Search Results for: apple music

JUST days after the European launch of Apple Computers’ online music store, a chorus of customers are voicing their complaints. The lack of songs from artists on independent record labels – which account for a quarter of the UK market – has left iTunes looking like a poorly-stocked American import store, lacking local talent such as Travis and Franz Ferdinand. “Most Scottish acts are on independent labels,” says Alison Wenham, chairman and chief executive of the Association of Independent Music (AIM), which represents the majority of the UK’s indie labels. “Celtic acts typically start off very strong in their home… Read more »

Apple Computer Inc. launched its highly anticipated iTunes Music Store in Europe on Tuesday, expanding the popular digital music service to users in Britain, France and Germany. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said iTunes would be available without subscription. The charge for downloading a single track would be 79 pence ($1.43) in the United Kingdom and 99 euro cents ($1.20) in Germany and France. Jobs boasted that more than 85 million songs have been downloaded from iTunes in the United States. Along with the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom account for 60 percent of global music sales.… Read more »

A year after Apple Computer Inc. launched its iTunes Music Service, the online music industry is selling songs by the millions – and that may not bode well for the major record labels. Online services account for just a fraction of overall music sales, but they’re growing rapidly. And the new choices they give consumers threaten to remix the recording industry’s traditional revenue streams, pumping up the volume of singles and subscriptions and turning down album sales. Customers at three of the leading online services – iTunes, Musicmatch Inc.’s Musicmatch Downloads and RealNetworks Inc.’s Rhapsody – buy about 10 times… Read more »

If anybody can get Internet music downloads right, it should be Sony Corp. The company has years of experience selling records, consumer electronics and personal computers – and it’s had plenty of time to study earlier digital-music ventures. So how could the Connect music store, unveiled on Tuesday, have turned out so badly? It gets a few things right, but by forgetting that customers want to feel like they actually own their music, it repeats – or exceeds – the mistakes of other music stores. Let’s start with compliments: Sony does more than any other service to bring down the… Read more »

Apple Computer Inc. Wednesday said it has sold 3.3 million songs on its iTunes online music store since that platform’s relaunch one week ago, with nearly as many downloads of the new version of its music player software. The company also said users had downloaded more than 500,000 free songs during a promotion giving away tracks by popular artists including Courtney Love and Nelly Furtado. Apple also said users published more than 20,000 custom play lists to the music store in the week since the upgraded version was launched, which included the new play list feature. Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice… Read more »

Sony (SNE) aims to take on industry leader Apple (AAPL) starting Tuesday with an online music service whose songs will play only on Sony products. Internet analysts are scratching their heads, especially because the digital download service – called Connect – is geared toward supporting Sony’s MiniDisc, a 13-year-old format that has never hit big. But some retailers say sales of MiniDisc players perked up in the two years since Sony added the ability to record digital music onto them. And Sony will introduce an offshoot of the MiniDisc in June, offering more storage at a lower price than competitors.… Read more »

Apple Computer Inc. apparently doesn’t want to sing the same tune as its Internet music rival RealNetworks Inc. Seattle-based RealNetworks said Thursday that Apple chairman Steve Jobs had rebuffed an offer by RealNetworks’ chief executive Rob Glaser to meet and discuss forming an online music alliance involving Apple’s best-selling iPod portable players. “He’s in the neighborhood, but whatever meeting Rob wanted with Steve isn’t happening,” RealNetworks spokesman Greg Chiemingo said Thursday. “Steve just doesn’t want to open the iPod, and we don’t understand that.” Executives at Cupertino-based Apple declined to comment. As first reported in The New York Times, Glaser… 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 »

Instead of fries, how about a little Beyonce or Bruce Springsteen to go with your Big Mac? In the latest blend of e-music with the food-and-beverage industry, Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. is working out a deal to promote the upcoming launch of its download music service through fast-food chain McDonald’s Corp., the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday. According to the newspaper, McDonald’s is expected to commit about $30 million in advertising to the partnership in exchange for unspecified discounts to license some songs from Sony’s new download service, Sony Connect. Those songs would then be offered to McDonald’s… 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 »