Dear Artists,First of all; we are really glad to hear that you are interested in getting your music onto Spotfiy. We appreciate your patience since you signed up to the Spotify Artist and Label list. The reason why we haven’t gotten back to you earlier is that we haven´t been ready to launch our own uploading-platform. Our time and energy has gone into uploading thousands of tracks every day from our existing partners which is a continuous process. However, getting independent artists music onto Spotify is important to us so we’re working on various solutions to assist artists.The current solutions we offer indie artists offer are CDBaby,Ditto Music and Record Union. They are artist- aggregators, who we’ve recently made an agreement with, and we highly recommend to you as a method to get your music onto Spotify. With them you can create a standard agreement and upload your music onto Spotify as well as deliver your music to other great services such as 7digital and Amazon. So if you want to join Spotify as soon as possible we strongly recommend you to go one of the following sites:http://cdbaby.com/ http://www.dittomusic.com/ http://www.recordunion.com/ We’re really looking forward to having your music on Spotify soon!Regards,The music team at SpotifyThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogUpload your music onto SpotifyRelated posts:Spotify to halve free music allowanceMusic business models for internet artistsEmbedded music player from last.fm
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Upload your music onto Spotify
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/07/16/upload-your-music-onto-spotify
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July 16 2011, 12:59am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Spotify to halve free music allowance
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/14/spotify-to-halve-free-music-allowance
Spotify is notorious amongst musicians for only paying a fraction of the royalties that other online music sites pay to bands. But it’s popular with music fans for allowing them to listen to almost anything on demand. Now they are being forced to bring in new restrictions
This article titled “Spotify to halve free music allowance” was written by Josh Halliday, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 14th April 2011 09.31 UTC Spotify is to cut back the amount of free listening available to users from 20 to 10 hours.
From 1 May, the music streaming service will reduce by half the amount of free music available to its six million users in the UK and Europe.
Under the new restrictions, non-subscribers will only be allowed to listen to an individual track a maximum of five times. New users will be moved on to the restricted model within six months; it will apply to existing users from 1 May.
Since its 2008 launch, Spotify’s free offering has proved popular enough to tempt more than 1 million people to become paying customers.
Daniel Ek, Spotify’s co-founder, announced the changes in a blogpost on the company’s website on Thursday.
“Making Spotify available to millions across Europe has seen the service become incredibly popular. People are listening to more music and from a wider range of artists than ever before, and are giving up on piracy, which is exactly what we hoped would happen,” he said.
“So it’s vital that we continue offering an on-demand free service to you and millions more like you, but to make that possible we have to put some limits in place going forward.”
Ek said that the changes would mainly affect heavier users of the service, and that users would still be able to listen to around 200 tracks or 20 albums for free each month.
The move will no doubt rankle with some music fans, who had grown used to Spotify’s free streaming service being “too good to be true“.
The first commenter on Spotify’s official blogpost lamented: “So long Spotify. It was nice knowing you. Guess I’ll go back to pirating music again then.”
More details soon…
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Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogSpotify to halve free music allowance
Related posts:Music video website Vevo to launch in the UK Pandora shuts out world wide listeners 30 new music apps for iPhone, Android and iPad
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April 14 2011, 6:19am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
30 new music apps for iPhone, Android and iPad
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/12/30-new-music-apps-for-iphone-android-and-ipad
New iphone iPad and Android apps range from popular artists to social location services aimed at music gig-goers.
