Label:Life

Even as the recording industry staggers through another year of declining sales over all, there are new signs that a democratization of music made possible by the Internet is shifting the industry’s balance of power.

Exploiting online message boards, music blogs and social networks, independent music companies are making big advances at the expense of the four global music conglomerates, whose established business model of blockbuster hits promoted through radio airplay now looks increasingly outdated.

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The Attorney General of New York, Elliot Spitzer, is at it again. After wrangling with the insurance industry, wall street fat cats and various others, the champion for consumer rights has slapped subpoenas on the four biggest recording companies.

The recording companies have been putting serious pressure on Apple’s iTunes to change its pricing to a variable structure. They believe that the more popular content should cost more, and want Steve-o to break the $0.99/song fixed cost. After Mr. Jobs called the industry’s leaders ‘greedy’, the gloves came off and real threats started to be issued.

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France’s lower house of parliament has voted to legalize peer-to-peer file-sharing of films and music on the Internet, unleashing a wave of protest from the country’s film, audiovisual and music industry organizations.

If the measure passes in the upper house, France would become the first country to legalize peer-to-peer downloading at a time when most Western nations are battling to curb illegal downloading on the Internet.

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Taiwan-based MP3 file-sharing service Kuro recently debuted its Kuro Neo MP3 player for use with its peer-to-peer file-sharing network.

The MP3 player comes with 512MB of flash memory, while also featuring an SD memory card slot so users can expand their storage capacities without having to upgrade the entire device. The company stated that the Neo can also serve as a USB drive and card reader for SD memory cards, and it does not require any driver installation.

Compal Electronics is the OEM manufacturer of the Neo, Kuro stated.

Targeting the 400,000 subscribers to its file-sharing network, Kuro aims to sell about 20,000 Neo MP3 players in 2006. The MP3 player will retail for NT$3,888 (US$117), though the company is marketing it for NT$1, bundled with a NT$3,888 one-year subscription to its file-sharing network.

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BRITAIN’S digital music revolution will be increasingly driven by the over-50s as the affluent “silver surfer” generation migrate their music collections onto MP3 players, industry experts said today.

The British Phonographic Industry, the country’s trade organisation for the music industry, revealed new details of the powerful influence of the “grey pound” as the MP3 player appeared destined to become one of this year’s most popular Christmas gifts.

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Label:Life wishes all of our readers a very merry Christmas and a Happy new year. May next year bring harmony and profitability to you all.

Ed.

Riding the wave of popularity for its iTunes music site, Apple Computer’s Web traffic grew 57 percent year-over-year for November, Nielsen//NetRatings reported Tuesday.

The Web traffic ranking service said Google jumped 29 percent for the period and Amazon 16 percent as they finished in second and third place, respectively. Apple grew from a lower base figure jumping from 19,615 visits in November 2004 to 30,845 this year.

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Troy Tomlinson has been promoted to President and CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville, it was announced
today by David Hockman, Chairman and CEO, Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

Mr. Tomlinson will be based in Nashville and will report to Mr. Hockman. In this role, Mr. Tomlinson will supervise all creative elements for Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville including the signing of new writers. He is also responsible for developing and implementing the strategy necessary to create and exploit the Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville catalogue. Mr. Tomlinson will be replacing Donna Hilley, who is retiring after serving 31 years with the company. (more…)

Bono has considered quitting music. to live on a fish farm. The U2 frontman confessed he and the rest of the band sometimes dream of retiring from music and trying a different lifestyle.

He said: “After doing this kind of thing for so long, it becomes a grudge match. against your opponent, which is of course your lazy self, or the other self, which fancies the fish farm in Wales or Kenya – go and live on the beach, you’ve earned it, and for us it becomes a fight against that temptation.”

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Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of the late John Lennon and George Harrison have taken action against record giant EMI over an alleged deficit of £30 million in unpaid royalties, according to reports.

On Thursday, Apple Corps, the company that looks after the rights of the former Beatles, filed suit in the High Court in London and the Supreme Court in New York, after an audit of the record label’s accounts allegedly found discrepancies.

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