Music News Bulletin - 09/01/09

Apple Changes Tune on Music Pricing
"Apple Inc. unveiled significant pricing and copyright changes to its iTunes Store, moves by the dominant online music seller that could spur similar action across the industry.The changes, announced at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco Tuesday, include a new three-tiered pricing plan for songs, instead of the 99-cents fixed price Apple has used almost exclusively. Apple also said it will drop copy protection from all of the songs in its digital store." [WSI]

Apple to end music restrictions
"Apple Inc has agreed to start selling digital songs from its iTunes store without copy protection software. At present, most music downloaded from Apple's iTunes store can only be played through an iTunes interface or iPod. The agreement with Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music will end digital rights management (DRM) software currently attached to iTunes music." [BBC]

iTunes Price Cut: Apple Announces Tiered System, DRM-Free Tunes January 6, 2009
"Apple Inc. is cutting the price of some songs in its market-leading iTunes online store to as little as 69 cents and plans to make every track available without copy protection.

In Apple's final appearance at the Macworld trade show, Apple's top marketing executive, Philip Schiller, said Tuesday that iTunes song prices will come in three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Record companies will choose the prices, which marks a significant change, since Apple previously made all songs sell for 99 cents." [CBS]

iTunes Price Cut: Apple Announces Tiered System, DRM-Free Tunes January 6, 2009
"Apple Inc. is cutting the price of some songs in its market-leading iTunes online store to as little as 69 cents and plans to make every track available without copy protection.

In Apple's final appearance at the Macworld trade show, Apple's top marketing executive, Philip Schiller, said Tuesday that iTunes song prices will come in three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Record companies will choose the prices, which marks a significant change, since Apple previously made all songs sell for 99 cents." [HuffingtonPost]

Apple iTunes goes all DRM free, with three price tiers
"Apple announced today that effective immediately 8 million songs on iTunes would be DRM free, and that by the end of the quarter all 10 million songs on the popular music site would be DRM free. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, otherwise known as copy protection. DRM-free music can be shared between all your devices without complicated registration and proprietary software.

In addition, iTunes songs will no longer cost a flat $0.99. There will be three tiers: $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29 starting on April 1st. You can expect to see older releases at the lower price point, and newer releases at the higher one. The removal of DRM and the flexibility on prices is a compromise worked out between Apple and the music industry." [ZDNet]

Apple cuts copy protection and prices on iTunes
"Apple Inc. is cutting the price of some songs in its market-leading iTunes online store to as little as 69 cents and plans to make every track available without copy protection.

In Apple's final appearance at the Macworld trade show, Apple's top marketing executive, Philip Schiller, said Tuesday that iTunes song prices will come in three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Record companies will choose the prices, which marks a significant change, since Apple previously made all songs sell for 99 cents.

Apple gave the record labels that flexibility on pricing as it got them to agree to sell all songs free of "digital rights management," or DRM, technology that limits people's ability to copy songs or move them to multiple computers. Apple had been offering a limited selection of songs without DRM, but by the end of this quarter, the company said, all 10 million songs in its library will be available that way." [AOL]

ITunes Price Change Leads Apple's Moves At Its Last Macworld; No Cameo From Steve Jobs; CEO's absence weighs on show; analysts rate slew of announcements as ho-hum
“In the two-and-a-half-year standoff between Apple and music publishers over song prices on iTunes, it appears that both sides blinked. In a major concession to the big recording labels, the iPod maker will sell song downloads for 69 cents and $1.29, in addition to the 99-cent price Apple had maintained since starting the iTunes service in 2003. Apple had come under mounting pressure from record companies for tiered pricing.” [ContentAgenda]

Music News Bulletin - 09/01/09

Remaining Three Majors Drop DRM at iTunes, and Why It Matters
"Apple has come to an agreement with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music that will give iTunes their songs in MP3 format. The majors get a three-tiered pricing structure (not dynamic pricing, and only slightly variable pricing) that finally gives them the ability to price according to demand. There is also word that iPhone users will be able to download from iTunes through their cellular carrier.

