Spotify is Making Its Own Records | The Streaming Music War is Getting Ugly

Apple, Tidal, Spotify and maybe Amazon are all vying for listeners and clashing over exclusive deals.

Multiple cast-iron sources have informed us that, in recent months, Daniel Ek’s company has been directly paying producers to create tracks with specific musical guidelines. These producers receive a flat fee for their work, in addition to studio and musician expenses – but Spotify holds on to the master copyright. (Publishing rights, we understand, may be up for grabs.)

In the age of streaming, what makes for a number one album? We look at the strange math that now makes up the charts.

Top 40 radio is notorious for spinning the same small list of tracks over and over and over and over again, rendering any tuned-in road trip of substance a literal carousel of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

Since its launch, Streo has gradually filled the vacuum that existed in the space of mobile apps that could stream music live from the venue. The long overdue effort generated early interest on the investment front, and the support extended to coverage in the press.

Sonos has made no secret of the fact that the popularity of Amazon’s Echo speakers has sparked some internal soul-searching within its ranks.

Want to listen to Spotify in Russia? Despite not being licensed in the country, it's really this easy for Russians to illegally stream Spotify.

Since launching in 2012, Anghami has established itself as the leading music streaming platforms in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), amassing more than 24 million users, including 5 million monthly active users (MAU), in territories extending from Morocco to Lebanon to Kuwait.