• Amazon.com's digital music store could launch next week, which would put it right on track for the rumored date we heard a few weeks ago. Billboard.biz reports something that really stands out to me, that the new store will have four different price points. Antony Bruno wrote, "Amazon also is planning a tiered pricing scheme that will sell new releases at one price, and older tracks at another. In all, the Amazon digital service will have four pricing tiers, which major labels find attractive." We'll get to see if Steve Jobs is correct in his belief that tiered pricing is not simple enough for consumers. (Billboard.biz)

• Gracenote has acquired Musicphone technology to beef up its Mobile Music 2.0 song identification platform. The Gracenote mobile platform is linked to its global media database of over 80 million tracks. (Press release)

• SpiralFrog, currently bleeding money as it awaits its U.S. launch, has licensed INgrooves' catalog for its ad-supported download service. With those 100,000 songs, SpiralFrog should have about 1,800,000 now. (Press release)

• iBiquity Digital CEO Bob Struble on HD radio's last step to the mainstream: "From the technology standpoint, the FCC has adopted the standard, and the broadcast industry has built out the infrastructure. The last major hurdle – and it is not insignificant – is to get people to go into places and ask for HD Radio," "The goal is that about five years from now, when you go into a store and buy a radio, it will already have HD. ... For radio to continue to be as ubiquitous as it is, radio has to be on these devices. And it is up to all of the radio business – not just us." (Radio Ink)

• Here's a tidbit that's related to the constant copyright-vs-fair use debate in music circles: Much of the economic growth of the last ten years, according to a study released by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, can be credited to the doctrine of fair use. Fair use exceptions to copyright law, it estimates, account for $4.5 trillion in annual revenue for the U.S. economy, 18% of growth and 11 million U.S. jobs. (That's a huge number considering the U.S. has a GDP of $13.2 trillion. After scanning the report, it looks like the authors include an industry's total revenue even though only part of it relies of the fair use doctrine. Keep in mind that this report was comissioned by a non-profit trade group of which Google is a member.) Download the PDF of the 45-page report here. (InformationWeek)

• The Washington Post's Marc Fisher has a good overview on the recorded music industry's push to receive royalties for terrestrial radio play and lawmakers' plan to push through legislation to grant them those royalties. (Washington Post)