Beats Music’s Chief Executive Ian Rogers on Tuesday announced his company is acquiring Topspin Media, a platform that lets artists sell merchandise and albums directly to fans.
Rogers, who had left his position as CEO of Topspin a year ago to join Beats, announced the deal in a blog post, saying, “The acquisition brings a team of talented people who have spent years working on building and fine-tuning the artist-to-fan connection into the Beats Music experience. Topspin + Beats Music combines music discovery and direct relationships between artists and fans in a revolutionary way.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Beats Music declined to comment further beyond Rogers’ post.
After a year of watching artists bash streaming music for not paying enough to musicians, Beats Music launched its service in January with an eye toward positioning itself as a service that is friendly to artists, a message that Rogers re-iterated in his blog.
“We’re committed to establishing Beats Music as a conduit for the artist-fan relationship, a platform where artists have a voice, and a provider of useful data and analytics on how fans interact with artists and their music,” Rogers wrote. “This acquisition puts our money where our mouth is.”
