• Ad-supported download site SpiralFrog has received a much-needed $2 million in additional funding in the form of convertible notes. The notes' interest is a tidy 12% annually, interest is to be paid quarterly and the principle is due on April 19, 2008. Between the company's IPO and these convertible notes, SpiralFrog has taken two of the more costly routes to raising money. (Press release, via paidContent)

• Digital track sales rose 47.7% in Britain in 2007. CD sales dropped 10%, according to the BPI. (Times Online)

• eMusic closed out 2007 with more than 400,000 subscribers (it was at 350,000 in November). The download site doubled its forecast for Christmas Day new customer trials. (Press release)

• An article for California residents or retailers doing business in California: A new California law, which went into effect yesterday, allows gift card holders to redeem for cash a balance of less than $10. (Modesto Bee)

• Antony Bruno has a list of artists that could possibly follow in Radiohead's footsteps. (Billboard)

• EMI artists are worried upcoming marketing budget cuts will hurt their sales. Gee, you think? EMI's problem is the same that William Hesketh Lever had a century ago: Half the money it spends on advertising and marketing is wasted, and the trouble is it doesn't know which half. If Terra Firma can figure out which half is wasted, EMI artists have nothing to worry about. But you know what? EMI artists should be worried. (Financial Times)

• MeeMix, which streams music matched to users' tastes, went live yesterday. (VentureBeat)

Posted by Glenn at 10:33 AM | Link
|Ad-Supported Music||EMI||eMusic|

• The Financial Times continued its critical coverage of EMI owner Terra Firma today with a report that Terra Firma chief executive Guy Hands sent letters to the RIAA and IFPI that threatened to cut off EMI's funding to the trade groups. Hands considers the $25 million per year it gives to both bodies another example of wasteful spending. As the article points out, if EMI stopped paying the IFPI and RIAA, it would have to make do either lobbying for itself and tracking down both physical and digital pirates on its own dime, or do away with all three activities. Some may look at this as a sign that Hands does not approve of the activities the RIAA and IFPI undertake on EMI's behalf, but it could be nothing more the latest result of cost-cutting brainstorming sessions. (Financial Times)

• C3 Presents, the company behind Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza, will partner with UK company Festival Republic (Live Nation) to launch the Vineland Music Festival. The site, in Vineland, New Jersey, is between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. The festival, to be held August 8-10, will be a camping festival like Bonnaroo. (Billboard.biz)

• I learned something in this good post about file-sharing and indie labels: Gold Standard Laboratories shut its doors a few weeks ago. "Part-owner and main man Sonny Kay ran the label either from a dirty office in LA or from internet cafes and phone boots across the world while being on tour with his own screamo punk bands. Addressing in an email what forced him to shut down he said: 'Filesharing was never much of a problem until everyone got the ipod, then the sales disappeared overnight.' And this comes from a label which is, I mean was, looked upon as the Warp of punk rock – releasing extreme punk and experimental music - NOT a label that produce radio hits." (Vegard Waske)

• Mark Piibe, formerly the SVP and head of content at MusicGremlin, has been hired as EMI's SVP of digital business affairs. (Silicon Valley Insider)

• A discussion of breakage at eMusic. "The current payout rate of 30.5 cents a track actually exceeds what I'm paying per track via my $9.99 for 40 downloads subscription (the old rate) and approaches what newer subscribers ($9.99 for 30 downloads) are paying for each track. (And the per-track rate actually goes much lower with booster packs and bigger subscription plans!) Using the 'half the subscription revenue goes to labels' formula (and ignoring any deducted costs), it seems likely that the zero-breakage per-song payout rate would be somewhere around 12 to 17 cents. The fact that it's twice that amount indicates just how much breakage is occurring each month." Said an anonymous commenter, "Average breakage at eMusic is right around 50%." (Digital Audio Insider)

• Warner Music Group formed a partnership with the family of Frank Sinatra to "integrate content, rights management and the preservation of the legendary entertainer's inspirational personality and prodigious body of work under a single entity." Frank Sinatra Enterprises will manage all things Sinatra and handle licensing of his name and likeness. (Press release)

