Archive for June, 2007
June 19, 2007 at 10:14 pm · Filed under Digital Video
EMI Group Plc., the world’s third-largest music company, is expanding its strategy to sell digital music without copy-protection software to more retail sites through a deal with PassAlong Networks.PassAlong, a Franklin, Tennessee-based digital media company, said on Wednesday that EMI’s entire digital catalog will be available on the music stores it powers, including Trans World Entertainment’s f.y.e. online music store.
The new premium download tracks will be available in a higher sound quality MP3 format of 320 kilobits per second, compared with the usual 128 to 192 kilobits per second rate offered by most online music stores such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes Music Store.
PassAlong said EMI will add more than 100,000 premium downloads to PassAlong’s catalog of nearly 3 million songs, of which more than 2 million are songs from independent labels in MP3 format.
Earlier this month, EMI became the first major record company to start selling the vast majority of its digital albums without copy-protection software, also known as digital rights management (DRM).
Major record companies had until recently resisted calls to sell music without protection in a bid to reduce piracy and illegal distribution online.
But the copy protection also restricted users from playing their songs on different software or digital media players. For example, if a user bought a copy-protected song from Apple’s iTunes, he would only be able to play back the song on Apple’s iPod digital media player or the iTunes software.
EMI’s first retail partner for DRM-free tracks is iTunes Music Store, which will sell the premium higher sound quality tracks for $1.29 per track. EMI also said last month it will sell DRM-free songs through online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. when Amazon launches its digital music store later this year.
source :news.yahoo.com
June 19, 2007 at 10:11 pm · Filed under Digital Music
Authors and composers have until July 9 to comment on proposed new EU rules loosening restrictive territorial contracts for copyright registration on the Internet, satellite and cable retransmission of music.The
European Commission charged the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) in February 2006 with imposing anti-competitive territorial restrictions on authors and composers.
The restrictions concerned only material sent by the Internet, satellite or cable, the EU executive said.
CISAC offers a model contract used by 18 collecting societies in the 30-member European Economic Area (EEA), including the 27
European Union countries, the Commission said.
CISAC has proposed changing the contract, which covers 95 percent of copyright licensing in the EEA, to respond to the Commission’s charges.
“The new contract lifts the membership restrictions and the exclusivity clause, according to which reciprocal representation is done on an exclusive basis for the respective territory of the collecting societies,” the Commission said.
CISAC has proposed permitting authors and composers to transfer their rights to any collecting society, not just the one in their own country.
The confederation also said new wording would lift territorial restrictions which require commercial users to buy licenses for use only in the area covered by their local collecting society.
The Commission said those interested should comment on the proposals by July 9 so it could decide whether to accept them.
source : news.yahoo.com
June 19, 2007 at 10:08 pm · Filed under Digital Music
A new music service that allows consumers to directly download an unlimited number of tracks to their cell phones for a small weekly fee from wherever they are will launch in Europe on Thursday.British firm Omnifone said it had signed content deals with the four biggest music groups in the industry and had agreements with 30 mobile operators in a bid to steal the thunder of the much-hyped iPhone made by iPod maker Apple.
The service called MusicStation will be suitable for 75 percent of mobile handsets already available in the market and will launch first in Sweden on Thursday with Scandinavian operator Telenor.
It will then roll out across Europe, the Asia-Pacific and Africa in the coming days and weeks. Omnifone is targeting 100 million phones in a year and can offer over 1 million songs.
“It’s hard to imagine a more compelling music experience on mobile than MusicStation,” Rob Wells, of Universal Music Group’s digital division said. “It works on almost any phone, giving consumers the freedom to choose whatever device they want (and) it allows downloads wherever those consumers are.”
Omnifone has also signed content deals three other major music groups: Sony/BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.
Omnifone said the service would be available on all 2.5G and 3G music compatible cell phones, which currently accounts for approximately 80 percent of the handsets sold in Western Europe.
It will offer unlimited track downloads at 2.99 euros per week, or 1.99 pounds in Britain, which includes data traffic charges.
Omnifone Chief Executive Rob Lewis told Reuters that it would take between one and 15 seconds to download a track and that phones could store between 100 and a few thousand depending on the phone.
“We believe that by providing consumers with the ultimate music freedom of unlimited access to music, wherever a user is, on whatever phone they buy, MusicStation is delivering the most compelling consumer proposition in digital music today,” Omnifone’s Lewis said.
Consumers will initially be limited to listening to the tracks through their phones as Omnifone bans users from transferring music to computers, MP3 players or other digital gadgets, but the firm says it will launch a parallel PC version shortly.
Users can keep the tracks for as long as they keep their subscription which is added to their phone bills. Tracks will reappear if consumers renew their subscriptions, replace or upgrade a phone.
Apple will launch its iPhone in the United States on June 29 and has not yet given launch dates for Europe and Japan.
Music on cell phones has been around for several years, but most music on phones is currently ripped from CDs and files swapped on the Internet, not sold by operators over their wireless networks.
The iPhone has caused mobile companies concern because Apple aims to sell music for iPhone through its iTunes Web site bypassing mobile carriers.
source : news.yahoo.com
June 19, 2007 at 10:06 pm · Filed under Digital Music
Sony Ericsson (6758.T) (ERICb.ST) launched two new music phones in its popular Walkman range and two new camera phones in Berlin on Thursday.The W960 Walkman is aimed at the top end of the market where it will compete with products such as Apple’s (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) much-hyped iPhone. It has a touch screen, built-in WiFi wireless access and enough memory to store up to 8,000 tunes.
The W910 Walkman slider phone has an innovative control mechanism that allows users to shuffle through their music collection by shaking the phone.
The K850 has a 5-megapixel camera, which makes it higher resolution than some standalone digital cameras, and will sell under the Cyber-shot brand, while the Z320 is a simpler camera phone.
All four models will be on sale in the second half of this year worldwide, in plenty of time for the crucial Christmas shopping season.
Sony Ericsson declined to give any sales forecasts for its new models. “Our expectation is to sell as many as we can,” Sony Ericsson marketing chief Dee Dutta told Reuters by phone.
source :news.yahoo.com
June 19, 2007 at 10:05 pm · Filed under Digital Music
Nickelodeon, a division of Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks, agreed with Sony Music Label Group and SONY BMG Commercial Music Group to jointly develop and finance TV and music projects over the next four years.he deal also covers additional opportunities across multiple lines of business in areas like apparel and electronics, the companies said in a joint statement.
source :news.yahoo.com
Next entries »
