The Streaming Problem; SoundCloud Cuts 40% of Staff; The Art of Windowing

The Streaming Problem: How Spammers, Superstars, and Tech Giants Gamed Music — www.vulture.com 
 Making money in the music industry is more complicated than ever, but artists are finding new ways to game the system.

Jimmy Iovine blames labels, YouTube and Billboard for bad albums — musically.com 
 Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine has been making waves again, with an interview for Beats 1 in which he criticises labels for their handling of YouTube.

SoundCloud cuts 40% of its staff in the music streaming service’s push for profitability — business.financialpost.com 
 The music streaming service has about 175 million listeners who are drawn to its expansive library of songs, dance mixes, podcasts and other user-generated content

The Art of Windowing: Why 4:44 is a Different Kind of Exclusive — musicindustryblog.wordpress.com 
 This is a guest post from MIDiA’s Media and Music Analyst Zach Fuller. For a brief moment last year, windowing seemed like the future of music streaming.

New Jay Z music video lands on Apple Music, but album remains Tidal/Sprint exclusive — 9to5mac.com

After debuting his new album exclusively on his own Tidal music streaming service last week, today Apple Music is premiering the first music video from the release despite still not offering the actual album.

Stream-ripping is ‘fastest growing’ music piracy — www.bbc.com 
 People aged 16–24 are the most likely to illegally download audio files from streaming services, research suggests.

How To Get People To Follow Your Spotify Playlists — www.hypebot.com 
 After spending many laborious hours crafting the perfect Spotify playlist, it can be understandably disappointing to discover next to no one one is following.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Promotes Spring Aspers to Head of Music — www.billboard.com 
 Sony Pictures Entertainment announced the promotion of Spring Aspers to head of music. Formerly, Aspers held the title of executive vice president, music creative affairs.

How Pandora Fell Behind on Streaming Music — www.fool.com 
 The pioneer lost its first-mover advantage years ago when it missed this key part of online music-streaming strategy.