How Internet Radio Hosting Royalties Fuel the Digital Airwaves

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In today’s era, where streaming platforms reign supreme in the music industry, internet radio continues to thrive as a way for people to discover and enjoy music. With its collection of songs spanning genres, internet radio has garnered a dedicated global audience.

However, beneath the surface of this experience lies a complex system that ensures artists and creators receive their royalties. This article explores the realm of internet radio hosting royalties and delves into how they power the airwaves.

Understanding the Basics of Internet Radio Hosting

To comprehend how hosting royalties and Internet radio hosting royalties included operate, it’s essential to grasp how Internet radio functions. Unlike FM or AM frequencies, which rely on broadcasting signals through mediums, internet radio stations transmit music over the web. These stations offer listeners access to an array of tunes across genres.

Unlike on-demand streaming services, where users can select tracks at will, internet radio stations curate playlists based on themes or moods. These stations often establish music licensing agreements with performing rights organizations (PROs) such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC in the United States, or SOCAN in Canada.

The Role of PROs in Collecting Royalties

PROs play a role as intermediaries between songwriters, composers, publishers, and music users, including streaming and broadcasting platforms. Their primary responsibility is to collect performance royalties from these platforms and distribute them to their member composers and publishers based on the usage data provided.

These organizations engage in negotiations with platforms to establish licensing agreements and set rates for performance usage. Subsequently, they ensure that the collected royalties are fairly distributed among their members, taking into account factors such as play count data provided by broadcasters or streaming services.

Determining Royalty Payments for Internet Radio Hosting

Internet radio station owners need to obtain licenses from PROs like ASCAP, BMI, or SOCAN to legally broadcast copyrighted music. The licensing fees may vary depending on factors such as the size of the station’s audience and the duration and type of music played.

The fees collected from internet radio stations are then allocated among artists, songwriters, and publishers using a formula. This calculation considers various factors, including the station’s listenership music play count details of PRO membership as industry standard rates.

It is important to note that although these calculations may seem complex at a glance, they are designed to ensure compensation for artists while providing an accurate system for monitoring music usage across multiple internet radio stations.

The Significance of Royalties in Internet Radio Hosting

Royalties in internet radio hosting play a role in supporting artists’ careers. For musicians who aspire to gain exposure in a competitive industry, having their music featured on popular internet radio stations can greatly enhance their visibility. Additionally, the royalties generated from internet radio hosting serve as consistent income streams for artists who may not earn revenue from avenues such as record sales or streaming platforms with lower payout rates.

Internet radio also enriches the listening experience by introducing audiences to lesser-known artists who may need marketing budgets but possess incredible talent. By allocating royalties based on usage data from internet radio stations, performing rights organizations (PROs) contribute to the growth of these creative individuals.

Embracing Technology’s Impact on Distributing Royalties

Determining royalty shares was a task that involved sample surveys and extrapolation methods that might not have accurately reflected current musical trends. However, thanks to advancements, PROs now have access to play count data directly from internet radio broadcasting platforms.

This improved data collection ensures that royalties are distributed accurately each year based on usage rather than estimation models. These advancements promote transparency among all parties involved in this ecosystem.

Conclusion

The world of Internet radio is constantly evolving and has become a platform for discovering music and supporting talented artists worldwide. By establishing licensing agreements with PROs (performing rights organizations) and implementing systems to track usage data, internet radio platforms ensure that artists are fairly compensated for their creative work.

With a number of listeners tuning in to internet radio stations every day, these digital airwaves have become a space where artists gain recognition and receive support. So, when you come across a captivating but known song playing on your favourite internet radio station, remember that many individuals are working behind the scenes to ensure that the creators of these songs receive the royalties they deserve.


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Save $300 with Motorola Razr Plus: Get It Now!

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We’re now firmly into Cyber Week, which is just the name for the week of Cyber Monday. So we’re going to see several deals still available from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, including the Motorola Razr Plus. It is now on sale for just $69ing you $300 off of its regular price. This is a really great deal for this-style foldable, and it’s still at its lowest price ever.

