President Obama arrives on Spotify and creates playlists for everyone

Obama

Do you want to hear music chosen by President Barrack Obama? If you use Spotify then you'll be in luck. The company is one of the leading music streaming services in the increasingly competitive market. Now it has scored a big win, landing one of the world's most well known leaders.

Spotify announces the arrival of POTUS and seems quite excited about the arrival. You can't really blame them, it's not everyday that the President adopts your service.

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Rdio introduces live broadcast radio stations

woman listening to music on tablet

In the growing online music streaming industry, Rdio has become one the major players. But it's a cutthroat business, and you have to innovate to stay near the top and keep customers happy or they'll flee to another service.

Now Rdio has come up with something new -- streaming broadcast radio stations. The company is diving in big too, with 500 stations, all owned by Cumulus Media.

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BBC iPlayer Radio hits one million downloads

iplayer radio logo

People still want downloadable music and radio programs, despite the surge in popularity of streaming services, as the BBC has found out. Its iPlayer Radio service has just reached the milestone of one million program downloads.

"We knew from the success of our Podcast service that there was a demand to download BBC radio and music content to listen to whenever they wanted," Andrew Scott of BBC Digital told Digital Spy. The download functionality was added to the on-demand service less than a month before the figures were compiled.

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Apple Music has 11 million trial users

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Apple Music's success will be determined by its number of subscribers, and, by that measure, the streaming service is heading in the right direction. Just over a month after the big launch, Apple Music has reached 11 million trial users.

Of the 11 million users who are trialling Apple Music, two million went with the family membership. It allows up to six users to share a subscription to the service, for $14.99 per month. A plain subscription costs $9.99 per month per user, which is not as attractive, cost-wise, in comparison.

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Facebook uses Lollapalooza to showcase new live streaming feature

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If you can't make it to Lollapalooza this year, there's no need to be jealous of your friends who are attending. At the music festival, Facebook has started testing a new feature that allows people to live stream events on the social network, taking on the likes of Snapchat head-on.

Music festivals are far from cheap -- a full weekend pass costs $275 and that's before you factor in travel, food, and so on -- so the prospect of a social powered livestream will appeal to many... particularly those to whom the idea of camping is abhorrent. Facebook's Place Tips feature can be used by those in attendance -- including performers -- to post videos, photos and updates that can be enjoyed by those who chose to stay at home.

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How to import iTunes playlists into Groove Music in Windows 10

Music

If you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 you’ll likely have discovered an app called Groove Music. This is the new name for Xbox Music which was included in Windows 8.x.

When you first open the app there’s not much to see. Groove Music is a rather bland looking affair with lots of white space. The app will automatically import music from your PC, although if you’re anything like me, you’ll need to change the location it looks in to get all of your songs and albums added. To do this, and also import iTunes playlists into Groove Music, just follow these instructions:

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Spotify meets IFTTT to make your music a bit more fun

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Spotify is one of the top music services in business today. It's a tough market, with a growing field of competitors aiming to get your money. It can be good, and many people love it, but how could it become even better?

How about adding If This Then That (IFTTT) support? The service has added a new channel that allows you to utilize its capabilities for many functions associated with your music.

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TV and porn dominate piracy statistics

CD pirate

With the launch of Apple Music and a number of high-profile artists withdrawing their music from streaming services, piracy has been in the headlines of late.

But a new infographic from application security company Arxan reveals that piracy of music is only a small part of the overall problem.

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Copying CDs and DVDs just became illegal in the UK. Again.

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The UK has had something of an on-off relationship with CD and DVD ripping. It was illegal, and then it was legalized. But things reverted back. Just last year, ripping was made legal once again, but a High Court ruling today overturned the legislation meaning that disc copiers will -- once again -- be breaking the law.

The government had introduced legislation that permitted people to made copies of audio and video discs they owned, provided it was for personal use. The latest ruling, however, kills the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Personal Copies for Private Use) Regulations 2014 because of a failure to implement a compensation scheme for artists and copyright holders.

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Blame confused consumers for Xbox Music rebranding

confusedpw

Microsoft recently rebranded its music service from Xbox Music to Groove Music, and the reason is pretty simple: consumer confusion.

In a tweet earlier this week, Microsoft’s corporate VP for operating systems Joe Belfiore said "Lots of people were saying 'I don’t have an Xbox, why would I use Xbox Music?'".

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DJs and music fans warned iTunes 12.2 could corrupt music libraries and add DRM

dj

With the launch of Apple Music came a new version of iTunes. Apple's new streaming music service initially hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons thanks to Taylor Swift, and now it is the turn of iTunes. It's an app that many love to hate, and now there is another reason to dislike the music management tool.

It's not just runners with iPhone and iPod users looking for a musical accompaniment to their daily exercise who use iTunes to organize their music collection, it is also used by professionals. The software is used by DJs to keep their music collections in check, but anyone who relies on their music library might want to heed the warning of website Digital DJ Tips -- "Warning to DJs: Do not upgrade to iTunes 12.2!"

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Facebook in talks with music labels

Facebook at Work unleashed to cater for the office

Social giant Facebook has been in talks with music labels for the past few months, although nobody is quite sure what the company is planning.

Reports say Facebook has met with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, three of the big music licensing labels. Since this doesn’t seem to involve indie labels, we can assume it isn’t a music streaming deal, but instead a licensing and content protection deal.

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Prince pulling music from popular streaming services

prince-2014 streaming music

One of the most prominent skeptics of digital music, Prince has surprisingly been off the radar on the whole music streaming debate, until now.

The Minneapolis sound pioneer removed all of his songs from Deezer, Spotify, Rdio and Apple Music earlier this week, while keeping music on Google Play and Tidal.

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Rdio shoots to thrill as AC/DC rocks onto the service

rdio-acdc

Many may argue that they don't make bands like AC/DC anymore, and perhaps they'd be right. The Australian group shaped the youths of many of us with their hard sound and clever lyrics. Nobody will forget original singer Bon Scott or replacement Brian Johnson who raised the band from its ashes after the tragedy of Scott's death.

But now you can hop onto the Highway to Hell and take a ride using Rdio, the music streaming service that aims to compete in this market with many formidable rivals. The music site has announced the whole epic catalog is available to its users.

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Apple Music, Beats 1, iOS 8.4 to launch June 30

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After months of testing, Apple revealed earlier this month, at WWDC 2015, that iOS 8.4 will be officially available in late-June, bringing us the new Apple Music streaming service and Beats 1 radio station. While those are the biggest changes, the new version of the popular mobile operating system will also feature a number of under-the-hood tweaks to improve the user experience, as we have come to expect from the most-recent iOS releases.

Quite a few of us expected Apple to launch iOS 8.4 way before the end of the month, but it looks like the company has other plans in mind, as iOS 8.4 is officially set to launch on the very last day of June.

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