Users won't be able to snag music from the best-known names in music, because none of the major music companies, like Vivendi Universal 's (nyse: V - news - people ) Universal Music Group or Warner Music Group (nyse: WMG - news - people ), are letting their stuff be used on the service.
By early January 2008, a few months after Amazon MP3 launched, the three other major labels--Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony BMG--dropped DRM.
Big music companies like Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony-BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group are already experiencing a sharp decline in sales of compact discs.
They have also requested financial information from Universal Music - the record label which released a Boomtown Rats greatest hits compilation and re-mastered versions of their six studio albums earlier this year.
Big music companies like Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony-BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group (nyse: WMG - news - people ) and EMI Group are already experiencing a sharp decline in sales of compact discs.
The music of Vivendi Universal and Sony Music will be available - for a fee - through the Yahoo website, the world's most widely used portal.
The interview with the press-shy founder of Island Records (the label that brought you Bob Marley, U2, Traffic and Cat Stevens and is now part of Vivendi Universal 's (nyse: V - news - people ) giant Universal Music Group) had more than a few uncomfortable pauses.
On the other hand, one might also want to consider that in September, Baidu's music accessibility got slammed by a quadumvirate of Warner Music Group, Vivendi Universal 's Universal Music Group, EMI Group and Sony BMG (half-owned by Sony), which all filed suits against the Chinese e-commerce firm (see: " Bronfman Leads Music Bigs In Baidu Piracy Lawsuit").
Any Universal license holder -- a music site that has been given permission to post song samples, for example -- can go to Loudeye and get the music delivered in any digital format, including Windows Media or QuickTime.
Andy Schuon , chief of Pressplay, the new music download service backed by Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people), EMI Group and Vivendi 's (nyse: V - news - people) Universal Music Group, says there's always been two kinds of artists, those who make albums as artistic statements, the Bruce Springsteens and U2s of the world, and those who produce a collection of songs because it has been the conventional way of marketing music.
America has Vevo, a music-video website linked to YouTube and owned in part by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.
And Sony BMG will join EMI, Universal Music Group and a pack of independent labels that sell so-called digital rights management-free music in Amazon MP3, the company's music store.
While many analysts feel Vivendi will most likely spin off its U.S.-based media assets, like Universal Music and film studios, others speculate the firm may well elect to unload its utility holdings.
Many still do that, but as hip-hop has become a universal language of popular music, Brazilian rappers are broadening their themes, becoming more abstract and incorporating foreign musical influences.
However, Spotify has now become the biggest source of income for some of the country's most popular artists, such as Stockholm-based House DJ Avicii who signed with Universal Music Sweden in August 2010 and has had five hits with the label.
That questionable practice led EMI (other-otc: EMIPY - news - people ), Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal Music to sue Baidu for copyright infringement in 2005, though a Beijing judge ruled last year that Baidu could legally link to copyrighted materials.
"For me, as an Englishman, EMI was the pre-eminent music company that I grew up with, " said Universal Music chairman and chief executive Lucian Grainge.
In mid-September it sealed a broad, though nonexclusive, agreement with Universal Music Group to encode the label's active U.S. catalog of 14, 000 albums and 30, 000 music videos.
But Filipi, a 20-something music rapper, told Forbes he had never heard of Universal Aide or its checkered past and was unaware of its connection with the 28.
Spotify is a music service that allows unlimited streaming of songs from the Big Four music labels, Sony, Warner Music, Universal Music Group and EMI, and also offers a premium, add-free service via subscription.
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It seems that if Vivendi lands the Universal studio and music business it is after, it will inherit a one-time writedown on studio assets, which will have the effect of boosting reported earnings in future years.
You may also play music from any audio device through the universal 3.5mm aux line-in jack.
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Universal, the world's biggest music company, is developing its own data-crunching tool, known as the Artist Portal.
Despite the potential for objections from lawmakers, Warner is the third-largest record company and would likely face less resistance than No. 1 Universal Music Group or No. 2 Sony over a bid for No. 4 EMI.
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Users won't be able to snag music from the best-known names in music, because none of the major music companies, like Vivendi Universal 's Universal Music Group or Warner Music Group, are letting their stuff be used on the service.
In March, music giants Universal, Warner and Sony, along with China's Gold Typhoon Entertainment, settled a hard-fought music-piracy law suit with Chinese Internet company Sohu that will see the record companies receive royalties and licensing fees.
The Library of Congress and the Universal Music Group (UMG) announced today the donation of more than 200, 000 historic master recordings-many long out-of-print or never released-to the Library's Recorded Sound Section, which has more than 3 million sound recordings in its collections.
My guess is the various owners of the intellectual property leaking onto the Internet will admit defeat and form an uber-licensing agency, like ASCAP, that will collect a monthly fee in exchange for nearly universal access to music, movies and other forms of entertainment.
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