Month: March 2016

Spotify has agreed to do a better job at allowing music publishers and songwriters to claim and receive royalties from the streaming service. However there's a caveat: to strike the settlement deal with Spotify, copyright holders cannot make an infringement claim against the company.

In recent months, Spotify has faced a number of lawsuits from musicians who have challenged the Sweden-based firm's alleged failure to licence artists' works before making them available for streaming.

On Thursday, US trade body the National Music Publishers' Association said that the settlement deal it had struck with Spotify represented a "landmark industry agreement."

The game's pair of "prologue" missions are rather straightforward.

12 more images in gallery

The latest Hitman game—the first to actually bear the unadorned title of Hitman—is set to release episodically throughout the rest of the year. The opening salvo includes just three levels, two of which basically play prologue to the standout Paris map, for $15. Add to that another $10 for each of the next six episodes à la carte. Alternatively, you could just land "The Full Experience" for a sensible $60.

Normally I wouldn't bother to explain how to buy a game while reviewing it, but in this case I'll make an exception. That’s both because Square Enix has done an exceptionally poor job of communicating how to purchase the game and because understanding how Hitman is packaged is key to understanding what makes it work. And it actually works rather well.

Apple CEO Tim Cook takes the stage at the company's September 2015 product event. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple's having an event next Monday. We're going to be on the ground to cover everything the company has to offer, but as usual leakers and rumor sites have outed most of the biggest potential announcements.

To get you prepared for the big event, we've rounded up the most likely rumors and added our own educated guesses and commentary. Check back on Monday to follow along with our liveblog and all of our post-event coverage.

Return of the 4-inch iPhone

Remember small iPhones? They might be coming back. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Fans of smaller phones ("smaller" in this case meaning "less than 4.7 inches") haven't had many flagships to look forward to in the last couple of years, aside from stuff like the Xperia Compact series. Apple's larger phones have been great for sales, but people who actually liked the size of the iPhone 5 and 5S haven't had anything to upgrade to in a while.