Tag: music business
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MySpace Music hears the antitrust song
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Andrew Orlowski
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News Corporation and the major record labels are facing antitrust questions about the blockbuster MySpace Music venture – even before the site has launched. MySpace Music is billed as the biggest music retail launch of the year. It’s a one-stop shop backed by the cross-media muscle of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, with the three biggest…
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Freytards, fanbois and feudalism
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Andrew Orlowski
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British digital music company 7Digital claimed a coup yesterday by becoming the first online music store to carry DRM-free catalog from the “Big Four” major record labels. Calling it a coup is misleading, however. It’s really further confirmation that the top of the music business is run along feudal lines: closer to the 12th century…
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Why (almost) nobody wants a music tax
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Andrew Orlowski
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In Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow, set in WW2 London, a character called Slothrop begins to realize that everywhere he has sex, a V2 rocket subsequently lands on the same spot, obliterating the area. If you dig a little, you may notice something spookily similar with the idea of a Music Tax in the media. Back…
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Who killed Three Strikes for filesharing?
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Andrew Orlowski
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Rejoice! “Three strikes and you’re out” is dead in the UK. Music file sharers will no longer face the threat of seeing the household broadband connection severed. The plague that is currently endemic in France won’t be jumping the English Channel. Strangely, some people want to keep it alive. Stranger still – this includes the…
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Legal P2P ‘by year end’
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Andrew Orlowski
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Legal broadband subscription services that permit file sharing may appear on the market by the year’s end, according to music industry sources – after government intervention brought both music suppliers and ISPs to the table. The UK would become the second country after South Korea where the music business has agreed to offer licenses to…
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EMI hires the Biggest Brain in Sadville
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Andrew Orlowski
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How desperate is EMI? Desperate enough to hire the co-founder of Sadville? Amazingly, yes. Not only is a graphics programmer joining the storied British music group as head of “digital strategy” – he cheerfully admits he doesn’t know anything about the music business. And he doesn’t even like music – he’s only bought five albums…