Despite the near-universal appeal of MP3 music, you need a Microsoft Windows computer, Microsoft Media Player, and Microsoft Internet Explorer to even browse Wal-Mart's music site [I captured the image above using Windows 2000 on Virtual PC].
Amazon sparks a digital-music skirmish
When it opened Sept. 25, Amazon's MP3 digital download store undercut iTunes' prices on many albums. Its tracks, most of which sell for 89 to 99 cents, have higher sound quality than standard iTunes tracks and come without copy restrictions - known as digital rights management - that make it difficult to move tracks to a variety of portable devices, including iPods and Windows Media players.
That could mean even lower prices and creative packaging deals of music downloads with CDs and devices. And the spread of unrestricted tracks simplifies music download technology for users.
Facing Competition, iTunes Revs Up Its Film Section
So he and his partners, who spent $4 million making “Purple Violets,” instead are gambling any chance of recouping their investment on a distribution deal that involves not a single theater. On Nov. 20 the film will go up for sale exclusively on iTunes. It’s the first time a feature film will make its commercial debut on Apple’s digital download service, but only the latest deal aimed at winning attention for the iTunes movie category.
Apple iTunes Offers Led Zeppelin Digital Box Set
pple announced today that they would be offering a special digital box set containing Led Zeppelin's entire discography, "The Complete Led Zeppelin," for exclusive pre-order on iTunes.
We're excited to offer Led Zeppelin's entire catalog as a special
digital box set with this pre-order," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of
iTunes. "Now you can get all of the band's albums with one click for an
incredible $99."
OK Steve Jobs, Where Is All The DRM-Free Music Your Promised Us?
Despite telling independent labels and distributors to deliver DRM-free tracks to iTunes months ago, our sources tell us that many labels only received Apple's contract covering the change within the last few days. The result is that a full 8 months after Steve Jobs called on record labels to drop copy restrictions, the iTunes Plus DRM-Free store has by far the weakest selection of DRM-Free independent label music of the three top download services.
Radiohead Said to Shun Major Labels in Next Deal
Radiohead, the British rock band that is regarded as the pre-eminent free agent in the global music business, is close to signing a series of deals to release its next album independently and leave the major record companies behind.
The band, which stunned the industry this month when it let fans set their own price for the digital download of its new album, is close to a deal to release the CD version of the album domestically through a pact with the music complex headed by Coran Capshaw, the impresario best known for guiding the career of the Dave Matthews Band.
Zune 2 Devices Could Let Fans Monitor Celebrity Listening Habits
At a cocktail party during the CMJ music festival, a Microsoft representative hinted that the feature could be used to allow fans to monitor their favorite artists' and celebrities' listening habits. The major online music stores have offered celebrity playlists for years, but this would take things a step further by allowing fans to see what they're actually listening to, instead of what they say they're into (assuming they don't just enlist someone in their entourage to play only the most cred-laden tracks on the Zune).
Sonos intros ZoneBridge, PC-free store access
The ZoneBridge 100 (shown) is the first device from Sonos to establish a connection rather than serve as the end point: attaching a ZoneBridge to a router and tapping a button automatically creates a secured wireless mesh network that ZonePlayers and the core Controller can use to navigate and play music, saving potentially difficult setup on existing network devices.
Any existing setup with the Controller can take advantage of the Version 2.5 update, the company adds. The upgrade adds access to both the Best Buy and Napster online music stores directly through the Controller's built-in LCD. Users can now browse and play music from either service by streaming tracks online rather than downloading them; users have no need to install software or even to leave a computer active. Playlists attached to an account and radio features will likewise translate to the device.
Billboard to chart top tunes on Facebook
Billboard, the weekly magazine that compiles the most vital song charts in the music industry, is tapping Facebook to discover the latest hot tunes. The publication - a division of Nielsen Business Media - has struck a deal with iLike, an application within Facebook that lets users download and share music, to create a new chart based on the popularity of songs on the social networking site.
Music is 36% of Apple revenue, 3 billion songs sold
Apple's iTunes Store is still dominating digital music sales in the U.S., according to one survey cited by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, accounting for around 85 percent of digital sales nationwide. The Cupertino-based company on Monday during a conference call announced that it has sold a whopping 3 billion songs via the iTunes Store alongside more than 100 million TV shows; music revenues--including the iPod--accounted for 36 percent of the company's total revenue during its September quarter.
