Spotify's acquisition last week of the music licensing start-up Loudr helps the streaming service to better manage its costs so that it can focus on attracting new subscribers for its premium service, said a digital media investment banker who helped Loudr close the deal.
Loudr's services are intended to make it easier for content creators and digital music services to identify, track, and pay royalties to music publishers more efficiently. Royalties are, of course, part of Spotify's recurring costs.
"It makes sense for Spotify, which is the largest music streaming service in terms of paid users, to take control of this important piece," said Sun Jen Yung, a partner and the head of digital media at Nfluence Partners.
Loudr makes the complex process of paying royalties easier through automation, she said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar.
This week, Spotify announced it will update its mobile app soon in an effort to make it easier to use.
"To the extent that they can attract more users, that can hopefully help them upgrade to a premium service," said Yung.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/inside-spotifys-acquisition-of-loudr).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
It’s an annual tradition: the Fed’s banking ‘stress test.’ A year after the regional banking crisis, there are good reasons to make sure they’re prepped.
Summer is upon us, which means weddings, trips overseas, and trips to see Taylor Swift. Avoid a “Cruel Summer” with these budget-friendly tips and tricks.
While Nvidia's meteoric rise led it to briefly dethrone Microsoft as the world's biggest public company, there's a lot more going on in this market than A.I.