• The Orchard has inked a distribution deal with historic Vee-Jay Records. (Press release)

Posted by Glenn at 9:37 AM | Link
|EMI||eMusic|

• Album sales dropped 5% last week and were 16% lower than the same week last year. For the year, album sales are down 14%. It was a slow week for new releases as Talib Kweli debuted at #2 with sales of only 60,000. High School Musical dropped 40% from its debut tally but still retained #1 with 367,000 scans. Digital track sales dropped 2% last week and were 40% higher than the same week last year. For the year, sales of digital tracks are up 48%.

• Nokia announced its new mobile music store, Ovi. The service, to go live later this year, will sell WMA files over the air and downloaded to PCs. Ovi will have access to existing third-party services like social networks. (paidContent)

• Luaka Bop has found a new, post-V2 home at Red Eye Distribution. (Pitchfork)

• eMusic has renewed agreements with some of its most popular labels: Beggars Group (4AD, XL and Rough Trade), Matador Records, Concord Music Group and ATO Records. (Playlist)

• Sony BMG's "Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City," out September 4th, will be its first music Blu-ray release with support for Dolby TrueHD. (Afterdawn)

• Market research company iSuppli sees a slowing in digital (both downloads and subscriptions) growth through 2008, but expects a "small resurgence" due to greater broadband penetration. (iSuppli)

• Satellite news: XM is moving its Nashville studio to the Sommet Center (home of the Nashville Predators, owned by the City of Nashville and just around the corner from the current studio at the Country Music Hall of Fame), and Sirius is adding a Grateful Dead channel. (The Tennessean and Variety, respectively)

Posted by Glenn at 10:36 AM | Link
|Distribution||Mobile Music||Research||Sirius||XM||eMusic|

• Kevin Morrow will replace Bruce Moran as president of Live Nation New York. Moran is now president of the company's Latin American division. (Billboard.biz)

• It's closer to official: Guitar Center's filed a proxy statement that should lead to an acquisition by VH AcquisitionCo, Inc, a division of private equity firm Bain Capital Partners. Shareholders are being offered $63.00, an 8.4% premium over yesterday's close and 26% higher than the price the day before the deal was announced. (Schedule 14A at SEC.gov)

• It's not completely official, but word is that eMusic and AT&T will launch a mobile download service on July 31. Subscribers will get five downloads per month for $7.49. Four handsets (three Samsung and one Nokia) will initially support the service. The tracks will be DRM-free, as is the standard with eMusic. Thanks, but I'll stick with my 65 downloads for $15 plan online. (Boy Genius Report)

• "No genre has been better at developing arena-level headliners in the past decade as has country music." (Miami Herald)

• Clear Channel reported a 19% increase in earnings in spite of flat radio revenues. (AP)

• "It's money over music for many players in today's hip-hop world." (Hartford Courant)

Posted by Glenn at 8:35 AM | Link
|Touring||eMusic|

• Navarre finalized the sale of its independent music distribution segment to Koch yesterday. Navarre received $6.5 million at closing and plans to collect $11 million from trade receivables that were not part of the transaction. The company plans to use the proceeds to pay down its credit facility. (Press release)

• EMI had agreed to give YouTube users access to its videos and music and use the content in their own user-generated content. EMI will use YouTube's management tools to track and monetize the content. EMI is the last of the four majors to come to an agreement with YouTube. (Press release)

• Ad-supported P2P (sort of) site SpiralFrog is set to launch by the end of the summer, according to company chairman and founder Joe Mohen. SpiralFrog has been in a period of upheaval with the exit of executives and directors. One bright spot: the company is currently in beta testing in Canada. (Billboard.biz)

• David at Digital Audio Insider went through his latest eMusic statement and blogged about the payout increase. His band's per-song payout rose 11.3% since eMusic recently increased its payout rates. (Digital Audio Insider)

