Spotify sued over music streaming technology

Music service Spotify is being sued in the US and Europe for allegedly violating patents held by PacketVideo. The BBC reports.

The lawsuit claims that Spotify has violated at least two patents owned by PacketVideo that cover methods of streaming music over data networks.

The legal action comes barely two weeks after Spotify launched a US version of its music streaming service.

UK-based Spotify said it would "strongly contest" the claims PacketVideo made in its lawsuit.

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When FM is built into mobile phones, most consumers who have it don't use it

Researcher Mark Ramsey says "I just wrapped a new national survey with VIP Research", and the bottom line on FM chips on cellphones is that they get "decent" use. But "personalized radio app usage is far greater than the use of built-in FM."

Interestingly, Ramsey reports that nearly 20% of the audience today says FM radio is already built into their phones. So it's there and is used some of the time, but usage is "not overwhelming enough to suggest a strong demand." The survey also looked at the situation with apps.

[via Radio-Info.com]

Musical Balloons: Luke Jerram’s Sky Orchestra

Music, specially composed by Dan Jones for Luke Jerram’s Sky Orchestra, poured from the dawn skies as the seven balloons passed over south-east London.

Watch video on The Londonist.

PayPal joins London police bid to financially starve illegal websites

PayPal has joined a music copyright association and the City of London police department's bid to financially starve websites deemed "illegal."

When presented with sufficient evidence of unlicensed downloading from a site, the United Kingdom's PayPal branch "will require the retailer to submit proof of licensing for the music offered by the retailer," said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's latest press release.

[via arstechnica]

Traffic light plan for online music search results

A music body wants online search results to steer fans to legal download sites, reports the BBC.

The Performing Rights Society (PRS) For Music wants search engines to show which sites offer content illegally.

Links to sites that offer legal downloads would get green tags, while links to illegal download sites would be flagged in red.

The PRS says the new system is needed as some people don't know when they're illegally downloading.

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SoundHound Adds Real-Time Lyrics to Music Recognition

Hot on the heels of music recognition service Shazam’s addition of a new feature called LyricPlay, competitor SoundHound is out with its own offering: LiveLyrics. Mashable reports.

LiveLyrics launches Wednesday as part of version 4.0 [iTunes link] of the free and paid versions of the SoundHound app for iOS.

Now, when users identify a song using SoundHound, they can also pull up lyrics, which begin scrolling in time to the music. Users can also access lyrics when playing music on their own Apple iOS devices, and tap on words to skip to that section of the song.

At launch, the service will have lyrics for 500,000 tracks, but it hopes to expand to 1 million songs by the end of the year.

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First rise in US album sales since 2004

Check the sky for flying pigs: US album sales are up, according to The Guardian.

American industry experts report that for the first time since 2004, more music is being bought and sold in 2011 than during the same time last year – a difference of almost 2m albums. It's as if a sliver of light has penetrated the gloom of the music industry.

... And it isn't just albums: people are buying more digital singles. US music sales have increased by 8.5% over the first half of last year, bolstered by an 11% increase in digital single purchases and a 41% boom in vinyl sales.

Read full article in The Guardian.

China's Biggest Search Engine, Known for iIlegal Downloads, Makes Music Deal

Baidu, the dominant Chinese Internet search engine, on Tuesday announced a major licensing deal with three of the world''s largest music companies that would allow Chinese Web users to legally download and stream hundreds of thousands of songs free.

[via The New York Times]

Want a Spotify US Invite? Here is how you get it

Courtesy of GigaOM, how to get a Spotify US invite:

Fill out the form aka just add your email and get an invite. Simple as that! The invitation form is here. Spotify is sending out invites every 15 minutes so this should be a fairly smooth process.

Spotify: Five CNET editors, five thumbs-up

After months of delays, Spotify is now available in the United States. CNET's Donald Bell is taking an in-depth look at the online streaming service, but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't have a few things to say about it.

Facebook App to help Musicians Connect with and Sell Music

ONErpm.com announces the debut of its Facebook App, ONErpm, a robust social commerce application enabling musicians and labels to market and sell their music globally to fans right from their Facebook page.

