MusicNews

Everyone’s a musician nowadays — and every tech company is also a music company, it seems. This week alone, two separate news items hinted at where strong winds are blowing for the music industry: first, a paid streaming service created by the owner of TikTok, and second, a new feature within Snapchat that may offer music in users’ posts.



On Monday, Bloomberg reported that ByteDate, the Chinese parent company of the video-app-slash-meme-wonderland TikTok, will launch a paid music-streaming service in several emerging territories later this year, with ambitions to expand it to other countries as well. And at the close of the week today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Silicon Valley darling Snapchat is in talks with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group to acquire licenses to “expand the ways users can include music in posts on its flagship Snapchat app,” which would presumably allow the use of thousands of song snippets into the platform’s signature disappearing photos and videos.

more...