Bob Marley family says to sue Universal, Verizon

The family of late reggae singer Bob Marley said on Thursday they will sue Universal Music Group and Verizon Wireless for using the iconic pop star's name, likeness and image without permission. Reuters.UK reports.

"The offer, announced on Tuesday, said Verizon Wireless customers would be able to purchase ringtones of some of Marley's music exclusively on its service.

"The agreement was entered into without the permission of the Marley Family," said the statement from Fifty Six Hope Road Music Ltd.

... The music company, owned by French media giant Vivendi, said the claims made in the press release were "meritless".

"Specifically, we are offering Bob Marley ringtones through Verizon in accordance with the terms of a long-standing contract between Bob Marley and UMG," Universal Music Group said".

Cameraphone and MMS Combine to Offer Music Information

This is fabulous. A record label is launching a service that enables music fans to get information about music, simply by taking a photo of the CD case and sending it via MMS to their server.

"MMS & Buyis about impulse purchase through picture taking: You are looking at a CD in the store or passing by a promo poster. Aim your mobile, send the picture as MMS, immediately get ringtones, video clips, concert tickets and further information about the music.

The company says that the service is based on image recognition engine and supports recognition of printed and electronic media , TV/ LCD screens, CD/DVD covers, Posters and T-Shirts.

MMS & Buy launches in the UK focusing on Music CD's, starting with the Top 20 UK singles. "

[via Cellular News]

Startup Offers New Way for Music Fans to Reach Out to Artists, and Musicians to Respond

With Web sites, blogs, social networks and text-messaging services, musicians have plenty of ways to connect with fans. Saying Now is adding to the mix an older form of communication -- voice messages.

SayNow's service, slated to formally launch next month, lets celebrities receive voice messages and send ones en masse to those who have subscribed to be a part of their fan community. Each celebrity gets a phone number that fans can call to either record a message or listen to one left by the artist.

The service is free; SayNow is relying on advertising for revenue.

[Associated Press via Moco News]

Verizon Wireless Customers Get Exclusive Bob Marley Ringtones

Verizon Wireless and Universal Music Group announced that Verizon Wireless customers can personalize their wireless phones with Ringtones by Bob Marley.

Available exclusively to Verizon Wireless customers, these featured tones include classic songs from legendary artist and music icon Bob Marley.

The following Ringtones from Bob Marley & The Wailers are now available:

- "Africa Unite" - "Is This Love" (Live)
- "Buffalo Soldier" - "Jah Live"
- "Burnin' And Lootin'" (Live) - "Jammin'"
- "Coming In From The Cold" - "Kaya"
- "Concrete Jungle" (Live) - "Kinky Reggae" (Live)
- "Could You Be Loved" - "Lively Up Yourself" (Live)
- "Easy Skanking" - "Natural Mystic"
- "Exodus" - "One Love / People Get Ready"
- "I Shot The Sheriff" (Live) - "Punky Reggae Party" (Live)
- "Redemption Song" - "Sun Is Shining"
- "Running Away" - "Three Little Birds"
- "Satisfy My Soul" - "Trenchtown Rock" (Live)
- "So Much Trouble In The World" - "Turn Your Lights Down Low"
- "Stir It Up" (Live) - "Waiting In Vain"

[Press release]

Nokia set to strike note with iTunes rival

Mobile operators will be watching cautiously on Wednesday when Nokia declares an important strategic shift with the announcement of an online music service intended to rival Apple’s iTunes.

Nokia’s music service will be a new rival for mobile operators’ own music offerings, many of which have failed to gain traction in the market. Most mobile music users simply “sideload” music from their computer direct to their handset.

Nokia’s music site will be based on Loudeye, the US online music company that Nokia bought for $60m last year. Loudeye has a music library of about 1.6m tracks; fewer than the 5m held by iTunes and Napster’s more than 3m.

Nokia has been experimenting with mobile music in a low-key way since last autumn, when it launched a website called Music Recommenders. "

[via FT]

Leaked pics of Nokia’s new & revised Xpress Music handsets

New Nokia phones to have been announced today, were leaked yesterday on Chinese website IT.com.cn.

It seems there will be 3 new Nokia XpressMusic phones introduced. Click here for more pics and specs.

[Unwired View via Pocket Picks]

Company helps calculate complex royalties for digital music sales

The music industry - upended by Internet piracy and new forms of digital distribution - now faces another hurdle in the era of iTunes, MP3s and ringtones: how to divvy up income from those sales. The Paramus Post reports.

Some independent record labels are still using Excel spreadsheets to calculate royalties. Not the most efficient method.

Here comes Bob Kohn, the guru of music royalties.

He thinks he has a solution for music royalties in the Digital Age. It's Royalty Share, a Web-based service that he helped start in San Diego."

In their own words: Royalty Share offers record labels, music distributors and music publishers the freedom to pursue new revenue opportunities made possible by digital distribution.

We enable customers to focus on their core businesses while we take care of the increasingly complex, tedious tasks of sales data consolidation and royalty reporting.

Royalty Share combines a state-of-the-art royalty processing platform with world-class customer service. RoyaltyShare's solutions support the complete royalty process from consolidating sales data to processing and distributing royalty statements.