• You don't hear about retailers seeing sales of iPods and related accessories, but Sharper Image reported sales of both were instrumental in the company's 21.5% drop in revenues for fiscal 2006. (10-K)

• Industry legend Alan McGee is reportedly winding down his Poptones record label because he thinks bands should release music themselves and developing new acts is not economically feasible. "New groups will have to develop themselves," he said. (Digital Spy)

• PaidContent has an audio interview with RealNetworks' Rob Glaser. (Download MP3 or stream at this page)

• Perhaps inspired by Al Gore, the IFPI posted a list of "ten inconvenient truths about the music industry today," which includes blasts against Pirate Bay, Allofmp3.com, organized crime, file sharers and ISPs that "facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale." (IFPI)

Posted by Glenn at 8:34 AM | Link
|Distribution||EMI||RealNetworks||eMusic|

eMusic head David Pakman took to the streets -- or rather, the company's 17dots blog -- to defend the music service's pricing structure. The post, titled "It's a Brave New World Out There," was a reaction to news that some labels were unhappy with the revenue received from eMusic.

Much of the post had me scratching my head. There were two gaffes, which I'll point out in a second, and a great deal of campaign rhetoric. Pakman is pretty much a politician in the press, always on point, always sticking to core themes about DRM and low prices. The blog post was an expansion of those themes.

The first misstep was a statement about CD prices in the early '00s.

"Back in 2000, as CD sales began to decline, the music industry responded by actually raising its prices — to as high as $18 for a single CD! Unfortunately, this hasn’t been a productive strategy and music sales have continued to fall dramatically — by more than 20% this year alone."

In the early part of the decade, CD prices were actually dropping. This NPD Group study shows that prices dropped in every quarter from Q4 2002 to Q1 2004 (when it was $13.29) and were flat in three of four quarters in 2002.

Continue reading "Price Elasticity and Campaign Rhetoric" »

Posted by Glenn at 7:10 PM | Link
|eMusic|

• Billboard's Ed Christman reported today that Warner Music Group is planning to lay off 400 employees. The restructure includes staggered layoffs and additional hires in digital areas. (Billboard.biz)

• According to the Financial Times, EMI has interest from three private equity groups: Fortress, Cerberus and the previously mentioned One Equity. All three are expected to make presentations to EMI's board of directors this week. EMI will reportedly open its books to all three and will give them until May 23, the day it announces its annual results, to make full offers. (The Age)

• Billboard is reporting that "at least six" indie labels plan either to pull their catalogs from eMusic or offer only back catalog through the music download service. "I hope they can make it a better value proposition for the labels," said one unnamed label head. "But if they don't, we are planning on pulling out." eMusic offers subscriptions of varying quantity and price. Though popular, the low subscription prices means labels get less per song that they would from sales other download stores. A recent price hike by eMusic appeared to be a move to appease some disgruntled labels. (Billboard)

• Warner Music Group is launching a production unit called Den of Thieves that will create content for video platforms such as television, DVD and mobile. (Variety)

• The Tennessean's Nicole Keiper has a good article on high-tech music marketing -- and I don't think it's good just because I'm quoted frequently. Keiper talked to Nashville musician Jeremy Lister and the manger of Ben Folds -- also of Nashville -- about their experience performing in the virtual reality world of Second Life. MySpace, too, is a topic, as is music-oriented MySpace clone Virb. (The Tennessean)

• An old Tower Records location that former Tower owner Russ Solomon is using to open a new retail site will be called R5 Records-Video and is slated to open in June. (Sacramento Bee)

Posted by Glenn at 9:20 AM | Link
|Brick-And-Mortor Retail||EMI||Marketing||eMusic|

• A Sunday Times report says EMI is "braced to receive a fresh bid" from Warner Music Group and expects some bids from private equity groups. (Forbes.com)

• eMusic president and chief executive David Pakman on talks with Amazon.com: "I can confirm there are no talks right now with any strategic buyer. The company's not for sale. The company is in no need of financing, and our growth is off the charts. We've talked to every media company on the planet, we've been approached by everyone. The company has had 100% year-over-year sequential growth for the last three years." (Forbes.com)

