Tag Archives: Sony Music

Facebook Watch could soon play music videos

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Facebook may soon bring music videos to Watch. The company is reportedly negotiating new licensing deals with Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group. According to Bloomberg, it's asking each label for rights to music videos.

Sony Music CEO confirms Apple Music Streaming Services Launch at WWDC 2015

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Apple is rumored since months to launch the new Apple Music Streaming service based on their $3 Billion Beats acquisition. Rumors have intensified quite a bit lately revealing details like the $10...

Sony partner with Spotify and kill Music Unlimited in the process

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Sony Apps

In a twist that is not surprising at all Sony has decided to partner with Spotify to create PlayStation Music, eliminating the need for Music Unlimited in the process.

PlayStation Music is a new service announced by Sony and Spotify that will allow gamers to do something else with their consoles whenever they’re taking a break: to access the endless supply of music in Spotify’s library of tunes. And because of this, Sony realized there was no point in Music Unlimited existing anymore, so their support will end the 29th of March, right on time for Spotify to finish the new program.

Music Unlimited used to be Sony’s on-demand service, and it launched as Qriocity in 2010. While it was supported in 19 countries, the service was unavailable in many others that had local versions of Sony’s offerings and services. It seems that the service was more of a hassle for Sony, who now seem happy to get rid of it and hand the responsibility off to a third party, like many other companies outside of the video game field have done.

PlayStation Music will let users access and manage their Spotify playlists and songs from the consoles, and link both Spotify and PSN accounts even letting users pay for Spotify via their PSN wallets. The service will be available for all of Sony’s home consoles (PS3 & PS4) but not for the portable PS Vita. The idea is to let users listen to music while they play their favorite games.

Current Music Unlimited users will receive the next month for free as well as a free Spotify trial once the new app launches. All in all, the service will be available in: Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and USA.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories,Sony’s stainless steel smartwatch up for preorders in Europe and Leaked Xperia Z4 Tablet Ultra Specs Suggest Sony Is Breeding a Beast.

Amazon Will Add Music Streaming Service as Sweetener for Prime Users

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Amazon Music Streaming Service

Undisclosed sources close to the matter claimed on the condition of anonymity that the Chicago-based e-tailer might introduce a new music streaming service for its Prime users as early as this week.

It definitely looks like Apple and Google are not the only big boys who are interested in music, even though the Cupertino giant’s recent curiosity for Beats Audio, and the rumors regarding the search giant’s acquisition of music streaming service Songza might have suggested that. Amazon is looking to launch a music streaming service that won’t represent a threat to Spotify, Beats and Rhapsody, or at least at first.

The e-tailer made a habit out of launching various services along with its new devices, so the music streaming service might be the one in the case of the mysterious device that’s up for launch in a week from now. Since that product is believed by the entire world to be the 3D smartphone Amazon has been working on for a while, a music streaming service makes a lot of sense.

The sources claimed that the music streaming service will be offered in a first phase exclusively to Prime users, who already use a video streaming service that competes directly against Netflix. Since the Prime service has 20 million users, the company shouldn’t be worried about getting an initial user base.

While the latest hits won’t be streamable, everything else from Sony Music and Warner Music Group will be available. Universal Music has yet to sign a deal with the world’s largest e-tailer, in this aspect. However, getting a limited (yet extensive) catalogue of songs without any annoying ads is quite nice.

An industry source stated the following, suggesting that the music industry really believes in Amazon’s move: “We wanted to support it. It is a steppingstone. It shows that music is a priority for Amazon.”

I wouldn’t say that music is a priority for the e-tailer, but at the same time, I think that Amazon did good to get involved in this industry, as well.

The Street even wonders if the rumors regarding Amazon’s music streaming service will affect in any way the company’s stock. That will depend quite a lot on how people perceive this move, as Facebook’s stock plummeted when the social network announced the acquisition of Oculus VR.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the mysterious device that Amazon will unveil on June 18

Amazon rumored clinching major labels for cloud music rights, iTunes Match feels the heat

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Amazon Cloud Player

When we last checked in, Amazon was thought to finally be pushing for full music rights in its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services. It might be a smooth operator at the negotiating table: subsequent tips to CNET maintain that the top four major labels (a currently-independent EMI as well as Sony, Universal and Warner) have all signed deals that will let Amazon offer the same scan-and-match music downloads and streaming as Apple's iTunes Match. The pacts would let Amazon offer access to every song a listener owns without having to directly upload each track that wasn't bought directly from Amazon MP3. Aside from closing a conspicuous gap, the deal could end a whole lot of acrimony from labels who were upset that Amazon preferred a free-but-limited service over having to charge anything. The online shop hasn't said anything official yet (if at all), but any signatures on the dotted line will leave Google Music as the odd man out.

Amazon rumored clinching major labels for cloud music rights, iTunes Match feels the heat originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jun 2012 12:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What crisis? Sony Music buys EMI’s back catalogue for $2.2 billion

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While its parent company goes through a dramatic reinvention, Sony Music's scraped together $2.2 billion to lead a consortium that's just bought EMI's music publishing business. While it'll sell off the three Virgin and Famous Music labels to avoid competition concerns, the company will gain access to three million songs from artists like Frank Sinatra, Jay-Z and Adele. It won't affect the day-to-day running of EMI's record label, which is a separate entity, but it will make Sony the biggest music publisher in the world. It's hard not to envisage a future in which the company's influence in the way we buy and listen to music becomes even greater -- especially given that EMI led the charge in abandoning DRM all those years ago.

What crisis? Sony Music buys EMI's back catalogue for $2.2 billion originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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