The news has been covered widely, and there has been some interesting opinion out there. One blogger thinks there is no reason to ever shop at anywhere but iTunes (I wholeheartedly disagree, compatibility with the iPod is only one reason to shop there). Another believes allowing iPhone users to download via cellular carriers could lead to explosive mobile music sales (if that happens they will probably just replace normal downloads and result in a wash). No, the important effects of this news are further under the surface." [Coolfer]

Changes Coming to the iTunes Store
"Apple today announced several changes to the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com/uk). Beginning today, all four major music labels — Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI, along with thousands of independent labels, are now offering their music in iTunes Plus, Apple’s DRM-free format with higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. iTunes customers can also choose to download their favourite songs from the world’s largest music catalogue directly onto their iPhone™ 3G over their 3G network just as they do with Wi-Fi today, for the same price as downloading to their computer. And beginning in April, based on what the music labels charge Apple, songs on iTunes will be available at one of three price points: 59 pence, 79 pence and 99 pence, with most albums still priced at £7.99." [RecordOfTheDay]

Apple vendra sur iTunes sans dispositif anticopie
"Le groupe informatique a annoncé qu’il allait supprimer d’ici à la fin mars les dispositifs anticopie de la musique qu’il vend sur sa plateforme. Les maisons de disque ont longuement milité pour que les internautes ne puissent pas acheter de chansons ou d’albums sans ces dispositifs qui lient le fichier à un seul utilisateur.

Apple vendra sur iTunes sans dispositif anticopie
L’annonce a été faite lors du salon Macworld Expo à San Francisco (Californie, ouest des Etats-Unis) à l’occasion de la présentation par le vice-président du marketing d’Apple, Phil Schiller, du nouveau modèle de l’ordinateur MacBook Pro et d’améliorations aux logiciels qui équipent la gamme Macintosh." [LeSoir]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 30/12/08

Music copyright extension - strings attached: Sort yourselves out, warn Burnham and McCreevy 12th December 2008
Culture Minister Andy Burnham gave clear backing to extending the copyright term for sound recordings yesterday - but called on the music business to make sure it benefits musicians, not industry fatcats.

"We want the industry to come back with good, workable ideas as to how a proposal on copyright extension might be framed that directly and predominantly benefits performers – both session and featured musicians," Burnham said." [TheRegister]

UK ignores logic, backs 20-year music copyright extension December 12, 2008
"After a UK government-led commission said that the current 50-year term for musical copyrights was fine, and the government last year publicly agreed that there was no need to extend the term, culture minister Andy Burnham yesterday made the logical follow-up announcement that yes, the government would now push for a 20-year extension on copyright. Turns out, it's the moral thing to do.

Actually, by framing the issue as a "moral case," Burnham gets to sidestep the entire issue of logic. Critics have already begun to charge that he is ignoring actual evidence and the well-regarded conclusions of the Gowers Report, not to mention previous government policy. But when the issue becomes a moral one and the livelihood of aging performers is at stake, it's suddenly easier to avoid cost/benefit analysis. Doing the right thing isn't always logical or economical." [ArsTechnica]

Are Performers A Special Case? 23rd December
"While almost every serious commentator in the field of contemporary copyright law takes the view that no case has been established for the extension of copyright term in respect of sound recordings, the case for the extension of the protection term enjoyed by performers themselves has at least one doughty advocate.

IPKat reader and copyright specialist Professor Amanda J Harcourt writes:

"While Andrew Gowers' article (Copyright Extension is Out of Tune with Reality) makes a number of useful and pithy points, it does not fairly, in my view, state the case for the performer.

