Google Music Search Roll Out - Music Onebox

Finding your favorite tune via Google has just become a whole lot easier with the un-boxing of Music Onebox. Entering the name of a song, an album name, or bands name into a Google search box will now yield results from Lala and MySpace Music. Clicking on either of these links will in most cases, present a pop-up window that enables you to play the song once in it's entirety, for free, and also presents a link to buy the song.

“The intention is not to turn the partners on Google into a free streaming music service. This is about providing a richer experience for users looking for a particular song,” said R.J. Pittman, Google’s director of product management. Music searches often account for two of the top ten searches conducted via Google, within the US.

Source: Bits Blog

$80,000 Per Shared Song Awarded To RIAA

24 songs shared by a single mom from Minnesota via Kazaa have been the center of a law suit brought upon Jammie Thomas-Rasset by the Recording Industry Association of America. On Friday a federal jury in Minnesota found the 32-year-old mother of four guilty of copyright infringement and ordered her to pay $1.92-million or $80,000 per song shared. Her reaction, “There’s no way they’re ever going to get that,” Ms. Thomas-Rasset said after the verdict. “I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now.”

For their part the RIAA said this in an e-mail, “When the facts are presented to juries on these issues, they take this issue seriously and appreciate the real harm that’s done to the music community,”

It's not clear whether or not Thomas-Rasset will challenge the decision but I sure hope she does. I also hope that none of the jurors have kids who have shared any music online, or they may live to regret their ruling in this case...

Source: Globe and Mail

France To Track And Punish Illegal Downloaders

French law makers have passed a lower house bill on Tuesday that would give the government of France the right to cut off the Internet access of repeat offenders in the illegal downloading battle. "Warnings to culprits would begin with two e-mails followed by a certified letter. If the piracy continues within the following year, access can be cut from two months to a year — while the user keeps paying for the service." according to this article published in the Globe and Mail. The law has its challengers however as some view it in conflict with a measure passed by the European Union a week ago, that would prohibit such measures. At the heart of the controversy is the illegal downloading of music and movies.

Apple Offers DRM Free Music At A Premium

Apple is now promising High-quality, DRM-free music via it's new iTunes Plus offering. "With iTunes Plus, you get high-quality, 256-Kbps AAC encoding. All free of burn limits and digital rights management (DRM)." The company says that millions of tracks are available from all four major music labels and thousands of independent artists. The new scheme also allows you to upgrade your existing iTunes purchases to iTunes Plus "Just pay the 30¢ per song upgrade price. (Music video upgrades are 60¢ and entire albums can be upgraded for 30 percent of the album price.)" Check out what else is new in iTunes 8 here.

Radiohead Turns To iTunes

Radiohead, who had balked the establishment and offered it's 7th album In Rainbows digitally on a pay-what-you-will basis, has finally permitted iTunes to sell music from its first six albums, both in whole and on a track-by-track basis. The band's former record label EMI in the past had argued that the band chose to withhold its music from iTunes because they preferred to present whole albums to their fans as opposed to single tracks. Other long time hold outs, Garth Brooks and AC/DC used the same argument and went on to sign exclusive deals with a U.S. cellphone operator to sell full-album downloads. Time will tell which approach is best but the question is, how much revenue has been lost during the holdout? CBC story here.

Nine Inch Nails Says Thank You With Free Record

In a post on the nine inch nails website on Monday, Trent Reznor writes "thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me". The most recent offering titled 'the slip' is available for free download here. The record is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license. The site reads "we encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc." While Radio Head may be viewing their web experiment as a one off, it looks like Reznor has embraced the web with yet another digital distribution exercise.

Radio Head Abandons Pay What You Want

When Radiohead offered their most recent album "In Rainbows" to their fans via a pay what you want digital download they set the music industry on it's head. There has been much speculation about the success of the experiment and the move has spawned a number of experiments by other big name acts, Nine Inch Nails for one. While Radiohead declines to comment on the actual success it appears as though it was a one time thing for the band with lead man Thom Yorke telling Reuters "It was a one-off response to a particular situation," While Radiohead may be backing down, expect to see more variations of the move as according to this story on the CBC website "On Monday, British rockers Coldplay announced a single from their new album, Viva La Vida, or Death and All His Friends, was available for one week as a free download. The group's website crashed the next day because of huge demand."

Nine Inch Nails In The Coffins Of The Record Labels?

On the heals of an arguably successful "pay what you want" music download campaign by Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails is leveraging BitTorrent sites and releasing songs under a Creative Commons license that permits purchasers to remix the tracks, according to a recent Wired article. The bands latest offering is Ghosts I-IV, contains 36 songs and split into four volumes. The first volume was uploaded to Pirate Bay by band leader Trent Reznor (and/or his representatives) where it can be downloaded for free. The entire 36-song version can be purchased digitally in MP3 format for $5 from Amazon MP3 or the Nine Inch Nails website, NIN.com. The move is possible because the band is no longer tied to a label and it has allowed them to get creative with how they sell and market their music. Besides the $5 downloads NIN are offering other packages such as a now sold out $300 "ultra-deluxe" limited-edition package (2,500 copies) that included four 180-gram records each numbered and signed by Reznor. Just wait until other contracts start to expire, it's probably not a good time to be holding shares in record labels.

Illegal Downloads... No More Internet For You!

A yet to be released government proposal in the UK suggests that ISPs would be required to cut service to users who access pirated content via their networks. The proposal is for a "three strikes" system where first offenses would draw a warning leading to the ultimate revoking of services after a third offense. According to the Times newspaper, a leaked draft paper states: "We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file sharing." The government says the proposal has changed significantly since that report and would not comment on the contents of the leaked document. The association that represents the Internet Service Providers says "ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope," It sounds like the entertainment industry giants have found some friends within government in the UK. The BBC has the story here.

