Search Results for: apple music

The music industry may have begun to figure out how to sell digital downloads, but making money from them is another story. As the 99 cent digital singles model begins to take root across the industry through services like Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, Liquid Audio, Rhapsody and a host of others set to bow for the PC this fall, industry executives and artist representatives are questioning whether the pricing model makes sense financially. With all parties involved angling for nickels and dimes in the average download sale, labels, artists and service providers all agree on at least one thing:… Read more »

Nielsen SoundScan on Wednesday said it will start tracking digital downloads of music from commercial online services as sentiment for music on the Web brightens with successful offerings like Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music store. Nielsen Soundscan, a unit of Nielsen Entertainment, which is owned by VNU NV,, provides weekly retail music sales information that serves as the basis for the popular weekly Billboard Magazine music charts. The company said that it will now be tracking downloads sold on Apple’s service, Pressplay, MusicNet, and also Listen.com and Liquid Audio. Nielsen Soundscan said it will also track data from Napster when… Read more »

Efforts by the music sector to curtail online piracy and develop digital music services like Apple’s iTunes are the first glimmers of hope for the battered industry, the head of Sony Corp.’s U.S. operations said Wednesday. U.S. Chief Executive and Chairman Howard Stringer said at a media breakfast that the April launch of Apple Computer Inc.’s online music service, iTunes, which lets music fans download some songs from all five major record labels for less than a $1 each, was a “sea change” and a “wake-up call.” “Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) has liberated us,” Stringer told media executives and journalists… Read more »

In late April, Madonna gave a rare in-store concert before 400 fans to plug her new American Life album. Outside the event, which took place at Tower Records in New York’s Greenwich Village, another 2,000-plus fans thronged. For years, Tower has harnessed such star power to burnish its credentials as a purveyor of hipness. “It was the buzz around town,” boasts store manager David Montes of the Madonna love-in. But the splashy appearance obscured a harsh backstage truth: Tower Records is in such deep trouble that its parent, privately held MTS Inc. in West Sacramento, has put the company on… Read more »

A month after Apple opened the doors to its digital music store, at least seven media and technology powerhouses have taken the starting blocks in the race to capture the PC market. Meanwhile, Apple is looking to widen its offerings through deals with independent labels. Microsoft, AOL, MTV, amazon.com, Yahoo, Roxio, and MusicMatch are among the companies exploring pay-per-download services, according to sources. Each company has long expressed a desire to tap into the 99-cent digital singles business. But with Apple planning to bow a PC version of iTunes – perhaps by the end of the year – rivals of… Read more »

Tech’s big guns are wading into the online music business – and now the big question is whether Microsoft will squash its rivals like a bug, as it has so many others. Industry watchers say this time Bill Gates has his hands full. Microsoft, Amazon.com and Yahoo! are three of the players, along with AOL Time Warner and Viacom’s MTV, according to a story in The Los Angeles Times. While Gates considers a digital music launch, his company will now likely have to face off with the almighty music industry, which he needs to win over if he’s going to… Read more »

Just a month after opening its doors, the Apple iTunes store is looking to expand. With content already available from all five major labels, the online music service is reaching out to independent labels in hopes of offering the broadest, deepest catalog of downloadable music. Apple has invited hundreds of indie label representatives to a private presentation on Thursday at the computer giant’s Cupertino, California, campus to discuss hopping onboard and adding their content to the more than 200,000 songs already available through the service. “The plan was to go out of the gate with the five major labels, but… Read more »

Apple(R) today announced that over two million songs have been purchased and downloaded from its revolutionary iTunes(R) Music Store since its debut 16 days ago. Continuing the trend set during the first week, over half of the songs purchased to date were purchased as albums, further dispelling concerns that selling music on a per-track basis will destroy album sales. “Response to the iTunes Music Store has been phenomenal – we’ve clearly hit a chord with users,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re adding new songs every day, giving music lovers even more reasons to legally download their favorite music.” The… Read more »

Nearly two years after it sued Napster into submission, the recording industry has discovered it’s not enough to try to beat Internet music purveyors whose digital distribution techniques allow copyright violations. It also has to join them. To discourage piracy, the multibillion-dollar industry has in recent months moved beyond lawsuits against file-swapping services. It has employed hacker tactics to flood such sites with bogus files and even taken to suing students who created mini-Napsters on college networks. At the same time, however, the music labels have finally embraced the very online distribution model many had long resisted, one that analysts… Read more »

Observers are calling the launch of Apple Computer’s digital music service the iTunes Music Store an overwhelming success, Billboard Bulletin reports. The service, which went live Monday, sold an estimated 275,000 tracks at 99 cents apiece in its first 18 hours, according to major-label sources. All songs – including exclusive material and videos from U2, Eminem, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Sting, and others – can be previewed for free as 30-second samples. All can be burned to a CD and are automatically synched to an iPod. The feat is especially remarkable when considering that the offering is available only to… Read more »