Website selling illegal Beatles tracks ordered to pay $1m

A website that illicitly sold Beatles downloads in 2009 has been ordered to pay almost $1m to rights holders. Bluebeat.com claimed it was circumnavigating copyright law by offering "psycho-acoustic simulations" of music by the Fab Four and other acts including Coldplay and Radiohead.

[via The Guardian]

Amazon Introduces a Digital Music Locker

Amazon.com plans to introduce a service that will let people upload their digital music to the Web and access it from browsers on any computer and from Android phones. The New York Times reports.

The service, known as a music locker, was made available to Amazon account holders early Tuesday. Amazon will offer a Web-based hard drive backup service called Cloud Drive, where people can store documents, photos, videos and music. It will also offer Cloud Player, which will let people listen to, download and make playlists from the music they store on Cloud Drive from any Web browser or from an app on Android devices.

Read full article. Cloud Drive Cloud Player video review on CNet

Global recorded music sales fall almost $1.5bn amid increased piracy

Global recorded music revenues fell 8.4% last year, about $1.45bn, to $15.9bn as digital piracy continued to take its toll on the industry, according to the annual Recording Industry in Numbers report by international music industry body the IFPI.

[via The Guardian]

Eminem Lawsuit May Raise Pay for Older Artists

The most closely watched lawsuit in the music industry asks this question: how much should a song on iTunes or another digital music service be worth to the performer? The New York Times reports.

The artist at the center of the suit is Eminem, but some of the biggest beneficiaries of the case may be thousands of older artists who have not released an album in decades.

Four years ago, the producers who discovered Eminem sued his record label, the Universal Music Group, over the way royalties are computed for digital music, which boils down to whether an individual song sold online should be considered a license or a sale. The difference is far from academic because, as with most artists, Eminem’s contract stipulates that he gets 50 percent of the royalties for a license but only 12 percent for a sale.

Read full article.

Previously: Related articles.

iVows: Royal wedding will be released on iTunes

Classical label Decca is to make a recording of royal couple's marriage vows, which could top download charts. The Guardian reports.

The "iVows" will be live recorded and made available just hours after the ceremony on iTunes.

Read more.

Google begins testing Google Music internally

CNet reports that Google has begun testing Google Music internally, a sign that the much anticipated service is nearly ready to launch.

Google Music - a streaming service users would access from Web-connected devices -appears close to being ready. However, the sources said the actual launch is being held up by the lack of one vital component. Music.

Read full article.

Music app Shazam gets new Facebook features

Shazam, the mobile application that has enthralled millions of listeners with its ability to detect and identify a song--largely ending the need to Google lyrics--has gotten a little bit more social. Namely, the latest update to its iPhone app (and soon Android app) added Facebook integration.

[via CNet]

Apple’s Jobs Must Answer Questions in ITunes Antitrust Suit

A federal magistrate judge ordered Steve Jobs to answer questions in a 2005 antitrust dispute alleging the company operated a music-downloading monopoly. Bloomberg reports.

The deposition can’t exceed two hours and the only topic allowed is changes Apple made to its software in October 2004 that rendered digital music files engineered by RealNetworks Inc. inoperable with Apple’s iPod music player.

Read full article.

Screen capture from a YouTube video of Steve Jobs introducing the first iPod at Apple Music Event 2001. [via Laurent Haug]

Supreme Court won't get involved in Eminem royalty lawsuit

The Supreme Court won't get involved in a fight between Eminem's former production company and Universal Music Group over downloads of the rapper's songs and ringtones.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Universal Music Group.

[via ABCNews]

Upset YouTube Users Strike Back at Music Biz

Employees of Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group and Universal Music aren’t welcome here: That’s the message an increasing number of German bloggers and website owners are conveying online these days through a new project called Bust All Major Labels. GigaOM reports.

The project is a reaction to the fact that rights holders have blocked hundreds of YouTube music videos in Germany, and it uses a kind of eye-for-an-eye approach to get its point across: Website owners add a few lines of JavaScript code to their site to actively block visitors with IP addresses owned by major labels.

Read full article.

Singapore Networks Agree on Single Brand for Ringback Tones

Singapore's three mobile networks have agreed to collaborate on the branding of ringback tones - and have collectively announced the adoption of a common brand called 'Connecting Tones'. Cellular News reports.

Previously known by other names such as Bye-Bye-Ring-Ring, Call Tones, Colour-Me-Tones, and ringback tones, the new Connecting Tones will now be a consistent brand identity for this mobile value-added service which mobile operators and record labels in Singapore can actively promote and market to all mobile users in Singapore.

