Label:Life

Michael Jackson could lose his 50% stake in The Beatles’ back catalogue if he fails to meet an imminent deadline to repay $200m (£113m) in loans. The singer’s lawyers are in talks to prevent him defaulting on loans secured by his stake in the songs.

Jackson’s lawyer Brent Ayscough said he wanted Fortress Investment Group to give the singer more time to repay. He bought the coveted publishing rights for $48m (£27m) in 1985. They are now valued at $500m (£283m).

More@bbc

AOL Music has placed its bets on the new artists poised to make the most noise in 2006 by naming six developing acts to showcase through its innovative Breakers program, which appeals to a vast audience of dedicated music fans on AOL Music (http://www.aolmusic.com).

This season’s Breaker artists include Country singer/songwriter Jace Everett, songwriter/performer Ne-Yo, socially conscious rapper/songwriter Rhymefest, Country girl-next-door, and star of AOL Music’s “This is Shannon Brown” online reality series, Shannon Brown; singer/songwriter Teddy Geiger; and revered underground rockers Thrice. These artists and their music will be featured in high-profile campaigns, normally reserved for more established hit makers, on aolmusic.com and across the AOL Music and Radio Networks. (more…)

The Orchard, the world’s leading distributor and marketer of independent music, today announced an agreement with EMI Music Publishing (EMI), the world’s largest music publisher. Under the agreement, The Orchard will deliver mastertones from EMI’s world-renowned catalogue to mobile users in the US and Canada through The Orchard’s unparalleled network of mobile providers. Mastertones, also known as realtones, are digital clips of real music that replace the standard ringtones that mobile users hear when they receive an incoming call. (more…)

Bell Canada is teaming up with Groove Mobile to launch a music service for cellphones as the wireless industry tries to take on the iPod, the reigning musical device in consumers’ pockets.

The service, available later this month, will let Bell’s wireless customers select from a library of thousands of titles. They can download the songs to their cellphones and computers.

Wireless operators are adding more features as they try to make the cellphone the one device consumers carry with them at all times. Convergence is transforming the cellphone into a television set, music player, and wallet.

More@theglobeandmail

Despite a sustained record industry campaign to stamp out digital piracy, more than half of all consumers still download music illegally over the internet, a new survey shows. The figures, which will worry record companies hoping to sell music to the millions expected to receive an iPod or similar this Christmas, show that 51% of those who currently download tracks do so illegally.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed admitted that they had illegally downloaded music at least once. By contrast, just one in six said they exclusively used paid-for services such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store or Napster to buy music over the internet.

More@guardian

DMX, who is currently serving a 70-day jail sentence for driving with a suspended license, has left his longtime recording home of Def Jam and is headed for a new ground.

According to MTV News, once the Yonkers native is released from jail, he is Sony Music bound, where he has reportedly signed a deal.

More@ballerstatus

Kabul, Afghanistan (AHN) – A human rights group is alleging the United States uses music by Eminem and Dr. Dre to torture detainees in a secret Afghanistan prison.

New York-based Human Rights Watch quotes an Ethiopian-born detainee as saying he was kept in a pitch-black prison and forced to listen to Eminem and Dr. Dre’s rap music for 20 days before the music was replaced by “horrible ghost laughter and Halloween sounds.”

More@allheadlinenews

Is the RIAA’s crusade against file-swapping a success? Depends on who you ask (and on how you measure success). In another battle in the ongoing War of the Analysts, two new studies come to opposite conclusions. NPD Group suggests that file-swapping has dropped for the first time since 2003, when the RIAA began suing dead grandmothers and live teenagers. Between June and October, NPD reckons that swapping has dropped 11 percent on the major networks in the US—certainly good news for the RIAA.

But it’s not all wine and roses for the recording industry; rival researchers at BigChampagne suggest that in the same period, global P2P usage has continued to rise. Even in the US, where a decline has been seen, it’s not at all clear that the RIAA’s legal threats are scaring consumers straight, either. Previous reports have suggested that music lovers may be embracing legal music downloads, but suggest that the reason is primarily the convenience of online music stores such as iTunes or eMusic. The recent shutdown of services like Grokster may also be having some effect as well now that good file-swapping tools require more effort to find.

More@arstechnica

Google is coming to the music industry. A quote from the official Google blog…

It may come as no surprise, but I like to search for things on Google. Yep, when I’m looking for something, I always try it on Google first. And sometimes, that thing I’m looking for is music. Many of our users feel the same way, and we get a lot of search traffic on music terms like popular artists and albums.

A few of us decided to try to make the information you get for these searches even better, so we created a music search feature. Now you can search for a popular artist name, like the Beatles or the Pixies, and often Google will show some information about that artist, like cover art, reviews, and links to stores where you can download the track or buy a CD via a link at the top of your web search results page.

More@googleblog

If he really is retiring, then Eminem is going out with a bang.

The rapper’s greatest hits collection, the possibly prophetically titled Curtain Call, bowed on top of the Billboard album charts, selling 441,000 copies for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The 17-track release compiles all his radio hits and charting singles as well as three new tracks—”Shake That” (featuring Nate Dogg), “Fack” and the current Top 10 hit “When I’m Gone”—and his 2001 Grammy Awards performance of “Stan” with Elton John.

More@yahoo