While the record companies in the 1990s indubitably "missed the boat" when attempting to debate and adjust their commercial practices to accommodate the developments of the internet - and now are suffering the consequences - there are moral arguments surrounding this new development. The songwriter and performer occupy the only moral high ground in the economic environment that is the music industry. This economic model of copyright has been taken to extreme by record companies. Guy Hands's early pronouncements about executive and administrative waste soon after his purchase of EMI were on point, but an understanding of the way artists are contracted by record companies demonstrates that those at the bottom of the royalty food chain - in this case the artist - have reasons for moral outrage." [IP Kitten]

Thomas on Copyright Reform:An Injudicious Threat to Consumers and Artists
"Recently, the Court in Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas vacated a $222,000 verdict awarded by a jury of the peers of Defendant Jammie Thomas.1 The Court held that it committed a “manifest error of law” by instructing the jury that U.S. law gives copyright owners the “making-available right” required by nine international agreements supposedly implemented by U.S. law. But Thomas did not confine itself to an analysis of whether U.S. law provides a making-available right.

After adjudicating the motion to vacate the jury verdict, the Court appended a gratuitous final section—Section K—that used Thomas as a platform to attack the wisdom of both the jury and Congress. Section K, by casting off judicial conventions, by opining on jury questions, and by mischaracterizing the conduct of a party to a pending case—tried to present the Defendant as a poster child for an ill-conceived advisory opinion on copyright reform. In Section K, looting thus became a nonprofit avocation and deterring deceit became “oppressive.” Worse yet, these characterizations supported “reforms” that would only encourage piracy, endanger consumers, and further undermine the vitality of copyrights." [PFF]

Triennial DMCA Review at US Copyright Office December 30th, 2008
"Has it been three years already? The US Copyright Office is again hearing arguments for exceptions for, as the December 29 Federal Register notice puts it, “certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention.”

In other words, when is OK to ignore the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and hack DRM? (You’ll find information on how to participate in this democratic process at the end of this post.)" [CopyrightAlliance]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 24/12/08

Internet Piracy: No, Virginia, There Really Is No "Competing" Against Yourself for "Free"
"CNET and others report about a charming new steal-don't-buy browser extension that reminds Amazon.com shoppers that much of Amazon's legal content can be downloaded illegally "4 Free" from The Pirate Bay. If correct, such reports expose the truly self-destructive venality of Internet piracy. They also expose the vacuity of an argument favored by defenders of piracy--the claim that content creators (and law-abiding distributors) can or should "compete against free." Usually, persons spouting this claim cite the case of "bottled water" as a real-life example. For two reasons, this example refutes their vapid claim.

First, this claim understates the achievement of commercial creators of bottled water and content. They compete not only against "free"--but against competitors whose goods seem free because their production costs and risks are subsidized by non-market sources like taxation. Creators of works like movies, music, and books, like creators of bottled water, have long competed successfully against "free" tax-subsidized alternatives (like tap water). In other words, private companies produced bottled water because they concluded that if they incurred the costs and took the risks needed to create high-quality water, taxpayers who have already paid for the "free" water produced by the County Water Board would pay again to purchase higher quality water from a private source." [IPCentral]

The hitman, the Pirate Bay and the freetard prof 10th December 2008
“Since Duchamp's urinal, a great deal of modern art has been a "prank" against the art establishment. Maybe that's why now, state-funded "pranks" like the Pirates plug-in - designed to preach to the converted - feel so stale. Or it could be Cramer's own deeply conservative (and misanthropic) outlook. By design, the course ensures his students fulfill a narrow set of ideological obligations - all of which are de rigeur in modern media theory.

And that, we must conclude, is exactly what the modern state requires from its "radicals". Rather than being outside the tent pissing in, they're quite content to be on the inside, launching Firefox browser plug-ins outwards. Repressive regimes once persecuted dissidents - now they merely need give them cushy jobs on Media Theory courses to render them useless. They'll do the rest.” [TheRegister]

Hollywood wants in on ISP "graduated responses," too : December 24, 2008 - "Graduated response" isn't just for music
"Ars has learned that the Motion Picture Association of America has been having similar discussions with US ISPs for some time and has already been involved in trial projects. The results of this limited testing have been encouraging to the movie business, as they show that most people do in fact stop sharing files illegally after receiving a simple warning from their Internet provider.

