Guvera
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Guvera is a
music technology Music technology is the study or the use of any device, mechanism, machine or tool by a musician or composer to make or perform music; to musical composition, compose, music notation, notate, playback or record songs or pieces; or to Music infor ...
company and entertainment streaming service, focusing on music technology development, access to global streaming rights, and a legacy music services business model. Guvera was founded in 2008 by Claes Loberg. After pausing operations in 2017, Guvera relaunched in 2024 with new global partnerships and initiatives.


History

Guvera was initially funded by AMMA Private Investment out of Australia. Guvera raised about $50m from its base of about 1000 smaller sophisticated investors primarily made up of accounting firms and other financial services businesses. Guvera was incorporated in 2008, and launched beta in Australia February 2010, and in the US March 2010. Guvera was initially released as a beta to a select group of users by invitation only. Guvera had agreements with music labels in the regions where the product was available, which allowed for legal free music streams. In August 2011, Guvera appointed
Phil Quartararo Philip Michael Quartararo (January 7, 1956 – November 22, 2023) was an American music industry executive. He was the president and chairman of The Hello Group, and held positions as CEO at Virgin Records, Warner Bros. Records, and EMI, and w ...
as its Global Head of Music. In September 2011 the comapany moved into new headquarters in The Rocket in Robina, Gold Coast, Australia. In March 2012, Guvera created a mobile platform and in December 2012 released mobile apps for IOS and Android in Australia. An iPad app was then released in August 2013. In March 2014 an agreement was signed with
Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, trading as Lenovo ( , zh, c=联想, p=Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, servers, conv ...
to become its worldwide music partner, with Guvera's music streaming service pre-installed onto Lenovo mobile devices. In January 2015 Guvera acquired
Blinkbox Music Blinkbox Music (originally We7) was a free, advertising supported, music streaming service, with over 12 million tracks available for streaming in the UK and Ireland, with content from the music industry, and most independent labels and distrib ...
from
Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...
. It placed the company into
administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...
in June 2015, having exhausted Blinkbox's financial reserves. The company had bought Blinkbox Music as part of an agreement with Tesco that it would pay its employees a higher rate of redundancy payment if the business failed, which it did not honour. In 2015 the company received a Gold award at the Asia App Design Awards. In October 2015 the former employees of
Blinkbox Music Blinkbox Music (originally We7) was a free, advertising supported, music streaming service, with over 12 million tracks available for streaming in the UK and Ireland, with content from the music industry, and most independent labels and distrib ...
filed a £10m Employment Tribunal case against Guvera. The Tribunal awarded them £3.5m in damages, which Guvera appealed. The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the appeal on 22 November 2017. In May 2016 Guvera won an international Gold at the Global App Design Awards. In June 2016 Guvera was blocked from a stockmarket listing. The company began operating in only 5 markets: Australia, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and Darren Herft stepped down as CEO in July 2016, replaced by founder Claes Loberg. On 27 July 2016, the company shut down its operations in its home market of Australia and reiterated its intentions to "focus all efforts in key emerging countries, such as India and Indonesia". As of May 2017, Guvera shut down all operations across all remaining Asian markets. On 27 June 2017 it was reported that a federal investigation in to Guvera had started. In January 2018, former CEO Darren Herft was questioned in a public hearing by the Federal Court of Sydney about the company's operation and failure. Guvera announced on August 9, 2024 a new
K-pop K-pop (; an abbreviation of "Korean popular music") is a form of popular music originating in South Korea. It emerged in the 1990s as a form of youth subculture, with Korean musicians taking influence from Western Electronic dance music, danc ...
streaming partnership in South Korea, giving the company streaming rights to over 600,000 K-pop songs. This is similar to Guvera's previous music streaming services model, however, now makes up only a part of their business model, which has become deliberately diversified post relaunch, with additional focus on legacy music services like live events. In October 2024 a two-part documentary on Guvera was released by the Australian
Special Broadcasting Service The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public broadcasting, public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from tax revenue. SBS operates six TV channels (SBS (Australian TV chann ...
.


Music streaming

Guvera streamed music and entertainment for its users and held licensing agreements with
Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...
,
EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...
,
Orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...
, INgrooves, IODA, Mushroom/Liberation,
Shock Records Shock Records was an Australian independent record label, branded with the logo Shock or Shock Australia. Founded in 1988, it traded as Shock Records Pty. Ltd, and its publishing arm as Shock Music Publishing Pty. Ltd. Its most prominent sublab ...
, Believe Digital; in addition to the rights bodies APRA, AMCOS, BMI, RightsFlow, Acodem,
SESAC SESAC is a for-profit performance-rights organization in the United States. Founded in 1930 as the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, it is the second-oldest performance-rights organization in the United States.
, Cash, Emmasacm, Extraphone, Peer, Prs/Impel, Filscap, First Music Publishing, Latinautor, Macp, Megaliner, National Music Publishing, Sabam, Sadaic, Sba, Sacem, Siae, Socan, Sonyatv, Sesac, Sgae, Solar, Warner Chappell, Universal Music Publishing, and Unisys. Guvera distributed DRM-free MP3 downloads with bitrates of 256 and 320 kbit/s. Guvera was also a targeted advertising platform, which targeted ads at relevant music genres. Content could be streamed via brand channels from within Guvera's platform, and the advertisers had a role in the selecting music content. Guvera was available on
web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
s,
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
, Android and the
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...
.


See also

*
Streaming media Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a Computer network, network for playback using a Media player (disambiguation), media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of Network packet, packets from a Server (computing), ...
*
Music technology Music technology is the study or the use of any device, mechanism, machine or tool by a musician or composer to make or perform music; to musical composition, compose, music notation, notate, playback or record songs or pieces; or to Music infor ...
*
List of online music databases Below is a table of online music databases that are largely free of charge. Many of the sites provide a specialized service or focus on a particular music genre. Some of these operate as an online music store or purchase referral service in some ...


References


External links

* {{Australian streaming companies Download websites Companies based on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australian companies established in 2008 Entertainment companies established in 2008 Australian streaming companies 2008 software Android (operating system) software IOS software Jukebox-style media players Online music database clients Software that uses Qt Music streaming services Symbian software Australian music websites Internet properties established in 2008 2017 disestablishments in Australia Entertainment companies disestablished in 2017 Internet properties disestablished in 2017