This article titled “30 new music apps for iPhone, Android and iPad” was written by Stuart Dredge, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 12th April 2011 09.15 UTC There’s something of an explosion in music apps happening on iPhone and Android at the moment, from official artist apps that look to go beyond pure news and audio samples, through to social location services aimed at gig-goers. Here’s a list of 30 apps that have launched in the past few months, from big stars and startup developers alike. It offers a glimpse at the trends and technologies that make apps as potentially habit-changing for music fans as they are for gamers and TV viewers. Note, this list is focused on apps that involve listening to or interacting around music, rather than actually creating it. Not because the latter isn’t just as interesting – there is a similar boom in innovative music-making apps – but because, well, those apps will sit better in their own list. Meanwhile, the focus on recently launched apps is why the likes of Spotify, Pandora Radio, Last.fm and others are not included. They’re still innovative and important, but this piece is about new contenders in 2011. The History of Jazz This sits alongside The Elements as one of the iPad apps showing that tablet book-apps can be far more than a scanned-in PDF with a bit of extra video. The History of Jazz offers an interactive timeline tracing the chronological history of jazz, with music samples, videos and curated playlists to dive into featured artists’ catalogues. Discovr This is less of a timeline, and more of a flowchart plotting connections between artists whose music is broadly similar. Discovr gets you to type in an artist, then tap your way through the chart of related bands, double-tapping to bring up biographies, videos and blogposts. MusicDrop and BoxyTunes Two apps that both have the same aim – to turn online storage service DropBox into a fully functioning cloud music service. Both MusicDrop and BoxyTunes stream music from your DropBox account, pulling in cover artwork and other information. They will increasingly face competition from pure cloud music services in 2011, but for existing DropBox users they may be a good stopgap. Decoded by Jay-Z This universal app for iPhone and iPad is based on a physical book collecting together rapper Jay-Z’s lyrics, and adding in video interviews. People paying $4.99 for the app can choose 10 of the 36 featured songs to unlock, or pay another $9.99 to unlock all 36. The actual music is not included – the app focuses on lyrics – but if the songs are already on the user’s device, they can be played in sync with the words. BEP360 will.i.am likes apps so much, he started his own development studio to make them. BEP360 was the first app to emerge. It’s described as a ’360 mobile music video’, which gets fans to hold up their iPhone and spin around for a 360-degree view of the video for the Peas’ The Time (Dirty Bit) single. Augmented reality features and photo-sharing are also included, making this an app worth admiring even if you’re not so keen on the music itself. Mike Scanner Part of the promotional effort around the final album by the Streets, Mike Scanner is one of the first artist apps to use the kind of barcode-scanning technology that’s been seen in numerous mobile shopping apps. The idea here: fans scan household items to unlock exclusive music, videos and ticket offers. Erykah Badu As we reported in February, soul singer Badu is the first artist to use the platform of startup FanTrail to try to connect with her fans – although she’s since been followed by the Roots and Quiet Company. The Erykah Badu app brings gamification to music fandom, with users filling up their ‘LoveMeter’ by sharing news with friends, buying music and checking in at gigs. The more full the meter gets, the more personal the recorded voice messages from Badu accessed through the app will be. Lykke Li Scandinavian pop artist Lykke Li’s app uses another platform, from Steam Republic. Here, the innovation is less about gamified rewards, and more about linking the app with her existing website, so fans can create profiles and share content across both. That includes blogposts and photos, while the app also has the now-obligatory gig check-ins feature too. Pocket Hipster We covered this app in February too: it’s a collaboration between two music technology startups, The Echo Nest and We Are Hunted. Pocket Hipster includes two avatar hipsters, who sneer at your music collection and suggest alternatives to listen to. The hipster aspect is for fun, but the recommendation technology is very serious – it uses The Echo Nest’s API, which is being licensed to a range of app and service companies in 2011. we7 Radio Plus Personalised radio is all the rage in the US thanks to Pandora Radio, but licensing arguments led to the company pulling out of the UK a few years ago. That’s left the way clear for Last.fm, and now we7 to see how the concept flies among British music fans. Released for Android this year, we7 Radio Plus creates radio stations on the fly based on specific artists and genres. SoundTracking Released by developer Schematic Labs in time for SXSW this year, SoundTracking lets people share details of the song they’re listening to there and then, including photos and comments. Other users of the app will be able to listen to 30-second samples courtesy of iTunes, and it integrates with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Roxette Singbox Who knew Roxette would be the subject of an innovative music game in 2011? That said, who knew the Smurfs would be the subject of one of the most lucrative iPhone social games in 2010… Roxette Singbox brings the SingStar karaoke game model to iOS, using in-app purchases to download individual songs, with email and Facebook challenges for a social spin. Spin Play US music magazine Spin launched an iPad app in March this year, but it went beyond simply reproducing the print edition’s articles. Each $1.99 issue includes a playlist of 60 streaming songs and 30 streaming videos, chosen by the Spin team to complement the editorial content for that issue. The aim is for readers to listen to bands while reading about them. Play by AOL Music Launched for Android smartphones in March, Play by AOL Music is another music discovery app, released by the newly-editorial focused US internet giant. It’s a music player app with social features baked in, enabling people to easily tweet or Facebook share the song that’s currently playing. Friends’ posts and comments are pulled into a real-time feed. Tune Drop and Pioneer Air Jam