• Music-centric video games are, says a Warner Music Group exec, "one of the few places we've seen in the sweet spot of what consumers want to do with music today, which is interact with it." (Billboard)

• An odd prediction by RoyaltyShare CEO Bob Kohn: Removing DRM will double or triple the size of the music download business. I think that's odd because even with DRM, the download market will double in (roughly) the next 18 months (it's on pace for over 60% annual growth for 2007). Kohn supports dropping DRM but wants to continue to ban the legal sharing of DRM-free tracks (I wonder where that would leave the Zune?) and the posting of such tracks on web sites (which is already a no no that has spotty enforcement). (MusicDish.com)

• Here's a different way to release an album: Rancid's Tim Armstrong is releasing a solo album and giving it away for free -- but not all at one place -- before its official release date. Fans will be able to hunt for the ten tracks (two of while were already released on the Internet) on Rancid-related websites and MySpace pages. (Harp)

Posted by Glenn at 11:07 AM | Link
|DRM||EMI||eMusic|

• Capitol Records Nashville is releasing to all digital music stores the complete career catalog of late country star Chris Ledoux. The catalog spans thee decades and 37 years. Digital ringtones for some songs are also available. (Read article at MusicRow.com)

• Detroit rapper Trick Trick says he will sign with G-Unit Records in early 2007 and have an album out as early as July. Trick Trick was formerly with Universal Motown. (Read article at SOHH)

• Insound.com now sells digital downloads. Only complete albums are sold, priced at $8.99 or $9.99. Files are 192kbs MP3. A quick glance at the indie rock offerings revealed a catalog that is also available, for the most part, at eMusic. (Via Digital Audio Insider)

• Dennis Romero, aka, Danceblogga, has an article on dance-oriented digital download store Beatport. It sells unrestricted, CD-quality .wav files for prices between $1.99 and $2.49 per track. (Read article at LA City Beat)

• Wired reviews applications that organize MP3 tags. (Read article at Wired)

Posted by Glenn at 1:52 PM | Link
|A&R||Digital Distribution||EMI||eMusic|

• EMI shareholders are "close to revolting," a source told the NY Post. "The only time the stock appears to move is when deal rumors surface." And those synergies that make a merger with Warner Music Group so attractive? One "music industry exec" says EMI has more fat to trim. "The restructuring they have gone through have been incremental because management is carrying them out. EMI's costs are still bloated and it doesn't have to be that way. Private equity cuts costs with a whole different mind-set." (Read article at New York Post)

• So who is going after EMI? Two dailies have named different private equity groups. (Read article at Hits)

• EMI is offering the upcoming Lily Allen single, "Littlest Things," in the MP3 format. The list of major label experimentations with MP3 is a short one. Only Jessica Simpson and Jesse McCartney come to mind; both were sold at Yahoo Music. Labels have been far less shy about giving away MP3s for promotional purposes. This kind of experimentation is good and necessary. There's not such thing as a swift sea change in the entertainment business, so guinea pigs and always needed. (Lily Allen store, via Hypebot)

• UMG's Doug Morris interviewed by Reuters. On ad-based models: "Whatever brings in enough money to protect our artists and protect the creative people are going to support." On lawsuits: "The idea of the lawsuit was to put an element of risk into a person like me who was jimmying the phones when I was 18 years old." (Read article at Reuters)

• The European Union will take a closer look at Universal Music Group's purchase of Bertelsmann's music publishing unit. (Read Billboard.biz article)

• An Ipsos survey found American consumers are well aware of over-the-air download options but few have compatible phones. A solid 71% know OTA options exist, 14% have phones that can handle such downloads and a mere 4% (and rising) have shelled out for an OTA download. (Read at Ipsos, via Digital Music News)

• Talk in Australia about sagging music sales. "Digital ain't filling the void," said one industry veteran. "If people are sitting back waiting for iTunes to fix it, they're in strife," said another. (Read aritlc at The Age)

