Paul McCartney apparently isn’t a fan of having his work aired on music streaming services such as Rhapsody and Spotify. The former Beatles member has pulled both his solo tracks, as well as tracks from Wings, from music streaming service Rhapsody.

This isn’t the first instance of McCartney moving to have his work removed from music streaming services, and it doesn’t appear that it will be the last. Back in 2010, McCartney’s music was taken off of Spotify, and he appears to be on an anti-streaming campaign as of late, with his work being dropped from a variety of other streaming services.

“Rhapsody members have enjoyed streaming Mr. McCartney’s music for more than four years and are sure to be very disappointed to find that it has been restricted,” Rhapsody said in a statement sent to GeekWire. The company noted that the content is still available on its radio offering.

“As the number-one premium subscription music service in the U.S. with more one million paying subscribers, Rhapsody has generated significant revenue for Mr. McCartney, his label and his publisher over the years, and has provided a compelling alternative to piracy. We have a great relationship with the label and Eastman Management, so this development was a shock.”

A variety of artists have recently voiced complaints that they weren’t adequately compensated by the streaming services for their works; Coldplay, Tom Waits, and Adele have all opposed having their work streamed.

Not all record labels agree, however.

“Overall, the labels have been very supportive of streaming and view it as the future of the music industry,” according to the Rhapsody statement. “We will continue to work with labels, artists and management to keep as much content available on premium streaming services like Rhapsody as possible.”

Source: GeekWire

Paul McCartney pulls his music from streaming services is a post from: The Inquisitr

European music streaming service Spotify upset users and fans today with an announcement that the number of hours of listening for free users would be halved from 20 to 10.

One of the first comments on Spotify’s post announcing the changes kind of sums up reaction to the obviously unpopular announcement:

Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. That’s me over to Grooveshark/YouTube/piracy. Which is a shame, because Spotify had by far the best features and interface. I’ll miss the sharing and the ease of making playlists, I had things nicely organised. Thanks for destroying a community of music lovers. Goodbye.

No specific reason was offered by Spotify for the unpopular decision- it could be to drive more users to the paid service, or maybe due to music label pressure. Spotify bullet-pointed the changes that would affect users:

• New Spotify users will be able to enjoy our unrivalled free service as it is today for the first 6 months.
• As of May 1st, any user who signed up to the free service on or before November 1st 2010 will be able to play each track for free up to a total of 5 times. Users who signed up after the beginning of November will see these changes applied 6 months after the time they set up their Spotify account.
• Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.

If you’re a Spotify Free or Open user, do you plan to continue using the service with all the restrictions? Is it worth the hassle of porting all your music preferences over manually for ten measly hours of listening a month?

Spotify halves monthly free listening time is a post from: The Inquisitr

With our recent announcement that Spotify would soon be coming to the United States we’re happy to announce that the streaming music service has reached one million paying subscribers.

When compared against the company’s 7 million overall user mark that number shows that 15 percent of subscribers are willing to pay for ads free service, a rather larger user base percentage considering that the company’s freemium content is on par with other U.S. providers including Pandora and GrooveShark.

Currently the company is working to secure a deal with Universal which would help secure Spotify a place in the U.S. with agreements already believed to be in place with other powerhouses including EMI and Sony who have both failed to comment on the company’s business dealings at this time.

The announcement that one million subscribers have signed up for premium service should also help Spotify as they negotiate terms with other U.S. record companies who feared they could not deliver a high enough base of paying users to make the program profitable both for Spotify and for the record labels.

Also helping Spotify are recently released numbers which show that the company is currently receiving double the number of paying customers compared to freemium users.

At this time it’s still unclear when Spotify plans to arrive in the United States.

Spotify Milestone: One Million Subscribers Now Paying For Service is a post from: The Inquisitr

Music streaming service MOG, which is backed by Universal Music Group and Sony Music has announced a new $9.5 million round of funding.

MOG launched last December with an emphasis on a music subscription business. The company which had previously raised $10 million charges $5 per month and offers 256kbps music streams.

MOG executives have stated that the new funding will be largely used to expand their European business, to create new mobile apps and to reach out to other companies to build new relationships.

If you want to try MOG, they have also increased their trial from a single hour to three days.

The funding round was led by Menlo Ventures, a previous investor in the company, and joined by Balderton Capital. [Mashable]

MOG Raises $9.5 Million In New Round Of Funding is a post from: The Inquisitr

Where are your lawsuits now, music industry?

Piracy was down by roughly a third in the UK in 2008, but streaming was way up in the same period. Savvy UK teenagers are using sites like Pandora, YouTube, Grooveshark and Spotify to stream content and music to their computers in lieu of filesharing. One former pirate and current streamer told the Guardian:

“I didn’t even realise it was illegal for a long time, until I heard that the government were trying to stop it. That did put me off, but one of the big reasons I stopped doing it was because I would get viruses, more pop ups on my computer. While I was at uni I started listening to streamed music using MySpace. Bands would be friends with other bands and it was a great way of discovering new music. I don’t really feel the need to own all that music, I know it’s always there.”

The shift seems largely inspired not by some moral obligation to maintain music industry profits, but rather, sheer convenience. As has been shouted at the music industry time and again, the business models that will flourish alongside technology are those that offer convenience and aren’t ripping consumers off left, right and center.

It seems that the music industry can accept that the entire revenue generating model has changed and change with it, using tangible merchandise like tour tickets, memorabilia and the like to boost profits alongside ad-supported streaming. Or they can continue to behave like litigious buggy-whip factories and keep trying to circumvent technologies that bring fans to music most efficiently. Which do you think it will be?

Piracy down, streaming up in the UK is a post from: The Inquisitr

The deal will make thousands of UMG artist videos available for free on Kiwibox.com. The media will be ad-supported, with artists getting a share of the revenue. (The specific percentages are not being released.) Current UMG artists include Jay-Z, The Killers, Snow Patrol, and Kanye West.

Kiwibox, purchased by Magnitude Information Systems in 2007, combines interactive social features with both professionally written and user-generated content, all in a magazine-style layout. The site saw a major makeover in August, which included the debut of an expanded internal video section. The new service — fittingly set to be titled “Kiwibox Music Videos” — will launch before the end of the year and will be integrated with the existing content.

Will the offering draw users over from existing streaming services such as Imeem and the recently launched MySpace Music? Probably not. But for its own devoted base of teen and pre-teen users, the option is sure to add a nice layer of functionality to an already robust site — not to mention the additional avenue of exposure it’ll provide for the artists always vying to reach that very demographic.

Teen Social Network To Get Label-Supported Streaming is a post from: The Inquisitr