The Razr+ is one of the better flip-style foldables to launch in 2023. It does have a 6.7-inch FHD+ 165Hz display, also has Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It also has a 3.6-inch front display that you can run full apps on. Making it so you don’t have to open your phone as often.

AsWeWarWagettinggettingew, the btimery life on t  soimes also pretty good. Getting around 8+ hours of screenday. Itretty consdup So here you have a phone that will get you through a full day, and not take up a lot of space in your pocket. That’s a win/win.

You can pick up the Motorola Razr+ from Amazon by hitting the link below.

Buy at Amazon


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Americans wasted 195 million hours answering spam calls in 2023

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Truecaller has released its first monthly spam and scam calls report for U.S. consumers. The highlight of the report is that Americans on average receive up to 2.1 billion spam calls per month. This means that an average American receives six spam calls per month. More importantly, nearly one of every ten spam calls comes from outside the United States, with the majority originating from India, Nigeria, Egypt, Colombia, Canada, and Peru. The company will unveil the monthly report on the 5th of every month.

The report notes that Americans collectively wasted 195 million hours answering spam calls throughout 2023. 195 million hours translates to roughly 22,260 years. Scamming activity peaks during the holiday season, with fraudsters capitalizing on the heightened charitable spirit and travel plans. Furthermore, AI has amplified the threat. It gives scammers access to powerful tools that enable them to mimic the voices of family members, authority figures, and government officials.

Truecaller’s co-founder and CEO Alam Mamedi states, “Fraudsters are targeting consumers through every medium on their phones, deploying sophisticated AI-powered scams via calls, texts, emails and direct messages on social media.”

Mississippi tops the list in receiving spam calls in the U.S.

Mississippi received an average estimated 29,987,385 spam calls over the last year. It is closely followed by states like South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Alabama. These states make it to the top five in receiving the highest spam calls, as per data shared by Truecaller.

american spam calls truecaller

Hawaii receives the lowest number of spam calls in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Hawaii came at the first position in receiving the lowest number of spam calls over the last year. The top five states that receive the lowest number of spam calls include New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, and Washington.

These spam calls, as Truecaller highlights, mainly include credit card fraud, identity theft, medicare/insurance, social security, car warranties, and debt collection.


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Spotify Wrapped returns this year with revamped design, new features

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Spotify Wrapped 2023 is here to provide users with their listening habits and all sorts of other music-related information. Think of it as a year-in-review of your top songs, which also includes details about the most popular artists and podcasts.

This year’s Spotify Wrapped features a revamped design that looks a lot cooler than what we were used to from previous years. On top of that, Spotify added new features that provide users with even more interesting info.

For starters, Spotify Wrapped 2023 includes the so-called “Sound Town” feature, which matches users with a city based on their listening habits this year. Another funny feature that you’ll be able to check out this year is “Me in 2023.”

This feature matches your listening habits with one of Spotify’s 12 characters that determine the type of music you listened to in 2023. For example, if you’re paired with the Vampire, it means that you listen to emotional, atmospheric music more than most, while a match with the Hunter means that you skip tracks more than other listeners, always searching for new favorites.

Apart from that, Spotify users will also get the usual Top 5 Artists feature, which allows them to see the month their listening peaked for each artist this year. Related to this is the “Your Artist Messages,” which means you’ll get to hear from one of your top artists within your personalized Wrapped.

Also, Spotify announced that it’s adding the Wrapped feed on the app’s Home screen on mobile. Listener favorites have been added to the experience this year too, including DJ and Blend. However, the DJ experience will only be available for the first week following the launch of Wrapped.

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Six Attacks that Break Secrecy of Bluetooth Sessions

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Six novel Bluetooth attack methods have been discovered, which were named BLUFFS (Bluetooth Forward and Future Secrecy) attacks. These attacks could enable threat actors to impersonate devices or machine-in-the-middle attacks. 

These attacks have been reported to be at the architectural level and don’t depend on the victim’s hardware and software details, such as chip, stack, version, or security mode.

In addition to this, a new toolkit has also been released, which could be used to perform these attacks and check their effectiveness.

