universal music group

Google's YouTube, the entertainment industry's longtime "frenemy," is emerging as an important component of record label plans to adapt to consumers who are taking their music mobile.

A part of the streaming-music service that Google is aiming to launch this summer is a new YouTube product that would be designed for the desktop and mobile devices, according to a person familiar with the negotiations between Google and the major labels. Such a mobile offering, coupled with the powerful YouTube brand, could ignite the nascent streaming-music business, now led by Spotify for on-demand music and Pandora for … Read more

Turntable.fm, the service that allows users share music within virtual "rooms," is closing in on becoming a fully licensed service, CNET has learned.

A cross between Napster and radio, Turntable has already signed EMI to a recorded-music deal and is close to penning agreements with Universal Music Group and Sony, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the talks.

The music service is also still in talks with Warner Music Group. A spokesman for EMI declined to comment. Representatives from Turntable.fm and the other labels did not respond to interview requests.

A legal Turntable will potentially … Read more

Legal sparring between hosting site Megaupload and Universal Music Group has taken an interesting, if confounding, turn.

To summarize: Megaupload posted a promo video on YouTube a week ago featuring a raft of hip-hop stars. It was quickly removed after Universal Music Group (UMG) complained. Megaupload sued UMG on Monday and asked the court to bar UMG from blocking the distribution or display of the video. The video was back up on YouTube last night, but Megaupload vowed to continue the court case. (For the longer replay read "In SOPA's shadow, Megaupload strikes back against Universal.")

The … Read more

While Congress debates the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a real-world copyright dispute has been unraveling with a major music conglomerate flexing its muscle against an online content hosting company based in Hong Kong.

Megaupload posted a promo video for its online hosting and file transfer service on YouTube on Friday, and Universal Music Group quickly had it removed for alleged copyright violation. The video features Kanye West, Puff Daddy, Snoop Dogg, Jamie Foxx, Mary J. Blige, and others voicing, and even singing, their praise for the service. UMG claimed some of the artists had not consented to appearing … Read more

Who are the people making decisions at the big labels? Do they bear any resemblance, in appearance or attitude, to the people listening to the songs they sell?

Or do they look like those men in the photograph of Ray Charles, the one taken in 1965 when he was negotiating a new contract with ABC Records? There's Ray, laughing and laid back, the image of cool. But down the long conference-room table is a group that is almost comically uncool: graying, balding, sober men all wearing dark suits.

But that was a long time ago, and that's not … Read more

The music industry is supposed to be showing signs of renewed vigor, but just try finding signs of a turnaround in Warner Music Group's fourth-quarter earnings report.

Warner, home to such acts as Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, today reported a net loss of $103 million in the quarter ending September 30, compared with a $46 million loss in the same period a year ago. For the fiscal year ending the same day, the record label saw a $205 million loss.

Total revenue for the fourth quarter was down 7 percent to $707 million and for … Read more

Grooveshark deliberately set out to build a huge online following without paying for the music it streamed and shared in order to establish a stronger negotiating position with record labels, according to internal emails included in court records.

Earlier this month, Universal Music Group, the largest of the four top record companies, filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court against Escape Media Group, parent company of Grooveshark, a music service that enables users to share songs with other users. In the complaint, Universal Music accuses Grooveshark's leadership of copyright infringement and claims that managers uploaded pirated songs themselves.

Grooveshark … Read more

Grooveshark.com said today that a lawsuit accusing it of posting copyrighted music is based on a "gross mischaracterization of information."

The comments came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by Universal Music Group accusing the music-sharing site of posting more than 100,000 pirated songs to its site. The lawsuit identified executives at the company as leading the effort by personally posting thousands of copyrighted songs.

"Universal's claims rest almost entirely on an anonymous, blatantly false Internet blog comment and Universal's gross mischaracterization of information that Grooveshark itself provided to Universal," Marshall … Read more

In a copyright lawsuit filed today, Universal Music Group says it has obtained e-mails and other records that show Grooveshark's leaders led an effort to post more than 100,000 pirated songs onto the music service.

"[The business records of Escape Media Group, Grooveshark's parent company,] establish unequivocally," Universal's lawyers wrote in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, "that the sound recordings illegally copied by Escape's executives and employees, include thousands of well known sound recordings owned by UMG."

Grooveshark has long said that it is not liable … Read more