Music Business News and Industry Developments Roundup

The Music Business Looks Forward: 5 Social Media Predictions For 2012 - In the last year, the music industry shifted from cautiously experimenting with social media, to recognizing it as a necessary part of every marketing strategy, from the smallest bands to the biggest brands. It’s an exciting time.

Does the music industry spend its own money on music? - SoundCTRL's David Chaitt conducts a survey with 500 industry people.

RightsFlow Acquired by Google, Now Part of YouTube - Digitalmediawire reports a move which could ultimately benefit users, artists, labels, songwriters, publishers, and the entire global music ecosystem in solving the challenging problem of copyright management.

Spotify Adds Free Pandora-like Radio With Unlimited Track Skips - Hypebot reports that Spotify one-ups Pandora with unlimited track skips. Currently, Pandora accounts permit 6 skips per hour per station, for up to 12 total skips per day across all stations.

Slowbizz Wants to Help Bands Play Your Living Room - A startup called Slowbizz aims to make that homey live music experience possible for more people by taking care of some of the logistics with a web app.