The recording industry made waves last week by announcing a set of voluntary agreements with American ISPs to pass warnings (and eventually sanctions) to users accused of sharing files illegally over P2P networks. The scheme is similar in concept to the recent deals in the UK and France, but such graduated response mechanisms are actually under consideration all over the world." [ArsTechnica]

"Can I resell my MP3s?": the post-sale life of digital goods: Second time's a charm December 17, 2008
"The Castaway" is not a very good book. Published in 1908, Hallie Ermine Rives' novel opens with these deeply unpromising sentences:

"A cool breeze slipped ahead of the dawn. It blew dim the calm Greek stars, stirred the intricate branches of olive trees inlaid in the rose-pearl facade of sky, bowed the tall, coral-lipped oleanders lining the rivulets, and crisped the soft wash of the gulf-tide. It lifted the strong bronze curls on the brow of a sleeping man who lay on the sea-beach covered with a goatskin." [ArsTechnica]

UK talks mashups, DRM, CD ripping as it opens copyright overhaul December 17, 2008
"The UK's Intellectual Property Office has some odd ideas. In thinking about the "future agenda on copyright" in Britain, the agency recognizes the disconnect the law and common actions like CD ripping, feels the pain of mashup artists who have no real way to clear rights, knows that DRM can currently override statutory copyright exemptions, and wants to hear especially from creators and users. David Lammy, the minister in charge of higher education and intellectual property, even puts quote marks around "online music 'piracy'."

The occasion for all this attention do digital copyright issues is UK IPO's new "© the future: Keeping ahead of the game" consultation. The government has a wide-ranging scheme called Digital Britain that various ministries have been at work on for several months, and the chance to think about copyright's future is part of the UK plan to make Britain a hub for the digital and creative industries. Government statistics already show that the creative industries generated 8.2 percent of GDP in 2007 and are growing twice as fast as the overall economy." [ArsTechnica]

Music News Bulletin - 15/12/08

Chrysalis Halts Takeover Talks
“British music company Chrysalis Plc has terminated all talks related to a possible offer for the company, but says it continues to evaluate other opportunities. Shares of the company were down 12% or 7.75 pence (11.6 cents) at 57.25 pence (85.6 cents) this afternoon.

On Sept. 17, Chrysalis said it had received very tentative approaches from a number of parties "suggesting a variety of collaborative transactions, including a possible offer for the company". The company now confirmed it was no longer deemed to be in an "offer period."” [BillBoard]

Warner expand Northern Europe Indie Distribution
“And now news of expansion in the distribution sector - because it does happen on occasion. Warner Music's independent label distribution division, the Alternative Distribution Alliance, has launched a new Nordic operation providing digital and physical distribution services for indie labels in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

The new division will be run by Jesper Thorsson, formerly of Swedish indie the Bonnier Amigo Music Group, who told reporters: "ADA Nordic has been created specifically to offer the best service and support to the region's diverse, dynamic community of indie labels. We will provide our partners and their outstanding artists with a host of new opportunities via our powerful distribution footprint, strong sales philosophy and commitment to assist in long-term artist development".” [CMUDaily]

[PIAS] UK DVD extends service
“[PIAS] UK DVD will refine its service from January 2009 to enable its labels to benefit from an improved product management, marketing and sales offering.[PIAS] UK DVD will continue to represent all labels currently on its roster, but will also offer an enhanced label management and marketing service. In addition, Lace Digital Media Sales (LDMS), the DVD sales specialists, will be employed as the sales agency for [PIAS] UK DVD distributed releases.” [RecordOfTheDay]

Music sales defy the crunch
“The doom and gloom surrounding the economy was given short shrift by record buyers last week, with sales topping the equivalent 2007 levels for the second week in a row and Take That’s new album, The Circus making a huge debut. Overcoming the fact that - like many of last week’s new releases - it isn’t available in Woolworths, The Circus by Take That nevertheless scorches to sensational first week sales of 432,490 to earn the Mancunian quartet its fifth number one, while simultaneously eclipsing the band’s own previous best first-week sales and setting a new 2008 benchmark.

