Variety reports: “Snap wants to up Snapchat’s music game. The company has been in negotiations with music companies including the big three — Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group — to license song catalogs for the Snapchat app, the Wall Street Journal reported.”
Billboard reports: “Endeavor is finally declaring its intention to go public and, in doing so, is offering details of its financial position. The media company that counts talent agency WME among its holdings generated $3.61 billion in revenue in 2018 and net income of $231.3 million, according to a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Hypebot reports: “The major labels always have always feared that Spotify has ambitions to also become a record label. However reak that may or may not be, the streamer’s partner in China, Tencent music is in serious talks to acquire as much as 50% of Universal Music Group.”
The Verge reports: “Facebook plans to launch its cryptocurrency by the first quarter of next year, reports BBC News. The company is expected to reveal more details about the currency this summer, before testing begins later in 2019. The currency, which is being referred to internally as “GlobalCoin,” will reportedly be available in around a dozen countries at launch, where it’s expected to offer people affordable and secure payments without the need for a bank account.”
TechCrunch reports: “Researchers have found two apps masquerading as cryptocurrency apps on Android’s app store, Google Play. One of them was largely a dud. The second was designed to steal cryptocurrency, the researchers said.”
VentureBeat reports: “At its Satellite conference in Berlin today, GitHub — the code hosting platform Microsoft acquired for $7.5 billion in stock last year — unveiled improvements it says are intended to make software development on GitHub “more interconnected” and “more inclusive.” Perhaps the highlight is GitHub Sponsors, an integration that enables users to donate to open source projects and project contributors with the click of a button.”
Hypebot reports: “Music sampling startup Tracklib has raised $1.7 million. The new funding for the Stockholm based company was led by the Sony Innovation Fund, WndrCo and Jörg Mohaupt, an early-stage investor who also has stakes in Discogs and Amuse.”
TechCrunch reports: “Live sports streaming service fuboTV today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with daily fantasy sports provider FanDuel, which will see the latter’s betting data integrated into fuboTV’s streaming platform. The deal also includes a media buy and a carriage agreement that brings FanDuel-owned horse-racing networks TVG and TVG2 to fuboTV, as well.”
Billboard reports: “A few weeks before the November 2018 release of Bohemian Rhapsody, Brian Monaco, president/global chief marketing officer at Sony Music/ATV Music Publishing, sat down for an early screening of the Queen biopic. Having administered the band’s song catalog for years and licensed many of the group’s biggest hits for the movie, Monaco — who oversees the company’s licensing of songs for film, TV and ad campaigns — watched with some trepidation…”
VentureBeat reports: “nWay created a power multiplayer platform for its ChronoBlade and Power Rangers games. And now it is taking that platform and planning to license it out to other game developers so they can make crossplay, real-time multiplayer games that can scale.”
