Dear users. Just a quick note to inform you that our technical team are currently performing some work on our sales reporting system. This has meant we have had to temporarily disable payouts from your account page. The work is expected to be completed by the end of this week, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this will cause. If you have any questions or would like to get in touch with us about this please contact support(at)recordunion.com.

We are proud to announce that we have now added Rdio to our list of distribution partners. We are really excited to add another super cool streaming service to our list of partners, and hope this will create more opportunities for you to reach out to fans and listeners.

About Rdio: Rdio is an unlimited, on-demand social music service created by the founders of Skype. With Rdio, users can listen to as many songs as they want, anytime, anywhere, and discover and share new music with friends and influencers. Rdio is available on a variety of platforms including web, Mac or PC desktop client, mobile devices such as iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 7,  and in-home devices like Sonos and Roku. Rdio launched in August 2010 and is currently available in the US & Canada.

Record Union will deliver our entire catalog to Rdio on Monday next week - if you for some reason would not like your music available on Rdio please get in touch with content(at)recordunion.com. Happy time!

Today Record Union artist Nomy has taken over the Spotify client homepage. This massive takeover is to promote his latest album By the edge of God which is now out on Spotify. Those of you on Spotify Free may even hear some voice and banner ads about his new album which is set to be one of his biggest yet. If you are a premium user you can even take part in a competition Nomy is running from his homepage.

Nomy has appeared on the global Spotify toplist before with his hit album “Song or Suicide”  - we are excited to say the least to see what this homegrown DIY artist can achieve this time around! Go Nomy, go, go, go Nomy!

Season 2 of Sweden´s largest music competition, The Next Big Thing, is now up and running. Spurred on by the success of last year, The Next Big Thing are offering a new and improved platform, even bigger prizes, not the mention a wide range of opportunities for independent and unsigned artists to show their metal.

However, it not all about the artists - what makes Next Big Thing such fun is that music listeners play a central role. As Jury´s they can use their collective knowledge to demonstrate their ability to pick what hots from whats not and in turn win their own fantastic prizes. The Next Big Thing is the music competition where everybody wins.

To find out more about the competition, or become part of it, click here.

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More great news! Record Union A&R Hans Selander has just informed us that Swedish rockers The Neverdies have won the Bandit Unsigned award this year, and have landed themselves a contract with Warner Music. They have also been scheduled to play at the Getaway Rock Festival and are proud owners of a sweet new stage equipment. We would like to congratulate the band, and though it will be sad to see you go, we wish you the best for the future!

Its official! Homegrown Record Union star Nomy has been nominated as “Innovator of the year” in the upcoming Grammy´s which will be held in Stockholm this January. Other nominees include the likes of Johnossi, IAMAMIWHOAMI, Magnus Weideskog and Robyn.

The official motivation behind his nomination is cited as his display of unique entrepreneurship, taking his home produced compositions to a global audience via the innovative use of digital channels. Also highlighted have been his dedicated use of social media to expand and strengthen his loyal fan base, the success of which has landed him on the top lists of major music services around the world.

What is clear is that Nomy has reached a level of success which is almost unheard of for independent artists - a success forged out of a shrewd and innovative use of the digital channels available to the new generation of web savvy musicians. This nomination is a clear indication that his achievements have not gone unnoticed by the more established music industry, and is a well deserved token of this recognition.

Nomy is stunned at this honour, and when we asked how he felt he said the following:

“I guess for bussines people this nomination is just peanuts, but for me this is one of the biggest things that has happened in my life - everything after this is just a bonus. This is unreal.“

From all of us here at Record Union: Congratulations Nomy. You deserve this.

Dear friends. We have recently paid out sales reports for both June and July, which have regrettably been delayed by a number of weeks. The reason behind this delay was a technical error that occurred when we processed the May report for Spotify Sweden a little while back - an error which is important that you know about, as it may have an effect on the royalties you receive from the June and maybe even July Spotify Sweden report.

The technical error that occurred resulted in Record Union paying out  significantly more than the correct amount of royalties for the Spotify Sweden May report. This means that users received more money than they were meant to.  Given to the size of this report the only real option for us was to withdraw this money from the next Spotify report in order to make up this difference.

Rest assured that the result of this will not in any way reduce the total royalties you will receive from Spotify - you will get exactly the correct amount of royalties generated for the streams you accumulated. However, it will influence the amount you get for Spotify Sweden in the June and maybe even the July report.

For example: Artist A was supposed to get $100 for Spotify Sweden in May, when they actually got $250 ($150 too much). In June they were supposed to get $125, however since they got paid an extra $150 in May they will not get any money from Spotify Sweden June. Moving on to the next month, Artist A was supposed get $125 in July but since they still have $25 in extra royalties they receive $100.

We are obviously appalled that this error could have occurred and our development team have been working overtime to investigate and make sure it doesn’t happen again. The reason other reports have been delayed is because we could not process any new reports until the problem had been fully investigated. We are now confident that relevant measures have been taken and sincerely apologize for the delays which were caused during this procedure. We expect to resume our normal reporting schedule for the next batch of reports at the end of this month. For any questions about this please contact content(at)recordunion.com.

That’s right folks! You can now sign up for this years Peoples Music Awards. Last year proved to be bigger and better than ever, with thousands of artist participating in what is becoming an established competition within independent music.

The Peoples Music Awards are the worlds first and only unsigned music awards, and as an artist or band, the benefits are clear . Entering awards gives you an excellent platform to reach out to new fans around the world, with music hungry listeners flocking to the TPMA website to give their verdict on the artists who have entered. You will also receive valuable feedback on the songs you have submitted from an influential panel of industry experts. This combination of a jury panel and the peoples vote is what makes this competition unique.

For more information about the awards and enter into this years competition, head over to The Peoples Music Awards website.

As many of you are aware, iTunes has recently launched Ping - a social network for music. This exciting addition to the iTunes repertoire offers a range of social networking features for both artists and there fans and introduces a whole new dynamic into the iTunes experience. See here for a full overview of these new features.

To get set up with ping requires help from your distributor and we would like to inform you that we will be able to help you get set up with these profiles in the future. Like iTunes our goal is to make it possible for all artists to be part of ping. There is obviously a high demand for these profiles so to express your interest in getting one please send an email to content(at)recordunion.com and we will put you on the list.

We bring sad news. A few days ago we received word from Peoples Music Store that they have made the decision to shut down their service. Since the 31st of August the store has been in a commercially dormant state and will regrettably remain so until the website is archived and made totally unavailable.

The obvious consequences of this is that Record Union will no longer be able to offer distribution to Peoples Music Store and have been forced to remove them from our list of retail partners. The good news, if one can call it that, is the closure of the Peoples Music Store has not jeopardize the remaining royalties which are due to Record Union artists. These will be transferred to you during the next round of payouts.