Artists can sell by territory, set pricing tiers, and offer free downloads in exchange for an email address. Emphasizing globality, ONErpm also supports multiple currencies and languages including English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

[via e-mail press release]

Singer Imogen Heap shows off musical gloves at TEDGlobal

A pair of musical gloves that allow wearers to manipulate music using just hand gestures have been shown off for the first time by singer Imogen Heap.

The performance kicked off TEDGlobal in Edinburgh, a conference renowned for showcasing cutting-edge technologies.

[via the BBC]

New Songify App Turns Spoken Word into Song

YouTube sensations The Gregory Brothers, in conjunction with developer Khush, released Songify, a new iPhone app that turns spoken words into song. Billboard reports.

The interface of the app is simple and similar in appearance to music recognition app, Shazam. The user presses a large icon in the center and then can speak into the phone's microphone for 1 to 60 seconds. The app then converts the words to a song, sometimes even following a verse-chorus-verse structure, if the speech is long enough.

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Should Facebook Add a Music Service?

A software engineer on Thursday uncovered references to a music download service called "Vibes" in Facebook's new video chat desktop software, it could very well be a reference to Facebook's upcoming music service..

[via PC World]

Are Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player Illegal?

Amazon.com made waves in March when it announced Cloud Player, a new “cloud music” service that allows users to upload their music collections for personal use. It did so without a license agreement, and the major music labels were not amused. Sony Music said it was keeping its “legal options open” as it pressured Amazon to pay up. Wired reports.

In the following weeks, two more companies announced music services of their own. Google, which has long had a frosty relationship with the labels, followed Amazon’s lead; Google Music Beta was announced without the Big Four on board. But Apple has been negotiating licenses so it can operate iCloud with the labels’ blessing.

The different strategies pursued by these firms presents a puzzle. Either Apple wasted millions of dollars on licenses it doesn’t need, or Amazon and Google are vulnerable to massive copyright lawsuits. All three are sophisticated firms that employ a small army of lawyers, so it’s a bit surprising that they reached such divergent assessments of what the law requires.

So how did it happen? And who’s right?

Spotify plans to leverage Facebook for US launch

Two days ago, Spotify announced that it was finally coming to the US, possibly as soon as next week. The European music service will be leveraging Facebook heavily, according to pitches it is making to potential advertisers, which were obtained by All Things Digital.

[via ZDNet]

5 Ways Google+ Could Steal Music Fans From Facebook

Google+ may have a tough time making a dent in the popularity of Facebook. But on at least on the music front it can make a lot of inroads, fast. Fact is that music apps on Facebook are lacking — and this is a real opportunity for a quick win.

[via Wired]

Symphony in B(eeps). Gadget sounds of our lives

The Philadelphia Inquirer in a fascinating article, looks into the origin of the sounds our gadgets make around us. Who came up with the microwave C when you hit a button, or the Verizon spray of notes at startup when you turn on an LG cellphone? Who figures out what the notes are going to be? Apparently a lot of people.

... Sumanth S. Gopinath is an assistant professor of music at the University of Minnesota and a scholar of ringtones. He says we've created a "treble culture" - a world of high, tiny digital beeps in toys, watches, and gadgets. Although these technologies "originated in the U.S., Japanese producers took to them with particular alacrity," he says. Japan and East Asia have been especially prominent in creating global treble culture.

We may be creating a culture of shorter and shorter musical forms. One of the most familiar pieces of music in the world, says Gopinath, is the "Nokia Tune" - you know it - which "is heard 1.8 billion times a day." Gopinath says short musical pieces like this, heard in the thousands, amount to a kind of "world music."

And world advertising. Such music, because it's short and relatively quiet, might not seem all that pressing. "But given their distribution over large numbers of users," Gopinath says, "they add up to a tapestry that cumulatively has a powerful effect." The "Nokia Tune," the Apple "Marimba," the "Vista Tune" - all are soft, constant assertions of a corporate source. "Sonic branding"!

Read full article.