LIFT SONG

Everyone's favorite LIFT conference -on the challenges and opportunities of technology in our society to be held in Geneva next week - is recommending that every attendee imagine brief lyrics to the LIFT 08 soundtrack.

"At the LIFT SONG recording booth in the activity room, you will record your own voice/song/lyrics/ guitar track over the LIFT 08 soundtrack track in a 20 seconds mp3 format, it will then be sent to you by email maybe even available on the website. The whole process should take less than 3 minutes per person.

After receiving your track it is highly recommended you use and abuse your LIFT SONG during the conference, for instance using it as a ringtone, blog post, computer noise, whistle-a-long, klaxon melody, live cover at the local pub, air guitar."

How cool is that?

Sunrise relaunches musicworld

Swiss mobile operator Sunrise has relaunched it’s OTA music download service for mobiles, called Music World.

It’s powered by 24-7 Entertainment, and offers dual-download (PC and Mobile) on over 2 million tracks. Additionally there is preview and recommendation functionality to enhance the service further.

[via IntoMobile]

Mobile phones get spotlight at Cannes music show

Phone companies are by now a familiar presence at the Midem's annual global music trade show, which is taking place in Cannes this week, with cellphone vendors sandwiched between purveyors of audio gear and managers of hip-hop bands. The IHT reports.

"That's because the mobile phone is now the world's best-selling portable music device - even if most people don't play tunes on their phone. An MP3 player is almost standard on any midrange or high-end phone coming to market these days.

Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, last year old 146 million phones that can play digital music, out of total sales of about 430 million. Sony Ericsson, with a far smaller global market share, sold about the same number of music phones, many of them carrying the Walkman brand.

But it's not just a hardware phenomenon. In Cannes, several telecommunications companies took the wraps off ideas for new music services at Midem, the international music market. In part, they are trying to emulate Asia, where in certain countries music over the mobile phone outsells Internet downloads."

Read full article.

Nokia to Share Revenue of Bundled Music With Mobile Operators

Nokia will share revenue with phone operators from a program to sell handsets with unlimited music access, Nokia's head of entertainment said to Bloomberg.

"The Finnish company unveiled in December the "Comes With Music'' program, which will allow customers to buy a phone with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks included in the purchase price. Nokia agreed to offer tracks from Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, and is in talks with other major labels.

... Tracks downloaded on the "Comes with Music'' program will be protected by digital-rights management software, Ojanpera said. While users will be able to share music files between their handset and computer, the files will not be transferable between computers, according to the executive."

[via MobHappy]

Ezmo Lets Phone Users Tap Music Collection

Norway-based Ezmo has announced its new mobile version of its Ezmo online music player, offering mobile phone users a way to tap into their personal music collections using their phones—and without having to cart around memory or other storage in order to load up songs.

ased on Flash Lite 3—available in a growing number of phones including the Nokia N95—Ezmo combines a music player with a social networking service: users can upload their entire music library to the Web (using tools for Mac or Windows), then listen to their music collections on their mobile phones.

They can also share their music libraries with up to ten friends, as well as access their music from anywhere they can get an Internet connection.

[via Digital Trends]

French plan e-mail warnings for illegal downloads

Legislation allowing the French government to send e-mail warnings to anyone downloading music tracks without paying for them should be passed by the summer, a senior official said on Sunday, according to the FT.

"The measures announced last year by French president Nicolas Sarkozy include a “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” policy for people downloading illegally.

After two warnings, another breach would mean internet service providers would have to block a person’s web access.

The e-mail warnings, which would tell people they had been caught breaking copyright laws, would not only be sent to those involved in large-scale file-sharing, but to each IP [internet protocol] address.

More Labels deny deals on file sharing service Qtrax

Following Universal's denial yesterday, the BBC reports that EMI and Universal have not licensed their music to Qtrax either.

Qtrax boasted it would carry up to 30 million tracks from "all the major labels".

Universal and EMI said discussions with Qtrax were still ongoing but that licensing deals were not in place.

Related:

-- Warner Bros dent hopes for free music downloads

-- Qtrax touts free music with ads

Warner Bros dent hopes for free music downloads

Music fans have been promised the prospect of downloading up to 25million songs for free - but a leading record label today threw a spanner into the works.

EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music are among the record giants said to have agreed to the new file-sharing site.

But Warner Music today insisted they had not given permissio for the Qtrax software.

[via Metro]

Sony Ericsson strikes deals with top music companies

Sony Ericsson Sunday unveiled content deals with three of the world's four top music labels, ahead of the launch of its online music store in May.

It'sPlayNowInternet and mobile phone service will be available in 30 countries worldwide by the end of 2008, starting from May. It will offer more than five million music tracks.

[via MarketWatch]

Qtrax touts free music with ads

Qtrax, a new legal online file-sharing service that allows fans to download songs for free, said on Sunday it will launch with 25 million to 30 million copyrighted tracks with backing from major labels. Reuters reports.

The free service will be funded through advertising revenue that Qtrax will share with the music companies. Qtrax has deals with all four major companies including Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.

To take advantage of the free but legal service, the user will need to download the Qtrax software which displays adverts while the user is searching and downloading songs.

Drum Ringtones

Spotted on SMSText News, Drum Ringtones accompanied by Italian drummer Andrea Vadrucci (aka Vadrum).

Web disconnection threat to downloaders

"... For every song sold legitimately through services such as Apple's iTunes music store, an estimated 20 were downloaded illegally.

John Kennedy, chief executive of the IFPI, said it was time internet service providers (ISPs) took responsibility for file sharers and predicted that the threat of disconnection would prove a greater deterrent than legal action.

The labels want ISPs to use filtering technologies to identify those sharing unlicensed music and movies, and to disconnect persistent offenders."

[via The Guardian]

Global music sales fell around 10 percent in 2007

Sales of music fell at a faster rate in 2007 than 2006 despite digital sales soaring, and the gatekeepers of the Web must act if the industry is to beat piracy, the international trade body said on Thursday. Reuters reports.

"Global digital sales grew by around 40 percent in 2007, the IFPI group said, but this was not enough to offset the sharp fall in CD sales, meaning the overall market is expected to be down around 10 percent for 2007."

Rita launches WAP site with album

With the recent release of her new album, Israeli singer Rita has also launched a WAP Web site for cellular phone users. Remazim (Hints ) can be downloaded straight to cell phones to be used as ringtones or just for listening.

[via The Jerusalem Post]

Music of Mexico waves hello to ringtone success

A romantic Mexican song is winning the hearts of pop pickers in the Billboard hot 100 ringtone chart.

"Grupo Montez De Durango are seven musical amigos, who play a style of music known as duranguense.

Their latest release, <>Adios Amor Te Vas, this week waved hello to the number three spot in the ringtones chart, climbing two places and threatening to re-take the number one spot after 43 weeks in the parade."

[via Mobile Marketing News]

USA. 52% of phones sold play music

As of November 2007, camera phones represented 79% of U.S. handset sales, cameras that capture video accounted for 56%, and 52% of phones could play music, according to NPD Group's Mobile Phone Track.

[via RCRWireless News]

Turner tests mobile video ringtones

Turner Broadcasting System Europe is taking clips from its Cartoon Network and Adult Swim series and turning them into mobile video ringtones via a tie-up with specialist Vringo, reports C21media.net.

"Content from shows including Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Dexter's Laboratory is being added to the Vringo website, which consumers can then download.

Video ringtones deliver a two- to 10-second video clip to the mobile phone owner's handset when a call comes in. "

Japanese Mobile Music Bits

The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) has released the results of a survey of 1,054 people, which found that 37.1 percent said they use illegal sites for mobile music downloads, and 14 percent said they upload files to the sites.

RIAJ estimates that more than 399 million mobile tracks were illegally downloaded in Japan last year, but the release is in Japanese, so I can’t delve into the details.

[via Moco News]

Crazy frog millionaires invest in Facebook

The three brothers who coined millions from the Crazy Frog phenomenon have followed Microsoft in taking a stake in Facebook.

... The undisclosed personal stake they've taken in Facebook is aimed at helping it crack the German market, where it has yet to make a significant impact against local social networking rivals. The Wall Street Journal reckons they coughed between $10m and $15m.

[via The Register]

83 Percent Of Mobile Music Sideloaded: Report

The most common method of getting music onto a phone is sideloading, which accounted for 83 percent of mobile music usage across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States in November according to M:Metrics.

The measurement firm found that 10.7 percent of mobile subscribers across the six geographies reported listening to music on their mobile device, ranging from 5.7 percent in the United States to 20 percent in Spain.

Breakdown of mobile usage per country posted on Moco News

Mobile Tunes Rack Up Sales in Asia

Asian consumers aren't yet buying digital music to pack their iPods with sprawling collections of music, but they are splashing out on digital music in the form of mobile ringtones and ringback tones.