Selling for as little as £5.88 on CD (Asda) and £3 as a download (Amazon) – both the lowest prices ever for a number one album in those formats - The Circus was released two years to the week after Take That’s comeback album Beautiful World, which opened at number one on sales of 168,954. Beautiful World subsequently sold 443,070 copies on its fourth week in the chart to secure the second highest one week sale by any act in the 21st century, behind the 464,471 copies that Coldplay’s X&Y sold on its first week in 2003.” [MusicWeek]

Rumor: Apple's iTunes going DRM-free starting Tuesday
“Apple is believed to be on the verge of an end-of-year push that would start by finally offering unprotected iTunes Store music from all major labels and would switch a special post-holiday campaign giving away music and videos to Europeans.

A report from last week brought to AppleInsider's attention by French technology site ElectronLibre asserts that it's now "clear" Apple will spark new interest in its music store by removing DRM from tracks published by Sony, Universal and Warner on December 9th.” [AppleInsider]

Music News Bulletin - 21/11/08

French Biz Falters, Digital Remains Strong
"The wholesale value of the French recorded music market in the first nine months of 2008 decreased to €382 million ($484 million), down 13.9% from the corresponding period last year, according to new figures issued by labels trade body SNEP. It follows a 20.5% year-on-year shortfall registered for the first nine months in 2007.
i
The reduction in the rate of decline is mainly due to a stronger growth in digital sales, up 52.6% to €52.8 million ($66.9 million). Digital represented 14% of the French market during the period." [Billboard]

The impact of iTunes on the music industry came under the spotlight at the latest MusicTank session earlier this week.
"Sincere Management’s Peter Jenner, the keynote speaker at the Coalition of The Billing event, said that digital retailer has “had the disastrous effect on the record industry of debundling the album”. He told delegates at the third session in the Lets Sell Recorded Music think tank series that iTunes had the effect of converting “a £10 product, the album, into a £1.60 product, the two singles that are worth buying"

Beggars Group director of digital Simon Wheeler argued, “iTunes set a level that took power out of rights holders. Whether it's right or not, it has set the price for a la carte downloads."" [MusicWeek]

Amazon.com launch artist pages
"With MySpace looking to now sell MP3s off artist profile pages, and Live Nation-owned Musictoday, who run official onlines stores for hundreds of artists in the US, announcing last week that they would start selling MP3s from their artists' pages, Amazon US have announced a move in the opposite direction. Already selling CDs and MP3s via their e-tail website, they are launching a new website of artist profiles which will include both editorial and commercial content for each featured singer or band.

Commercially, the new service will basically aggregate all the CDs, MP3s and DVDs Amazon already stocks for any one artist, so that fans can browse all available content on an editorially-driven page, rather than having to work their way through album or artist searches. Amazon US VP of Music & Movies, Peter Faricy, told reporters: "These [artist pages] allow our customers to easily find and discover the music they love in any format along with a variety of artist content, like exclusive music videos and behind-the-scenes footage, all in a single place"." [CMUDaily]

Sources: Apple, music labels talk DRM-free songs
"A year after iTunes began offering music without copy protection software from EMI, Apple is in discussions with the other three top recording companies about acquiring DRM-free songs, according to two music industry sources.The talks are still preliminary and no deals have been finalized, but one source said one of the major labels is close to a final agreement. Rumors have been swirling on the Internet for a week that Sony would soon be offering music without the controversial digital rights management software. My sources could not confirm this.
Spokespeople for Apple and the major labels declined to comment." [CNet]

Music News Bulletin - 14/11/08

EMI will unveil plans to radically re-structure its business today, splitting EMI Music into three business units: new music, catalogue and music services
"EMI Music chief executive Elio Leoni-Sceti is meeting staff today to unveil the plan.
He will also report half-year results, which show that EMI Music made £59m of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the six months to September 30, compared with a loss of £14m last year.

