warner music group

LOS ANGELES--In the days leading up to the launch tomorrow of Google Music, the company has continued to try and close licensing deals.

On Friday, CNET reported that Google had signed a licensing deal with Universal Music Group but had not signed Warner Music Group or Sony Music Entertainment, though those companies continued to negotiate.

All Things Digital reported last week that EMI had also penned an agreement.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Google will likely launch with Universal, EMI as sell as Sony. Music industry sources say that Google has labored right up to the finish … Read more

LOS ANGELES--A lot of news has leaked out about Google's launch of its upcoming music service but the company may yet offer a few surprises on Wednesday.

Google has invited journalists to a press event here on Wednesday and sources have told CNET that the company will launch Google Music then. But today Google sent a new invitation for a party it is throwing after the press event with the help apparently of T-Mobile.

The title of the invite reads "Experience the world of T-Mobile and Google."

The invite also says that the party will include live … Read more

With one foot out the door at Warner Music Group, Michael Nash doesn't try to sugarcoat the music industry's history of the past 10 years.

Nash has been the digital chief of Warner Music Group for four years but has been with the company for over 10. He started when Napster was just hitting the music scene--hitting it like a sledge hammer--and this month Nash announced he's calling it quits.

Nash said he came to Warner Music from the start-up community and joined because he knew the Internet would transform music. He wanted a role in changing the industry as it existed back then; the labels were built around the CD, the bundling of songs, and forcing fans to buy discs when they only wanted one or two tracks.

"That strategy was based on tricking people into buying an album that may not have been very good," Nash said in an interview with CNET last week. Consumer backlash to that was very much part of the digital revolution, Nash said.

He acknowledged that when it came to digital, the sector made mistakes as it tried to navigate "a perfect storm" of change. It's taken its toll on the labels' digital strategists, a fact that is reflected in the high turnover during the past four years. EMI for example went through four digital chiefs, including Douglas Merrill, a former Google exec, and Cory Ondrejka, co-founder of Linden Lab. … Read more

MetroPCS Communications announced today that subscribers of the company's $60-per-month Android phone rate plan can receive access to the Rhapsody Unlimited Music service, and some 12 million songs.

Only the service isn't unlimited, at least with regard to the music, due to the absence of one of the four major record labels. Warner Music Group, which has a reputation for being a tough negotiator with digital services, is the only major that didn't sign on to the MetroPCS deal. It's the third-largest of the record companies.

In the past, Warner pulled its music off YouTube during a contract dispute and reportedly was slow to license Spotify's U.S. service. Warner Music and Rhapsody representatives declined to comment about the negotiations.

The idea of bundling music into phone services has been around awhile. The top labels have looked for ways to achieve this but some of the earliest attempts, such as Nokia's "Comes With Music," were a bust.

In that case, consumers were asked to purchase phones that came preloaded with music. With MetroPCS, the music and the charges are tucked into the service and monthly bills.

MetroPCS, a wireless carrier, is known for offering prepaid phones, and a music deal like this should be attractive to the labels. It could help them reach an audience that includes people who aren't participating in the digital economy. It is believed that many MetroPCS subscribers don't own credit cards. … Read more

Spotify has signed an American distribution deal with Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label. The pact means that the streaming music company now has U.S. deals in place with three of the four largest labels, making it likely that the company will finally be able move across the Atlantic this summer.

The service still doesn't have a pact signed with Warner Music Group, but people familiar with discussions say the two sides are closer than they have been in the past, and are optimistic a deal will get done. It's possible that Spotify could … Read more

Fate smiled on Mark Gorton this week.

The founder of file-sharing company Lime Wire agreed on Thursday to pay $105 million to the Recording Industry Association of America to settle a 5-year-old copyright case. Sure, that's a lot, but consider that the settlement figure is equal to only 7 percent of the $1.4 billion the RIAA sought.

This is likely the final chapter for LimeWire, after 10 years in operation. The two sides agreed to settle a year to the day after U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood ruled that Gorton was liable for willful copyright infringement. Later, Wood ordered that the LimeWire peer-to-peer network be shut down. The financial agreement between Gorton and the labels came amid a jury trial to determine how much Gorton would have to pay in damages.

For fans of cheap, easy-to-obtain music, a few modest reasons for hope sprung up during the two-week-long damages trial.

Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music Group, one of the four largest record companies, said under oath that he supported the unbundling of music. You might be saying to yourself: "So what?" People have had access to unbundled music for a decade now, thanks to services like iTunes and, yes, LimeWire. All I can tell you is that there are plenty of decision makers at the labels who believe the industry won't recover until consumers are buying albums again. … Read more

This past Thursday I attended an informal "summit" hosted by Craig Kallman, Atlantic Records' CEO and Chairman, to learn more about the label's plans to start releasing high-resolution music. Kallman is passionate about improving the sound of music, and I was impressed by his candor about the industry's appalling track record and declining sound quality standards.

I think the widespread overuse of dynamic range compression is far more musically destructive than the low sampling rates used in formats like MP3. I fear that if the new formats are just higher-resolution versions of the dynamically compressed MP3 … Read more

NEW YORK--Lawyers representing the four largest music labels tried to convey a message in court here today: Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton was so determined to help people pirate songs that he disregarded copyright law, artists' rights, and even the Supreme Court.

And eventually, Gorton conceded.

The best that he could offer for an excuse was that he misread the law. "I was wrong," Gorton told the court. "I didn't think our behavior was inducing [copyright infringement]. I understand that a court has found otherwise."

In numerous exchanges with Glenn Pomerantz, the labels' lead attorney, … Read more

NEW YORK--Free music is here to stay and punishing Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton for that fact is unjust and won't change a thing, Gorton's lawyers said in court today.

A trial to determine the amount of damages Gorton must pay the top four record companies for infringing their copyrights got under way in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Gorton has a possible $1 billion judgment hanging over his head after the major music labels accused him in a 2006 copyright suit of encouraging music fans to use his company's LimeWire software to illegally swap music files.

Lime … Read more