How much are people really paying for Radiohead?
As it turns out, not as much as Radiohead's evil record label used to. As The Register reports on the Open Season podcast, not only have Radiohead fans been misrepresenting how much they've been paying for the free In Rainbows, but even if we take their word for it, it's still not as much as Radiohead would make had the band stayed with EMI.
People told the survey that they paid 8 pounds ($16), but the numbers don't support this. People actually paid closer to 2.50 ($5). Radiohead normally make about 3 ($6) (after royalties and such) with their record label. As such, Radiohead is actually making less giving the songs away than they did with the greedy capitalist record label, EMI.
Find The Best Music Prices With Biggerboat
Want the best prices on CD’s and downloads, but don’t feel like spending an hour online visiting Amazon, BestBuy.com, CDUniverse, etc? Biggerboat.com may be just what you’re looking for. Still in beta, Biggerboat searched quickly through most of the bigger and cheaper music sites and delivers side by side results with links so you can click through and purchase quickly…and cheaply.
Moving beyond the iPod
Despite popular conception, Apple did not invent the digital portable music player. What Apple did was take a product that was slowly working itself into the hands of willing consumers and make it sexy. In addition to making the product attractive to consumers, Apple was able to sell the concept of portable digital music, just as it had with home computing decades earlier.
But even as consumers have purchased Apple's devices in droves, they've come to realize that there's more to digital music than what's contained in the little white box. Other, arguably superior devices are now on the market; more are being introduced regularly. These players offer features that will become the sustaining elements of the digital entertainment revolution--they will be smart devices with IP connectivity and increased onboard storage.
How Much Is Music Worth?
Yet is 99 cents the magic number? No way. A couple of years ago, the music service Rhapsody funded a test: for a few weeks it subsidized a price cut of songs to 49 cents, and cut album prices from 10 bucks to five. Sales went up sixfold. Unlike with shipping physical products, selling the next downloaded song costs almost zero—from the standpoint of the seller, there isn't much more involved in shipping 60,000 copies of a song than there is in shipping 10,000. It doesn't take a math major to figure out that when costs of the next copy are near zero, cutting prices and selling many more units is going to make you more money.
Gracenote Pushes Lyrics Agenda, More Partnerships Ahead
Music metadata provider Gracenote is now planning multiple lyrics-related announcements, a move that follows a major licensing round with publishers last year. In discussions this week, a Gracenote representative would only point to a "major entertainment partner," and an announcement at Digital Hollywood next week.
Gracenote - alongside competitors like Toronto-based Lyricfind - have been grabbing real estate in the legalized lyrics landscape. Both companies are offering detailed lyrics catalogs to digital music stores, as well as device and mobile phone manufacturers. In April, Gracenote disclosed a major lyrics partnership with Yahoo Music. Several months later, RealNetworks-owned Rhapsody disclosed a lyrics tie-in with LyricFind.
Songkick: Live Music Lovers Will Love This
Freshly launched Songkick is a startup looking to capitalize on that growing market by providing a simple way to discover live shows for artists you love along with the cheapest concert tickets. The impetus for the site grew out of the founder’s frustrations over no single concert site providing a comprehensive list of all the concerts they want to see. There would be some on Ticketmaster, others on LiveNation, and still more on resale at StubHub. So, they’ve created a comprehensive database that tracks concerts as they appear on the 14 different ticketing sites and across dozens of blogs. Currently they only cover the U.K. and U.S.
Hands-on review: Rhapsody on TiVo
Despite all these gripes, Rhapsody on TiVo shows a lot lot of promise. When it was working smoothly, it was great to extend the Rhapsody experience to my living room and the service certainly has the TiVo "touch." While Apple TV is great for bringing your purchased iTunes music collection to your home theater, Rhapsody on TiVo effectively brings millions of songs to your home theater. I'm definitely not ready to give it my full recommendation--it's much too glitchy in its current state--but if TiVo and Rhapsody can smooth the kinks out, they might have a killer service on their hands.
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