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Spotify cutting jobs, Bieber song rights and present-day music piracy
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Spotify is cutting 600 jobs
Spotify has announced that it will be laying off 600 employees, as the company recognizes that it over-expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company's expenses grew faster than its revenue in 2020, as it invested heavily in its podcast offerings. Other tech companies are also layoff workers massively, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and more.(Link)
$200 million paycheck for Justin Bieber
Hipgnosis Songs Capital has acquired Justin Bieber's share of the rights to his music for a reported $200m. The company now holds the rights to Bieber's popular songs such as Baby and Sorry, which means they will receive royalties every time these songs are streamed, played on radio, TV or used in film. Merck Mercuriadis, the man behind Hipgnosis, claims hit songs can be "more valuable than gold or oil". (Link)
Present-day music piracy
Following last week's news with 1-3% of France's music streaming being fake in 2021, it's clear that Music piracy is still a concern today. The fraudulent streaming from the study is reportedly designed to divert royalty money away from legitimate artists. This means that some “bad actors” are potentially making between $5.8 and $17.4 million which could have gone to legitimate artists and songwriters. (Link)