Today we’re joined by a very special guest, C.Y. Lee from xDJs, makers of the upcoming music discovery app Crush. We’re delighted to have C.Y. with us via Skype, and we promise we only talked about MIT once.

On today’s show: YouTube’s back and forth over their subscription streaming service, BitTorrent finally gets some positive attention (warranted?), and Lively closes their doors. Plus we talk about the Seattle startup scene, the wonders of academic commencement, and we somehow even managed to mention corporate agrobusinesses. Go figure.

As always you can hit us up via email or Twitter.

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Abridged Show Notes:

• YouTube will block videos from artists who don’t sign up for its paid streaming service | The Verge
  
• YouTube Confirms Subscription Service Imminent, Warns of Takedowns | Billboard
• Everyone Calm Down. YouTube Is NOT Going To Remove Music Videos | Digital Music News
• With 100 Million Bundles Delivered, BitTorrent Bundle Is An Established Force In Music Marketing – hypebot
• BitTorrent Bundle Hits 100 Million Downloads and Streams | The Official BitTorrent Blog
• Seattle music startup Lively on the ropes | Soundposts | Seattle Times

First things first: we’re a music business podcast, not a history podcast. As you can see.

Second: Amazon launched a streaming music service. And we’re here to talk about it. Seemingly everything in this episode ties back to Amazon, but we also talk Bitcoin, Grammys, Bad Company, and whether or not an iPhone belongs inside a guitar.

As always you can hit us up via email or Twitter.

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Show Notes:

• James K. Polk was, in fact, nicknamed “Young Hickory” after his Tennessean presidential predecessor Andrew Jackson, whose nickname was “Old Hickory.” Mike was confused based on a mishearing of the song “James K. Polk” by They Might Be Giants. Lyrics here. The town of Old Hickory, Tennessee is in fact named after Andrew Jackson, who is buried nearby at his estate, The Hermitage.
• Amazon Prime Music
• Amazon launches free streaming music service just for Prime members (GigaOm)
• Adobe Air, does, in fact, still exist
• Recording Academy To Allow Samples For All Grammy Award Songwriting Categories | Billboard
• Correction: The Spice Girls song “If U Can’t Dance” samples “Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground, which in turn samples “Sing A Simple Song” by Sly & the Family Stone and “Theme from the Black Hole” by Parliament.
• MASTODON // ONCE MORE ROUND THE SUN // JUNE 24TH – Preorder with Bitcoin
• Rock Group Mastodon Latest Music Act to Accept Bitcoin
• Since we mentioned media fragmentation
• How Streaming Services are Screwing Lady Gaga (and Every Other Artist) | Digital Music News
• Seriously, Paul, we need to talk. Email us: hello@backporchgroup.com
• Orphan Black Season 1 on Amazon Prime
• To be clear: there are a lot of awesome smart instruments that should continue to flourish; its just that the guitar doesn’t need the iPhone to be awesome..

In this episode we ALMOST manage to not talk about Apple. Almost.

But seriously, folks, how about that improved sound quality? We purchased some new gear and upped the ante. After 35 episodes, it just felt like it was time to get our act together. We’re still fiddling with the knobs and you might hear the level jump around a little, but we promise it’s getting better all the time.

On today’s episode: Amazon v. Hatchette, Rolling Stone Country, Pandora numbers, and Kickstarter’s updated rules. And Brian takes a minute to share an awesome story about Deep Purple.

Please let us know what you think! Did you like Storytime With Brian? Should we add a new segment? Take out an old one? Any special guests you’d like us to welcome? Let us know via email or Twitter.

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Show notes:

• Turns out we were pronouncing Hatchette wrong this whole time
• Kickstarter’s next campaign | The Verge
• Introducing Launch Now and Simplified Rules » The Kickstarter Blog
• As we’ve discussed, Brian loves gatekeepers
• Kickstarter uses a variety of payment processors outside the United States. More info at their FAQ.
• Bring Reading Rainbow Back for Every Child, Everywhere. by LeVar Burton & Reading Rainbow — Kickstarter
• Amazon and Hachette: The dispute in 13 easy steps – Los Angeles Times
• Publishers’ Deal with the Devil | stratechery by Ben Thompson
• Here’s a kind of a different take: Here’s Why I Won’t Boycott Amazon over Its Fight with Hachette | BostInno
• Rolling Stone Country
• Cover Of The Rolling Stone – Dr.Hook – YouTube
• Like we said, country is growing fast. It’s bigger than Top 40, at least on the radio: Young, Rich and Ruling Radio, Country Walks a Broader Line – NYTimes.com
• Pandora Stock Falls On News Of Dept. Of Justice Review, Slowing Growth – hypebot
• Side note: after complaining about Zazzle on Twitter, they made good. Twitter is the new customer service.