• eMusic's change in subscription prices are changing -- for the better -- the per-track price received by at least one artist. (Read post at Digital Audio Insider)

Posted by Glenn at 8:14 AM | Link
|EMI||Universal Music Group||eMusic|

• Former Nirvana bass player Krist Novoselic will join the punk group Flipper for the band's first tour in more than a decade. (Read article at Blabbermouth)

• As eMusic prepares to (unfavorably) adjust its subscription rates, the popular online music store approaches its 100 millionth download. Barenaked Ladies, heavy on the publicity as of late, will write and record a personalized song for the person who downloads lucky number 100 million. (Read press release)

• Speaking of personalization, rapper Chingy has recorded over 100 versions of his song "Dem Jeans," each with a different girl's name, for use as a ringtone The line in the song is, "damn girl, how'd you get in dem jeans?" The word girl will be replaced by a name. (Read article at News.com)

• Hits listed new MTV adds, and its urban- and pop/rock-heavy. Among the new adds to MTV are Nelly Furtado, Vanessa Hudgens, Cherish, Paula DeAnda, Pussycat Dolls, Akon f/Snoop, John Mayer, Taking Back Sunday and Young Jeezy. M2 added Sparta, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Young Jeezy, Rich Boy, Shiny Toy Guns, TV on the Radio, Snoop f/Akon and Disturbed. The quick rise of Shiny Toy Guns is surprising. The Universal/Motown act is getting a big push. Sounds like a electroclash holdover. Tunes aren't that good. Should get a few mobile phone commercial syncs, though. (Read at Hits Rumor Mill)

Posted by Glenn at 5:54 PM | Link
|Ringtones||eMusic|

• Later this month, eMusic will lower the number of downloads for each of its subscription packages. The $10 plan will drop to 30 from 40. The $15 plan goes to 50 from 65. Existing customers are not subject to the change. The new prices will take effect November 21th. Given eMusic's revenue-sharing model, artists and labels like it when the denominator decreases. Consumers end up paying more per download -- but it's still a great value. (Read article at The Register, via Digital Music News)

• Unavision Communications Inc. has acquired the remaining 50% of Mexico-based Disa Records and Edminosa Publishing. Disa will remain with Universal Music Group. Edminosa will fall under Univision Music Publishing. (Read press release)

• Ludacris announced a development deal with The N Network that will make the rapper executive producer of a television series called "Halls of Fame." (Read article at SOHH.com)

• A rumor that Steve Greenberg may be looking to relaunch S-Curve Records. (Read post at Hits Rumor Mill)

• NPR has a story on Mitch Koulouris, a former Tower Records manager who started Digital Music Group. (Listen to interview at NPR.com)

• The Department of Justice dropped its investigation into Entercom purchases after the company agreed to sell three stations in the Rochester area. Post-sale, Entercom will have about 40% of the Rochester market's radio ad revenue. Before the sale of the three stations, the company would have had over 57% of the market. (Read article at FMBQ)

• A clarification on a post about Snocap's recent deal to put music on MySpace pages. Snocap's publicist informs me this is separate from the Linx web development toolkit. The Snocap MySpace store, I'm told, is an HTML widget that plugs the storefront into existing websites.

Posted by Glenn at 9:03 AM | Link
|Legal||Mobile Music||Radio||Universal Music Group||XM||eMusic|

• The Future of Music Coalition filed comments in the FCC's broadcast ownership proceeding. Its stance: "Large station groups do not offer more format variety." For the long version, read the executive summary and/or the 19-page PDF.

