Business, Financial & Legal - Page 106

Apple moved fast to win over Taylor Swift and musicians, when the company announced it would pay artists while users are enjoying a three-month free trial of Apple Music. Tom Conrad, former CTO and EVP of Product at Pandora, recently took to Twitter to discuss the current drama between Apple and Swift.

Apple Music launches on June 30 and will charge $9.99 per month to subscribers, but is offering a three-month free trial. Swift said she would not allow her "1989" album to be available on the service, in an effort to make a stand for rising indie artists - saying it's not fair they wouldn't be paid by Apple.

"Spotify, YouTube, Pandora and others all pay artists for their free tiers and trials," Conrad said via Twitter. "It's the right thing to do. Swift took her new album off Spotify not because she's not paid, but because she feels their free service 'devalues music.' Swift never pulled from YouTube which is the most popular free service and certainly devalues music if Spotify does."

Taylor Swift previously pulled the majority of her music from Spotify, the No. 1 streaming music service, and doesn't have any interest in Apple Music. Her record label, Big Machine, has confirmed that the "1989" music album won't be available on Apple's music service, which launches on June 30.

Swift, of course, has issued a statement saying this decision is thinking of the rising musicians and songwriters. It seems Swift is most distraught over the three-month free trial that Apple will provide music listeners before the mandatory $9.99 monthly service kicks in:

"This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success. This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt. This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field... but will not get paid for a quarter of a year's worth of plays on his or her songs."

Update: AMD's PR agency, Edelman, reached out to us just now with the following statement: "AMD Spokesperson Sarah Youngbauer: AMD provided official confirmation that we have not hired an outside agency to explore spinning-off/splitting the company (Reuters has since updated their story as such). We remain committed to the long-term strategy we laid out for the company in May at our Financial Analyst Day, which encompasses all parts of the business".

Reuters has quite the report for the weekend, where according to "three people familiar with the matter" AMD will be splitting up its businesses into two. This move would see the chipmaker reverse its position in the market, and better combat against the quite unstoppable Intel.

The sources said that the "deliberations are preliminary and no decision has been made" but the review highlights AMD CEO Lisa Su and her "determination to consider every possible option to turn the company around". AMD has reportedly called in a consulting firm to help look at its options, bringing up scenarios on how this would all work.

It looks like Uber is very successful in China right now, with the ride sharing giant saying it is logging over 1 million daily rides in China. Keep in mind, that's more than the company was logging in every single market it is in across the world, as of December 2014.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has said that the company wants to raise $1 billion in orders to boost its dominance in China, with the company claiming that trip volume is climbing in Chinese cities faster than it is in New York City. But by how much? Well, Chengdu is logging 479 times the trips that NYC was logging at the 9-month mark, with Hangzhou logging 422 times as many trips. You'd think that these cities had more people living in them when compared to NYC, but that's not the case - Chengdu is home to 4.3 million, while Hangzhou is home to 2.5 million.

The growth that Uber is experiencing in China seems unstoppable at this point in time, with the company creating 100,000 "new full time equivalent jobs per month" according to Kalanick. With Uber only operating in 11 cities across China, most of this growth can be attributed to the heavily promoted service 'The People's Uber', which sees Uber not taking commission from completed rides.

As expected, Apple Music was officially unveiled during the company's WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco today. The latest addition to the streaming market will cost $9.99 per month, or $14.99 per month for a family plan of up to six users.

The new Apple service will have more than 30 million songs available to music listeners. "In 2015, the music industry is a fragmented mess," said Jimmy Iovine, Beats Electronics co-founder, during WWDC. "That's why Apple intended to bring curated radio, personal collections, an on-demand catalog and interaction with artists all-in-one place."

Apple Music will launch for Mac and iOS products on June 30, with Microsoft Windows and Google Android releases scheduled for this fall.

During its World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple will announce its shiny new music streaming service. iTunes once was a music juggernaut for paid downloads, but consumers have migrated towards streaming music - and Apple wants to find a way to cash in.

Sony Music CEO Doug Morris thinks Apple's jump into the market will liven up streaming music:

"What does Apple bring to this? Well, they've got $178 billion dollars in the bank. And they have 800 million credit cards in iTunes. Spotify has never really advertised because it's never been profitable. My guess is that Apple will promote this like crazy and I think that will have a halo effect on the streaming business. A rising tide will lift all boats - it's the beginning of an amazing moment for our industry."

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wants help from the US federal government in combating piracy, claiming there is a correlation between piracy and rising cybersecurity problems. Cybercriminals use the lure of pirated content to help infect users with malware, or scam Internet users, according to the MPAA.

This is a clever tactic by the MPAA, as the US government has increased worries related to cybersecurity - and trying to tie the two issues together could lead to increased anti-piracy efforts.

