Anonymous Hits Universal Music And Viacom

According to Gizmodo, the group of hackers Anonymous released information they grabbed from Universal Music Group including company information and application data. There was also a handful of usernames and plain text passwords from Universal Music Group users.

Ringtones May Be the Next Big Car Option

Something to look forward to. According to GootaBeMobile, Ford is considering “ringtone” style horns, customized with a downloadable melody or song.

Not a first though, see related stories:

-- Is that a mobile ringtone? No it's a car engine

-- Quiet electric cars to offer choice of "HonkTones"

-- Horntones - ringtones for your car

-- From ringtones to car horns in the Philippines

-- Ringtones for cars wins award at CES 2006

-- Ridetones: Customized sounds for your car

RI lawmakers consider taxing ringtones

According to The Republic, music lovers downloading the Beatle's "Taxman" will have to shell out a few extra pennies for Rhode Island under a proposal to tax downloads including music, videos, ringtones and software.

The move is part of a budget proposal scheduled for a vote in the House on Friday. Taxing digital downloads would raise an estimated $8.8 million annually for the cash-strapped Ocean State.

More than a dozen states already tax downloads. Supporters in Rhode Island say it makes sense to tax downloaded content since compact disks and DVDs are subject to sales taxes already.

Read more.

Revealed: Facebook’s music plans involve Spotify, others

GigaOM reports that that Facebook, after consolidating its position in three major Internet sectors – retailing, news and games – is now getting serious about music and media.

Queen's composer calls for fines on 'artistic terrorists' who allow mobiles to ring during concerts

According to The Telegraph, the Queen of England's composer has called for fines to be imposed on members of the public whose mobile phones ring during concerts and other performances.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen's Music said people who disrupted performances by allowing their phones to ring should face fines and the money should go to the Musicians' Benevolent Fund.

Read more.

Apple, Google music clouds can't snub publishers

The influence of music publishers is growing, and one man is leading them to what they hope is more digital music dollars.

[via CNet]

Report: iTunes costs $1.3 billon per year to run

An interesting report from Asymco estimates that it costs Apple US$1.3 billion per year to run the iTunes store. [via TUAW]

Asymco estimates Apple's monthly content margin cost for iTunes at $113 million, which is more than $1.3 billion per year. Based on past statements by Apple executives, Asymco assumes that the iTunes store is a break even business, and any profits it realizes go right back into its maintenance and expansion.

Read full article.

When Will Spotify Finally Come to the U.S.?

Spotify has signed an American distribution deal with Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music label. The pact means that the streaming music company now has U.S. deals in place with three of the four largest labels, making it likely that the European company will finally be able to move across the Atlantic this summer.

[via All Things Digital]

Will.i.am Forgets His Own Lyrics During Performance, Reads Them from Cellphone

Spotted on Gawker, Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am resorting to reading the words to his own song from a cellphone during a recent performance of "Don't Stop the Party" on French TV. Or not. maybe he's reading a text message while performing.

iOS 5: Know when wife is calling – customize vibration patterns

iOS 5 comes with the most amazing features that are coming out every day thanks to Apple experts. This from 9 to 5 Mac:

iOS 5 comes with a bunch of accessibility improvements, like the AssistiveTouch feature that lets you use your device with adaptive accessories and even create your own gestures. Another easily overlooked addition: Custom vibrations, on a per-contact basis, as pointed out by MacRumors: If you’re in a meeting and your device is in silent mode, you can tell when your wife is calling based on a vibration pattern.

Read full article in 9 to 5 Mac.

iOS 5 to sell text alert tones through iTunes

TUAW reports on a gem of a feature that was too small for Steve Jobs to mention during his WWDC keynote - a "ringtone option" that lets you buy ringtones for alert messages.

NBC's The Voice will use iTunes purchases as votes

NBC reality talent show The Voice lets singers compete for US$100,000 and a recording deal with Universal Republic Records.

Like other reality shows, The Voice lets viewers vote for their favorite contestants by phone, through the NBC Live app, and online at NBC.com. A new twist in the rules will also let people vote with their wallet by counting a vote every time someone buys the artist's song on iTunes.

Read full article in TUWA.

Why did ringbacks fail to catch on in the U.S.?

FierceMobileContent in a feature piece offers an explanation on why ringback tones fail to catch on in the U.S - when they are top sellers in Asia and in certain parts of Africa.

Apple iCloud 'legitimises' music pirates

Apple's new cloud music service has been criticised by sections of the music industry for encouraging piracy by allowing people to essentially legitimise their pirated music collections. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

... A new tool called iTunes Match has been dubbed by some as a "music pirate amnesty" and others as a way of bringing pirates into the legal music store fold.

The service scans users' hard drives for music, including files obtained illegally, and matches them with the authorised tracks in Apple's iTunes library. It then makes a quality iTunes version of the tracks automatically accessible in the iCloud.

Read full article.

Record industry lobby says it no longer supports 3-strikes copyright termination laws

Following a UN report condemning laws that require ISPs to disconnect households accused of copyright infringement, the Australian record industry lobby has declared that it does not support the practice anymore.

[via boingboing]

Apple pins its hopes on the iCloud as users drift away from computers

Steve Jobs launched a slew of new services on Monday evening, writes The Guardian, including an online music offering that promises to let people listen to songs bought online on any Apple device with an internet connection.

The iCloud service will be free to use and be available in the autumn. For an extra $25 a year, users can use the service to access any songs on their computer.

Jobs said the service would be increasingly important "for those people who want to be completely PC-free", suggesting that in future people will want to operate using solely their phones and tablets and bypassing computers altogether. "The idea of the PC as the digital hub has broken down in the past few years," he said.

... According to Scott Forstall, head of the iPhone software team, more than 15bn songs have been bought from the iTunes Store.

Read full article.

Related: Apple iCloud: a beginner's guide

Is YouTube Killing Music Piracy?

For years the top record label executives have been claiming that it’s impossible to compete with free, but YouTube is proving them wrong. With billions of views every month the major record labels are making millions by sharing their music for free. For many people YouTube takes away the incentive to ‘pirate,’ but at the same time it may also cannibalise legal music sales.

... People have moved from buying albums to buying singles. But there’s another big change that occurred, one that may have an even bigger impact on the music industry as a whole; YouTube and other ‘free’ music sources.

Read full article in TorrentFreak.

Apple reportedly pays $100 million to music companies

Apple reportedly has cut a deal with the largest of the four major music companies, securing the rights to its songs for Apple’s coming iCloud music streaming service.

According to The New York Post, Apple will make somewhere between $100 and $150 million in advance payments to the music companies as part of the deal.

[via Appolicious]

Parental warnings to be introduced for online music

According to The Guardian, parental warning logos are set to be introduced by Music industry body BPI before songs and music videos on services such as Spotify and YouTube that contain explicit material, following recent concern about the amount of risqué music content too easily available to children online.

Read full press release from BPI.

Cleartones: The Least Annoying Ringtones Ever

Wired reviews Hugo Verweij's Cleartones, "super-simple ringtones that are minimalist snippets of sound".

There are 50 tones that ca be previewed on Hugo’s Cleartones page, but the website offers something I have never seen before, the option to get a sample for free, in exchange for a tweet or a comment on Facebook. Check out pay with a Tweet.

You can also order a custom ringtone tailored to your needs by sending a message to betterringtones[at]gmail[dot]com