The date is the first in a series of strategy meetings, which will take in offices in LA, New York and Milan, to unveil the plans to key territories.
It will also be the first time that Elio Leoni-Sceti, who was appointed chief executive of EMI’s recorded music division in July, meets many of his staff" [MusicWeek] [Billboard] [CMUDaily]

Sony DRM-Free To iTunes?
"The Apple rumor du jour is that Sony Music Entertainment will license DRM-free tracks to iTunes, under the iTunes Plus program. The speculation began on Apple blog 9to5mac.com, which provides very little information other than hinting its more than just a hunch.
A Sony Music spokesperson did immediately respond to requests for comment.
To date, EMI Music Group is the only major label licensing DRM-free tracks to iTunes. The others license DRM-free to other services, notably Amazon.com, but have resisted doing the same in iTunes." [Billboard]

Is the Datz Music Lounge Worth the Money?
"Of all the new music services, the most innovative is Datz Music Lounge, which UK consumers can buy for £99.99 per year. Its interface is nothing special. There is no editorial content, no lists, no hints that Datz is acting as a gatekeeper of any kind. What is so innovative is its revenue model, and what is amazing is that many labels -- including two majors -- have signed on.
Datz allows for unlimited access to its catalog of music. Subscribers get MP3 downloads of any song on the site. There are no restrictions, no protections. Subscribers keep everything they download. The revenue model is a great leap of faith from the typical per-track/per-album model." [Coolfer]

LIVE NATION'S ARTIST WEBSITE COMPANY TO SELL MAJOR-LABEL MP3S
"More digital, and according to Digital Music News three of the four majors - EMI, Sony and Universal - have licensed their DRM-free MP3 catalogues to Live Nation's US-based Musictoday outfit which operates websites and merchandise stores from numerous artists, including The Rolling Stones, Eminem, Dave Matthews Band and Christina Aguilera. It means artists signed to those majors whose official online shops are managed by Musictoday will be able to sell DRM-free MP3s directly to fans. Musictoday's Chas Patrizia told DMN: "We're going to allow artists to control the presentation of their content; it's a totally different experience. They don't have to go to iTunes, they can go directly to the artist. Most of our bigger artists have opted in"." [CMUDaily]

Music News Bulletin - 03/11/08

Warners wants it all
"Edgar Bronfman, the man who is - let's say - in charge of Warners Music Group, has announced that in future they'll only be interested in signing 360 degree deals with artists.

You can see why this might be appealing to Warners - after all, their core business, the one in which they have expertise, isn't doing as well nowadays. But where would be the value for an artist, when looking for a 360 degree deal, in signing with a company whose expertise lays in the bit that isn't doing as well nowadays?" [XRRF]

LaLa tries again, October 21, 2008
"Remember La La? No, not the one who hung out with Dipsy and Po, the CD-swapping service? It's not a CD-swapping service any more: it's reinvented itself as, erm, something else.

Now, you can copy your music to an online locker, and it will stream you songs that are a bit like the ones you already own. For free, unless you listen more than once. But if you do listen more than once, the ten cents you pay for each play can be set against the price of buying an mp3 file if you decide to keep it. Or something like that. But only one ten cent." [XRRF]

SFR launches all-you-can-eat MP3 download service, November 3rd, 2008
"French mobile operator SFR is the latest company to launch an all-you-can-eat music subscription service, and this one’s DRM-free.

However, you’d be hard-pressed to describe it as `unlimited’, as its catalogue only contains a few thousand tracks from Universal Music Group artists in three genres, and only 60,000 people will be allowed to sign up.

