Search Results for: apple music

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 »

Apple(R) today announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded over 50 million songs from Apple’s iTunes(R) Music Store, not including songs redeemed from the currently-running Pepsi iTunes promotion. The 50 millionth song, purchased last Thursday afternoon, was “The Path of Thorns” by Sarah McLachlan. iTunes users are now downloading 2.5 million songs per week, which is an annual run rate of 130 million songs per year. “Crossing 50 million songs is a major milestone for iTunes and the emerging digital music era,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With over 50 million songs already downloaded and an additional 2.5 million… 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 »

Eminem’s music publisher is suing Apple Computer Inc., claiming the computer giant wrongfully used one of the hip-hop superstar’s songs in a television advertisement. Eight Mile Style filed the copyright infringement suit in U.S. District Court in Detroit against Apple, Viacom Inc., its MTV subsidiary and the TBWA/Chiat/Day advertising agency. At issue is an ad for Apple’s iTunes pay-per-download music software, in which a 10-year-old sings Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” The suit claims the commercial aired on MTV beginning in July 2003 and ran numerous times for at least three months. It also appeared on Apple’s Web site. “Eminem has never… 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 »

Apple, the US computer company behind the iTunes music service, has become the latest group to oppose the proposed deal between Sony Music and BMG, the recorded music arm of Germany’s Bertelsmann media group. The development comes as the European Commission begins an intensive second-stage investigation of the merger, a probe it is due to close by June 22. In an announcement on Thursday, the Commission said it had “decided to investigate whether the deal might create or strengthen a collective dominant position between the remaining four major record companies”. It said it would examine “the extent to which the… 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 »

Downloading music online from rogue file-sharing networks got 14-year-old Annie Leith sued for thousands of dollars. Now it has landed her a leading spot on a national ad that will debut during the Super Bowl. Leith and her 17-year-old sister downloaded 960 songs over a three-year period using the popular Kazaa program. But the free music binge got Leith ensnared in the legal dragnet cast by the Recording Industry Association of America in September. “We didn’t know it was illegal,” the New York City high school freshman said Friday. The lawsuit was ultimately settled for $3,000. But Leith couldn’t pass… Read more »

A long-anticipated partnership with Pepsi that Apple hopes will help raise the profile of its iTunes Music store is launching during the Super Bowl on Sunday. ITunes already dominates the still-fledgling online music industry. Pepsi will run a commercial featuring 16 teenagers who have been sued by the RIAA for music piracy to promote its giveaway of 100 million free downloads from the iTunes Music store on Pepsi bottle caps. But in a coup for what has been one of the lower-profile competitors in the digital music space, MusicMatch announced that is has signed a partnership deal with Coca-Cola and… Read more »

A new sort of Pepsi Generation will get air time on the Super Bowl: music downloaders. Some 20 teens sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, which accuses them of unauthorized downloads, will appear in a Pepsi-Cola (PEP) ad that kicks off a two-month offer of up to 100 million free – and legal – downloads from Apple’s iTunes, the leading online music seller. The sassy ad, to be seen by Super Bowl’s 88 million viewers on Feb 1, is a wink at the download hot button. Pepsi hopes the promotion will connect its flagship cola, as well as… Read more »