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BLUFFS Attacks

According to the reports shared with Cyber Security News, these attacks have been categorized as 

  • A1: Spoofing a LSC Central
  • A2: Spoofing a LSC Peripheral
  • A3: MitM LSC victims
  • A4: Spoofing a SC Central
  • A5: Spoofing a SC Peripheral
  • A6: MitM SC victim
BLUFFS Attacks (Source: EURECOM)
BLUFFS Attacks (Source: EURECOM)

The major root causes were four architectural vulnerabilities in the specification of Bluetooth session establishment. The root causes have been categorized into two, with SK (Session Key) derivation of sessions and other session establishment phases.

Root cause (RC)

RC1 refers to LSC (Legacy Secure Connections) SK diversification being unilateral. RC2 relates to LSC SK diversification not using nonces.

RC3 is associated with LSC SK not being integrity protected, and RC4 refers to no authentication implementation when downgrading SC (Secure Connections) to LSC (Legacy Secure Connections).

According to reports, A1, A2 and A3 are not affected by RC4. However, all of the attacks from A1 to A6 are affected by all the Root Causes (RC1, RC2, RC3, and RC4).

These six BLUFFS attacks were tested on eighteen devices with seventeen different Bluetooth Chips from popular hardware and software vendors in each of them.

These attacks do not require user interaction or compromising of Bluetooth pairing (keys) as they target protocol-level weaknesses in the Bluetooth Standard.

With these attack methods, researchers could compromise a broad set of devices, including laptops, smartphones, headsets, and speakers, with Operating systems like Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and proprietary OSes.

A complete research paper has been published providing detailed information on these attack techniques, their concepts, and others.

ChipDevice(s)BTvA1A2A3A4A5A6
LSC Victims
Bestechnic BES2300Pixel Buds A-Series5.2
Apple H1AirPods Pro5
Cypress CYW20721Jaybird Vista5
CSR/Qualcomm BC57H687C-GITM-E4Bose SoundLink4.2
Intel Wireless 7265 (rev 59)Thinkpad X1 3rd gen4.2
CSR n/aLogitech BOOM 34.2××
SC Victims
Infineon CYW20819CYW920819EVB-025
Cypress CYW40707Logitech MEGABLAST4.2
Qualcomm Snapdragon 865Mi 10T5.2×××
Apple/USI 339S00761iPhones 12, 135.2×××
Intel AX201Portege X30-C5.2×××
Broadcom BCM4389Pixel 65.2×××
Intel 9460/9560Latitude 54005×××
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835Pixel 25×××
Murata 339S00199iPhone 74.2×××
Qualcomm Snapdragon 821Pixel XL4.2×××
Qualcomm Snapdragon 410Galaxy J54.1×××
Results of Evaluation (Source: EURECOM)

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HONOR Magic6 Pro to include a 160MP periscope camera

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A well-known tipster, Digital Chat Station, just revealed some new information about the HONOR Magic 6 series. He claims that the HONOR Magic6 Pro will feature a 160MP periscope camera, instead of a 200MP unit.

The HONOR Magic6 Pro will include a 160MP periscope camera, it seems

The tipster says that HONOR considered a 200MP option, but went with a 160MP camera instead. He also reiterated that the OmniVision OV50K main camera sensor will be included in the Magic6 series.

That is OmniVision’s upcoming 1-inch type sensor. Do note that it won’t be a 1-inch camera sensor after all, despite initial reports, but rather a 1/1.3-inch camera sensor. That is basically around the same size as a 200MP camera sensor that the Galaxy S23 Ultra uses.

The OmniVision OV50K will be boosted by LOFIC technology, which stands for lateral overflow integration capacitor-based CMOS. That will essentially be a stacked sensor, which is not surprising, as Sony moved in that direction too with its LYTIA sensors.

The HONOR Magic6 Pro will be fueled by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The phone will include top-of-the-line specs, as did its predecessor. That phone will be heavily focused on the camera experience.

