CD and mobile music sales fall in 2010, but vinyl continues its resurgence

While sales of compact discs and ringtones suffered double-digit declines last year, vinyl records enjoyed what appears to be an enduring resurgence in 2010, according to figures released Thursday by the RIAA.

[via The LA Times Blog]

Music video website Vevo launches in UK

Vevo, the US music video website founded by two of the major record labels, has launched in the UK and begun talks with companies including Channel 4, Virgin Media and ITV over potential partnerships. The Guardian reports.

The company, which is partly owned by Universal Music and Sony Music, is described by its chief executive Rio Caraeff as an "integrated MTV".

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Apple Is Ready to Launch iTunes in the Cloud

According to Reuters sources, Apple has finished its online music storage service and is getting ready to launch it. Apple's plan is to allow iTunes users to put their songs on the cloud and then stream them to their phone.

It's set to launch ahead of Google Inc, whose own music efforts have stalled

[via Gizmodo]

100 Artists Offer 100 Songs for Download to Raise Money for Japan

The music industry has been pitching in its fair share to help those affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, reports Mashable.

Lady Gaga and UMG both contributed to the cause, and now there’s a new musical effort on the block in the same vein: Songs of Love for Japan .

Songs of Love for Japan is a 100-song compilation packed with music from the likes of Sara Bareilles, Tori Amos, The xx, The Submarines and Ani DiFranco, as well as several other bands both signed and unsigned.

The album — which was put together by artist Cheryl B. Engelhardt and Bryce Longton from Estee Lauder — will be available until Thursday, and costs $100 for all 100 downloads. The pair hope to raise $250,000 for ShelterBox, an international disaster relief charity.

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US Politicians Oppose Mandatory FM Radio in Cell Phones

The long winded regulatory battle over whether mobile phones sold in the USA should be required to contain a receiver for FM radio signals heated up as four industry associations came together to support a resolution that would make it clear such a requirement is not wanted.

... Requiring today's digital phones to include an analog FM Chip makes as much sense as requiring them to include a telegraph." said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumers Electronics Association.

[via Cellular-News]

Spotify cuts back on free music

Online music service Spotify is halving the amount of free music that users can listen tom angering customers, reports the BBC.

Users of its free service will be limited to 10 hours per month, half the time currently offered and will only be able to listen to tracks five times, from May.

New users will get six months of free content before the changes kick in.

The news has angered fans who accuse the firm of seeking to change its model from free to paid.

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Sprint Releases New Music Plus Application

Sprint's new Music Plus app provided by RealNetworks will provide users with access to ringback tones, ringtones and full music tracks.

According to Scott Cannon over at sprintconnection, the Music Plus app can be accessed direct on a Sprint phone, or via the sprint.com website. The app enables Sprint users to discover, play and purchase individual songs, bundled offers and even full albums.

Not only will users be able to create their very own music playlists, but the app will also enable them to assign ringback tones for different callers and different times of the day. Customers have the option of searching for music by title, keyword or a specific artist.

Read full press release.

Now That's What I Call Music goes digital

That's What I Call Music! has finally taken a leap into the digital age, with its website allowing fans to create and download their own compilations. The Guardian reports.

To spread the word, the company helped organise 500 house parties across the UK.

The new marketing technique reflects record labels' obsession with marketing directly to customers, said Harris. "In the past, EMI or Universal's customer was HMV or Woolworths, but now they want to go straight to the fan. Through the parties they get to be in the lounges of their consumers for more than four hours." Labels and artists also benefit from the most powerful form of marketing – word-of-mouth.

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World's 'largest online choir'

Composer and conductor, Eric Whitacre, created the choir by asking his fans through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help him reach his goal of creating the world’s largest online choir of at least 900 singers, breaking the previous world record. The Telegraph reports.

By the time entries closed in January 2011, 2051 entries from 58 countries had been submitted via YouTube.

The single, Sleep, can be watched here via YouTube.

Choir members communicate with each other via a Virtual Choir Facebook page.

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Pandora Discloses Privacy-Related U.S. Inquiry Into

The online radio service Pandora has received a subpoena from a federal grand jury investigating whether popular smartphone applications share information about their users with advertisers and other third parties.

Pandora said it shared information with third parties to help it track how users interact with the service and to deliver targeted advertising. But the company, based in Oakland, Calif., said it was “not a specific target” of the grand jury investigation.

Read full article in The New York Times.

Pandora Issued a Subpoena for Possibly Violating Internet Privacy Laws

Pandora, the popular streaming music service, has been issued a subpoena by a federal grand jury concerning the sharing of personal data with its smartphone application.

[via TIME's Techland]

Is Rebecca Black suing "Friday" producers?

The continuing behind-the-scenes drama of Rebecca Black's "Friday" continues to be more interesting than the song itself ever was, as NBC New York reports that the teen songbird is suing the music factory her mother paid to make her a star in the first place:

Rebecca Black and her mother are alleging that Ark Music Factory has been exploiting Black's likeness on YouTube, iTunes, Amazon, and their own web site, have created and sold an "unauthorized" 'Friday" ringtone, and have not supplied Black with the master recordings of his song and video.

[via metro]

The World's First Location Aware Music Album

Washington DC-based music duo Bluebrains’ latest release is not a standard album in the sense that it can be listened to passively in one sitting or, for that matter, at any location.

Rather, it is a site-specific piece of music that responds to the listeners location within the stretch of park in downtown Washington DC known as the Mall.

The work will be delivered as an app for the iPhone and is the first in a series of location-aware albums Bluebrain will create. 'The National Mall' will be available in the Apple App Store in the coming weeks.

According to FastCo Design:

The app uses GPS to track listeners' proximity to landmarks in and around the National Mall, subtly changing the sound of the music in the process. Bluebrain digitally tagged hundreds of overlapping physical "zones" in the Mall and synced them to various arrangements in the app/album.

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China's Baidu to Compensate Songwriters for Music Downloads

China's largest search engine Baidu said it will start paying an agency representing songwriters for every music download on the site, after years of being criticized for providing links to pirated music downloads. PC World reports.

On Friday, Baidu announced that it had made an agreement with the Music Copyright Society of China to establish a partnership to protect legal digital music, and will pay copyright holders to use their music. This will encompass any song that is downloaded from Baidu's music search site, said company spokesman Kaiser Kuo.

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Share Your Music With Friends Without Sharing Your Headphones With This App

MyStream app for iPhone allows you to synchronously and wirelessly listen to music and audiobooks with your friends. The developers are treating it as a music discovery app—likely to escape potential lawsuits—so you're presented with links to buy the music you've listened to.

[via Gizmodo]

Music industry will force licenses on Amazon Cloud Player—or else

Amazon's decision to launch its new Cloud Player without securing additional music licenses has been described as a "bold move" by many observers, reports arstechnica.

It takes serious guts for Amazon to simply declare that it doesn't need licenses—especially when even casual observers know the music industry thinks otherwise. Still, this isn't a one-dimensional issue, and the law has yet to deal much with services like Amazon's. Record companies fantasize about huge revenues from streaming services, and they fear digital lockers like the plague.

If the record labels don't come to a licensing agreement with Amazon soon, they will either be forced to take legal action or implicitly allow other music companies to ditch cloud licenses too.

Read full article.