Music streaming service Spotify has partnered with SoundHound, a company that makes music recognition and discovery software for mobile devices. SoundHound users who use the company's Android or iOS app to discover new songs will soon be given the option to stream the song from Spotify instantly.
Much like its main competitor Shazam, SoundHound "listens" to a song that's playing and then checks the audio sample against a large database of music to determine what the song is called and who it's by. It can even determine the name of a song based on users humming or singing it into the app, although the accuracy of the results can vary.
A federal judge in New York ruled today in the defendant's favor on a copyright infringement case brought EMI and 14 record companies against cloud music locker service MP3tunes. Judge William H. Pauley III found that cloud-based music lockers are, for the most part, legally in the clear. The judge found that "MP3tunes did not promote infringement" by offering an open cloud storage service for music, meaning that it, as well as big-name services like Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive, are on the right side of the law.
The record companies claimed that services like these duplicate files in ways that violate copyrights, that they don't do enough to stop repeat infringers, and that playing back songs from a locker constitute a "public performance," which would require a license for the material. The judge rejected all these claims, finding that MP3tunes is protected as a service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The plaintiffs also argued that works recorded prior to 1972 were not protected by the DMCA, but the judge overturned this charge as well.
A seemingly minor update that Google is rolling out today should delight music fans. The search giant now includes rich snippets for songs within the results pages when you search for a musician or band.
If this sounds familiar, it's because Google has already implemented rich snippets for things like videos, reviews and event information. This enables people using the search engine to see at a glance whether the pages include the content they're seeking.
Did you know that both Kanye West and Jay-Z are on Google Plus? Each has less than 1,000 followers at time of writing, so chances are you didn't. Now that Google Plus is going mainstream, or at least experiencing rapid growth in user numbers, you'd think that entertainers of Kanye and Jay-Z's popularity would be using it.
As we discovered earlier this year, Kanye West has huge followings on both Twitter and Facebook. He was a regular Twitter user at that point, although he's only tweeted 4 times since the beginning of July (the last time on 21 July). Google Plus emerged onto the scene at the end of June, and Kanye posted his first message there on 27 July.
The sudden and somewhat explosive popularity of the virtual DJing site Turntable.fm has paved the way for a number of services with similar, or sometimes identical, functionality.
The startup garnered a significant amount of buzz online since launching its service, which lets users take turns selecting and playing songs for a virtual room full of other people. What started out at as an unknown interactive music site quickly became the destination of hundreds of thousands of users, including some well-known, real-world musicians and even a few brands. The startup landed $7.5 million in funding from Union Square Ventures earlier this month, which valued the company at $37.5 million.
As popular uprisings have unfolded across the Middle East this year, much attention has been paid to the both underlying unrest that is causing them and the social media that often helps fuel them. In the background, receiving less of the limelight, lies another phenomenon: the growing community of musicians whose music is inspired by this growing demand for social change
It was this growing creative movement that inspired Esra'a El Shafei to launch MidEastTunes, a website that serves as a central hub for independent artists from throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The site, which went live in 2010, was recently relaunched with a fresh design and new features geared toward making it easer for artists to upload and share their music.
Icelandic musician Björk recently released what she claims to be the world's "first app album." It's an iPad and iPhone app featuring 10 songs, each song accompanied by an interactive app. The "mother" app is called Biophilia, which is the name of the album. That is available free on iTunes, but the 'song' apps then cost $1.99 each and are bought from within the main app. The first song, 'Cosmogony,' is included free. So far two other songs have been released: the first single 'Crystalline' and a song called 'Virus.'
I checked out Biophilia this evening, depositing $3.98 into Björk's App Store account for the first two paid songs. I'm a fan of Björk already and have a number of her earlier albums. Other than the music, what impresses me about this album is her inventiveness in coming up with a brand new album format - the "app album." Plus she finds a new way to make money from her music. Both are achievements in a music era where albums and revenue have been under attack due to the Internet.
The endlessly-hyped music streaming service Spotify has only been live in the United States for less than four weeks, but is already boasting 1.4 million American users, according to AllThingsD.
About 175,000 of those users are paying for the service, which is a conversion rate of 12.5%. There was no word on the break-down of those paid subcriptions between Spotify's $4.99 unlimited Web streaming plan and its $9.99 premium plan, which includes mobile access.
Users of the on-demand music streaming service Rdio now have a much prettier interface from which to browse and listen to songs on their iPads. The service's official iPad app finally launched earlier today.
The new app gives Rdio a slight leg up over its newest and most buzzed-about competitor Spotify, which does not have an official iPad app available yet. The same is true of MOG, another popular on-demand streaming service.
Did you miss out on the initial round of invites to Google's newest cloud locker service, Google Music? Well, today's the day to hit up your Google Music-loving friends for an invite. Existing users have been awarded just two invites each, which they can give out to anyone they choose. However, the service is still U.S.-only, so you may want to hold off on sharing with your overseas friends just yet.
