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Times are getting ugly in the music world. Fans are getting subpoenaed for digital downloads. Internet Service Providers are getting muscled into handing over suspected pirates’ names. And parents are worried about having to spend their kid’s college fund on defending him for downloading one too many Michelle Branch songs. It seems like no one is winning the amorphous battle over music online. But, contrary to the rising red tide, there are plenty of companies heading into the black. There’s no question that digital music is here to stay. As a result, the companies who will benefit most directly are… Read more »

Sam Phillips, the man who discovered Elvis Presley and helped kickstart the rock and roll era, died of respiratory failure at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday (July 30). He was 80. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, Phillips founded the Sun Records label in Memphis in 1952 and recorded the debut single from Elvis Presley (“That’s All Right, Mama” b/w “Blue Moon of Kentucky”) in 1954. Elvis’ first recording helped secure both his and Phillips’ places in rock history and set the stage for Phillips’ work with some of the giants of… Read more »

A new Internet music download site for PCs debuting Tuesday boasts the cheapest per-song rates yet but many of the same restrictions on copying that have stymied wider use of other music services. Although online retailer BuyMusic.com will offer a catalog of more than 300,000 songs from the five major record labels, users of the service will not necessarily have the freedom afforded customers of Apple Inc.’s iTunes service to transfer the music purchased to multiple computers and portable devices, or to burn it to compact discs. BuyMusic hopes to score the sort of attention that helped drive sales for… Read more »

In another move to reduce its debt, AOL Time Warner Inc. said Friday it is selling Warner Music’s DVD and CD manufacturing businesses to a Canadian company for $1.05 billion. The cash deal was the latest in a series of moves aimed at cutting AOL’s debt from nearly $26 billion at the beginning of this year to $20 billion by the end of 2004. In recent months, AOL has sold its 50 percent stake in the Comedy Central cable channel to Viacom Inc. for $1.2 billion and shed an $800 million stake in Hughes Electronics Corp. AOL settled a lawsuit… 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 »

When someone who’s worked on some of the greatest guitar albums of all time, Kiss’ Destroyer and Alice Cooper’s School’s Out among them, calls you a “virtuoso playing at the top of his game,” you can be pretty sure it’s sincere. And that’s exactly what legendary producer Bob Ezrin said of Wes Borland when he first heard the ex-Limp Bizkit guitarist’s new band, Eat the Day. “They played me some stuff which struck me as being not only innovative, but also reminiscent of some of the more adventurous guitar work that had been done in the past by people like… 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 »

It’s time to buy, mix, and burn, according to Apple Computer Inc. The Silicon Valley company that angered the recording industry with its “Rip. Mix. Burn” ad campaign was expected to launch an online music service Monday that promises to make it easier for consumers to pay for music downloaded from the Internet. The announcement is the result of an intense effort by Apple CEO Steve Jobs to court music industry executives, who have been leery of digital music downloads, and have aggressively filed lawsuits and pushed for new laws to stem the illegal copying and distribution of copyright works.… Read more »

Two companies behind services for sharing music and movies over the Internet are not to blame for any illegal copying conducted by the services’ users, a federal judge ruled Friday. The 34-page ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson was a major blow to recording companies and movie studios, which have been aggressively filing lawsuits and pushing new laws to stem the illegal copying and distribution of their copyright works. The decision, if it survives appeal, essentially absolves Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. of liability. Grokster distributes file-sharing software by that name, and StreamCast distributes Morpheus. “It’s a… Read more »