• Victory Records will make its catalog available at eMusic starting October 31st. (Read article at Billboard.biz)

• Analyst Simon Wallis finds some positives in the EMI accounting fraud. The drop in share price exceeded the per-share impact of the restatement, which presents a good buying opportunity. Also, he believes it could have opened a door for Warner Music Group to bid on EMI. (Read article at The Independent)

• Should YouTube worry about lawsuits from media companies? Not really, wrote Columbia law professor Tim Wu. How so? In the '90s, he wrote at Slate, the Bell companies lobbied against Hollywood's requested reforms. The result was the Online Copyright Liability Limitation Act, part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Section 512 (c), he claims, is the Magna Carta of Web 2.0 because it provides web companies a safe harbor. Copyright content hosted unknowingly by those companies falls under "tolerated use," a cousin of "fair use." Further, it gives media companies the dual benefits of exposure and control (in the form of "notice and take down" requests). (Read article at Slate)

• FoC Alec Hanley Bemis interviewed Pedro Winter, manager of Daft Punk and owner of Ed Banger Records. "We sell between 2,000 and 4,000 vinyls — a small amount, but still a good score for vinyls when you can’t even find record stores. They are all closing!" (Read article at LA Weekly)

Posted by Glenn at 11:00 AM | Link
|EMI||EMI WMG Merger Talk||YouTube||eMusic|

• Universal Music Group and MTV are expected to announce today an agreement that will give MTV a blanket license to use UMG songs and videos in mobile programming. A digital executive at UMG points to exclusive, mobile-only content that he hopes will build awareness for the medium. (LA Times)

• Warner Music Group's Asylum Records signed a marketing and distribution deal with Atlanta-based hip hop label Aphilliates Music Group. Asylum acts as an incubator for WMG and has a good track record with albums by Mike Jones, Bun B, D4L and Cam'Ron. (NewYorkBusiness.com)

• Retailers, find a pen and some paper and start that letter to your Congressman: Transworld stores will be the exclusive retailer of Daryl Hall & John Oates’ Home for Christmas, out October 3rd. (Hits Rumor Mill)

• eMusic, the independent-minded music download service, has officially launched its European service to all 25 member countries of the European Union. (Reuters)

Posted by Glenn at 7:14 AM | Link
|Brick-And-Mortor Retail||Mobile Music||Universal Music Group||Warner Music Group||eMusic|

• Three 6 Mafia and the group's Hypnotize Minds Productions has inked a deal with Warner Bros. Records, which will market and distribute the label's releases. Three 6 Mafia are to produce current Warner Bros artists like Lil' Scrappy and Mike Jones. (Rap News Network)

• EMI Christian Music Group has extended its relationship with Inpop Records. By the end of the year the label will release new albums by newsboys and Jimmy Needham (CMSpin)

• A few months after the NY Times' Sunday Magazine's surprising profile of doom metal band SunnO))), the AP says "metal gets a makeover" and finds -- somewhat belatedly -- that many metal bands are pushing social causes and making intelligent music. (AP)

• eMusic subscriptions in Europe rise as the company launches a European service. "It appears that current customers will get to keep their old subscription rates, though they'll get socked with the Value Added Tax now that eMusic has an official European presence." (Digital Audio Insider)

• Bryan Leach, who was previously the VP of A&R at super indie TVT, was hired as the Senior VP of Urban at the RCA Music Group in a deal that brings his own Polo Grounds Music to the label. (Billboard Radio Monitor)

Posted by Glenn at 8:22 AM | Link
|A&R||EMI||Sony BMG||Warner Music Group||eMusic|

paidContent has some notes on the recent Music Alley gathering in London that had a few panels that talked about digital media and music.

eMusic's David Pakman compared iTunes and eMusic. Apple gets very few downloads from each iPod owner (1 billion songs divided by 50 million iPods over three years). eMusic, he said, pays out an average of $5.62 per subscriber per month, or "2,858% more than Apple" according to his math.

It was Ted Cohen, though, and not Pakman who predicted a great rise for subscription services. Cohen thinks it will dominate the market while Pakman thinks subscriptions will be a niche player.

There was some talk of MySpace, of course. MySpace VP for European marketing and content Jamie Kantrowitz played down the controversies surrounding the site's use of music and the fact that it doesn't compensate labels or artists for audio streams. MySpace hasn't run into serious trouble, he says, because artists choose to upload their music (Beggars Group's Martin Mills agreed) and said, "MySpace is only 2.5 years old and down the line there may be other revenue models."

