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A little Shakespeare, Internet Fairness, Apple’s music program, and the healthy science of cat videos

Publishing News / / / / 2 Comments

Here’s What Happens to Your $10 After You Pay for a Month of Apple Music – Despite rumors circulating that Apple will only pay music rights owners 58% in revenue, well below the 70% industry standard, Apple confirms that the percentage will be closer to 71.5 – 73%, depending on whether the rights holder is insider or outside the US. Spotify, Apple’s main competition, is trying to convince artists and other rights holders that this isn’t a good deal

Spotify spokesman Jonathan Prince points out that Apple offers its own free music via its iTunes Radio service, and will offer more via the Beats 1 radio service that it will launch alongside its paid service; Apple will pay music owners a much lower fee for music streamed on those options, which don’t allow them to call up songs on demand. Says Prince: “We pay royalties on every single listen, including trial offers and our mobile free custom radio service, and that adds up to approximately 70 percent of our total revenues, as it always has.”
Apple’s pitch to the music industry, essentially, is that its seven-tenths of a dollar will be worth much more than Spotify’s seven-tenths of a dollar in the long run, because its free service isn’t meant to compete with its paid service, and because it will sign up many more subscribers than Spotify, which says it has 20 million paying users. –ReCode

Could 2015 Be the Year for e-Fairness? – With the Internet Tax Freedom Act due to expire, retailers who have brick and mortar stores are hoping that they can now create parity with online services that are not required to tax consumers:

After last week’s passage of H.R. 235, the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act, by the House of Representatives, RILA, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, called for it to be linked with the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2015. The act, which was introduced in March by Senators Alexander (R-TN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), is nearly identical to one that the Senate passed with strong bipartisan support in 2013. Both bills would allow states to tax online retailers just like bricks-and-mortar stores and provide an exception for small e-tailers that do less than $1 million in remote sales.–Publishers’ Weekly

Not-so-guilty pleasure: Viewing cat videos boosts energy and positive emotions, IU study finds – A study involving 7,000 participants involving what the researcher insists is “one of the most popular uses of the Internet today.” Is anyone surprised? If so, maybe you need to watch more cat videos…

Participants in Myrick’s study reported:

  • They were more energetic and felt more positive after watching cat-related online media than before.
  • They had fewer negative emotions, such as anxiety, annoyance and sadness, after watching cat-related online media than before.
  • They often view Internet cats at work or during studying.
  • The pleasure they got from watching cat videos outweighed any guilt they felt about procrastinating.
  • Cat owners and people with certain personality traits, such as agreeableness and shyness, were more likely to watch cat videos.

About 25 percent of the cat videos they watched were ones they sought out; the rest were ones they happened upon. They were familiar with many so-called “celebrity cats,” such as Nala Cat and Henri, Le Chat Noir.–Indiana News

YOLO Juliet: A Tech Savvy Retelling of Shakespeare’s Classic – I will leave it to you to decide if this sounds amazing or horrifying:

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Romeo and Juliet had texted each other instead of saying all of those beautiful Shakespearian words? Look no further than the OMG Shakespeare collection! YOLO Juliet is the classic Romeo and Juliet story retold using emojis and Foursquare. The way Shakespeare would have intended—if he was alive now, and if he understood emoticons.–Paste Magazine

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

Comments

  1. RebeccaA
    June 17, 2015 @ 4:40 pm

    Maybe instead of trying meditation, I should just watch cat videos or play with my cats.

  2. De
    June 17, 2015 @ 5:00 pm

    I actually find holding one of my cats to be stressful. He’s about 20 pounds of long legs and long fur. That means I end up with long fur in my face and up my nose, AND it’s hard to read when holding that much cat.

    It’s much better when he lays on my head and purrs.

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