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Digital Economy

8tracks shuts down after 137 weeks due to royalty costs and dropping listenership

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6 years ago

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By Emmanuel Legrand Music streaming service 8tracks has closed at the end of 2019 after a 10-year run. Founder David Porter explained in a blogpost that the decision was based on the cost of content combined with a drop in ad revenues linked to a decreasing audience. "To state it simply, we're shutting down because we can't generate enough revenue, at our current scale, to cover royalties that continue to increase," wrote Porter. He added: "Given the magnitude of music royalties, the only way...

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Emmanuel is a Washington, DC-based freelance journalist, blogger and media consultant, specialising in the entertainment business and cultural trends. He was the US editor for British music industry trade publication Music Week. Previously, he was the editor of Impact, a magazine for the music publishing community (2007-2009), the global editor of US trade publication Billboard (2003-2006), and the editor in chief of Billboard’s sister publication Music & Media (1997-2003).

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Copyright & Regulation

ByteDance’s AI tool Seedance 2.0 sparks defiant reactions from rights holders

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2 days ago

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February 15, 2026

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It started with a video featuring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting on a rooftop, it was followed by outrage from copyright holders, then threats of legal action ensued. At the heart of the matter is the new ideo-generating artificial intelligence model Seedance 2.0, released on February 12 by ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, which allows users to generate videos and other complex workflows. The system is designed for professional film, e-commerce, and advertising productions, w...

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Digital Economy

Chelsea Johnson joins Meta as Publishing Operations Lead for North America

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2 days ago

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February 15, 2026

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Kobalt Music's Director, Licensing Operation Chelsea Johnson has joined Meta as Publishing Operations Lead for North America. Johnson announced two weeks ago her departure from Kobalt after over 12 years with the company. "I’m so excited to continue to work closely with so many of you. Gaining experience on the DSP side has been extremely important to me in my growth and curiousity on how music, digital continue to grow together," wrote Johnson, who joined Kobalt in 2013, in a LinkedIn post. S...

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Creative Industries

Key figures — Week 7, 2026

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3 days ago

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February 14, 2026

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$716.9 billion That's Amazon's revenue for 2025, up 12% compared with $638.0 billion in 2024. Revenue from Amazon's cloud operations AWS increased 20% year-over-year to $128.7bn. $500 billion That's how much Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are expected to spend on AI in 2026, according to Reuters. Alphabet alone could spend up to $175-185bn in capital expenditure this year. $380 billion That's Anthropic's valuation after the AI start-up, parent of chatbot Claude, closed a $30 billion fund-r...

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