Swisscom Mobile introduces ad-supported music videos

Swisscom Mobile has launched an ad-enabled mobile music video service through its Vodafone live! portal, offering customers an extended choice of music from the biggest names in music to local artists and rising stars at a discounted price.

[via GoMo News]

Oldies but goodies top ringtone charts

Oldies but goodies. "Pink Panther, "Your Song" and "Super Mario Brothers Theme" are in the top 4 for ringtone sales this week, according to Billboard Charts

[via C/net Cell Phone Accessories Blog]

BooseyTones

BooseyTones "Classical ringtones for the discerning phone"

"Being the world's largest publisher of classical music, Boosey & Hawkes can draw from an immense catalogue of music by such distinguished 20th century composers as Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Britten, Adams and Reich.

Previous centuries are represented by a host of venerable composers, from Handel to Tchaikovsky.

After replacing Nokia's Gran Vals with a truetone version of Adam's Short Ride in a Fast Machine, dedicated followers of classical music (read: boomers) will also be pleased to swap standard cellphone wallpapers with a photograph of a pensive Prokofiev, or an engraving of Mozart's dapper silhouette. "

[Trendwatching via CoolBusiness]

Send Songs Via Email With Your iPhone

Song Sender is an application that reads your entire library, creating a list of the music on your iPhone. If you tap on a song, the screen will fade out and give you a list of options: Play the song, stop playback, send to email, or send to ringtones.

[via iPhoneMatters]

Stephen Colbert Gives Away Free Ringtone

Stephen Colbert is offering free ringtones. Well, sort of of. Watch segment on mocoblog or full show on Comedy Central.

Australian Recording Industry Association Branded Moto Phone

The Australian Recording Industry Assocation (ARIA) has teamed up with Motorola to launch an Z6 DUO ARIA-branded handset, in Australia, reports MocoNews.

"The attraction being “a new music button on the main menu, allowing direct access to the Motorola ARIA Chart from your mobile phone at all times, wherever you are.

The MOTOROKR Z6 DUO ARIA is first in a range of new music handsets to be released exclusively in Australia.

The new handset will allow direct access to the Motorola ARIA Chart from your mobile phone, and will come bundled with a bonus content card and the brand new wireless MOTOROKR S9 Bluetooth stereo headphones."

Clench your teeth for tunes, Japan researchers say

Japanese train commuters who don't want to reach conspicuously into their bags or pockets to start their iPods will soon be able to do it more subtly -- by simply clenching their teeth. Spluch reports.

"Japanese researchers have developed head gear that uses infrared sensors and a microcomputer to let people operate music players by clenching their teeth.

The computer receives a command when the user clenches his or her teeth for about one second -- which differentiates the action from other activities such as chewing gum and talking.

The research team at state-run Osaka University hopes to put the device to commercial use for music players and believes it can eventually be adapted to run cellphones, wheelchairs and other products."

[via the AFP]

History corrected of the first ringtones

One of my readers, Sumanth S Gopinath, who is writing a book on the subject, has pointed out that James Winsoar, who has been credited as the first person to sell downloadable ringtones via Nokia phones - may have been the first - but only in the UK.

"Research by Noriko Manabe has shown that downloadable ringtones appeared in 1997 in Japan (apparently, Astel Tokyo sold them), and in Finland, Vesa-Matti Paananen seems to have been the person to do this first in Europe, beginning in 1998.

The Paananen story can also be found in Dan Steinbock, "The Mobile Revolution: The Making of Mobile Services Worldwide" (London: Kogan Page, 2005), p. 125.

And Noriko Manabe's essay, "Going Mobile: The Mobile Internet, Ringtones, and the Mobile Music Market in Japan," ed. Gerard Goggin and Mark McLelland (London: Routledge, forthcoming).

Related:

-- Ringtone instigator celebrates 7 years in business

-- James Winsoar, first ringtone provider

Latin music videos go mobile on ES Musica

With 10 original weekly shows, made-for-mobile Latin music channel ES Musica aims to break ground by re-creating the music TV experience -- and one-upping it with portability and interactivity.

"... GoTV's ES Musica offers a combination of all-original video content produced specifically for mobile on its own music-dedicated channel.

In its shows, which range from two-and-a-half to four minutes, the channel offers everything from video countdowns to tour documentaries and artist profiles, with a balance of commercial and alternative music. A reality series following an artist is also in development."

[via Reuters]

Media companies back ChildLine for gift ringtones promo

Youth charity ChildLine is to launch a gift ringtones fundraising service, which is being supported by 20 media companies, including IPC Media, GCap, Universal McCann and Trinity Mirror.

The mobile ringtone gift programme, called Gringtones, has been set up by ChildLine to raise money for the charity's work.

[via Brand Republic]

Spanish operator launches mobile downloads from public phone booths

Spanish operator Telefónica Telecomunicaciones Públicas has just launched a new service, available from the country's 7'000 public phone booths, called “Cabinamanía”, which enables mobile users to download the latest musical hits, logos, images and short animations.

