Spotify

Universal Music Group (UMG) has allegedly urged streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music to crack down on AI-music services that are training off of their copyrighted music libraries.

In the wake of the Joe Rogan controversy last year, Spotify tried to smooth things over with a $100 million diversity fund. According to Bloomberg, the company has fulfilled less than 10% of that commitment so far.

Subscribers to Command Line just got highlights from an interview I did yesterday with Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s co-president who oversees all of product and engineering. We talk about the controversial redesign that introduces a TikTok-like feed to Spotify and why it’s happening, plus why Spotify reorg’d earlier this year.

And CEO Daniel Ek is already teasing the news: a “completely redesigned” home feed. Maybe this is the rumored TikTok-style approach we keep hearing about.

Every Noise at Once is an ongoing project to map the over 6,000 genres and sub-genres listed on Spotify’s music catalog. This fun little timesink can play you an example of each genre or open an entire Spotify playlist of it if you like what you hear.

I’ve spent the last couple of days listening to Spotify’s new DJ beta, which began rolling out to paid subscribers last week in the US and tries to humanize the custom playlists Spotify already feeds you.

Feeling insecure about the Canadian presence on digital streamers and social media, the Canadian government is days away from passing a law requiring more Canadian content on TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix and so on...