The devices are likely coming to global markets in Q1 2024

Now, the HONOR Magic5 series launched at the end of February this year. If HONOR plans to stick to its release cycle, we’ll probably see these phones announced in Q1 2024… globally.

Yes, the HONOR Magic6 series will reach global markets, as did their predecessors. We’re not sure how many phones will HONOR launch, but four Magic5 phones arrived, even though not all of them reached global markets.

The four devices in question are the HONOR Magic5, Magic5 Lite, Magic5 Pro, and Magic5 Ultimate. I had the pleasure of reviewing the HONOR Magic5 Pro earlier this year, and it was a truly compelling smartphone. It will be interesting to see how HONOR plans to improve upon it.


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Samsung LLW DRAM promises 70% boost in power efficiency

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At its annual Memory Tach Day in October, Samsung showcased several new memory products and industry-first innovations for future applications. Among those was its LLW (Low Latency Wide IO) DRAM specialized for on-device AI. The new solution is expected to arrive next year. While the official launch is still a few months away, more information about the special type of DRAM has now surfaced online.

Samsung’s LLW DRAM is substantially more power-efficient

According to Samsung, LLW DRAM increases bandwidth and latency limits, making it significantly more efficient than standard LPDDR DRAM. The company is touting a massive 70 percent boost in power efficiency, while simultaneously increasing the processing speed. The advanced solution achieves this by increasing the number of input/output (I/O) terminals in a semiconductor circuit.

The next-gen DRAM solutions can quickly and efficiently process large amounts of real-time data, making it ideal for mobile AI and gaming applications. A teaser video posted on X by Samsung shows its applications across a wide range of products, including smartphones, laptops, XR (extended reality) headsets, and gaming consoles. On smartphones, LLW DRAM may be stacked directly above the application processor (AP).

Considering the rumored launch timeline, Samsung may equip its upcoming XR headset with LLW DRAM. Apple has already implemented the tech in its R1 chip powering the Vision Pro XR headset. The Korean firm is expected to bring its rival to the market next year. It would want to match or even better the competition in all areas, from the technological strength to content and features.

Apple’s R1 chip also employs the Fan-Out Wafer-Level Packaging (FOWLP) technology (via Revegnus). Samsung is packing the Exynos 2400 using this tech. Its AP for the XR headset may feature the FOWLP packaging tech too. We should come across more information about Samsung’s LLW DRAM solutions and the XR chipset in the coming months.

Samsung’s XR headset will be available in limited quantity next year

According to reports, Samsung will debut its XR headset in the second half of 2024. The product, which the company co-developed with Qualcomm and Google, may go official during the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 launch in July or August next year. However, sales won’t begin until very late in the year. Moreover, the firm will release the device in limited quantity initially. Reports have hinted at a first production volume of just 30,000 units. It may expand production later depending on the market demand for the device.


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Google Sheets is getting an improved Smart Fill feature today

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Back in 2020, Google Sheets was updated with a feature called Smart Fill, which is meant to detect patterns between columns and suggest data for remaining cells using the company’s Knowledge Graph. Today, Google announced that Smart Fill is getting improved, but the newly resulting feature will only be available to Duet AI subscribers. Dubbed “Enhanced Smart Fill,” the new feature is supposed to recognize and fill patterns, including sentiment classification, combining and generating text, extracting specific text, formatting addresses, structuring phone numbers and emails, as well as condensing text. It’s basically Smart Fill on steroids.

The easiest way to explain how Enhanced Smart Fill works is to imagine a restaurant that wants to organize their reviews and rating data as easily as possible. With Enhanced Smart Fill, rather than manually typing in data, Sheets will be able to detect a pattern in the existing ratings and reviews content and suggest values for the remaining cells.

Obviously, Enhanced Smart Fill can be used in other fields of activities too, including sales, fundraising, and more. The bottom line is the improved version of Smart Fill can help make data entry and analysis extremely easy, as you will just have to accept the values suggested by the app rather than introduce them manually.

That being said, Enhanced Smart Fill is available today with Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise. So, if you’re not paying $30 for the Duet AI subscription, the feature won’t appear in your spreadsheet.


