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☆ No matter how well Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' does, it won't be how she makes most of her money this year
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Madeline Berg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Taylor Swift's new album "The Tortured Poets Department" is almost guaranteed to be a bestseller. But no matter how well it does, it won't be the way Swift earns most of her money this year. In fact, the remaining leg of her Eras tour will add much more to Swift's billion-dollar fortune. Swift's Eras Tour brought in more than $1 billion in ticket sales last year over its 66 dates. Swift's cut is unknown, but based on industry standards, she will surely earn nine figures in 2024 from ticket sales.

Persons: Taylor, Swift, —, Taylor Swift, Clayton Durant, Tatiana Cirisano, Durant, Cirisano, Luminate Organizations: Department, Service, Spotify, Bloomberg, Management, NYU Steinhardt's Music Business, Billboard, Napster, Apple Locations: Paris

☆ A nostalgic look back at when the Internet still felt joyful
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Steffi Cao | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

These were informal but high-stakes gatherings, then known as LAN parties, whether winning a box of energy drinks or just the joy of emerging victorious. Many people who had never experienced the era of LAN parties also responded with excitement. Digital cameras — with which most of the photos in “LAN Party” were taken — had just become widely available to the public. LAN parties made space for competition and community in both 'real life' and online environments simultaneously. Dane Oleson/Electronox/Courtesy Thames & HudsonThough they have significantly dwindled in frequency, LAN parties do still take place.

Persons: David Harrison, Gen Xers, podcaster Merritt, ”, ” K, “, ’, Anne de Waal, Charles, Jeff Tillett, —, Merritt K, Brett Masse, Nick Huber, White, it’s, Dane Oleson Organizations: CNN, chrysalis, Google, Napster, Hudson, Thames, LAN Party, Twitter, QuakeCon, IRL Locations: Brisbane, Australia, Hengelo, The Netherlands, St, Charles Parish , Louisiana, Dallas , Texas, Tulsa , Oklahoma, Lee's Summit , Missouri

☆ The music labels are still suing the internet companies. That's a warning for the AI industry.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Peter Kafka | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read previewThe AI boom has been accompanied by AI lawsuits filed by content owners like The New York Times against big AI companies like Open AI. That was when we had lawsuits like Metallica vs Napster , or MGM vs Grokster , or Arista vs. Lime Group . And when Congress proposed laws like PIPA and SOPA , and when music labels and Hollywood studios were trying to get broadband companies to help them stop illegal downloads . Turns out, things are not so settled, and the music labels are still arguing — successfully, apparently, — that broadband companies can be held liable for bad behavior enabled by their broadband.

Persons: —, Cox Organizations: Service, New York Times, Napster, Reuters, Business, Cox Communications, U.S, Circuit, Cox Enterprises, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Metallica, MGM, Arista, Lime, Hollywood Locations: Richmond , Virginia, Virginia

The website, beloved for being one of modern music’s true centers of gravity and renowned for its daily record reviews scored 0.0 to 10.0, will be folded into GQ, parent company Condé Nast announced Wednesday. Schreiber sold Pitchfork to Condé Nast in 2015. Says Snapes: “Music is so much more than a ‘men’s interest’ or leisure pursuit. Pitchfork paid close, longform critical attention to so many different types of music, and so many different niches. “It’s the independent, experimental artists that are going to suffer.”___ Maria Sherman writes about music for The Associated Press.

Persons: Condé Nast, Anna Wintour, ” Wintour, Ryan Schreiber, Pitchfork, Schreiber, ”, Laura Snapes, ” Snapes, “, ” Ann Powers, ” Powers, Wintour, Melissa Consorte, Condé, P4K, Consorte, Joanna Melissakis, Gareth Paisey, Yasmin Williams, Sam Sodomsky, Williams, Paisey, “ We’ve, Taylor Swift, ” ___ Maria Sherman Organizations: ANGELES, Pitchfork, GQ, Associated Press, Napster, “, SPIN, Blender, PITCHFORK, AP, Condé Nast, The Associated Press

☆ Can anyone save the internet? Neal Agarwal is trying, one Hampster Dance at a time.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Brian Barrett | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Internet Artifacts is the latest project from Neal Agarwal, the creative 25-year-old coder who launched neal.fun six years ago today. "I grew up at the tail end of that era of the internet," Agarwal said. Internet Artifacts has taken closer to three months. Internet Artifacts takes several touchstones of the anteplatformian internet and places them on literal digital pedestals. As delightful as Internet Artifacts is to click through, it also provides valuable context for Agarwal's larger ambition.

