Variety reports: “Splice, the popular platform for rights-cleared sounds and beats, has paid out more than $25 million to musicians in its artist-to-artist marketplace, the company has revealed.”
Hollywood Reporter reports: “The agreement between John Malone’s cable giant and the global streamer covers 11 million pay TV subscribers in Europe.”
VentureBeat reports: “Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality initiative may have brought multiple VR headsets and a substantial quantity of VR software to the PC platform, but the company still isn’t planning to leverage that momentum to bring VR to Xbox users.”
VentureBeat reports: “Glancing at the data from the first heat of the great streaming wars, it appears that each of the major platforms is winning in their own way. This would seem to defy logic and conventional wisdom, but it tracks well with what some analysts had been projecting.”
Gamesindustry.biz reports: “Barclays is now offering tax credit loans to games developers as a source of advance funding. The organisation claims to be the first high street bank to offer such a loan specifically to the games industry, and says it will grant studios access to finance ahead of future tax credits from HM Revenue and Customs.”
Hypebot reports: “While the age of illegal downloads may be largely behind us, other unlawful and deceptive practices have sprung up to take their place in the streaming era. Here, Symphonic Distribution CEO Jorge Brea breaks down some of the key ways rightsholders are being kept safe from pay-for-streams, fake artists and other dangers.”
Variety reports: “Roku, less than three days before Super Bowl LIV is set to air on Fox, has removed all Fox Corp. channels from the Roku Channel Store — a move the broadcaster called a “poorly timed negotiating ploy.”’
Deadline reports: “Activist investor Daniel Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point, after buzzing around Sony for years, urged the conglomerate to continue selling off non-strategic assets, insisting that the media and entertainment businesses can “stand alone.”’
The Verge reports: “Quibi understands that most people are probably still unaware of what Quibi is, but the streaming service run by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman is hoping a new Super Bowl commercial will clear things up.”
Hollywood Reporter reports: “The telecom giant added more mobile phone subscribers who pay a monthly bill in the fourth quarter than expected thanks in part to its Disney+ promotion and took a $236 million writedown for its media unit.”
