I came across RCRD LBL today on my stroll around the net today. RCRD LBL is a network of ad supported online record labels and blogs offering completely free music and multimedia content from emerging and established artists.

All the music is released in DRM-free MP3 format and will work on any personal computer or portable digital music player.

They support the site by selling sponsorships to advertisers that want to help hook you up with good music.

They even have a podcast that shows off some of their favorites of the week.

[tags]music, free music, ad support music, rcrd lbl, rcrd-lbl[/tags]

Reuters is reporting that

Internet users in France who frequently download music or films illegally risk losing Web access under a new anti-piracy system unveiled on Friday.

The three-way pact between Internet service providers, the government and owners of film and music rights is a boon to the music industry, which has been calling for such measures to stop illicit downloads eating into its sales.

Under the agreement — drawn up by a commission headed by the chief executive of FNAC, one of France’s biggest music and film retailers — service providers will issue warning messages to customers downloading files illegally.

If users ignore those messages, their accounts could be suspended or closed altogether.

I wonder how they will monitor this and know who is downloading illegally. The ISPs are signing up for a major headache if they want to try and keep track of all this. And how will they get paid for doing this extra work? Probably, higher fees for internet access in France.

I’m glad I don’t live there.

[tags]music, file sharing, France, piracy[/tags]

Jim Hollingsworth, SVP of Gracenote, met with me at Digital Hollywood. Jim was kind enough to go through interview twice, as it appeared our first take didn’t seem to record. It took some work, but I was able to recover the first interview session and I’m glad because the first take is almost always the best. Jim told me about each of the major Gracenote businesses.

Gracenote is a fascinating company with an incredible database of information about the music we listen to. Metadata about the music, artwork, lyrics and popularity information all get used to provide music retailers such as iTunes and digital device companies like Sony with the platform to provide information to the music consumer. The company supports over 2 billion searches for music every month and as a result knows what music is popular right down to the neighborhood level.

The service powers music search, play list creation, music discovery on the web, in digital devices and even in the cars we drive.

Gracenote also powers the Yahoo service that allows you to search for lyrics. If you to go to Yahoo Music and search for a song you will see the lyrics below the song. I put a red arrow on the screen shot to highlight the lyrics.

In addition to music, Gracenote has entered the video marketplace with a similar database about video and is rolling out new products in that area. Jim tells me to stay tuned as they have some exciting news ahead in the video area that they plan to announce at the Consumer Electronics Show.

[tags]Gracenote, Digital Hollywood,Music[/tags]

Business Week is reporting that Universal chief Doug Morris is enlisting other big music players for a service to challenge iTunes and the iPod.

The world’s most powerful music executive aims to join forces with other record companies to launch an industry-owned subscription service. BusinessWeek has learned that Morris has already enlisted Sony BMG Music Entertainment as a potential partner and is talking to Warner Music Group. Together the three would control about 75% of the music sold in the U.S. Besides competing head-on with Apple Inc.’s (AAPL ) music store, Morris and his allies hope to move digital music beyond the iPod-iTunes universe by nurturing the likes of Microsoft’s Zune media player and Sony’s PlayStation and by working with the wireless carriers. The service, which is one of several initiatives the music majors are considering to help reverse sliding sales, will be called Total Music.

While I like the idea of a service that could compete effectively with iTunes and create a more compelling solution for the other device makers, it’s hard for me to see how they will get past the DOJ antitrust issues relating to companies who control 75% of the market joining together to offer a bundled product.

Even more problematic are the issues relating to the economics of the deal.

The big question is whether the makers of music players and phones can charge enough to cover the cost of baking in the subscription. Under one scenario industry insiders figure the cost per player would amount to about $90. They arrived at that number by assuming people hang on to a music player or phone for 18 months before upgrading. Eighteen times a $5 subscription fee equals $90.

Even if they can get past the DOJ anti-trust issues relating to Total Music, it does not seem to me that the economics of a bundled $90 subscription per player would work for either the device or recording industry. Adding $90 to the price of a player would surely depress player sales and probably still not be enough to cover the royalties required for a service that will let you play anything any time.

Is this idea destined for a pileup somewhere along the digital media highway?

Via Techmeme

[tags]Universal, UMG, TotalMusic, Total Music, iPod, iTunes[/tags]

eMusic, the music service that has given Apple’s iTunes the most competition in the song-download arena will now offer audiobooks in mp3 format, too.

