So, what do we make of this ? The rumor is that Apple is launching a record label together with Jay-Z according to BSG who say they have confirmed it from a high-up person attached to Jay-Z. We do not have many details as of yet but we can make some assumptions. The deal makes perfectly sense if you consider that Apple already has a very popular distribution model in place which would profit the most from artists that sign under the new label.

Categories: Music and Video, Music Industry

Ars Technica are reporting that CD sales this Christmas, that is the period between Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, are down 20% compared to last year which means that 21.4 million CDs have been sold less than the previous year. This looks serious but is it ? We have to take a look at overall earnings to make a fair judgment.

Categories: Music Industry

Well, not really. They do sue Usenet.com though because of their service that “sells access to content that includes millions of unauthorized music files” which is exactly what Internet Providers are doing. They give you access to the Internet and it is up to you, the user, what he is doing there.

Categories: Music Industry

Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, Jamiroquai and even Madonna have something in common. They all decided to turn their backs on the Music Industry and either market their albums directly or – in the case of Madonna – use a company that is not related to the Music Industry.

Categories: Music and Video, Music Industry

That is at least what Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, said when questioned in court about her music piracy understanding. I think that this is one of the main reasons why the Music Industry is doing so badly. Their view collides with the demand of the consumers.

Categories: Music Industry

Server operators who happen to have songs on their servers that are distributed illegally will have to pay the fine of 20000 Euro ($28000) per song: at least in Germany according to the district court in Hamburg. Private downloaders get it much cheaper though. They only have to pay 6000 Euro for the first song, 3000 for the second, 1500 for the third and 600 for all remaining ones. A cheap bargain don’t you think ?

Categories: Music Industry, P2p

More than 6500 internal emails from anti-piracy company Mediadefender have been leaked on the Internet as one big Mailbox file that can be imported into email clients. Mails give in depth information about tactics that have been used to spread fake releases, fake edonkey servers and their opinion about several bittorrent clients.

Categories: Security, The Web

You can’t say that the guys from the Pirate Bay are full of ideas and surprises. Their latest project is called Playble, a website that offers free music to the visitors while still paying the artists directly. This is the biggest difference to the dominating music portals such as iTunes that do not pay the artists but the record labels who in turn pay their artists. This concept eliminates the need for a man in the middle who collects the money and distributes it to the artists.

Categories: Music and Video, Music Industry

Now if that is not a clever idea. Force DRM on the users for several years with a pricing scheme straight out of hell and then use a huge publicity machine to make the customers believe that DRM free music is the future raising prices once more. If you thought that everything would be good now that many labels decided to offer drm free music albums as well you could not be more wrong. What is happening now is that the Music Industry once again fools the customers by offering overpriced products.

Categories: iPod, Music Industry, P2p