[via PC World]

Vringo offers discovery channel video ringtones

Vringo has announced the addition of Discovery Channel video ringtones to its offering.

Vringo users can share video clips of volcanoes, bees, skyrockets and any of 20 other videos, using their mobile phones. Vringo subscribers worldwide will be able to personalize their own video ringtones, or 'Vringos,- by downloading free clips excerpted from Discovery Channel programming.

[via Press release]

Verizon announces top music for 2007

Verizon's top ten ringtones, ringback tones and full-track V CAST Music songs for last year. Full list here. Below are the top three:

Ringtones

-- "A Bay Bay," by Hurricane Chris
-- "Beautiful Girls (Main Chorus)," by Sean Kingston
-- "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')," by T-Pain

Ringback Tones

-- "Apologize," by Timbaland
-- "Beautiful Girls (Main Chorus)," by Sean Kingston
-- "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)," by Fergie

V CAST Music -- Full-track Songs

-- "A Bay Bay," by Hurricane Chris
-- "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)," by Fergie
-- "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')," by T-Pain featuring Yung Joc

[via IntoMobile]

VeloTones

This is a new one. Bicycle tones.

Cyclists routinely rely on bike computers to determine their spot speed and maintain average speed at a certain pace. However, constantly looking at a computer display is not practical and could be dangerous while cycling.

VeloTones, like ringtones or truetones, are MP3 sounds for mobile devices like cell phone or PDA. They allow cyclists to determine speed without the need to look at the display.

A set of MP3 sounds, comprising VeloTones, can be downloaded to a mobile phone running the SoundOfMotion bicycle computer application. The smart logic, coupled with an innovative bluetooth wheel sensor, plays VeloTones (TM) on a speaker or via bluetooth headset, based on a speed zone or acceleration of a cyclist.

More in Press release.

New iPhone App Identifies Songs from Radio

Powered by audio recognition technology, a new iPhone app called Listen will tell you the title of song playing on the radio including the name of the artist and album, all in less than 10 seconds.

[TUAW via Mobile Weblog]

Yankee Group sees record industry fall

Recording artists are set to make big bucks from Internet downloads while record companies will become increasingly isolated, technology research company Yankee Group said Tuesday, reports Business Week.

"Yankee also said U.S. recording industry revenue has plummeted and digital download revenue is insufficient to cover plunging CD sales.

According to Michael Goodman, director of Yankee Group's digital entertainment practice, single-song downloads will outpace album downloads or subscriptions, and that computer music downloads will outpace cell phone downloads.

He said that despite the best efforts of cell phone networks, Internet distribution will continue to account for 80 percent of the digital music industry."

Motorola Snaps Up Soundbuzz

Motorola said Monday that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Soundbuzz, a Singapore-based digital music provider, adding that the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.

The company did not disclose terms of the deal.

Soundbuzz’s music library of songs and ringtones is currently available through its Web site and via partnerships with local operators.

[via DealBook]

Silencing Your Ringtone With Wave Of The Hand

Sony Ericsson on Sunday unveiled a cell phone that can be silenced by a wave of hand.

The Z555 flip cover phone will be available in the first quarter, reports Reuters.

Also, a consumer using the phone as an alarm clock can activate the snooze function by waving across the phone.

[via Moco News. Picture and more specs on Engadget:mobile]

Class-action suit charges Apple with music monopoly

A class-action suit filed against Apple alleges the company unfairly uses technological restrictions with its iPod line and iTunes Music Store to beat out competitors. InfoWorld reports.

"The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is the latest one to accuse Apple of unfair business practices. Apple is facing similar legal actions and scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe.

... The suit contends iPod-owning consumers can only buy music from iTunes, an unlawful tie-in that violates U.S. antitrust laws."

U.S. album sales down, digital sales up

U.S. album sales plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006, continuing a downward trend for the recording industry, despite a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks, according to figures released Thursday.

-- A total of 500.5 million albums sold as CDs, cassettes, LPs and other formats were purchased last year, down 15 percent from 2006's unit total.

-- About 844.2 million digital tracks sold in 2007, compared to 588.2 million in 2006.

-- Last year, Apple Inc.'s iTunes Music Store became the third-largest music retailer in the U.S.

-- The recording industry continued to benefit from mobile music, with mobile phone owners buying 220 million ringtones.

[via the Associated Press]