The biggest selling point for eMusic is also its biggest point of controversy: the site uses the MP3 format, which works on any digital player but lacks digital rights management technology, that protects copyrighted material from unlimited duplication.

This should provide some really interesting competition between iTunes, eMusic and Audible.

NOTE: Digital Podcast is an affiliate of eMusic and if you use the link above to purchase eMusic we will get some money sent our way.

I think Universal Music Group is starting to play hard ball with Apple. They refused to renew their iTunes contract and now they have announced that they Universal Music Group will sell a significant portion of its catalog without the customary copy protection software for at least the next few months.

According to the New York Times

Universal, the world’s biggest music conglomerate, said it would offer albums and songs without the software, known as digital rights management, through existing digital music retail services like RealNetworks and Wal-Mart, nascent services from Amazon.com and Google, and some artists’ Web sites.

The offer of Universal’s music under the new terms is being framed as a test, to run into January, allowing executives to study consumer demand and any effect on online piracy. A Universal decision to adopt the practice permanently would put pressure on other record companies to follow suit.

Apple however won’t be so lucky as UMG will not offer the DRM free music through iTunes.

Microsoft caved and gave UMG a cut on the Zune player revenue and UMG has been working to get a cut of the iPod revenue. This seem to be in line with the strategy of putting as much pressure on Apple as possible.

It will be interesting to see who blinks first given the importance of iTunes in digital music sales.

The Universal Music Group said on Wednesday that it had acquired a stake in the operator of the urban social networking Web site Loud.com, which operates the www.loud.com and www.battlerap.com.

“Universal’s strategy is to become actively involved in all areas of media where our artists and our music are present,” stated UMG Vice Chairman/CFO Nick Henny. “Loud.com has created an incredibly vibrant and growing online hip-hop community that features not only compelling user-generated content, but also the means for users to create their own music and compete for a record deal. Loud.com is quickly emerging as one of the leading new online ventures that successfully reaches the new generation of international and multicultural youth.”

“We are delighted that UMG is joining the Loud.com family,” commented Loud.com co-founder/CEO Joseph Safina. “When Steve Rifkind and I started Loud.com, our hope was to create a virtual home for hip-hop fans around the world. To our delight, it has quickly evolved into an online community, competition, A&R site and marketing company all rolled into one. With UMG now on board, we’ll be able to offer even more compelling services to our members.”

The company, a unit of Vivendi, based in Paris, did not disclose the size of its investment in the Web site..

The ad-supported site caters to hip-hop fans, who can upload their own raps and compete for a record deal with SRC Records, a label distributed by Universal.

The Web site also sells audio files of hip-hop beats for 99 cents.

So far this year, Universal has made an equity investment in Alliance Trace Media, which owns Trace-TV, based in Paris, and acquired companies that have record labels and operate merchandising, touring and artist management businesses in Spain, Britain and Brazil.

The Register is reporting on rumors that Nokia will jump on the music download bandwagon.

Nokia is on the verge of launching its own iTunes-like music downloads service, if rumours are correct. Online reports suggest the handset vendor is to unveil the service later this month, alongside two new music-oriented handsets.

Speculation has it that Nokia will unveil the service on 29 August at the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London. The unnamed service could allow users to download songs, and potentially games, onto their PCs and then transfer them to their mobile phone or other music player.

Nokia already offers a podcasting capability on some of its phones and offering an iTunes competitor that works seemlessly with Nokia phones would be a good addition.

Youtube users will now be able to access and use EMI music videos legally. This is some great news for music video fans.

EMI, Google and Youtube have announced an agreement which will give YouTube users access to authorized videos and recordings from EMI Music artists, including those featured in user generated content.

YouTube users will now be able to enjoy music videos from EMI Music artists including David Bowie, Coldplay, The Decemberists, Fat Boy Slim, Gorillaz, Lily Allen, Norah Jones and YouTube Video Award winners, OK Go and Sick Puppies. EMI will make authorized video content available to YouTube for the first time.

EMI Music has agreed to work with YouTube and Google to develop business models in which the YouTube community will be able to access user generated content featuring EMI-owned and copyrighted audio and video works.

Apple has followed through with an earlier announcment about launching DRM free MP3s from EMI.

Apple announced the launch of iTunes Plus—DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums available on iTunes for the first time.

iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums.