Good morning. It is Tuesday Nov 29 and here are two interesting developments in the music industry today:
- The UK competition regulator has ruled out further action to help artists earn more money in the music streaming market despite claims from many in the industry that the system is depriving them of a fair wage.
- The Competition and Markets Authority found that record labels and streaming services were unlikely to be making high levels of excess profits that could be shared with artists. It concluded that streaming had led to more competition, not less, for listeners and musicians.
The CMA’s interim chief executive Sarah Cardell said: “We heard from many artists and songwriters across the UK about how they struggle to make a decent living from these services.
Read more on the Financial Times.
Instafest App
Ahead of Spotify’s Wrapped 2022 a new app called Instafest creates a festival poster based on your listening habits over the past year.
The free web app, created by developer Anshay Saboo, requires users to sign in with their Spotify account or other streaming platforms , and it will auto-generate an event poster based on the artists you listened most during the year. You can also customize the poster based on time intervals — last four weeks, last six months, and all time.
Saboo told TechCrunch that he got the idea of the app while thinking about what Coechella’s lineup would look like if he picked the artists.
“I had the idea when I was in bed scrolling through TikTok one day, I saw people were posting videos from Coachella and I started thinking about how I would set the Coachella lineup if I could pick the artists. The thought process led to me thinking about generating a music festival graphic using a Spotify integration, and I built off from there,” he said.
Saboo says he wants to add support for music streaming services such as Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, and Amazon Music.
Here is WMV’s festival lineup using the app.
