Tag: DIGITALMUSIC

The danger now is different. The man no longer needs a monopoly on musical taste. He just wants a few cents on the dollar of every song you download, he doesn't care what that song says. Other times he doesn't even care if you pay that dollar, as long as you listen to your stolen music on his portable MP3 player, store it on his Apple computer, send it to your friends through his Verizon ...

There are very few things this writer loves about France, but here are two: government-subsidized healthcare, and, now, government-subsidized music. That's right, the country of Debussy and Gainsbourg will now (partially) pay for its young citizens' digital music. As the BBC reports, the new program is aimed at encouraging French youth to get in the habit of actually paying for music. From now ...

Yesterday, the team behind the original MP3 file revealed a new digital music format, claiming that it will both outclass current digital music standards and encourage users to download their music legally. In theory, MusicDNA has a lot going for it. Users who download songs in the new format will get -- in addition to the music itself -- bits like lyrics, album artwork, music videos, recent ...

When it comes to offering free digital music downloads, some previously antagonistic record labels might soon be singing a different tune. Who can you thank for this good fortune? Hulu -- yes, the free online video service -- or, at least, its advertising model. According to The New York Times, instead of paying for a song, users of FreeAllMusic.com will be able to download songs for free, so ...

We live in an age when the fidelity of our music is seemingly less important than our ability to easily access, transport, and share it. As vinyl records were eventually replaced almost entirely by CDs as the predominant music format, MP3s and other files have now become the standard. They are digitally compressed (to varying degrees), making them sound significantly 'thinner' (read: lower ...

Although digital music sales continue to rise, CDs still account for the market majority in the U.S. When it comes to the burgeoning online world, though, iTunes stands alone. Macworld writes that a recent report released by NPD Musicwatch showed that 25-percent of the songs purchased in the United States during the first months of 2009 came from the iTunes store. That makes iTunes the most ...

A study performed by the MCPS-PRS Alliance, a non-profit royalty collection service, has found that only 15 percent of the albums hosted online last year sold as much as a single copy. This report flies in the face of author Chris Anderson's popular "long tail" theory, which states that Internet music sales depend more upon niche artists than MTV-style chart-toppers. The MSPS-PRS study found ...

Yep, it finally happened. One label has come forward and admitted that, for the first time, digital sales of its music have surpassed CDs. While many pundits asserted that loosing tunes via tiny downloadable files would instantaneously cause the deep-pocketed record labels to crumble as piracy ran rampant, the numbers tell a different story. In fact, music sales overall have declined from $14.6 ...

As more and more music is bought (or otherwise acquired) online, physical sales of CDs have plummeted over the past few years and have dragged liner notes and album artwork down with them. But some folks in the music business, while they cope with the decrease in sales, are not willing to let liner notes and artwork go the way of the 8-Track, Reuters investigates. As Pink and Snow Patrol have ...

For an instrument with such an established history of mainstream popularity and an unparalleled level of cool, the accordion doesn't seem to need any improvements. But Roland recently released the battery-powered FR-2 Accordion, which combines the classic features of the original with new digital enhancements, including built-in drum loops (for adding some percussion to that romantic old tune ...

We reported earlier on Radiohead's bold new experiment in online music sales, letting fans pay anything they like, or nothing at all, to download the band's new album 'In Rainbows.' Initial statistics indicated that hundreds of thousands still downloaded the music illegally, leading some to believe that the experiment had failed. Now, some new statistics are giving a better look at how fans ...

Shhh... you hear that? That's the sound of the record industry grasping at straws. The latest desperate attempt to lure in consumers is selling albums on USB drives. This isn't the first time artists have gone the digital drive route, but the move is getting a renewed push from the record industry. Universal, Warner and EMI have all announced plans to sell music on USB Flash drives. Details are ...

Richard Reinhardt, or, as he's more commonly known, Richie Ramone, is suing just about every company under the sun that offers digital music downloads, including Apple, Real Networks, and Wal-Mart. The former drummer of the seminal 1970s-1980s punk band The Ramones is even going after the estate of Johnny Ramone, the band's late lead guitarist. What's Reinhardt's beef? According to reports, ...

Record labels looking to keep their property off of illegal file-sharing networks have begun experimenting with a technology called 'watermarking' as the successor to DRM, or digital right management. DRM is a system of adding a small amount of data to an audio file, which puts draconian limitations on copying, burning, and playback of the material. Customers dislike these restrictions and ...

It's no secret that the music industry is hurting. Bad press, easy-to-find free music, and a release calendar consistently filled with nominees for our most irritating song list have cost the major labels dearly. At the same time that the industry as a whole is being yanked down by plummeting CD sales, digital music sales have increased enough to make iTunes the number 3 music retailer behind ...