Label:Life

Samsung Electronics Co. is planning to enter the online music business with a service similar to Apple Computer Inc.’s popular iTunes, Choi Gee-sung, the head of the company’s digital media business said.

Samsung Electronics spokeswoman Kwon Hyo-sun, citing the company’s digital media division, said Monday that Choi made the comments Friday to South Korean reporters.

Choi said that Samsung will cooperate with several partners, both foreign and donestic, in developing the service, but didn’t say when it would be launched, according to Kwon.

More@businessweek

Handset maker Nokia and music label EMI have started a project to let coffee shop customers listen to music sent to their phone via Bluetooth.

As well as music, customers will be able to get hold of ringtones, wallpaper, video clips and vouchers.

The first free tests of the service will be in six coffee shops and music stores in Helsinki, Finland.

More@bbc

German media giant Bertelsmann is to launch a peer-to-peer network service to offer legal downloads of music and movies.

The service, dubbed Gnab, or ‘bang’ in reverse, is to go live in Germany by the end of this year, with an eventual rollout to other countries through 2006 and beyond, the company said.

More@vnuet

UK record companies’ trade association the BPI will take 23 independents on a coordinated trade mission to LA’s Billboard Film and TV Conference which takes place over November 14-16.

As part of the mission, the BPI and UKTI have lined up a series of private meetings with some of the most influential people in the US film, TV and radio industries for labels attending its mission next month to LA.

The conference is regarded as an ideal opportunity to meet key licensees in the US and influential anglophile DJ Nic Harcourt, Jason Bentley (music supervisor for the Matrix films) and Jacqui Perryman (music chief for Fox TV) among others, are set to meet the BPI delegation during the conference.

The visit has been put together with support from UK government body UK Trade and Investment, and forms part of the BPI’s revamped international strategy. (more…)

To mark its 40th edition, MIDEM – The World’s Music Market (Cannes, 22–26 January 2006), is proud to announce that Finland, Europe’s fastest growing exporter of musical talent, will host the prestigious opening night party. Under the banner “Come hear. Finland”, the evening will include a series of multi-genre, live concerts from today’s hottest Finnish artists, to be performed on three separate stages. “Come hear. Finland” will take place on Sunday, 22 January, in the Palais des Festivals, Cannes.

Numerous Finnish artists have attained a world-wide following and the 13 artists to have been independently selected to perform at the event have all successfully expanded their careers outside Finland’s boarders. (more…)

Brisbane, Calif.-based Monster Cable Products on Monday announced the launch of “SuperDisc,” a new collection of audio discs for audiophiles who want “high definition” music for their iPods.

Most SuperDiscs include two discs — one’s a stereo mix designed to work on a standard CD player, and the other features “High Definition” surround sound in Dolby Digital and DTS 96/24 format, as well as PCM 96/24 stereo, for playback on a DVD player. Some discs also feature multiple mixes that let users select their own “Surround Experience.”

The SuperDiscs also include digital music files encoded in AAC format at 320Kbps, WMA at 192Kbps and Apple Lossless (PCM 48/16). Also included are Dolby headphone-encoded music files that Monster says will given iPod users a surround sound music experience through any headphones.

More@playlistmag

BAIDU.COM Inc has stopped providing free music download links on its Website as a compromise to music publishers, which sued the biggest Chinese online search engine firm over the issue.

Instead, a warning message has appeared on the Beijing-based company’s Website before users start to download music or songs through Baidu’s MP3 search service.

“The search result (of songs) has been made automatically and Baidu itself doesn’t make and transfer music,” the message said. “We pay close attention to protecting intellectual property rights. If any authors or copyright owners find the links are pirated songs, please let us know.”

More@chinadaily

Apple Computer Inc., which gets a third of its sales from iPod music players, today started an iTunes online music store in Australia, offering video clips and more than 1 million songs.

Songs will cost A$1.69 ($1.27) to download, video clips will be A$3.39 and album prices start at A$16.99, Cupertino, California-based Apple said in an e-mailed statement today. Australia is the 21st country to have an iTunes store.

More@bloomberg

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On launching MBIG.COM www.mbig.com , Mr. Kalikow notes, “Mobile devices are destined to eclipse the personal computer in the distribution and promotion of music and entertainment content. One reason the U.S. has lagged behind much of the international community in this area is our complex copyright clearance procedure. MBIG has been established to tackle this problem.”

A ‘fixture’ in the music industry for over thirty years, Mr. Kalikow is Editor & Publisher of “New On The Charts”(www.notc.com), the music business information service he established in 1976, used by every major record company and music publisher in the U.S., with additional executive subscribers in some twenty countries internationally. To learn more about New On The Charts see http://www.notc.com/about.cfm

MBIG.COM simplifies music licensing for U.S. ringtones (more…)