"Unfortunately, criminal enterprises are also using the Internet to hack into networks and computers for the purpose of stealing valuable data - whether personally identifiable information, trade secrets, or content," said the MPAA, responding to a cybersecurity threat assessment from the Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force (IPTF).

Computex 2015 - Adding to the wacky lineup of products on display across multiple companies this year in Taipei is GIGABYTE's selfie generating product - the Selfie Assistant.

Said to provide you with a great tool to record and track a speaker during an important meeting or class lecture, this product also takes group selfie pictures by using face tracking technology alongside 360-degree panorama support.

Featuring an infrared remote control and smart recording, this product is certainly more than the title may suggest.

Recently Corsair introduced a new logo to much consumer criticism, with people claiming it looked like a weird tribal tattoo or a 'tramp stamp' and now it seems that Corsair has listened to our woes by re-introducing the sails, with a twist.

Looking like they've thrown italics on the old sail design, Corsair said in a recent blog that "everything we've announced at Computex 2015 will ship with the new logo, including the Strafe keyboard, and our powerful Bulldog 4K living room PC." If you've been living under a rock and have missed the Computex 2015 news haul or are simply too overwhelmed with the sheer amount of content, you can check out all of our coverage through the Computex link at the top of our home page - we've already covered what Corsair has to offer.

The old "crossed swords Corsair Gaming logo" is being phased out in what Corsair claims to be part of a process in which it is "uniting into a new modernized Corsair brand."

Basemark has announced a strategic partnership with TUV Rheinland which will see a new certification class for smartphones, tablets, notebooks and PCs.

Thanks to the collaboration, TUV Rheinland will secure an excellent service for product performance and evaluation at all stages of development, even at a component level like chipsets, GPUs or CPUs - right up to the final product. Basemark's suite of benchmarks like Basemark X, Basemark ES and Basemark OS allows TUV Rheinland to fine tune the devices speed, stability and overall performance.

Tero Sarkkinen, founder and CEO of Basemark explains: "We are thoroughly excited about this partnership, because it opens a whole new category of product-quality testing. Consumers, corporations, and government purchasers can now also choose products based on how fast a device performs various tasks. We firmly believe that our partnership results in better customer satisfaction. However, this is just the beginning of what we can do together with TÜV Rheinland, and I look forward to building a wide-ranging partnership that results in a wealth of new services for our combined roster of customers".

Computex 2015 - Intel is best known for its CPUs that power servers and computers, but don't expect the company to just stop there. Intel has added to its Internet of Things Gateway, while also providing new software and OS choices for the IoT Gateway - and wants to make a bigger splash in the mobile market.

In addition, Intel is looking to embrace wearables, creating new hardware platforms that can power the next generation of wearable devices.

"The power of Moore's Law has enabled incredible computing innovation over the past 50 years and because of it, nearly everything in the future will have the ability to compute and connect," said Kirk Skaugen, SVP and GM of the Client Computing Group at Intel. "Our 30-year history of collaboration with Taiwan has delivered historic innovation to the world, from personal computing to the cloud and data centers."

Rap industry icon Jay-Z has had many success stories throughout his career, but his multi-million-dollar decision to purchase Tidal still needs a lot of work.

"We're gathered... with one voice, in unity, in the hopes that today will be another one of those moments in time, a moment that will forever change the course of music history," artist Alicia Keys said during the Tidal press conference earlier in the year. While the record industry struggles in trying to generate revenue from streaming services, it looks like Tidal is struggling even more.

In a changing landscape that is dominated by Spotify and Pandora, it looks like music listeners don't have many reasons to bother giving Tidal a shot. Despite Jay-Z previously saying the service is "just fine," it remains to be seen how he will help win over music listeners.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and musicians don't seem overly enthusiastic that music listeners would rather stream music instead of pay for individual downloads. Taylor Swift's decision to pull her music catalog from Spotify, which hurt her music listeners more than the streaming service, didn't earn much praise.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said its music revenue dropped 0.4 year-over-year, accounting for $14.97 billion in 2014 - while revenues have slid for more than one decade. However, the number of subscribers to a premium streaming service continues to increase, from 28 million in 2013 up to an estimated 41 million people in 2015.

To start the year, a report indicated the streaming music market is absolutely booming, as paid downloads continue to slide - and that has many people in the record business concerned. The transition from physical album sales and paid downloads towards streaming music will continue, and record labels trying to pressure streaming services won't do any good - music listeners want to be able to use services such as Spotify and Pandora, but are willing to pay to do so.

US District Judge Katherine Forrest has given Ross Ulbricht, the founder and operator of Silk Road, a life sentence in prison. The underground website was involved in more than 1.5 million transactions that netted $214 million, and Ulbricht was described as the "kingpin of a worldwide digital drug trafficking enterprise."

Ulbricht was convicted of distributing narcotics on the Internet and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, among other charges. He automatically faced a minimum 20-year prison sentence, though it was expected he would receive a much harsher sentence. The judge noted: "What you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric..."