[via Noticias]

English orchestra tunes up for virtual concert

Not related to cell phones, but fun.

Stuff reports that one of Britain's oldest symphony orchestras is to play a concert in Second Life.

"The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is building a replica of its concert hall where it will perform works by Rachmaninov, Ravel and two contemporary composers from the northern English city.

After the concert, they can chat to the orchestra's principal conductor Vasily Petrenko and performers in the virtual bar.

Michael Elliott, the orchestra's chief executive, said he hoped the September 14 concert would attract a new audience to classical music. "It's a lot of fun and certainly adds a different dimension to the more traditional visit to a concert hall," he said. "

Coming next, a Beyonce cell phone

An interesting article from The New York Times, on how cell phones are becoming as important an accessory for concert goers.

"Beyond using them to record a short souvenir, they are becoming a ticket to everything from free ringtones to V.I.P. treatment.

... The introduction of more interactive features highlights how musicians — and the marketers who surround them — are trying to establish connections that continue long after a fan leaves a concert.

Mathew Knowles, the manager (and father) of Beyoncé, said he expected to use the thousands of phone numbers collected on her current tour to pitch a variety of products, including a Beyoncé-themed phone".

Universal to Test Sales of DRM-Free Music

Universal Music Group is the latest major music label to offer music downloads without copy protection. PC World reports.

"As part of a six-month test to end in January, UMG, a subsidiary of French conglomerate Vivendi Universal SA, will sell a wide range of albums and songs from artists such as 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas and Sting-- in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management) copy protection, the music company confirmed Friday.

In May, rival EMI Group PLC began selling a selection of its music DRM-free through outlets including Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store-- the first company to sell unprotected music that way. Universal, though, does not plan to sell its DRM-free tracks through iTunes. This follows its announcement at the start of July that it will not automatically offer all its music for Apple to sell through iTunes.

DRM technologies are designed to combat piracy, and control the terms on which content downloaded from the Internet can be copied or transferred to other devices. But some industry critics have argued that DRM is complex to implement, can unfairly prevent people from playing music or videos they purchase on any device they want and is downright unpopular with music fans.

As part of its six-month DRM-free test, UMG will offer content in the MP3 format through the Web sites of a number of retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., as well as artist and label-branded Web sites, such as ryan-adams.com and islandrecords.com. Most of the music will be available to these retailers at standard wholesale prices."

DJ Envy Launches Mobile Mixtape

DJ Envy, who’s radio show is broadcast on Hot 97 and Sirius Satellite Radio’s Hip-Hop Nation, will launch a series of mix tapes for mobile phones. The Mobile Mixtape will be weekly seven-track compilations mixed by DJ Envy and distributed through Celfish.

[via Moco News]

LG's Trax 3G music phone goes live with AT&T

AT&T today announced the launch of the LG Trax. In addition to the touch-sensitive external music controls and support for up to 4GB of AAC, MP3, or WMA tracks that give the phone its name, the shipping version of the handset takes advantage of its 3G-level HSDPA Internet access to hook into multiple online AT&T media services.

The Trax is the latest phone to support MP3 downloads from eMusic Mobile or live Internet streaming of XM radio.

[via electronista]

ToneThis

ToneThis is a desktop application for delivering personalized and third-party content to your phone. Unlike traditional content stores (ringtones, wallpapers, videos, games), ToneThis sits on your desktop enabling you the freedom to select and personalize your own content for delivery to your cellphone.

Additionally, ToneThis allows you to purchase premium content (music, art, video, games) from the desktop application.

Vacation

Summer break.

Back on Tuesday August 14.

Ringboxx Brings ringtones to the home phone

ars technica reports on Ringboxx, a white ipod like device that brings ringtones to the home phone.

In their own words:

Ringboxx allows people to identify callers instantly, even when they are not near their phones, by using the ringtones they assign to friends, family or even unwanted 800 numbers. Just as ringtones are now a popular way to personalize mobile phones, the Ringboxx can transform a standard home phone by reflecting its owner's personality. Silence telemarketers or assign them ringtones; with Caller ID, you can assign 800 numbers specific ringtones, or set the preference to silence and mute them altogether.

iTunes Store rings up 3 billionth song

Apple announced this morning that over 3 billion songs have been sold through its online music store. The milestone not only marks a major feat for Apple, but also for the digital music industry as a whole. [via ars technica]

Musical search engine to come soon

The search engines of today might be able to do just word and images searches, but how many of them will be able to take a sound sample and retrieve similar tunes? USA Today reports.

"An Australian computer scientist believes that the upcoming search engines in the future will be able to do just that - retrieve music on your behalf whenever you belt out a tune to your computer. She strongly holds on to her views that the next three to four years will see such a search engine appear on anyone who loves music. "

... This project she’s talking about currently concentrates on a specialized music search engine that is capable of retrieving audio by singing, requiring users to log on to a specific website and singing a short snippet or lyrics straight into the computer microphone as a query submission.

The computer will get to work straight away, searching the website’s database and retrieving a menu of digital files where the user can then download.

Those with a lack of talent in the singing department will receive less accurate results, underlining the importance of the quality of your voice when singing a search."