The cost will be bundled into mobile tariffs, with the cheapest costing €22.90 a month. It’s dual-download - users get AACs for their phone, and MP3s for their computer. “This is a way for us to see how consumers react to DRM-free offers,” says a spokesperson. “We are not giving away Universal’s catalog.”" [MusicAlly]

Music News Bulletin - 23/10/08

Sony completes buyout of Bertelsmann's stake in music label October 2, 2008
"Bertelsmann AG's planned divestiture from the Sony BMG Music Entertainment Inc. joint venture is now complete, as Sony Corp. [SNE] announced that it had bought out the German media giant's 50% stake. The sale, rumored for months and announced Aug. 5, was approved by EU regulators in mid-September.

The newly renamed Sony Music Entertainment Inc. will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corp. Bertelsmann's stake was valued at $900 million, but an additional $300 million in cash on the company's balance sheet pushed the value of the deal up to $1.2 billion." [TheDeal]

Play.com Steps Up Music Download Battle With 3 Million DRM-free Tracks From All Four Majors 10 Oct 2008
"UK e-tailer Play.com has stepped into the music download battle by signing the four major music labels to its PlayDigital online store to offer more than 3 million DRM-free MP3 tracks that can be played on any device. In a move directly aimed at iTunes, tracks and albums currently being sold at a cheaper price than at the Apple- owned store. More details at sister site paidContent.co.uk." [PaidContent]

Baidu Unveils New Internet Song Channel October 22, 2008
"After Google (GOOG) launched a free genuine music search service, Chinese search engine Baidu (BIDU) has now also taken action to resolve the problems brought by pirated music and the search company ahs launched a channel for newly published songs and music.

The new channel, which is entitled "New Song Debut", is a cooperation with seven record companies, including Emperor Entertainment Group, Ocean Butterflies Music Group, EMI Music, Music Nation, Rock Records & Tapes, Huayi Brothers and B in Music." [ChinaNews]

Blip.fm raises funding, CEO Yasuda discusses reorg October 23, 2008
"Fuzz Artists Inc. chief executive Jeff Yasuda revealed to me Monday at the SanFran MusicTech Summit that his company has raised additional funding in support of its Blip.fm social music playlisting service. We followed up that brief conversation with a longer one, in which he offered additional details on the fundraising and his plans for the company.

Yasuda hit up Fuzz's existing angel investors for the company's fourth installment of capital since 2005, although the total funding for his operation remains less than $10 million. He declined to name the investors. The entrepreneur said in May that unidentified individuals connected with Google Inc. [GOOG] have invested in the past. The round remains open, with room for first-time backers to participate, Yasuda added." [TheDeal]

Music News Bulletin - 11/09/08

The Great Circular Award Ceremony 10/09/08
"What a strange world it is, the world of "digital rights" activism. Campaigners pause only to pat each other on the back. Last week, anti-copyright campaigners Public Knowledge held their annual awards. The group's president Gigi B Sohn proudly announced the winners: fellow campaigner Carl Malamud of PublicResource.org, fellow campaigner Ben Scott of FreePress... and fellow campaigner Fred Von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF." [TheRegister]

Sony Ericsson apes Nokia's 'Saw You Coming': Bundles music with phones 09/09/08
"Sony Ericsson is imitating market leader Nokia and will bundle "free" music with its handsets, the FT claims today. As with Nokia's "Comes With Music" program, selected Sony Ericsson handsets will come with a year's worth of unlimited liability downloads. Apart from suggesting a launch date of next month, no further details were disclosed by the FT." [TheRegister]

Classical downloads service hits right note on DRM 11/09/08
"If you prefer Bach to the Beastie Boys and Mozart to Madonna, then you’ll be pleased to hear that an iTunes rival’s been created that panders only to the desires of classical music fans."[RegHardware]

Google bulges old time news archive: More papers, more ads 08/09/08
"Google is redoubling efforts to offer a digital archive of the world's newspapers. Two years ago, the search giant began indexing the existing digital archives of papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, and today, with a post to The Official Google Blog, the company said it's now working with other publishers to bring a much broader range of old newsprint into the project." [TheRegister]