Label:Life

Universal Music Canada is thrilled to announce that they have today entered into a licensing agreement with newly created Blacksmith Entertainment. The joint venture extends Universal’s already dynamic relationship with Blacksmith brainchild, Chris Smith and his management company Chris Smith Management. The newly formed partnership between Universal and Blacksmith will see UNIVERSAL MUSIC CANADA distributing an extraordinarily diverse roster of artists brought to the creative table by Blacksmith. As part of their commitment, Blacksmith will be developing their artists in house within their recording studio at their downtown Toronto headquarters.

In a cash and stock deal worth an estimated $60.3 million, new Napster owner, Roxio, has announced plans to acquire Pressplay (Universal and Sony) and use it as the basis for a new Napster. As a result, Roxio has acquired a legal digital music distribution infrastructure and catalog rights with all five major music labels! (ABC) See also FT.com.

Our thoughts go to friends and family of June Carter Cash, wife of Jonny Cash, who died on Thursday (May 15) due to complications of heart surgery (Launch Yahoo).

Numerous celebrities have turned out for the music industry’s annual Soccer Six charity football tournament. Boy-bands Westlife – last year’s winners – and Blue also went head-to-head in the competition, which raised money for the Prince’s Trust, as did glamour models Jordan and Leilani Dowding (Ananova).

Puretunes.com, a controversial new music download service was launched on Tuesday in Madrid, pitting an upstart Internet firm against the record industry in a bid to sell digital recordings to consumers behind the labels’ backs (Hollywood Reporter).

Before the end of the year, the MCA moniker, first used in 1924, may cease to exist. The plan is to eliminate the MCA Records brand and move the majority of the label’s staff and some of the roster under the Geffen Records banner (Hollywood Reporter).

EMI Recorded Music has reorganised its London-based global marketing division, which will now focus on three key areas: front-line marketing, catalog and commercial marketing, and DVD. More at Hollywood Reporter.

A clear-out of failed artists and fading labels fueled a rise in EMI’s annual profits (announced last week), but music sales dived and it warned of more pain to come despite new albums from stars such as Norah Jones and Lenny Kravitz. EMI Group predicted recorded music industry sales would shrink another five to eight percent this year as fans turn increasingly to copying music for free, sending its shares 10 percent lower (MSN). Deeper detail at Mi2N.

YR Media, part of UK based on-line and mobile marketing experts
YourRelease, has facilitated, with Take 2 Games Publishers, the give away of Vietcong themed mobile phone logos, picture messages and ringtones (see webpage). ‘The opt-in rate is incredibly high at around 70%’ says Marketing Mangager Seth Jackson, ‘In the last promotion with Vice City, they attracted 20,000 new subscribers in 4 weeks. For more info contact seth@yourrelease.com.

Apple is negotiating with major European record labels to launch a version of its hugely successful iTunes online music download store before the end of the year (Guardian). What are OD2 saying : Guardian. Also see ‘What MS could learn from Apple’ in (CNET messageboard).