Pete and Re-Pete were on a boat. Pete fell off. Who’s left?

In this episode of Conversely, we hopefully put to rest the entire Beats/Apple conversation, at least for the time being. We also jettison common sense and discuss the ridiculousness of piracy, another topic we hope to never talk about again. And this time, instead of our usual Here’s An Idea segment, we switch gears and talk about a couple of our deeply held unpopular opinions about the music world – and hopefully that’s the most original conversation in this episode.

Not to say this episode isn’t good, because it’s freaking awesome. There I said it.

Side note: we just got a bunch of new recording gear! So hopefully this is the last episode where you’ll have to hear the terrible sound quality of a Macbook Pro built-in microphone.

Side note #2: Mike apologizes for contradicting himself in this episode. If you don’t catch it, well then Mike is happier for that.

Side note #3: We changed our logo. Just because.

As always, feel free to email us with your comments or thoughts, or hit us up on Twitter.

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Show Notes:

• The video that Shawn talks about all the time
• Price War: Beats Music Drops Price, Extends Trial | Billboard
• Honey App: Beats Music and the Great UI Swindle — Shallow Rewards — Medium
• Jimmy Iovine, a Master of Beats, Lends Apple a Skilled Ear – NYTimes.com
• FYI, Winamp was purchased by AOL for $80M in stock, according to Wikipedia
• And for your daily dose of Winamp nostalgia
• Also: subscribe to The Flashlight!
• One last Beats/Apple link: Beats by Apple | Om Malik
• Center for Copyright Information | CCI Provides First Copyright Alert System Progress Report Highlighting Initial Accomplishments
• RIAA – Recording Industry Association of America – May 31, 2014
• In case you were wondering:

• “Six Strikes” Results Show High Number of Persistent Pirates | TorrentFreak
• Barely Anyone Bothered to Have Their ‘Six Strikes’ Piracy Cases Reviewed | Motherboard
• Sonos offers 6 months of Google Play Music with purchase of any player – CNET
• Google is building a hardware empire, and this is what it looks like | The Verge
• “Android is the thing you get your Spotify on”
• We looked it up.

Today we welcome David M. Ross, Founder of MusicRow Magazine and President of Nekst.biz, to talk about his upcoming book, the ramifications of a music tax, better models for streaming services, and just what exactly happened to publishing in the last 10 years. We also dive into the crazy world of competitive video gaming, a subject that, quite frankly, none of us knows much about :)

As always, feel free to email us with your comments or thoughts, or hit us up on Twitter.

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Linkety links:

• Nekst.biz
• Spotify now has 40 million users — but just 10 million pay to stream songs | VentureBeat
• Beats Music subscriber numbers leak: low numbers but strong engagement (Music Ally)
• As it turns out, there’s a couple of Beats lawsuits happening, including a co-founder looking for past royalties and  MOG founder David Hyman who claims he was unlawfully dismissed from the company to avoid his equity payout
• Apple’s dividend history. Note that didn’t pay out dividends at all between 2005-2012, i.e. the Steve Jobs years.
• Everything You Need to Know About YouTube Buying Twitch
• Why Twitch could be the best $1 billion Google ever spends | The Verge
• If you still have no idea what the hell we’re talking about, go visit Twitch.tv and see for yourself
• By the way, it’s true, Michael Bolton has sold more than 75 million albums. Let that sink in for a second.
• ESPN + Major League Gaming
• To get an idea of just how big competitive gaming really is, check this out:

• A billion was not always a billion
• NMPA Launches Suits Against Infringing Lyric Sites | Billboard
• As it turns out, the same company that makes the Roomba makes a robot that cleans gutters
• Yahoo used to have this thing called IntoNow. Nobody used it.