Digital Music Sales up 40% Over Last Year

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has said that digital music sales rose 40 per cent to $2.9-billion (U.S.) over last year but that the increase does not cover the losses suffered by declining CD sales. According to the IFPI illegal downloads outnumber the number of tracks legally purchased by a factor of 20-to-1. This Globe and Mail article points out that revenues from legal downloads was a mere $380-million in 2004. That sounds like a healthy increase to me, and I'm sure that the cost of selling those tracks are much less than the cost of selling CDs! If the music industry had not gouged us all for so long perhaps they'd find a little more sympathy from consumers!

Songwriters Association of Canada proposes P2P solution

The Songwriters Association of Canada is proposing a similar solution to the P2P issue as was imposed when the recordable media tax was introduced many years ago. The proposal would have Canadian ISPs (Internet Service Providers) charge each subscriber $5 a month for the right to legally trade music, the fee would then be distributed amongst the artists and content owners. According to Ars Technica "The proposal also hopes to encompass all forms of not-for-profit sharing under the same legal umbrella, whether sharing is done via P2P, wireless networks, e-mail, CD trading, or exchanging hard drives. The proposal excludes tracks obtained from music services like the iTunes Store and PureTracks, since these tracks are governed by their own licensing and value-added incentives." So basically all Canadian Internet subscribers will pay for the thieving ways of the P2P users! I'm not so sure this will go over too well with consumers, but if it becomes reality expect people to want to get their moneys worth...

Paul McCartney says Beatles works going digital soon

Billboard.com is quoting Paul McCartney as saying "it's all happening soon. Most of us are all sort of ready. The whole thing is primed, ready to go -- there's just maybe one little sticking point left, and I think it's being cleared up as we speak, so it shouldn't be too long. It's down to fine-tuning, but I'm pretty sure it'll be happening next year, 2008." Saying that the delay in bringing the Beatles online is due mostly to contractual details and getting the timing right, McCartney says "You've got to get these things right," Just get it done Paul! The world is waiting...

Apple drops price of DRM-free music

Feeling the pressure of new rival Amazon, Apple has decided to drop the price of it's DRM-free music from $1.29 to $0.99, bringing it's prices in line with the competitors offering. In this Globe and Mail article an Apple spokeswoman is quoted as saying "It's been very popular with our customers and we're now making it available at an even more affordable price,". While they may deny that the move is motivated by competition, it's hard to ignore the fact that the music industry is in flux and with more competition and bands going it alone, it will be interesting to see what happens over the next little while.

Allofmp3.com owner cleared by Russian court

CNN is reporting that a Russian court has acquitted allofmp3.com owner, Denis Kvasov, of charges of copyright infringement. The judge in the case saying "The prosecution did not succeed in presenting persuasive evidence of his involvement in infringing copyright law". Allofmp3 came under fire from increasing pressure of the music industry giants as Russia was making a bid for inclusion in the World Trade Organization (WTO), the case was seen as a test of Russia's commitment to fighting copyright pirates. Soon after the lawsuit was brought against Kvasov's company another site which looks suspiciously similar and allows users to use the same accounts, mp3sparks.com, opened.

SpiralFrog taking it's acts on the road

A music downloading service that opened in Canada earlier this year is now hitting the road to offer its music in the U.S. The ad supported service, SpiralFrog, features more than 700,000 tracks mostly from Universal music and independent labels. There is a download manager which is not compatible with iTunes, and users are required to keep their membership current or they are cut off from the service. If a membership is not renewed within 30 days, download privileges are cut off and after 60 days the songs will no longer play. Membership is free and completely supported by ads. CBC Story here. To be honest, I haven't tried the service so I'll have to reserve judgment. The titles seem a little limited but then again so are Amie Street's and I'm liking that service.

Led Zeppelin and Apple make nice music together

Engadget is reporting that Led Zeppelin is finally embracing iTunes. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones have personally selected a number of songs to be sold as a "best of" type collection. "Mothership," will include 'Stairway to Heaven', 'Whole Lotta Love,' 'Dazed and Confused' and other personally selected tracks. This at the same time that Apple announces it's 3 billionth download! No one screams like Robert Plant!

New CD format from Disney - CDVU+

Battling declining CD sales, Walt Disney Co. music label Hollywood Records is launching a new CD format known as CD View Plus (CDVU+). The new format will offer CD buyers additional content similar to that found on DVDs, in this case song lyrics, photos and other extras aimed at encouraging fans to give up their downloading ways. The Globe and Mail has this story. I think it's a last ditch effort that might be a little too late for the music industry, the youngsters are all about the downloading! I personally think that the Amie Street model is the way to go, it rewards artists for producing good music and encourages music lovers to visit often, not to mention its DRM free! But then again the model rewards the artist and that's not what the big labels are all about. Wake up music industry, your shiny new trinkets will not entice anyone... just what everybody needs another new format, lame! The only good news in this is that the format will be offered in a more earth friendly packaging.

Russian download site does shuffling act

Controversial Russian music downloading site allofmp3.com (404 error) has closed it's doors only to reappear as mp3Sparks.com. allofmp3 was subject of much debate especially during the World Trade Organizations talks regarding Russia's potential membership into the organization. The parent company of allofmp3, MediaServices, was subject of a number of lawsuits brought on by recording companies and their associations while the Russian government was being attacked for allowing it to operate. MediaServices has maintained that it pays royalties to a Russian licensing body and that it warns users from other countries to heed their local laws. The move to close down allofmp3 is being considered as a minor victory but one that holds little meaning if the service is able to resurface under a new name. BBC News story here.