Search Results for: Steve Jones

Apple Inc. and EMI Group Plc will reveal a ground-breaking deal on Monday for Apple to sell the music label’s songs free from copy protection limits, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The report said music giant EMI plans to sell “significant amounts” of its catalog without anti-piracy software, citing people familiar with the matter, and that the music label is considering not only Apple’s iTunes stores but other outlets. However, a separate source familiar with the situation told Reuters a Beatles deal was not the focus of Monday’s event. “There is no Beatles’ announcement,” the source said. EMI… Read more »

At the Jonas Brothers’ family home in New Jersey, a wooden sign over the bathroom door reads “Patience is a virtue.” It’s a lesson the Brothers are lucky to have learned. Though the pop-punk boy band is riding high at iTunes and Radio Disney on the strength of “Year 3000,” the brothers have taken an unexpectedly circuitous route to success. The Jonas Brothers — Nick, 14, Joe, 17, and Kevin, 19 — were born as a band in 2005, when incoming Columbia Records president Steve Greenberg was handed a stack of CDs by Columbia artists with whom he wasn’t familiar.… Read more »

Music company EMI Group PLC – home of The Rolling Stones and Coldplay – has been talking with online retailers about possibly selling its entire digital music catalog in MP3 format without copy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing numerous people familiar with the matter. The MP3 format, which can be freely copied and played on virtually any device, would allow consumers to play music purchased from any online store on any digital music device. Currently, music purchased at Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store, for example, is wrapped in Apple’s proprietary version of Digital Rights Management technology known as… Read more »

In a rare open letter from CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday, Apple urged record companies to abandon digital rights management technologies. The letter, posted on Apple’s Web site and titled “Thoughts on Music,” is a long examination of Apple’s iTunes and what the future may hold for the online distribution of copy-protected music. In the letter, Jobs says Apple was forced to create a DRM system to get the world’s four largest record companies on board with the iTunes Store. But there are alternatives, Jobs wrote. Apple and the rest of the online music distributors could continue down a DRM… Read more »

Following are previews of albums due out within the next few months from debut acts or under-the-radar artists due for a breakthrough. PAOLO NUTINI Scottish singer/songwriter Paolo Nutini, who turns 20 January 9, was one of the most noteworthy breakout artists of 2006 for Atlantic Records in the United Kingdom. After an appearance at South by Southwest in Austin last March, his debut single, “Last Request,” reached No. 5 in July on the British charts and also became a substantial airplay hit. His debut album, “These Streets,” subsequently opened at No. 3 with out-of-the-box sales of 35,000, according to his… Read more »

One sunny afternoon not long ago, Dick Copaken sat in a booth at Daniel, one of those hushed, exclusive restaurants on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where the waiters glide spectrally fro table to table. He was wearing a starched button-down shirt and a blue blazer. Every strand of his thinning hair was in place, and he spoke calmly and slowly, his large pink Charlie Brow head bobbing along evenly as he did. Copaken spent many years as a partner at the white-shoe Washington, D.C., firm Covington & Burling, and he has a lawyer’s gravitas. One of his bes friends calls… Read more »

New York – Radio’s playlist liberation movement hatched in late 2001 at a birthday party in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A radio was blasting when Howard Kroeger, director of operations and programing for CHUM Broadcasting’s Winnipeg stations, arrived at his friend’s 40th-birthday bash. It was a competitor’s classic rock station, and Kroeger used the occasion to conduct an informal focus group among the partygoers, most in their mid- to late 30s. Whenever Boston, the Cars, Meatloaf, Supertramp or some other ’70s staple came on, it got an overwhelming thumbs-up from the Molson-enhanced crowd. But there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm when… Read more »

Ray Charles’ Genius racked up plenty of company in the form of gramophone-shaped statuettes. The late soul legend won a total of eight awards at the 47th annual Grammy Awards Sunday night, including Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for Genius Loves Company and Record of the Year for “Here We Go Again” with Norah Jones. Jamie Foxx, who is considered a lock for the Best Actor Oscar later this month for his portrayal of Charles in biopic Ray, took the stage with Alicia Keys for a tribute to Charles. Later in the show, Bonnie Raitt and… Read more »

Partial list of winners at Sunday’s 47th Annual Grammy Awards: Engineered Album, Classical – “Higdon – City Scape Concerto for Orchestra,” Jack Renner, engineer – Robert Spano. Producer of the Year, Classical – David Frost. Classical Album – “Adams – On the Transmigration of Souls,” Lorin Maazel, conductor John Adams and Lawrence Rock, producers. Orchestral Performance – “Adams – On the Transmigration of Souls,” Lorin Maazel, conductor John Adams and Lawrence Rock, producers. Opera Recording – “Mozart – Le Nozze di Figaro,” Rene Jacobs, conductor Patrizia Ciofi, Veronique Gens, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager and Lorenzo Regazzo Martin Sauer, producer –… Read more »

The Black Crowes will flock together once more, hitting a New York stage for a five-night run. The stoner Southern-rock band have been on “hiatus” since January 2002 and haven’t played a show together since the previous October – and while the band, media and fans have all submitted to the word “hiatus,” everybody knows the Crowes were really broken up, so this little get-together is a pretty big deal. Currently the plan is to take these few shows on and see how it all goes – if the Robinson brothers pull an Oasis and spend the whole time bickering… Read more »