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Xiaomi 14 Ultra to ditch dual aperture for variable aperture

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The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is coming next year, and it seems like it will ditch dual aperture in favor of variable aperture. That is a move that was more or less expected, but one of the most prominent tipsters just confirmed it.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra will offer variable aperture instead of dual aperture

This information comes from Digital Chat Station, one of the best-known tipsters from China. On Weibo, he said that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra will feature four cameras on the back. In fact, Xiaomi plans to utilize four 50-megapixel cameras back there.

Now, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra also offers four cameras on the back. On the main camera, the phone supported a dual aperture, the phone (and user) could jump between an f/1.6 and f/4.0 aperture.

That’s great, better than nothing, but Huawei offers a 10-stop variable aperture on its phones, and provides some of the best camera smartphones on the market. Variable aperture is immensely useful if utilized properly, as the phone can easily adapt to various lighting conditions.

Will it be a 10-stop variable aperture, to match Huawei? We’ll see

Well, Xiaomi will push variable aperture on its flagship smartphone too. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is said to support a multi-stop variable aperture, but we still don’t know the details, though. Will it be a 3-stop offering, a 4-stop offering, or perhaps a 10-stop offering? Well, we’ll have to wait and see.

Xiaomi already announced two Xiaomi 14 flagship-grade smartphones, the Xiaomi 14 and Xiaomi 14 Pro. Those two devices have yet to launch globally, which will likely happen in Q1 next year.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra, on the other hand, is a different story. That phone will arrive later on. The Xiaomi 13 Ultra launched in April last year, and it’s possible the Xiaomi 14 Ultra will follow a year later, if not a bit sooner than that.

That device will almost certainly be fueled by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 too, but we still don’t know the details, other than the SoC, and the camera info we mentioned. Well, we also expect Android 14 with HyperOS on top of it, but that’s a given.


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Amazon is doubling down on its AI with new chips

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Just about every major company is diving deep into AI technology, and Amazon is no exception. The e-commerce giant has been working on AI for years, but now it’s doubling down on its efforts with the announcement of new chips at its Re:Invent conference in Vegas. These chips promise to offer improvements with AI training.

One of the main things you need when you’re training AI models is a powerful set of chips. You’ll need them to process all of the data flowing in. This is why companies buy boatloads of powerful chips from chip manufacturers.

Amazon is working on new chips for AI training

First up, we have the Trainium2 chips. The second generation in the series, they offer some improvements over their predecessors. Amazon says that they’re twice as power efficient and 4x more powerful than the first generation. Those are notable improvements, for just one generational leap. When it comes to chip technologies, generational leaps usually bring 30%-50% jumps in performance, not 400%.

Along with Amazon, another company is going to be using these chips. Anthropic AI will also employ these chips to help train its models. This company is backed by Amazon, so that should come as no surprise.

Next up, the company is also working on the new Graviton4 chips. These aren’t quite as robust as the aforementioned ones, but they’re not meant to be. These new chips offer a 30% jump in performance over their predecessors. That’s not as notable as with the Trainium2 chips, but that’s still nothing to sneeze at. These chips are based on ARM architecture which leads to gains in power efficiency.

These new chips are another example of major companies gathering major silicon to boost their AI development. Not too long ago, Elon Musk secured thousands of GPUs from Nvidia to build the AI for X Corp.

Speaking of Nvidia, Amazon partnered with Nvidia to offer enterprise customers access to some of the company’s powerful cloud-based AI chips. They’ll have access to the H200 AU GPUs.

Amazon has a new bot

During the event, the company took the wraps off of Q; its new AI chatbot. We all knew that this was coming. Every company eventually comes out with a chatbot. However, you won’t be asking this one to help you cheat on your history essay. Rather, Q comes with a suit and a tie.

It’s a chatbot designed for internal; business use. We’re talking about speeding up work projects and customer service. This will be an all-in-one business solution that can connect to several different services like Dropbox, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Zendesk, and many more. If you’re interested in using this bot, then it will cost you between $20 and $30/month. It’s available in preview form currently.


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