Posted by Glenn at 1:14 PM | Link
|Digital Music||MySpace||eMusic||iTunes|

Free downloads abound on the Internet. But how does one find the good and skip the bad?

Today Pitchfork announced its Infinite Mixtape, a series of free MP3 downloads. The first series, 21 tracks in all, are songs that are the staff's favorites of 2006. Pitchfork has long offered MP3 links, but not in this format. Now there's more weight behind each offering because Pitchfork's stamp of approval is valuable.

Another online tastemaker, eMusic, offers a free daily download. Today's freebie is "The Sediment" by The Palaxy Tracks. Only one track is posted at a time (better visit every day) and a thorough biography explains the song, the album from which it's taken and the band.

As the number of music blogs explodes, it becomes harder and harder to keep up with the offerings. New blogs enter the blogosphere just as MP3 blog readers seem to be tightening up their list of daily visits. There's a lot of discovering to do, but who has the time?

When the volume of blogs rises to an unmanageable number, sites like elbo.ws come in handy to show which are the most popular tracks on MP3 blogs. It's a good shortcut to endless surfing and downloading. At the same time there's a need for trusted, familiar voices to be a source for free music, too. Pitchfork and eMusic are filling that need

Posted by Glenn at 7:38 PM | Link
|Downloads||Pitchfork||eMusic|

• EMI is reportedly prepared to no longer insist that Warner Music Group sell its music publishing ahead of any EMI acquisition of WMG, which says either music publishing company should be sold only if required by regulators. (This Is Money)

• Yahoo China has run into the ire of the major music companies. The company will be sued by the majors within a few weeks, says the chairman of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry. The industry's complain is that Yahoo provides links to illegally copied music. Yahoo is China's second-largest search engine. Baidu, the market leader, was sued last year. (Bloomberg.com)

• No details have been given oh exactly how this came to being, but eMusic has discovered 19 Sun Records tracks that have never been released. The found songs are by artists such as Charlie Rich, James Cotton, Ike Turner and Bill Justis. The songs will be added to the deep Sun catalog that is already available at eMusic. (Press release)

• Handleman, one of the country's leading wholesale music and movie distributors, partly blames a lack of hit albums for its current financial woes. It expects to go through a round of cost-cutting measures that will include closing a distribution center, lowering customer returns and reducing overhead. Employee pensions and health benefits may also be on the cutting board. (The Freep, via Kings of A&R)

• The Chicago Sun-Times' Bobby Reed on black country artists. Mentioned is a former Miss America and aspiring country star, Ericka Dunlap. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Posted by Glenn at 9:26 AM | Link
|Distribution||EMI WMG Merger Talk||Piracy||eMusic|

As if the no-longer-free Stax music sampler at eMusic wasn't enough, the online music store is offering to subscribers a free, 24-track sampler of bands that will perform at the Pitchfork Music Festival later this month. The track listing reads like a who's who of indie faves: Art Brut, The National, Spoon, Mission of Burma, The Futureheads, Jens Lekman, Aesop Rock, Mr Lif, Tapes 'N Tapes, Destroyer and others.

Among the 24 tracks are two songs tagged as "eMusic only." One is Yo La Tengo's "Beanbag Chair," which is currently available for free at the Matador website (download MP3 here). The other is The Mountain Goats' "Woke Up New" from their album Get Lonely, out August 22nd on 4AD.

eMusic currently offers other free or mostly-free samplers from Mirsa Records, Surfdog Records and Upper Class Recordings.

Posted by Glenn at 11:45 AM | Link
|Digital Music||Online Stores/Services||Pitchfork||eMusic|

Digital music shoppers need to be aware of different prices for the same titles. Just compare the price of Miles Davis Quintet's Fantasy titles at iTunes and eMusic. Cookin' With the Miles Davis Quintet was just added to iTunes with a price tag of $9.99. A 40-song subscription to eMusic is $10 per month, which means a person could buy the four-song album ten times at eMusic for the same price of of one purchase at iTunes. (Relaxin' With the Miles Davis Quintet is $5.99 and Workin' With the Miles Davis Quintet is $7.99.)