"He developed a blueprint for a new way to use the Internet to undermine the law and facilitate criminal transactions," according to a statement from the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. "Using that blueprint, others have followed in Ulbricht's footsteps, establishing new 'dark markets' in the mold of Silk Road, some selling an even broader range of illicit goods and services."

Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify, with her record label showing little interest in working with the music service. Unfortunately, her decision doesn't actually hurt Spotify, and leaves her music fans with one less outlet to listen to her music.

It's unknown how much money Spotify actually paid out to Swift's record label, Big Machine, though most of her money is made from live music concerts and promotional appearances.

Spotify, the No. 1 streaming service, pays a whopping 70 percent of revenue directly to the music labels - writing a check for around $1 billion in 2014 - with the number of subscribers increasing in 2015. However, the record labels only collect less than one penny for each song played through the popular service.

The PC rumor mill is buzzing yet again, with unconfirmed reports published by DigiTimes indicating Lenovo is interested in purchasing the MSI gaming notebook unit. MSI isn't at the top in gaming laptops, but largely releases affordable products that have decent specs - but that doesn't mean MSI wants to get rid of its mobile gaming business.

"In regards to the rumors circulating about [a] Lenovo and MSI acquisition, MSI is not in talk with Lenovo to sell the MSI Gaming Notebook business," said Andy Tung, president of MSI, in a statement to the media.

Even though the deal would make logical sense for Lenovo, which has been unable to break into gaming, MSI apparently isn't happy about the rumors - and has threatened possible legal action. "We are currently seeking the source of this false information and reserve the right to take any legal action," Tung confirmed.

King, the developer behind mega smash hit Candy Crush Saga, has reported its fiscal first quarter earnings today, where we have found out that the company has a huge 550 million monthly active players. This is up from the 481 million during the first quarter of its fiscal 2014. The company should expect an injection of players in the near future, as Candy Crush Saga will be pre-installed with Windows 10.

The company has 158 million daily active players, with 364 million monthly unique players, respectively. With mobile gaming being a massive $30 billion business, King is one of the kings of it - pun intended. But, it's not all soda pops and candy bars, as player spending has dropped considerably over the last 12 months.

The amount of unique players that are spending money inside of King's games has dropped, from 11.86 million from this time last year, to 8.52 million. Paying gamers who continue to spend money, are spending an average of $23.64, compared to $18.02 during the same time of 2014, but it's not enough to make up for the amount of players not spending money.

It looks like Warner Music Group, which confirmed it makes more revenue based on streaming music than digital downloads, has learned how important Spotify, Pandora, and other streaming services can be. The company noted a 33 percent increase in streaming income, and warned other labels not to shut the door on free, ad-supported streaming models that are currently offered to music listeners.

"The rate of this growth has made it abundantly clear to us that in years to come, streaming will be the way that most people enjoy music," said Stephen Cooper, CEO of Warner Music, during a recent company earnings call. "Not only that, we are also confident that streaming's ongoing expansion will return the industry to sustainable, long-term growth."

Even though Cooper also added that ad-based and subscription-based services are "better than piracy," that isn't likely any solace in the news - the music industry has created absolutely insane business agreements that Pandora, Spotify, and other services were forced to adopt. Apple is preparing to launch Beats Music, pending record label support, though it won't even have a free membership available.

Verizon is purchasing AOL for $4.4 billion, valued at $50 per share, according to both companies early Tuesday morning. It's the latest strategic push by Verizon, as the company looks to expand its Internet of Things (IoT) offerings - and could benefit from AOL's digital and video experience.

AOL, which was the dial-up ISP king in the 1990s, has generated millions in digital advertising revenue, while supporting major media brands such as Engadget, TechCrunch, and The Huffington Post. Verizon is preparing a mobile video service this summer, and could call upon AOL's advertising platforms.

"AOL has once again become a digital trailblazer, and we are excited at the prospect of charting a new course together in the digitally connected world," said Lowell McAdam, chairman and CEO of Verizon, in a public statement.

Nintendo generated $350 million in net profit for the fiscal year which recently ended in March, a massive increase over a predicted $250 million profit. It's an impressive turnaround for Nintendo, which hasn't turned a profit since 2011 - as the company deals with drastically changing software and hardware markets.

The Japanese gaming company hopes software game sales for the Wii U and 3DS will help add additional revenue - even though it predicted 3.4 million Wii U console sales and a drop in 3DS sales for the current fiscal year.

Even though Nintendo hasn't been able to compete with the Sony PlayStation 4 or Microsoft Xbox One, there are still bright signs for the future. The company's partnership with DeNA, for example, to take a more active role in mobile gaming should offer new life into the company: "A new source of revenue is expected from a gaming application for smart devices which will be released this year," according to Nintendo.