licensing
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Peloton users stuck with 'terrible tunes' following licensing lawsuit
Connected exercise bike maker Peloton was hit with a $150 million lawsuit last month for playing unlicensed music, and now its customers are feeling the fall out. Owners of the machines, which cost up to $4,000 each, have taken to the internet to complain about the poor music selection now accompanying their $468 annual workout membership.
Spotify settles $1.6 billion copyright infringement lawsuit
Last year, Wixen Music Publishing filed a lawsuit against Spotify alleging that the music streaming service was using tens of thousands of songs without the proper licensing. But the $1.6 billion lawsuit has now come to a close as both companies have reached a settlement, Music Business Worldwide reports. "I want to thank Daniel Ek and Horacio Gutierrez, and the whole Spotify team, for working with the Wixen team, our attorneys and our clients to understand our issues, and for collaborating with us on a win-win resolution," Wixen President Randall Wixen said in a statement.
Xiaomi takes over Meitu’s struggling selfie-focused phone business
Chinese selfie app and smartphone company Meitu announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Xiaomi. Going forward, Meitu will license its brand, technologies and hardware to China-based Xiaomi, and for upcoming smartphones, Xiaomi will handle design, research, development, production, business operation, sales and marketing while Meitu will deal with image-related algorithms and technologies. Meitu said its mission has been "to inspire more people to express their beauty," and its board of directors has determined that a partnership with Xiaomi will aid in carrying out that mission.
iTunes headache is a reminder purchases might not travel with you
Anders Gonçalves da Silva recently had three movies disappear from his iTunes library and a letter he received from Apple stated that it was because those titles were no longer available from the iTunes Store. Naturally, the response caused outrage at the idea that Apple can delete movies you've paid for just because the provider doesn't want them on iTunes any longer. But as CNET reports, it turns out da Silva's situation was a little more complicated than that and it's one that highlights the headaches digital content -- and the licensing rules that go along with it -- can cause for people moving to a new region.
Spotify offers advances to indie artists who directly license music
Apple might not be the only streaming music giant eager to cut out the middle managers. Billboard sources claimed that Spotify has offered advance fees to indie artists and managers in exchange for licensing some of their songs directly to Spotify. They'd get 50 percent of the per-stream revenue. That's less than the 54 percent under conventional arrangements, but the absence of a publisher would give them dramatically more money. Right now, they typically only receive 20 to 50 percent of the label's share -- they'd get a pay raise even as Spotify took a larger slice of the pie.
'PES 2019' loses Borussia Dortmund ahead of launch
Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer series can't catch a break. It's been second fiddle to EA's FIFA series for years, and with news that another team has ended its licensing agreement with the underdog football franchise likely won't help matters any. Borussia Dortmund "prematurely" exited its licensing agreement with the game-maker ahead of its 2020 agreement, as spotted by Kotaku.
'GTA IV' will lose some of its in-game music over licensing issues
Grand Theft Auto IV, the game that keeps on giving for Rockstar Games, hits its tenth anniversary this month. That's quite a feat, but as Kotaku UK reported, it also means that it's losing the rights for a bunch of in-game songs. The developer told the site that "due to music licensing restrictions, we are required to remove certain songs from the in-game soundtrack ... in particular, a large portion of the Russian pop station, Vladivostok FM."
GoPro licenses camera tech to other companies amid sales struggles
There's no question that GoPro is hurting: sales are struggling, its drone plans are dead and it's not clear that the company can survive purely on sales of action cameras like the Hero6. What's it going to do? Offer its technology to other companies, apparently. GoPro has unveiled a licensing deal that lets Jabil use its camera lens and sensor tech for a wide range of products. The two aren't specific about what this will involve, but Jabil sees uses in everything from law enforcement (think body cameras) through to videoconferencing and self-driving cars. Yes, the tech that documents your mountain bike trip could also drive you across town some day.
Facebook signs European licensing deal for music you share
Facebook has dealt with some criticism over the unpaid use of licensed music in videos on the company's various platforms like Instagram. Back in September of last year, it was reported that the social network was paying out "hundreds of millions of dollars" to labels to clear songs for this kind of use. The company also made deals with Sony and Universal to let you use the publishers' respective catalogs within uploaded videos. Now, according to a report at TechCrunch, Facebook signed a deal with licensing group ICE Services to allow around 31 million musical works from the UK, Sweden and Germany to grace the home movies you share on Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and Oculus.
Facebook strikes music licensing deal with Sony
Facebook has signed a deal with Sony that will let you upload videos containing its music without worrying about them being taken down, Variety reports. Users will be able to upload and share videos on Facebook, Oculus and Instagram that with music licensed from Sony/ATV Music Publishing's vast catalog. Copyright infringement has become a big problem on the social network, and Facebook has been working hard to strike deals with music labels to avoid takedowns and fines.
Facebook deal lets you use Universal's music catalog in your videos
Most internet giants strike deals with major labels explicitly with music services in mind, but not Facebook. It just reached a worldwide agreement with Universal Music Group that allows the group's music to be used across Facebook, Instagram and even Oculus VR experiences. This will let you (legally) upload videos with Universal artists' music and "personalize" your music experience. In theory, you could drop some Kanye West or Tove Lo into your Instagram clips without worrying about a possible takedown.
