digital music

from engadget.com

What was just a footnote to 2007 has finally come to fruition. Sony Ericsson just went live with details for the August 25th, Nordic launch of its PlayNow Arena media download site. Initially the site will offer 1 million, DRM-free songs (ramping up to 5 million) from Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI.

from ilounge.com

Amazon’s MP3 store has become the number two digital music retailer, according to USA Today. The newspaper’s report claims that much of Amazon’s success is attributable to cooperation from the four major record labels, all of which gave Amazon permission to sell their music without DRM, while some have denied Apple the same opportunity.

from wsj.com

More than 100 million music fans know the joys of portable digital music players -- the ability to carry a large number of your favorite songs, arranged in playlists of your design, on a pocket-size gadget.

from ilounge.com

Despite initial speculation that today’s joint announcement by EMI and Apple would be the availability of the Beatles music catalog on iTunes, no such announcement was made by the two companies.

from ilounge.com

As anticipated, EMI Music today announced that it plans to make all of its digital music offerings free of anti-piracy restrictions and that iTunes would be the first online store to sell the DRM-free music.

from ilounge.com

According to a Jupiter Research survey, almost two-thirds of European music industry executives believe removing digital rights management (DRM) from downloadable music would compel more consumers to buy music online. The study was carried out between December and January, before Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ call for DRM-free music.

from ilounge.com

In a rare move, Apple CEO Steve Jobs as written an open letter on Apple’s digital rights management (DRM) system used on the iPod and iTunes. In the letter, Jobs explains why Apple has implemented its FairPlay DRM technology, and explores three alternatives for the future—continue the current DRM scheme, license FairPlay or abolish DRM entirely. Jobs’ letter is in response to mounting pressure from European countries which say Apple is forcing limits on consumers. Jobs says that persuading the major record companies to allow iTunes and other stores to sell music DRM-free is the right move. He says Apple would embrace selling this open music “in a heartbeat.”

from theregister.com

The leading DRM digital download service, Apple's iTunes, has experienced a collapse in sales revenues this year according to analyst company Forrester Research.

Secretive Apple doesn't break out revenues from iTunes, but Forrester conducted an analysis of credit card transactions over a 27-month period.

from ilounge.com

After years of selling digital music with restrictive copy-protection technology, major music labels are beginning to make some songs available as unrestricted MP3 files. “The releases are part of an experiment to gauge demand for tracks that can be played on any digital music player capable of playing MP3s,” reports the Associated Press. “Normally, copy-protected tracks are only playable on certain devices.

from ipodhacks.com

Looking to do some iPod DJing at your next party? Is finding a cluster of "matching" songs in your library proving to be a challenge? Have a look at beaTunes v1.1 for Mac OS X.

beaTunes lets you build a better party playlist by analyzing the songs in your existing library and storing that information for song-to-song comparison.

from playlistmag.com

Best Buy, in cooperation with SanDisk and RealNetworks, is the latest company to join the growing list of competitors to Apple’s iTunes music service.

Best Buy Thursday unveiled a online music service, called Best Buy Digital Music Store, that allows customers to find, manage and purchase music online. It is powered by RealNetworks’ Windows-only Rhapsody 4.0 music service and lets users purchase and permanently download songs and albums, as well as subscribe monthly to listen to an unlimited number of songs, the company said.

From iLounge

Yahoo wants to offer music downloads without copy protection, according to recent comments made by company executives. “We’ve been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now,” Ian Rogers, a director of product management at Yahoo, said on the official Yahoo Music blog this week. “Our position is simple: DRM (digital rights management) doesn’t add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day—the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform.”

From scotsman.com

DIGITAL downloads will smash the one-million-a-week barrier this year as music fans push sales of singles to their highest level for six years.

The digital revolution, which has rejuvenated the music industry, will see more than 50 million singles downloaded this year.

By Macworld UK staff

Apple and Creative Technology may find an out-of-court settlement to their current dispute regarding the way iPods allow users to navigate stored content.

The two companies are currently pursuing a litigation paper trail, with Creative suing Apple over claimed abuse of a patent it holds for user interface, while Apple has hit back with patent claims of its own. Apple claimed seven abuses relating to the use of icons, and the display and editing of data.

Gartner Says Strong Sales of iPods Will Drive Growth of NAND Flash Market in Second Half of 2006

55 Percent of iPod Shipments in First Quarter of 2006 Were NAND Flash-Based Players

STAMFORD, CONN., June 21, 2006 - Strong growth in the portable media player market is expected in 2006, as the market is forecast to reach 187.7 million units, up from 134.5 million units in 2005, according to Gartner, Inc. The demand for portable media players, especially the Apple iPod, is a significant driver of sales of NAND flash memory. NAND flash-based players accounted for 80 percent of the market in 2005. Hard disk drive (HDD)-based portable music players made up the remaining 20 percent of the market.