Persons: Neal Agarwal, Agarwal, antic, Steve Jobs, Jamie Cohen, It's, coders, he'd, —, Bill Gates, Josh Wardle, Neal, neal.fun, Brandon Chilcutt's, Jessa Lingel, Nicole He, Matthew Rayfield, Brian Moore, Wardle, what's, There's, Brian Barrett Organizations: today's, Adobe, Apple, Developers, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, CUNY, Virginia Tech, Ripley's, The New York Times, Napster, University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, Immaculate Grid, MacWorld, Wired, Yorker Locations: Queens, Fairfax , Virginia, MSCHF, New York

☆ Generative AI needs tools to avoid copyright infringement, Databricks' Naveen Rao says — or more companies could meet Napster's fate
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-10 | by ( Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Naveen Rao is VP of Generative AI at Databricks and co-founder of LLM-training platform MosaicML. Rao says copyright infringement could prevent companies from successfully monetizing AI. Rao, who oversees generative AI strategy for Databricks after it bought his startup MosaicML for $1.3 billion, likens it to the issue that crushed Napster, the 2000s-era music-sharing platform. "We build tools that enable companies to differentiate their AI from everyone else's and leverage their data uniquely," Rao told Insider. The more people building generative AI technology the better, Rao says.

Persons: Naveen Rao, Rao, —, ChatGPT, Jodi Picoult, George R.R, Martin, OpenAI, he's Organizations: Service, Napster, Apple, iTunes, Thrones, Metallica, Qualcomm, Intel

☆ Streaming Is Changing the Sound of Music
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Howie Singer | Bill Rosenblatt | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

In 2022, on-demand music streams in the U.S. alone exceeded 1 trillion. Starting in the mid-2010s, the success of streaming services like Spotify, Tencent and Apple Music led the music industry into a period of sustained revenue growth for the first time since 1999, the year Napster launched. But the rise of streaming hasn’t just transformed the business of music; it has changed the music as well.

Organizations: Spotify, Apple Music, Napster Locations: U.S

☆ What Should I Wear to Officiate a Wedding?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-31 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | More About Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Being asked to officiate for a friend’s or relative’s wedding is an honor. Sean Parker, of Napster and Facebook fame, reportedly asked Sir Ian McKellen to officiate at his 2013 “Lord of the Rings”-themed wedding dressed as Gandalf. When it comes to officiating, the wedding couple’s wishes come first. That means that when it comes to deciding what to wear, the first thing to do is understand the wishes of the couple. You would not wear the same thing to officiate at a beach wedding as you would a country club wedding as you would a backyard wedding; evening weddings demand different clothes than lunchtime weddings, and so on.

Persons: — Kathleen, Sean Parker, Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Ian Organizations: S.C, Napster, Facebook Locations: Columbia

☆ Apple TV+ has a new exec leading the business as Apple's VP of Music steps up amid a company reorg
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Claire Atkinson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Apple Music and Beats VP Oliver Schusser is taking on streamer AppleTV+. Oliver Schusser, Apple's VP Music and Beats, is set to take on oversight of streaming service Apple TV+, two industry insiders with knowledge of plans told Insider. Apple TV+ is still short on scale, however, when it comes to viewing time versus its competitive set. A report from research firm MoffettNathanson described Apple TV+ viewing as a "rounding error" in terms of programming minutes viewed in the fourth quarter. In 2018 he moved from London to California to take up the role of VP, Apple Music and International Content.

☆ Lensa, the AI portrait app, has soared in popularity. But many artists question the ethics of AI art.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Morgan Sung | Morgan Sung Is A Trends Reporter For Nbc News Digital. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +12 min

Social media has been flooded with Lensa AI portraits, from photorealistic paintings to more abstract illustrations. In a lengthy Twitter thread posted Tuesday morning, Prisma addressed concerns of AI art replacing art by actual artists. For some artists, AI models are a creative tool. While the value of art is subjective, the crux of the AI art controversy is the right to privacy. Without decades of examples to learn from, he said, the AI images that looked just like his illustrations would never exist.

☆ How Spotify stayed No. 1 in streaming audio even with Apple, YouTube and Amazon aiming for it
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Barbara Collins | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Spotify, once a Swedish startup tasked with tackling music piracy issues, is now the most popular audio streaming subscription service in the world. The platform disrupted the audio streaming field – being named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list in 2013, also making appearances on the list in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 – and set the blueprint for audio streaming services to come. Spotify's success quickly caught the eye of major technology competitors, who have since released their own streaming music platforms such as Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music. 1 audio streaming service and has kept pace on subscription prices. The pricing tweaks continue between the players in the streaming music space.

☆ Lady Gaga's boyfriend is a tech CEO who went to Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg and now works for Facebook billionaire Sean Parker
▼ + stars: | 2020-02-05 | by ( Avery Hartmans | Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Lady Gaga's boyfriend, Michael Polansky, is a tech CEO who works for Napster cofounder and former Facebook president Sean Parker. Polansky attended Harvard at the same time as Mark Zuckerberg, and worked for early Facebook investor Peter Thiel. One such couple was Lady Gaga and her boyfriend, Michael Polansky, who hails from the tech world. Polansky is a tech CEO who works for Napster cofounder and former Facebook president Sean Parker. Gaga and Polansky has reportedly been dating since at least 2020, and attended the Super Bowl together last week.

Persons: Gaga's, Michael Polansky, Sean Parker, Polansky, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Gaga, Parker, —, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, Lady Gaga Organizations: Napster, Harvard, Service, Super Locations: Polansky

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