Everyone’s a wannabe DJ at house parties nowadays, but usually whoever controls the device gets to choose the tunes. Apps are emerging to make the process more collaborative, though. Tune Drop is an iPad app that lets party guests cue up requests from your iPod music library, while Pioneer Air Jam handles the process wirelessly – albeit only for Pioneer hi-fis. Kling Klang Machine Techno pioneers Kraftwerk were similarly innovative with their first iOS application this year, billing Kling Klang Machine as an ‘interactive 24-hour music generator’. Fans can browse a music map of the world divided into timezones, and mix Kraftwerk loops and samples together – overseen by wireframe models of the group itself. DJ Rivals US startup Booyah has had success with its Nightclub City Facebook game and MyTown iPhone social location game. DJ Rivals brings the two ideas together, as players build up their virtual DJ through rhythm mini-games and location-based DJ battles. Roqbot Roqbot won this year’s SXSW Music Accelerator contest, and is another collaborative playlist app, except this time designed to be used in bars and restaurants rather than the home. The iPhone and Android app lets users vote for the songs they’d like to hear, making it an app-centric incarnation of the traditional jukebox. Nirvana Classic Album: Nevermind In itself, this app isn’t technically innovative: it’s basically an existing documentary film ported to iPad, with bonus material and social commenting. However, it’s a sign that labels – Universal Music Group in this case – are keen to see how much demand there is for tablet apps focused on their back catalogues, as well as newer bands. McFly Live – Above The Noise Punk-pop band McFly teamed up with UK firm LoveLive recently, to release an app for a specific gig, rather than the band as a whole. It let fans watch a live stream of their concert at Wembley Arena in early April, while entering a contest and chatting to other fans on a forum. Swedish House Mafia – Until One iPad Edition Scandinavian dance supergroup Swedish House Mafia are already exploring multiplatform content, having released their own book and video documentary around latest album Until One. Now there’s an iPad app too, based on the book and videos, but with all nine tracks of the album streamable from within the app. Impressive technically, but also for the ability of label EMI to get the necessary publishing licensing signed off to include the full tracks. Owl City Galaxy While fans await new material from Owl City, they can dive into his US-only Galaxy application, which offers similar gamification to the Erykah Badu app – points for ‘future Owl City bonuses’. Social is the key feature, with fans invited to ‘customise your own planet and connect with other fans’, with an exclusive track dangled as the reward for doing so. Eavesdrop, MyStream and PairShare These three apps all launched around the same time, aiming to provide a modern-day equivalent of the two headphone sockets found on vintage Walkmans. All three allow people to listen to music at the same time, using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth streaming in the case of Eavesdrop and MyStream, and just Bluetooth for PairShare. AudioVroom Originally developed as part of a Music Hack Day event, AudioVroom styles itself as a ‘multi-user internet radio station’, where people earn points for recommending the app to friends, which can then be spent on listening to ad-free personal radio stations. Foursquare-style badges are thrown into the mix, while the sharing happens using the Bump app’s API, requiring people to physically knock their iPhones together to connect. US-only for now. The National Mall This ‘hyperlocal’ app isn’t much use to fans who don’t live in Washington DC, where US duo BlueBrain reside. The National Mall is an interactive album designed to be listened to on a walk around the National Mall in DC, with the rhythms and beats changing as they go. The app is due out imminently. iheartradio for iPad US radio group Clear Channel’s iheartradio apps have racked up millions of downloads on iPhone and other smartphones, but the newly-released iPad app shows what can be added for larger screens. Listeners can see related tweets when listening to one of the 750 US radio stations streaming within the app, while also perusing videos and photo galleries. That’s our selection, so what do you think? Which of these apps has most potential, and which will sink without a trace? And have we missed anything out that’s been released in 2011? Post a comment to let us know your feedback.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
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April 12 2011, 4:54am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Interview with Arofish
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2009/04/08/interview-with-arofish
Interview with Arofish from back in January, 2005 by gravel Arofish is a stencilist currently residing in London. He promised to greet our “intelligent, subtle, carefully thought out questions . . . with a load of boorish, superficial, irrelevant, conceited self-promotionism (well, I am a graffiti artist after all…),” but actually ended up giving us one of our best interviews yet. Q) How did you first get involved with street art? How did you find your way to stencils? I came to London a couple of years ago and the stencil graffiti I saw just blew me away. I’ve always had a little bit of skill for drawing but rarely ever had the urge to produce anything. Until I came here, graffiti to me just meant the wildstyle, new york hip-hop stuff you see. That’s often incredibly beautiful and skilled but it still just comes down to writing your name and I wouldn’t personally bother trying to get good at it. Ironically, a lot of those artists piss on me in terms of technical skill. What limited drawing skill I have (and I draw everything I do ) is with pen and pencil, hence stencils. (And of course the exposure time is minimised too) Q) Did you start out making political art, or was this a later development? Did someone or something catalyze a change in direction? I came to graffiti from a background of political activism, which is why doing art in Palestine and Iraq was a sort of natural extension of both elements. Read More
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Related posts:Learning by Doing - interview part 5DARnet interview part two.Cormac interview: Wikiversity and Wikipedia
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April 8 2009, 8:43am | Comments »
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