Search Results for: Record Store Day

What’s up with iTunes? At the ripe age of 1, the innovative market solution for legal music downloads has brought almost $70 million into Apple Computer’s coffers while reinventing commercial music choices for consumers. Other music retailers, including the behemoth known as Wal-Mart, have taken notice and followed suit. CDs? So yesterday, Dude. Before iTunes, the mushrooming problem of illegal downloads seemed, at least to the music industry, a challenge to its existence that could only be addressed by going after downloaders – like the University of Minnesota students last week – still being pursued. The iTunes bridge hasn’t ended… Read more »

Universal Music Group will raise the suggested retail price of its CDs by $1 to improve profit margins for merchants after many balked at the company’s push to slash prices, a source familiar with the plan said Friday. The move could leave consumers paying about $11 for a popular CD. Universal’s new suggested retail price will be $13.98, but most retailers typically charge less than that amount. UMG is the world’s biggest record conglomerate, with artists that include U2, Eminem and Shania Twain. Its move comes just three months after the company cut wholesale prices and reduced its suggested retail… Read more »

A legal battle between The Beatles’ record label Apple Corps and Apple Computer, which is to be heard in the High Court in London, is the latest move in a trademark dispute spanning 24 years. Their claims to the “Apple” name and logo will be heard in an English court, rather than in the US as requested by the computer firm. The latest clash came after Apple Corps claimed Apple Computer’s iTunes music store – which enables users to download songs to a computer or portable player such as the iPod – breaches an agreement between the two firms. But… Read more »

Figures. Guns N’ Roses reunites and then things go kabooey. Axl Rose reteamed with original Gun mates Slash and Duff McKagan for the purpose of a lawsuit against Geffen Records. The trio was trying to halt the label from releasing a greatest hits collection. In their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the Gunners sought a preliminary injunction against Geffen, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, accusing the company of failing to consult with the band on the tunes, artwork and remixing of Greatest Hits. But a federal judge on Monday deep-sixed Axl & Co.’s call for… Read more »

Music industry insiders don’t hesitate to throw around weighty phrases like “paradigm shift” and “irrevocable change” when they discuss the current state of affairs in the American music business. Industry representatives met Thursday to hash out the latest developments and chart the course for their business as the South by Southwest Music Conference began in Austin. “People talk about how the record industry isn’t doing that well,” said Walter McDonough, a lawyer with Washington-based Future of Music Coalition. Still, he said, the music business is working in an entertainment industry that has recently developed three fast growing mediums: DVDs, digital… Read more »

Trademark rivalry between Apple Computers and Beatles company Apple Corps re-emerged in court today in a clash over the computer giant’s iTunes online music store. London-based Apple Corps, owned by Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison, is suing the United States computer company for allegedly breaching the terms of a 1991 peace pact signed after a long-running multi-million pound trademark war. ple Corps claims that the use of the Apple name and logo to promote music products through the iTunes facility – which enables computer users to download and save thousands of… Read more »

Just as sound bites get reworked into tunes that multiply over the Internet – Remember all the songs based on Howard Dean’s yelp? – a widely seen TV ad is getting the hack-and-slash treatment. The target is Pepsi’s current promotion giving away 100 million free song downloads from Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The company promises one in three bottlecaps on certain Pepsi products carries a code for a free iTunes download. Pepsi is airing a 45-second spot featuring 16 crestfallen music downloaders who have been sued by – and settled lawsuits with – the record industry for illegally snagging songs… Read more »

Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl flash lasted less than three seconds, but the impact continues to ripple through Viacom, the media giant that broadcast the game. Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, right-wing radio commentators and outraged citizens are calling for stricter decency standards – and the artists and executives who make a living from edgy music, performances and videos are in retreat. MTV in particular, which produced the Super Bowl halftime show, is in the midst of a wide-scale re-evaluation of its musical, news and dramatic content. Within a week of the game, MTV – no stranger to criticism, most recently… Read more »

Veteran Los Angeles punk outfit Bad Religion will release a new studio album, “The Empire Strikes First” June 8 via Epitaph. Like its predecessor, 2002’s “The Process of Belief,” the forthcoming disc was co-written and co-produced by guitarist Brett Gurewitz and frontman Greg Graffin. “It’s not ready for public consumption yet, but it’s basically recorded and finished,” Graffin told Billboard.com. “We really put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make the best album we could. ‘The Process of Belief’ is considered by many to be our comeback, since Brett and I started writing together again. After so many years… Read more »

U.S. album sales rose 10.4 percent in the first month of 2004, Nielsen Soundscan reported, welcome news to the music industry after a three-year slump marked by costly litigation, rampant piracy and consolidation. The uptrend began late last year, a development hailed by Sanford Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson in a recent report. But he said he was hesitant to say declines were over. Other analysts note that comparisons were easy with last year when U.S. album sales fell. But many saw signs the music business – led by big record labels at Time Warner, Bertelsmann AG, EMI Group Plc, Sony… Read more »