Search Results for: apple music

CANNES, France – In the music business, it’s a vision that may soon be consigned to history: Grandpa slumping into the recliner, closing his eyes and enjoying a favorite rendition of an operatic solo. For music lovers these days, the sedentary lifestyle is out. A generation after the birth of portable tunes on the Walkman, technology has made music available nearly everywhere for today’s on-the-go consumer – and the recording industry sees a new wave to ride. The buzzwords Sunday at the Midem music industry conference in the French Riviera resort town of Cannes were mobile music, seen as the… Read more »

CANNES, France – The theme song isn’t quite “Happy Days are Here Again,” but almost. Music industry veterans, after several years of worrying about how illegal Internet downloads could threaten their business, are humming a decidedly upbeat tune these days. While questions remain about how to best deliver hits by U2 or arias by Luciano Pavarotti to music fans, one of the industry’s top conferences opened Saturday in this Riviera resort amid new signs that online downloads could become a moneymaker after all. The optimism at the Midem conference is a sharp turnaround from a year earlier, before music publishers… Read more »

New York – When Casey Stratton was a struggling singer-songwriter a few years ago, he had idealistic notions about artistic integrity. High on his list of what would jeopardize it: licensing his music to television. “When I was younger, I used to be really weird about stuff like that, like, ‘I will not cheapen my work by putting it on TELEVISION!’” he recalls with a chuckle. That was before the producers of the teen-oriented drama “Tarzan” called and asked to use the bittersweet ballad “Hollow,” from his debut album, on the WB show. Stratton gave the go-ahead, and while the… Read more »

New York – Digital music sales notched a third consecutive record-breaking week in the period ended Jan. 2, thanks to the ripple effect from a Christmas-inspired sales surge of MP3 players and download gift cards. Digital track volume spiked by 1.6 million transactions last week, making a seven-day total of 6.7 million downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The jump marks an all-time high for download sales in a single week, breaking the benchmark of 5.04 million in the week ending Dec. 26. This marks the first time in the history of the Billboard Hot Digital Tracks chart that download sales… Read more »

Los Angeles – Shawn Fanning, once reviled by record labels as the creator of renegade song-swap service Napster, on Thursday launched a new service designed to turn the threat of still popular peer-to-peer services into an opportunity for music companies and artists. The original Napster was eventually shut down in 2001 by copyright litigation and then sold to Roxio Inc, which re-launched it as a paid online service. But despite the proliferation of commercial services like the new Napster, RealNetworks Inc’s Rhapsody and even Apple Computer Inc’s iTunes, Fanning said unauthorized file-sharing was as rampant as ever. In launching the… Read more »

After acknowleging on Wednesday that the company had missed the November target for the Canadian version of the iTunes Music Store, Apple Computer launched the service late Wednesday night. The iTMS Canada will be serving some 32 million potential customers, and brings the number of countries having access to the iTMS to14. The company is charging CDN 99 cents for individual music tracks. It is not immediately known how large the Canadian music library is. The launch did not meet Apple’s self-imposed deadline of opening the Canadian iTMS by the end of November. The company said in late October it… Read more »

London – The new Band Aid charity single will be sold on Apple’s popular iTunes online music service, with the company subsidizing the retail cost of the track. Apple had initially turned down the idea of charging more than its standard 99-cents-per-song cost for the new version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The single features artists including Coldplay’s Chris Martin, former Beatle Paul McCartney, U2’s Bono, and Dido, and will raise money for victims of the ongoing strife in the Sudan, where fighting has killed thousands of people and created 1.8 million refugees. But the Cupertino, Calif.-based company reversed… Read more »

New York – RealNetworks, XM Satellite Radio, NCSoft and TiVo were among the big winners at the first annual Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards. The awards were held on November 5th at UCLA Covel Commons at Sunset Village in Los Angeles, California. XM Satellite Radio was presented the award for Best Radio Service, given to the best digital, Internet, satellite or other format in radio with respect to variety, innovation and user experience. XM’s president and CEO Hugh Panero, was honored with the Innovator of the Year award for his profound impact and leadership in the satellite radio medium. RealNetworks’ Rhapsody… Read more »

Rock band U2 has cut a deal with Apple Computer to sell custom iPods promoting the band’s forthcoming album. Sources close to the group say the U2 edition of the popular digital music player will come preloaded with the band’s new album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, along with portions of the Irish supergroup’s 25-year catalogue. The iPods will be black and will be made available the same week as the band’s 11th studio album, which is slated to be released in the U.S. by Universal Music Group’s Interscope Records on November 23. The deal is expected to be… Read more »

Microsoft Corp. launched a new online store for music downloads on Wednesday, taking direct aim at Apple Computer Inc.’s popular iTunes music service. MSN Music, which is aimed at luring more users to the world’s largest software maker’s online service, launched in beta, or test mode, offering songs for download at 99 cents each, the same price as Apple’s online store. Users can access MSN Music from a browser as well as a brand new version of the Windows Media Player that also was unveiled. “We believe we’ve built a better service than the Apple service,” Yusuf Mehdi, MSN vice… Read more »