There’s a new development from yesterday’s story on wholesale download pricing. While the record labels are still unwilling to divulge their wholesale pricing structure for online music sales in UMG v. Lindor without strict confidentiality provisions, an attorney for UMG has told opposing counsel Ray Beckerman that the 70¢ per track figure is in the [...]

US album sales continued to decline in 2006, down nearly 5 percent from the previous year, but total music sales were up thanks to a huge increase in digital downloads. About 588.2 million albums were sold in 2006 — a 4.9 percent decline from 2005, according to year-end sales figures released Thursday by Nielsen SoundScan. [...]

A 16yo kid from Stavanger, Norway gains unwanted notoriety by being the first in his country to be charged with illegal file-sharing. Charged with illegally distributing copyirghted material on the internet, the 16yo boy faces a fine of $644 USD (4000 NOK) and a suspended 60 day jail sentence. The parents face a potential six-figure [...]

The French electronics and multimedia company Thomson Corporate Research has developed a technology for the automatic detection of illegal copies of copyrighted films that are webcasted through Peer-to-Peer file exchange protocol. Until recently, their system of video descriptors was working fine, but… slowly. Irisa TexMex research team specializes in the handling of multimedia documents, with [...]

New study shows that the more connected your are to the internet then the more you are likely to to watch primetime television. In another testament to the fact that people who use the interent to either stream or download TV programming, are usually the ones most involved in a given show. A poll taken [...]

Despite the obvious conflict of interest, a parliament member married to the CEO of Vivendi proposes a severe crack down on file-sharers. A firm date and time for the vote hasn’t been established but, it will most likely take place on the 19th or 20th of January in Brussels. In an article on the German [...]

A new hybrid DVD from Warner Home Video will contain both HD DVD and DVD format video on the same disc. Warner Home Video just announced via Reuters yesterday that it will release a new "Hybrid DVD" that will be capable of playing both HV DVD and regular DVD format video on the same disc. [...]

Now is a bad time to be a giant music corporation, but ethically challenged music fans couldn’t ask for better days. Bootlegging has always been about catering directly to the fans, and the Internet breeds the best bootleggers yet: bigger and stronger and faster than ever before, the better to handle the demands of 10 [...]

Having followed the digital music scene for years, I think I can say without any disclaimer that if you’re looking for the most evil among the RIAA, BPI and IFPI, you really can’t go wrong with the Brits. I thought I’d seen everything, from copyright extension lobbying, asking for tax credits for A&R costs, crazy [...]

The first DVD player to play both rival high definition DVD formats has been announced by South Korean firm LG. The dual-format player will be able to play the Sony-backed Blu-ray discs and the Toshiba-led HD DVD discs. The introduction of two next-generation formats has split both the electronics industry and Hollywood film studios. The [...]

It’s like Azureus on steroids, claiming to increase download speeds by a startling 70% but, at what costs? .First off I’d like to say that I’m a little hesitant to report this new suped-up version of Azureus as it has the potential to degrade download speeds for everybody. As the creators of the BitTyrant client [...]

Google rings in the new year without its promised anti-piracy protection scheme Although YouTube rang in 2007 with a virtual New Year’s Eve festival complete with a performance from Warner Music, live performances and participation from hordes of online members, the company failed to meet its self-imposed deadline to implement anti-piracy protection on its site. [...]

Escalating music download sales have helped double the size of the U.K. singles market over the past three years, according to figures published by The Official U.K. Charts Company (OCC). Total U.K. singles sales for the first 51 weeks in 2006 alone reached 65.1 million units, according to the chart compiler, which is a joint [...]

LimeWire has retained an uncanny dominance among file-sharing applications, though the company is widely expected to face the RIAA guillotine. Other big-name applications, including Grokster, BearShare, eDonkey, and Kazaa, have already been raked over the coals, a fate that followed the Supreme Court Ted Cohendecision in MGM v. Grokster. The file-sharing companies were forced to [...]

Will the continued decline in CD sales finally force the music industry to embrace the new portable “on-demand” lifestyle and figure out new ways to digitally distribute content? .Bob Lefsetz, author of “The Lefsetz Letter,” a music business analysis blog, makes some bold predictions for the music industry in 2007. Claiming to captivate “… readers [...]

Sony BMG has decided to dip its toes into the world of podcasted music with its recent agreement with marketing agency Rock River Communications Inc., making it the first (and only, for the time being) major music label in the US to license music for podcasting. While you may not have heard of Rock River [...]

We declared several weeks ago that 2007 would be the year that labels would finally embrace or at least seriously experiment with unrestricted mp3′s. After all, 2006 was the year that labels dropped DRM on all physical CD’s. Now Billboard and other mainstream media are jumping on the mp3 bandwagon with some new (and some [...]

p2pnet is on the verge of going offline. Our income dropped by 80% as of December 28. Several times in 2006 I said I was able to keep going only thanks to the advertisers and some people believe that, like certain other sites, I’m raking it in. But scraping by would be more accurate. Revenue [...]

The anti-digital rights management bandwagon is getting more crowded by the day. Even some major-label executives are pushing for the right to sell digital downloads as unprotected MP3s. In 2007, the majors will get the message, and the digital-right management (DRM) wall will begin to crumble. Why? Because they’ll no longer be able to point [...]