The Digital Music News Podcast Digital Music News

After a string of 'fake stream' scandals involving mega-stars like French Montana and G-Eazy, a serious question percolated within the music industry: how real are Spotify's stream counts? Vice went underground and found a shadowy network of 'underground stream farms' that fabricate play counts, raising serious questions about Spotify's numbers. Michael K. Williams, who led Vice's investigation, declared that the "entire industry has been compromised."
But how corrupted are streaming numbers at Spotify -- or Apple Music, Amazon Music, or YouTube? We asked a company that has developed a sophisticated method for verifying stream counts by identifying statistical anomalies. Their CEO offered an entirely different version of what's happening with stream counts on major platforms like Spotify.

What's the future of streaming music platforms? While giants like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music only getting bigger, there's an enormous opportunity to build smaller, niche streaming platforms for brands, sports leagues and other customized clients. In this episode, we sit down with Con Raso, MD/cofounder of Tuned Global, and Svein Arne Sørgård, CEO of ACX Music to understand what's happening in this realm.

Emily White is one of the foremost experts in the music industry and an authority on how musicians can maximize the earnings from their music. She's worked at the largest companies in the business, managed top indie artists, and teaches music business ins-and-outs at New York University. She's also the author of the book, How to Build a Sustainable Music Career and Collect All Revenue Streams.

When it comes to trainwrecks, this one takes the cake. Just a few weeks ago, the ultra-successful country-pop trio Lady Antebellum decided to change their name, citing newfound sensitivity towards racist overtones.  But Lady Antebellum's new name, Lady A, was already taken by Seattle-based black blues singer Anita White, who's been using the moniker since the late 1980s.
At first, Lady A met with the newly-named Lady A and things seemed to be ironed out. “Transparent, honest, and authentic conversations were had," Lady Antebellum shared. "We are excited to share we are moving forward with positive solutions and common ground. The hurt is turning into hope. More to come.” Sounds great, but White says that was far from the reality of the 'negotiations'.

Despite a vinyl record comeback that started nearly 15 years ago, the companies manufacturing vinyl are still scrambling to get back on the field. Old, laborious processes are being revived, but many of the format's experts are no longer around. And younger mastering engineers have little idea how to master content for vinyl records. But what if mastering engineers could master for vinyl, without actually having to constantly test their tweaks on vinyl platters? That's a solution being introduced by Perfect Groove, a company we interviewed recently at NAMM.

Jeff Price is one of the music industry's foremost experts on music copyright and artist royalties. He's also a huge critic of Spotify and the recently-passed Music Modernization Act (MMA). One reason is that there's actually another streaming royalty that is owed to most artists and songwriters... they just don't know about it.  He blames that fact on corrupt legislators and music companies. So how do you find out about this missing royalty, and more importantly, get paid on it?