Read more.

Jon Bon Jovi: Steve Jobs killed the music business

Jon Bon Jovi accuses Steve Jobs of being the scorpion in the decline of jacket-based music purchases:

I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?' Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.

[via Cnet]

Former Napster Creator Considering Buying Warner Music Group

Celebrity Café, Sean Parker, the man who became a billionaire as a consultant for Facebook and who started the controversial music sharing service Napster is considering buying Warner Music Group.

Forbes is reporting that Parker has reportedly joined a group of investors, including fellow billionaire Ron Burkle, in bidding for the music giant, which is expected to fetch over $2 billion when the sale is completed next month.

Read more.

Slow blogging this week from Istanbul

Slow blogging this week. I'm in Istanbul.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Red Cross donations via iTunes

Apple has opened up anew portal in the iTunes Store to take donations for the Japan earthquake and tsunami relief fund. 100% of the money donated through iTunes goes to Red Cross efforts in Japan.

[via 9to5Mac]

Doesn't seem to apply to users outside of the US.

China's online music industry reports increased harvest

Online music content and service providers in China earned about 2.3 billion yuan (349.8 million U.S. dollars) last year, up 14.4 percent from 2009, said a report released by China's Culture Ministry on Wednesday. English.xinhuanet.com reports

According to the report, 2.02 billion yuan, or 90 percent of the total revenue, came from wireless music services via mobile phones, including polyphonic ringtones and download music. The figures saw a year-on-year rise of 9.8 percent.

Read more.

Lime Wire, music publishers settle copyright case

The operator of LimeWire, a once-popular file-sharing service shut down last year for copyright infringement, has settled a lawsuit brought by music publishers.

The settlement with Lime Wire covers more than 30 publishers, including units of EMI Group, Sony Corp and Vivendi SA. The terms were not disclosed.

[via The Sydney Morning Herald]

Previously:

-- RIAA asks court to close down LimeWire

-- Internet File-Sharing Service Is Sued by Music Publishers

Spotify hits milestone with 1 million subscribers

Online music service Spotify has announced that it now has one million paying subscribers across Europe, reports the BBC.

The Anglo-Swedish company has 6.67 million users, the majority of whom use a free service subsidised by adverts.

Spotify's profitability depends on users switching to premium services that remove adverts and allow listeners to use smartphones.

Read more.

Apple working on video ringtones for iPhone

Patently Apple has uncovered a patent filed by Apple that describes methods for creating video ringtones for devices like the iPhone. The technology is designed to allow users to automatically combine sound and video from various sources, including iTunes and iMovie, to create custom audio-visual alerts for incoming phone calls.

[via TUAW]

Whatever happened to mobile music?

Whatever happened to the mobile music revolution?

You know, the idea that your phone would become a digital juke box, the main way to access and pay for the world's music? So far, it just hasn't happened, but today the British digital music business We7 (backed by the musician Peter Gabriel) is having another go.

The success or failure of its mobile music app will tell us more about the economics of digital music services, which have so far proved very fragile, and whether anyone can prosper in the shadow cast by Apple.

[via the BBC]

RanDinger app for Android previews over 10 million tracks for ringtones

RanDinger, a new Android App, allows you to preview music by hearing it as your ringtone. The application seamlessly integrates into your phone, delivering new ringtones after every call. Powered by 7digital and their catalog of over 10 million tracks.

[via Expertclick]

FanTrail app enables musicians to tap social networks

The New York Times on FanTrail, a new free app for the iPhone and Android, that allows musicians to tap social networks for useful and possibly valuable information about their fans.

Using FanTrail, artists can tailor messages or commercial offers to specific groups of fans, identified by location or LoveMeter ranking. Another ne function, called LoveMail, allows musicians to record short audio messages to fans.

Read full review.

KFI Hosts Whip Up Charlie Sheen Ringtones

For the last week it's been impossible not to run into Charlie Sheen's rants raves and interviews conveyed repeatedly and ridiculed on the Internet. So the next obvious thing twas a ringtone. So here it is. Mediabistro reports.

Burbank based KFI 640 AM's Tim Conway Jr. and his newsreader partner-in-crime Aron Bender have ingeniously manipulated some of Sheen’s signature mantras and turned them into cell phone ringtones.

The first offering elongates the words “bring it” into a very convincing sounding Sheen-powered rotary phone. Listen-download here. More coming.

Investors Are Drawn Anew to Digital Music

The explosion in smartphone apps has given investors and entrepreneurs optimism that the digital music business is poised to finally become profitable.

[via The New York Times]