Facebook offers to pay labels for music in homemade videos
You've probably seen more than one homemade Facebook video that uses a popular song to spice up an otherwise plain clip. How many graduation videos have Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" blaring in the background? That soundtrack isn't legal, however, and Facebook reportedly wants to fix this. Bloomberg sources claim that the social network is offering labels and publishers "hundreds of millions of dollars" to clear songs for use in video uploads. You wouldn't have to worry about a copyright takedown ruining a precious moment, in other words.
Spotify hit with two new lawsuits over unlicensed songs
Spotify's streaming business is legally tricky, and just ahead of an IPO that could value it at $13 billion, it's facing two more vexing lawsuits, according to THR. In one, Bob Gaudio of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons alleges that '60s hits like "Can't Take My Eyes off of You" are being streamed without proper licensing. The other suit comes from Bluewater Music Services Corporation, which manages the streaming rights of songs like "White Liar" from Miranda Lambert and the Guns 'N Roses' track "Yesterdays." All told, over 2,500 songs are in dispute.
Singer sues 'Fallout 4' publisher over use of a classic song
The Fallout game series is legendary for its use of music to set the post-apocalyptic mood, but it might have been a little too eager when creating the tone for Fallout 4. Singer Dion DiMucci has sued Fallout's publisher, ZeniMax, for allegedly using his 1961 hit "The Wanderer" for ads without verifying that he approved of the content. The artist contends that ZeniMax didn't bother honoring contract terms that let him refuse the use of his song in the promos, which he finds "morally indefensible." He's not objecting to the game itself -- rather, it's that the ads glorify the protagonist's violence "as sport" instead of focusing on the "struggle for survival." Clearly, he's not a fan of seeing his cherished, upbeat pop song playing as someone guns down mutants.
This is your last chance to buy 'Alan Wake'
One of Alan Wake's best features was its licensed soundtrack, and now the tunes developer Remedy Entertainment carefully curated are causing a bit of grief. Remedy's rights to The Black Angels' "Young Men Dead" and "Up Jumped The Devil" from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (among others) are expiring, and with them, so must Alan Wake itself. Remedy tweeted that because of this, the game will be delisted from Steam and other digital storefronts after May 15th.
YouTube and Warner extend their streaming music deal
YouTube's relationships with music labels have certainly been fraught, but it just managed to reach a truce with one of them... at least, for now. The streaming service and Warner have extended licensing deals that will make sure Warner and its artists get paid for legal streams. The terms of the deal haven't been revealed, but a memo from Warner chief Steve Cooper suggests the label is being particularly cautious this time around. The deals are "shorter than usual," he says, "giving us more options in the future." And there's no mistaking why Warner is reluctant to commit for the long haul -- Cooper is convinced that YouTube is taking a lackadaisical approach to fighting piracy.
Qualcomm countersues Apple over iPhone and iPad royalties
For years, Apple and Qualcomm have worked together on technology that' goes inside your iPhone and iPad. Qualcomm specifically handles a lot of the modem chips that connect devices to cellular or WiFi networks, and are crucial to any mobile hardware. Since Apple needed a lot of chips, Qualcomm supplied them, and everything seemed good -- until January when Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit claiming Qualcomm charged royalties on tech it had nothing to do with, and then followed up with two antitrust lawsuits in China. Tonight, Qualcomm has responded with a lawsuit of its own (you can grab the 139 page PDF here), claiming that Apple is in the wrong, and has breached its contract with the company.
Spotify is limiting free streaming for its own good
It's no secret that labels and artists aren't thrilled that their music is available free on ad-supported streaming services. Taylor Swift famously pulled her catalog from Spotify due to its decision to give full on-demand streaming to customers who weren't paying for a monthly subscription. And she's not the only one. The debate over streaming royalties has been going on for a while now. That's on top of the issues free options raise -- chief among them is artist compensation. When it comes to Spotify's decision to cede on free streaming, it was a matter of when, not if, this would happen to appease the labels.
Google hopes license sharing will stop Android patent trolls
With over 4,000 different devices released in the last year alone, the Android ecosystem is massive. That kind of scale can lead to a lot of copyright confusion and patent squabbling on the platform, which Google would probably like to avoid in the future. So, to save everyone the licensing headaches and unnecessary lawsuits, Google has just announced PAX -- a short acronym for the long-winded "Android Networked Cross-License Agreement."
Expect to see BlackBerry's name (and tech) on more devices
A few years ago we had all the jokes about BlackBerry and licensing, but yesterday the company reported a higher profit than analysts were expecting and says that its licensing program will expand soon. Right now, BlackBerry licenses its name and Android-based software for devices made by other companies. In December TCL announced it would be the exclusive manufacturer and distributor of BlackBerry phones in most countries, but now BlackBerry says it's pursuing "additional endpoints." That could include "tablets, wearables, medical devices, appliances, point-of-sale terminals and other smartphones."
