Copyright Directive and Article 13 Hit a ‘Brick Wall’ in the EU

Have Google’s intensive lobbying efforts managed to outright sink the Copyright Directive, especially Article 11 and Article 13? According to multiple reports, Copyright Directive talks in the European Union have indefinitely stalled. Lawmakers called …

YouTube Music Could Replace Google Play as the Default Music Player on Android Devices

Google just released the first update for YouTube Music in 2019, bringing with it some interesting speculation. The app version number 2.65 was quickly torn apart by tech enthusiast blogs, with changes under the hood analyzed. One possibility discovere…

YouTube Introduces Video Swiping Like Instagram Stories — How Will This Affect Music Video View Counts?

YouTube is making it easier to switch between videos by adopting the swipe gesture popularized by Tinder and Instagram.  Just one possible problem… Now mobile users can swipe left to see a new video that seamlessly begins loading. Developers speaking t…

Beyonce & Jay-Z’s ‘Apes**t’ Video Causes Record Attendance Levels at the Louvre In Paris

The Louvre in Paris is crediting Beyonce and Jay-Z’s video ‘APES**T’ with creating record attendance numbers in 2018. The dynamic duo came together as The Carters this year to release the video in June.  So far, the video has garnered more than 147 mil…

A Fed Up Musician Demands That YouTube Fix Its Broken Content ID System. More Than 100,000 People Have Signed His Petition.

YouTube’s Content ID has a major copyright infringement problem.  Now, people have urged Google to fix it. As part of the video platform’s large-scale protest against the EU’s Copyright Directive, YouTube has pointed to its Content ID as an existing vi…

Puerto Rican Artist Bad Bunny Drops Debut Album on Christmas Eve

Maybe dropping your album unannounced on Christmas Eve wasn’t such a good idea, Bad Bunny. In the early hours of Christmas Eve, Puerto Rican trap artist Bad Bunny has dropped his debut LP. Produced by Josh Gudwin, the 15-track album called X100PRE feat…

YouTube Subscriber Counts Are Dropping as Site-Wide Spam Clean-Up Continues

YouTube is performing a massive clean-up of spam accounts, which the company says may result in a decrease of subscriber counts. An official post on the YouTube product forum announced the sweep as part of routine maintenance. YouTube says the removal …

Ariana Grande’s ‘Thank U, Next’ Easily Smashes Various YouTube and Spotify Records

Ariana Grande debuted her music video for “Thank u, next” ahead of the weekend.  It’s already smashed several records. The video was one of the first released with YouTube’s Premiere feature, which features a group chat for a live video. At its peak, t…

YouTube Expands ‘Stories’ to Any Channel With More than 10K Subscribers

YouTube is bringing its Instagram-like Stories feature to more creators. Now YouTube Creators with more than 10,000 subscribers can use the feature.  That automatically qualifies a large number of artist accounts, though let’s see how musicians approac…

TIDAL Partners with Plex to Offer a Cheaper Streaming Music Bundle

Will its new partnership with Plex help TIDAL turn things around? TIDAL has faced multiple controversies over the past few years. First, reports have confirmed Jay-Z’s streaming music service has inflated its subscriber count. Then, underscoring the co…