M-PAC, to manage and protect its clients’ online video rights. Founded by CEO Paul Goldman – who will serve as CE...
AMP Music Summit Draws Inspiration From History & Community in Second Virtual Event
The AMP Music Summit presented by KCRW held its second online conference earlier this week, celebrating the power of collaboration between artists, business leaders and local communities through music, storytelling, technology, law and culture. While the main arc of the AMP Music Summit focused on culture-shifting changes resulting from COVID-19, a common theme at AMP’s second event was the power of music to inspire smaller cities while building a sense of community and collective pride. “It’s great to hear the stories of hope and that’s really a lot of what we’re trying to do with this conference,” said Simon Lamb, who along with Rebel Industries founder Josh Levine and Seth Combs co-founded AMP Music Summit earlier this year. “We want to provide a counter narrative to s...
Executive Turntable: TalentX Founder Named Triller Chief Strategy Officer, Radio Promo Vets Launch New Company
Social media star, entrepreneur and TalentX Entertainment co-founder Josh Richards has been named chief strategy officer at AI-driven music video and entertainment platform Triller, which he also invested in. In his new role, Richards will lead strategy at Triller while also overseeing the company’s implementation of live streaming and monetization tools. Triller, a rival to the wildly popular video-sharing platform TikTok, last year raised $28 million in a funding round led by Proxima Media last year, also drawing investors including Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne. In June, the platform — which currently has music licensing partnerships with Warner, Sony Music and UMG — hit 50 million monthly active users. “After seeing the US and other countries’ governments’ concerns over Tik...
Apple overtakes Saudi Aramco as world’s most valuable public company
Apple’s stock hit a record high on Friday after reporting blockbuster quarterly results, helping the iPhone maker briefly overtake Saudi Aramco to become the world’s most valuable publicly listed company. Apple’s stock surged to as high as $412.22 a share, putting its market capitalization at $1.762 trillion, according to the share count provided by Apple in a regulatory filing on Friday. Saudi Aramco, which has been the most valuable publicly listed company since going public last year, had a market capitalization of $1.760 trillion as of its last close, according to Refinitiv data. Last up 6.2% at $408.78 in midday trading, Apple’s market capitalization stood at $1.748 trillion. After Apple bought back $16 billion worth of shares in the June quarter, it had 4,275,634,000 outstanding shar...
Amazon Prospers During Pandemic With Expectation-Beating Results
Amazon dodged a coronavirus bullet in its second quarter, posting big gains in sales and operating income as shoppers around the world stayed home and did the bulk of their shopping online. The online retail giant, which operates the Amazon Music streaming platform and is one of a small handful of tech companies in the “trillion-dollar club”, reported net sales of $88.9 billion in the quarter ending June 30, 2020, beating analysts’ expectations with a whopping 40 per cent improvement on the same period last year. Also during the period, operating income almost doubled to $5.8 billion, up from $3.1 billion in second quarter of the previous year. Revenue from subscription services ballooned to $6 billion, well advanced from the $4.6 billion reported in the corresponding per...
Publishing Briefs: Rodney Jerkins Puts Hipgnosis Under His Spell, Primary Wave Acquires Stake in Devo
Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited has acquired the 982-song music catalog of four-time Grammy winner Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, who under the terms of the deal will also join Hipgnosis’ Investment Adviser’s Advisory Board. The agreement includes 100% of Jerkins’ writer’s share of income for his early works and 100% of his publishing interest and writer’s share of income for his later works. Jerkins’ long list of hits includes tracks for Mary J. Blige (“I Can’t Love You”), Brandy (“The Boy Is Mine”), Whiney Houston (“It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”), Destiny’s Child (“Say My Name”), Beyoncé (“Déjà Vu”), Spice Girls (“Holler”/”Let Love Lead the Way”), Michael Jackson (“You Rock My World”), Sam Smith (“Stay With Me”), Lady Gaga (“Telephone” feat. Beyoncé), Jennifer Lopez (“If You Had My Love”), Jus...
SiriusXM, Pandora Add Self-Pay Subscribers, Advertising Falls Amid Pandemic
Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM, the home of Howard Stern, on Thursday said it added self-pay subscribers in its satellite radio and Pandora businesses for the second quarter, the first one that was fully affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The company, controlled by John Malone‘s Liberty Media, said its satellite radio subscribers fell when including promotional subs, just like had been the case in the first quarter. In the year-ago period, it had added a total of 174,000 net users. In the latest period, SiriusXM added 264,000 self-pay customers, but lost 768,000 promotional subs to end June with 30.3 million self-pay and 34.3 million total users, down 516,000. “Paid promotional subscribers decreased due to declines in shipments from automakers offering paid trial su...
Ashley Judd’s Sexual Harassment Claim Against Harvey Weinstein Revived by Appeals Court
Harvey Weinstein will have to face a sexual harassment claim from Ashley Judd even though the actress was never actually employed by the disgraced movie mogul. On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that California Civil Code § 51.9 encompassed their relationship sufficiently to provide Judd with the ability to sue him for sexual harassment. Judd alleges in her complaint that she became Weinstein’s victim when the movie mogul made demands on her in a hotel room about 20 years ago. Judd says that she only escaped after relenting to a deal where she would let him touch her if she won an Academy Award. Later, Judd says she was in serious discussions for a big role in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, but that opportunity was torpedoed after Weinstein or someone ...
