Distorted-Loop.com

We’ve spoken briefly to Billy Bragg about this, and we think any artist should get involved in this debate, but Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired has put it all together in impressive style. We’ve borrowed a chunk of it because we think it’s an important campaign. We’re pro-artist here, after all…

“A group of British recording artists including (edit to add: Billy Bragg) Radiohead, The Verve and Iron Maiden say the digital music revolution has come up short in terms of the fair treatment of artists, citing an agreement between record labels, ISPs and the British government as an example of artists’ viewpoints being ignored. To make sure their priorities are taken into account in the future, over sixty British artists have joined the Featured Artists Coalition. Read More »

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Popular iPod/iTunes application, Senuti, has been updated with support for music held on an iPhone or an iPod touch.

Senuti is useful software that lets you easily transfer songs from an Apple media player to your computer. We’ve found it invaluable for such things as restoring an iTunes library following an unfortunate double calamity when both a computer and its back up drive broke down within a week of each other. Anyway.

Along with iPod touch/iPhone support, Senuti 0.50.2 introduces crash reporter enhancements and bug fixes. The application costs nothing at all, and is available for all Mac systems since 10.3. Read More »

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This one’s an interesting move to expand the reach of music - a deal between EMI Music Publishing and leading UK retailer Sainsbury’s Tu Clothing division means we’ll soon be able to buy clothes featuring “lyrics to some of the greatest songs ever written”, the partners promised.

This new range of singer/songwriter royalty payment friendly clobber will include products for men, women and children, will feature words from classic songs from EMI’s catalogue of over 1.3 million songs such as “My Girl”, “ABC”, “(Theme From) The Monkees”, “Wild Thing” and “Dancing In The Street.”

Read More »

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Scant days since launch, MySpace Music has already streamed over a billion songs since, the company has claimed.

In a statement from the company, MySpace Music said, “We’re extremely pleased with the launch of MySpace Music—clearly our users around the world are engaged and excited about the new music experience on MySpace. We’ve hit some incredible milestones in only a few days—some of the numbers you’re reading about are already out of date.”

And continues, “We can confirm that we hit a milestone of one billion music streams in only a few days after launching the new product.” Read More »

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Ben Folds and iTunes have teamed up for an innovative music sales scheme that combines the artist’s latest album, his tour, live recordings and an exclusive live album in a deal the partners say is a “new way music is recorded and distributed to music fans worldwide.”

It’s quite interesting: Folds calls the collection “The Sounds of Last Night…This Morning.” And that’s exactly what it is.

You see, during Folds’ current US tour one live track is being recorded in each of 10 cities and made available the next day exclusively on the iTunes Store.

The artist’s own site reveals that tracks are recorded to a Mac, previewed on an iPod, original cover art is made by Folds using Apple’s Photo Booth application and sent to iTunes for sale the next day. Read More »

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Nokia will introduce its ‘Comes With Music’ service to the US next year.

The service effectively pits the world’s largest mobile phone maker in a direct challenge with Apple’s iPhone (family?) and its iTunes store. Within the purchase price of a handset, Nokia is offering customers all-you-can-eat access to music - though there are a few caveats to the deal.

On plans to extend the service to the UK, Tero Ojanpera, head of entertainment business at Nokia said in a statement: “In the United States we will launch next year”.

A move to introduce ‘Comes With Music’ into the US makes some sense in terms of Nokia’s attempt to broaden its grip on the mobile market there.

The move could face challenges: The US digital music market is far more advanced, partially because labels have been faster to reach deals with new technology services there. Read More »

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Over half of all the world’s Pandora users are iPhone users, revealed company chief Tim Westergreen at Digital Music Forum West last week.

Westergreen also noted the imminent shakedown among webcasters, now MySpace Music has launched with major label support. “I think the fate of the small webcasters will be determined in the next few months,” he said.

The iPhone has been a Pandora growth story, he confirmed - iPhone accounts for almost half of Pandora’s 17 million members - and has doubled growth rate from 20 to 40+ new users each day. “It has people thinking a little differently about what internet radio is,” Westergreen said, noting that attempts to prove a subscription model for access to content have so far failed.

But Westergreen doesn’t buy into the ‘access not ownership’ mantra that’s causing so much excitement: “I think I listen to iTunes more than Pandora… I’m not somebody who believes that’s all going to vanish,” he added, but pointed out, “People don’t want to have to work for their music” he said.

Read More »

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We7 CEO and co-founder Steve Purdham is over the moon at achieving a BT Digital Music Award, but warns that the industry remains under threat - even at this stage in its evolution.

“The digital world is about to go through another upheaval with 1 billion streams on MySpace Music, We7 Launching in November and Apple threatening to pull the plug,” he said, speaking to Distorted Loop just in advance of the revelation of the royalty deal for publishing in the US announced last night.

Despite the hubbub of activity, Purdham thinks there’s still significant challenges to the development of the digital music industry.

“All of this activity shows two things, first the demand for digital music is outstanding and if allowed to flourish will build a very healthy business for artists, labels and fans alike,” he said, warning, “but at the same time the fundamental economics of the industry are still trying to kill off the opportunity rather that allowing it to grow.” Read More »

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Short film channel Shorts TV has made a series of its short comedy films available via Sony’s PSP video-on demand service, Go!View.

“ShortsTV is very excited to bring the UK’s biggest comedy stars in the littlest films to PSP,” said Carter Pilcher, Chief Executive of Shorts International. “You’ll see some of the best - Martin Freeman and Matthew Horne, for instance - in some of the season’s funniest moments.”

Read More »

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In yet another attempt to stake space in the digital marketplace, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has confirmed the company intends introducing Zune-based media features into future generations of Windows Mobile device.

Speaking to CIO, he admitted the company introduced Zune to stake space in the Apple-led digital media trend. “At the end of the day, one of the big trends is that all content is going digital,” he said, “And if we don’t have the software and services that are useful, helpful and valuable for the consumption of music and video, we are sort of not really a player.”

On the future of Zune he admits that the company developed software for the device with the intention of bringing it to other sustems. Read More »

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