Man jailed over StubHub hacking plot
The ringleader of a $1 million hacking scheme that targeted StubHub has been sentenced to 12 years in a New York prison. Vadim Polyakov, 32, was one of six men charged in July 2014 in relation to the ring, which stole personal data online and then used the information to buy tickets for concerts, sporting events and Broadway shows and sold them on. Polyakov admitted money laundering and criminal possession of stolen property. (Bloomberg)
BMG appoints Zach Katz as president of US operations
BMG has named Zach Katz as president of its US label and publishing operation. Katz will replace Laurent Hubert, who has held the role since the company's re-founding in 2009. Katz will be responsible for BMG's teams in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville as well as Rise Records in Portland, Oregon. (Billboard)
Dolly Parton in joint venture with Sony
Dolly Parton will release her new album Pure & Simple through a new joint venture with Sony Music Nashville under the name Dolly Records/RCA Nashville imprints on Augusy 19. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. (Billboard)
Apple 'loses three times as many subscribers per month as Spotify'
Apple Music is losing almost three times more subscribers a month than Spotify, according to a new report. Both services are gaining an average of one million paying users per month, but Apple Music has a churn rate of 6.4%, compared with Spotify's 2.2%. (Digital Music News)
Soundcloud enhances Stations feature
Soundcloud has added another way to create new, algorithm-based streams of music. The firm introduced Stations earlier this year, which gives users the ability to start a radio-like stream of music based on any single track. Now, that feature can be launched from an artist’s profile page as well. (Billboard).
Rdio accuses Sony of collusion on streaming
Rdio is accusing Sony Music of colluding with Universal and Warner in the music streaming market. The bankrupt streaming service, which has agreed to sell its assets to Pandora for $75 million, has retained law firm Winston & Strawn to investigate Sony's communications with other record labels and how that may have influenced music licensing negotiations. (Hollywood Reporter)
PRS For Music Foundation launches Resonate
PRS for Music Foundation has launched new fund and resource Resonate, which encourages professional orchestras to programme into their repertoire the best pieces of British music from the past 25 years. Resonate is a partnership between PRS for Music Foundation, the Association of British Orchestras and broadcast partner BBC Radio 3. Support of up to £10,000 is available to UK orchestras who want to rehearse, programme, tour or promote a piece of music from the Resonate database which includes the huge number of works commissioned by UK orchestras in recent years. Support will be given to up to 12 orchestras per year who can demonstrate a commitment to presenting high quality contemporary UK repertoire which they will promote with the Resonate brand as part of a season, tour and longer term audience development programme.
Skiddle bids to cut out resale sector
Primary ticketing platform Skiddle has announced Re:Sell, an initiative designed to work towards cutting out the secondary ticketing market by allowing customers who can no longer attend the event they’ve bought tickets for to put them back up for sale at the current face value. If the tickets put up by the customer aren't resold then they go back to the initial buyer. Skiddle is also launching an industry first in Cool:Off, which gives customers a grace period of 72 hours to change their minds about purchases.Skiddle has initiated this new feature gollowing the lead of the online retail sector, where UPS have found as many as 82% customers actively look for flexible refunds when shopping.
Cuffe & Taylor celebrates Rod Stewart stadium tour
Promoter Cuffe & Taylor is celebrating the completion of a record breaking UK stadium tour with Rod Stewart. More than 160,000 tickets were sold for the tour which saw Stewart play concerts in Norwich, Plymouth, Southampton, Cardiff, Hull, Kilmarnock, Inverness and Carlisle. The shows at Southampton’s Ageas Bowl and Norwich’s Carrow Road Football Club were both record breaking for the venues, Southampton experiencing its largest ever music crowd with almost 28,000 people, while Carrow Road experienced the same with a crowd of 25,000.