A further benefit: eMusic's downloads are DRM-free MP3 files. Though iTunes seems DRM-free to a lot of people because they aren't going outside of the iTunes-iPod walled garden, iTunes does indeed limit the use of its AAC files with DRM.

iTunes offers majors and indies eMusic offers only indie labels. Mainstream shoppers might feel lost looking at eMusic's highlighted titles, and they might be cowed by the idea of an ongoing subscription. But for a person who frequently buys music and is able to look beyond iTunes for digital downloads, eMusic's subscription service will reward them with big savings. Yes, variable pricing already exists...for those who are willing to shop around.

Posted by Glenn at 4:14 PM | Link
|Digital Music||Online Stores/Services||eMusic||iTunes|

• Toucan Cove Entertainment has signed a worldwide distribution deal with Universal Republic. The label's next album is by The Muckrakers. T(PR.com)

• eMusic anc Circuit City have teamed up to offer a download starter kit that will be sold in Circuit City stores. The kit has the physical aspect of a gift card but comes packaged in a CD jewel case and includes a "how to" download guide, collector's cards of independent artists and information on eMusic's features. For $14.99 the kit offers 65 downloads per month (which goes for $15 per month) and 25 free downloads for signing up.

• Skype, the web-based phone service, has a deal from Warner Music Group to sell music on Skype's music store. Which music store? This one. (Forbes.com) If you're like me and wondering how this would work, ZDNet has a blog post that explains some scenarios. (ZDNet)

• Warner/Chappel names Bob Bortnick Senior Vice President, A&R. (Press release)

• Phil Walden, an industry veteran and head of Capricorn Records, died on Sunday. (Tennessean.com)

Posted by Glenn at 8:40 AM | Link
|Brick-And-Mortor Retail||Music Industry||Universal Music Group||Warner Music Group||eMusic|

• Here's a fun thread for you: Terrible band names that affected sales. Some of the mentioned: Huffamoose, Dixie Dregs, The Dayglo Abortions, Endaswap, Fannypack, Treadmill Trackstar. (The Velvet Rope)

• In Coolfer's honest opinion, eMusic's catalog lags in the electronic department. So it's nice to see this month's electronic column, Minimal Techno by Philip Sherburne. The weekly email highlights new electronic albums, and they're all by great artists: Gas, Milosh, Stewert Walker, Dntel, Thomas Fehlmann and Solvent. This month's featured album: Basic Channel's incredible BCD.

• In an email from Ulrich Schnauss, the electronic artist/producer says he appears on a song on the new album by French singer Celine. Also, his next album is "mostly finished" and he will "continue to look for a suitable record label."

• Looks like Billboard.com started a blog called the Jaded Insider last month. Coolfer happened across it today. It definitely has that "corporate blog" look and feel.

Posted by Glenn at 6:10 PM | Link
|Weblogs||eMusic|

• Roxy Music -- including original member Brian Eno -- is working on a new album with producers Rhett Davies and Chris Thomas. (Gigwise)

• eMusic, already a great store, just got better. Music writer Michaelangelo Matos has left the Seattle Weekly to work for the digital music store. That's the second music writer to leave Seattle in recent weeks -- as Coolfer previously mentioned, Ann Powers was recently hired by the LA Times to replace Robert Hilburn. (Ear Candy)

• Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, points to theorybloggers, or "in-depth analytical commentary out there in the bløgösphêré, as we like to call the classical corner of the web." Check out new trends in songwriting at NewMusicBox or Kyle Gann on Glenn Branca. (The Rest is Noise)

• Jay Smooth on those SNL raps: "Do we need another newspaper article for every skit these guys do?" Coolfer hopes not. (Hip Hop Music)

• The latest online, anonymous and therefore weightless rumor about an EMI/Warner Music Group merger: It will happen this Tuesday the 21st. (The Velvet Rope)

Posted by Glenn at 7:55 PM | Link
|EMI||eMusic|