Spotify is Done Fighting Apple Music — and Ready to Take on Apple; Tidal Moves Into Africa; Gracenote Expands Into India

Daniel Ek’s streaming company strikes a deal with Samsung, the world’s biggest smartphone maker.

Tidal announced today a new partnership with telecoms company MTN, bringing the streaming service into Africa in a major way with an offering launching in Uganda beginning today (Aug. 22).

Apple is set to win unconditional EU antitrust approval for its planned acquisition of British music discovery app Shazam, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Virtual-reality music startup MelodyVR launched its app commercially in the US and UK on 1 May, then in eight more European countries on 26 June.

Gracenote, a Nielsen company, is expanding its database solutions into the complex music market of India.

Now that checks are on their way to thousands of Sony Music artists, the result of a $750 million Spotify "windfall," some questions remain.

The report suggests that the rise of emerging technologies such as “big data, robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI)” calls for “a more radical conception of global copyright norms” in order to “preserve, and even advance, public benefit in an era of digital trade.”

Music-streaming service Napster is on track to record a net profit in 2018, despite its revenues having dropped by nearly 28% since the company’s peak in 2016.

Jaguar and Dua Lipa have joined their forces for “a music and technology partnership” that celebrates the company’s crossovers.

The Music Modernization Act will undoubtedly be a huge victory when it passes. But the metadata challenges that face the music industry are still massive.