Search Results for: apple music

Amazon.com and Wal-Mart have both quietly followed Apple’s lead and will now charge more for some top-selling tracks in their MP3 stores. Some songs will now sell for $1.29 at Amazon’s MP3 store, up from 99 cents, while Wal-Mart is now charging $1.24 for top tracks, up from 94 cents. Apple introduced variable pricing to its iTunes music store Tuesday, by charging 69 cents for older tracks, 99 cents for recent songs and $1.29 for new hits, instead of the previous 99 cents for any track. Amazon’s decision to raise prices seems especially unusual, considering that the company actually cut… Read more »

Yahoo Inc. is partnering with other online music providers as the Internet giant tries a fresh approach to getting an edge in the evolving digital music business. The new version of Yahoo Music unveiled on Monday, aggregates paid and free music services available on the Internet, allowing Yahoo users to access and interact with the services directly from the Yahoo site. Yahoo has struck commercial relationships with digital music retailers like Apple Inc.’s, collecting a fee for every referral, the company said. The move comes a little over a year after Yahoo announced it was shuttering its own paid-music service,… Read more »

For anybody wondering why Microsoft and the top record labels continue to promote subscription music services, the answer was revealed Thursday. David Ring, executive vice president of business development for Universal Music Group’s digital arm, said at the EconMusic Conference that the recording industry simply can’t sustain itself with download sales alone. “If what we’re trying to do is one-by-one downloads…that’s not a business that can grow,” Ring told conference attendees during panel discussion he participated in. “It won’t be healthy for the industry.” Prior to Ring’s statement, Chris Stephenson, an executive in Microsoft’s entertainment unit, was ballyhooing the progress… Read more »

Last month the music industry and Apple, long uneasy partners, seemed a picture of harmony when they agreed on new terms for pricing on iTunes, Apple’s online music store. Behind the scenes, however, the relationship remains as tense and antagonistic as ever. The announcement on Jan. 6 seemed to signal a rapprochement between the music industry and its biggest distributor: record companies gave up their demand for copyright protection (called digital rights management) and Apple allowed flexible pricing, so the labels could charge more for new or popular tracks. But according to one music industry executive involved in the negotiations,… Read more »

EMI has made a number of key appointments to its new Music Services’ division. Merchandising and packaged goods veteran Peter Palmer will lead EMI’s global Merchandising group. Dominic Pandiscia will head a global Label Services unit and Violet Gonzalez, who joins EMI from Live Nation, will establish a new sponsorship department. “Music Services is all about delivering revenues to EMI’s artists, as well as to the independent label and artist community. We now have the industry’s only one-stop shop for accessing a global marketplace of traditional and non-traditional commercial partners,” said EMI Music Services President Ronn Werre.   “This team… Read more »

Chart topping US alternative rockers The Killers resolved transatlantic recordings issues with the aid of Apple Logic Studio, with the band recording in Las Vegas while their producer work on tracks in London. With The Killers, Brandon Flowers, vocals and keyboards; Dave Keuning on guitar; Mark Stoermer on bass; and Ronnie Vannucci on drums, in Las Vegas and producer Stuart Price in London the latest album ‘Day & Age’ had to be put together from afar. Using a remote Logic-based songwriting workflow, band members recorded their ideas in Logic then shared them via email and Apple iDisk with each other… Read more »

Digital music sales continue fast growth in the U.S., accounting for 18 percent of the music market there this year, and set to climb to 41 percent of total sales across the next five years, Forrester Research reports. The report predicts 55 percent of U.S. online consumers will pay to download music in 2013. Despite this strong growth, labels must get used to a smaller value music market, say the analysts, overall the U.S. music market will shrink from its current level of $10.2 billion to $9.8 billion in the next five years. Forrester also found 64 percent of subscribers… Read more »

MySpace, the popular social networking website owned by News Corp, said on Tuesday former MTV executive Courtney Holt will become president of its MySpace Music joint venture with the four major record companies. Holt’s name has been circulating on blogs for several weeks as a likely appointee. He will take on the delicate balancing act of managing expectations for MySpace executive team and the management teams at Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Music. MySpace said Holt will work with MySpace co-founder and Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe to oversee the growth and development of… Read more »

David Pakman, CEO of eMusic, will leave the subscription service at the end of the year. Pakman explained his departure on Monday, and yesterday disclosed that his next destination would be VC firm Venrock. Pakman championed DRM-free music, viewing the measures as anti-consumer. This has been a phenomenon, along with his commitment to editorial investment – a stark contrast to Apple’s iTunes music store which one reader after launch called “an airport kiosk without the cigarettes and chewing gum.” Pakman grew the eMusic subscriber base from 10,000 to 400,000 in his four years as boss, turning it into the second… Read more »

MySpace, the world's largest social networking site, on Wednesday unveiled a long-expected joint venture with all four major music companies in a bid to compete with Apple Inc's market-leading iTunes store. MySpace Music is designed to win fans with a mix of unlimited free music, comprehensive music catalogs, concert tickets, merchandising and other entertainment features. The launch of the new service had been dogged by speculation on the start date and the ongoing search for a chief executive. But the biggest challenge for the new venture was signing a deal with the fourth-largest music company EMI Music, which had held… Read more »