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Hewlett-Packard on Friday unveiled its much-anticipated HP-branded iPod, a deal that instantly gives the company a popular product and greatly extends the retail reach of its partner, Apple Computer. Currently, Cupertino’s Apple has a healthy lead over its competition with its iPod digital music players and its iTunes Music Store. But competition is heating up. Other companies including Creative, Samsung and Sony have their own lineups of portable music players. Microsoft is expected to jump into the fray next week with its own online music service and an updated version of the Windows Media Player software. As for Friday’s unveiling… Read more »

For the first time, the No. 1 album in the United States is loaded with anticopying protections, marking a clear step into the mainstream for the controversial technology. According to figures released by Nielsen SoundScan, Velvet Revolver’s “Contraband” was the top-selling album in America last week, despite being prominently labeled on its cover as being “protected against unauthorized duplication.” The success of the album is likely to prompt more experiments from BMG, the band’s label, and other record companies, industry watchers said. “It’s too soon to tell whether the rest of the industry is going to be heartened by this,”… 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 »

Representatives of the Beatles are in discussions with various online music services about licensing their songs for distribution on the Internet, people familiar with the discussions said on Tuesday. The Beatles have been one of the biggest holdouts in releasing their catalog for sale online, and the lack of such mega-hits as “Let it Be” and “Yesterday” has been cited as a major weakness for fledgling, Web-based music stores. Negotiators for the Beatles have talked with several companies, with a particular emphasis on Microsoft Corp’s MSN, which is expected to open an Internet music store late this summer, people familiar… 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 »

In its first year, Apple Computer Inc.’s online music store has sold more than 70 million songs and the computer maker is offering a free song to customers for the next eight days to mark the store’s anniversary, the company said Wednesday. Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer and the wildly popular iPod digital music players, also upgraded its iTunes digital jukebox software with new features such as “iMix,” which lets customers publish their playlists on the iTunes online music store which other customers can then purchase. “We’re very, very excited about the results from the first year,” Steve Jobs,… Read more »

Apple Computer apparently doesn’t want to sing the same tune as its Internet music rival RealNetworks. 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. Executives at Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple declined to comment Thursday. In an interview earlier this week with The Wall Street Journal, Jobs said Apple has little incentive to open its popular digital music player to others. “The iPod already works with the No. 1 music service in the world, and the… 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 »

The Foo Fighters will replace Guns N’ Roses in the May 30 headlining slot at the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon. Guns N’ Roses last month pulled out of its planned performance at the event, citing the departure of guitarist Buckethead. The performance would have made GNR the first act to perform three times at the festival. Buckethead is already in the midst of a solo tour opening for Particle. Rock in Rio will stretch over two weekends, May 28-30 and June 4-6 in the Portuguese city’s Bela Vista Parque. The Foo Fighters will top a “World Stage” bill… 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 »