MIDiA analyst Mark Mulligan takes a deep dive into Spotify's latest public numbers and finds some areas for real concern. "Spotify is growing its subscriber base markedly more quickly than it is growing its premium revenue," says Mulligan, and that is resulting in declining average revenue per user (APRU).

In this piece Cherie Hu looks at how Spotify's major investments in third party licensing deals and original podcast development are validating investor predictions and causing it to become the Netflix of audio while potentially putting its brand at risk.

For the DJs and bloggers who have to deal with your MP3s professionally, few things are more frustrating than having an artist provide music which is unlabeled and contains no meta-tag. Correctly labeling your music is, as luck would have it, actually not that hard, and here we walk through exactly how to do it.

In this piece, Alex Tiuniaev unveils a new method of examining how we listen to music using something called the Music Experience Quadrant, which places music on a spectrum between emotional vs. rational, and abstract vs. visual.

In a setback in actor and dance innovator Alfonso Ribeiro's battle against game creators, the U.S. Copyright Office has ruled that his “Carlton Dance” cannot be copyrighted.

UPDATE: PledgeMusic has issued an update, but failed to address the core concerns of artists affected by non-payments and the complete suspension of all crowdfunding campaigns ten days ago.

2.18.19

Music Business News From Around The Web

Updated continuously under the More News tab

This week commentators in the music industry look at what what Billboard's Power 100 list got right and wrong, streaming's significant problem with math, why Ariana Grande's fans are the fans every artist needs, and more.

We've got tips, tricks, and helpful advice this week on how to make the most out of your next music premier, how to make Instagram stories work for you as a marketing tool in 2019, what really matters when it comes to being a successful musician, and more!

Contributors on MusicThinkTank this week shared pieces on how to build and use and email list, the best way to roll out your music, the problematic cliche of the starving artist, and more!

As we furiously backpedal through a crowded seven days in the music biz, we revisit RPM's bankruptcy and debts, Cardi B's deletion of her Instagram account, how identity theft is becoming a new trend in music piracy, and more.

This week on Hypebot, some of our most popular articles explored PledgeMusic's shutdown and alarming silence, SoundCloud's outstripping of Spotify in the content department, how artists can use affordable Spotify ads to promote their music, and more!

Over the past couple of decades, changes to the music ecosystem in relation to the fall and rise of major labels is frequently rehashed at music industry events, but the fate of the indies is often neglected. Here Neil Turkewitz his experience at a recent panel discussing precisely this issue.

It's a cutthroat industry out there, and when time comes for you to throw your hat in the ring and release new music, it's up to you to do everything you can to maximize its impact. Here several industry experts weigh in on what artists must do to capitalize on 'premiere culture' as it functions today.