Just over a year ago, Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized dozens of domain names as part of Operation in Our Sites. The lawyer for one of them, music blog Dajaz1, has been furiously trying to find out about the site’s case and now, after a year of smoke, mirrors and stonewalling, the Feds have done the previously unthinkable – they’ve given the domain back.
Although as many as 70% of 18–29 year olds in the United States confess having pirated music or videos online, only 1–2 percent of them do it on a significant scale, according to the results of a survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.
Universal Music Group said Friday that it has agreed to buy the recording division of EMI for 1.2 billion pounds ($1.9 billion).
The NY Post reports that Citigroup is close to the sale of record company EMI. The deal reportedly splits the company in to, with recording artists going into one, and it's publishing arm sold separately in a deal estimated between $3.3 to $3.5 billion.
For the last 2½ years, Bill Armstrong, co-founder of local rock label SideOneDummy Records, has been working on a side project. His vision was to create a website for independent labels to give away free music.
At L.A.’s Digital Music Forum last week, Anu Kirk, a product lead at digital music service MOG, shared some bad news for musicians adapting to the current state of the music industry: “It sucks,” he said. “It sucks that right now …
Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs died today, the company said in a statement.
Music entrepreneur Sean Parker, a co-founder of music file-sharing service, Napster, and billionaire investor Ron Burkle have teamed up again and are considering making a bid for music label EMI.
There's no doubt that Cash Money Records has solidified its status as one of hip-hop's most successful labels. With such acts as the Hot Boys, Juvenile and Birdman laying the foundation, Cash Money has since powered up a franchise that includes hot upstarts Drake and Nicki Minaj through its Young Money imprint.
Apple's new iTunes Match service will scan a user's library of songs, including those ripped from their own CDs, and match the songs up with the library of 18 million songs available through iTunes for $24.99 per year.
Apple Inc. has just sewn up its contracts with the four major record labels Thursday for a cloud music service, with agreements from music publishers to follow on Friday, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. Dubbed iCloud, the service …
Christmas came early for Lady Gaga fans this week, as Amazon sold downloads of the singer's brand-new LP, "Born This Way," for just 99 cents on Monday and Thursday of this week. Industry sources told Billboard on Friday that Amazon sold some 440,000 downloads of the album - nearly all of which were the 99-cent version. Billboard will include the count normally for their weekly Billboard 200 chart.
Proving unable to come to an agreement with all the major labels for the music service it originally wanted, Google is going to pull an Amazon and unveil a digital music locker service without any licensing deals at all during a keynote today at its I/O conference in San Francisco, Google execs tell Billboard.
Another major name is exiting Universal Music Group as The New York Times reports that UMG Publishing Chairman/CEO David Renzer announced his departure in a memo to staff members on tuesday.
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