Feargal Sharkey, the chief executive of UK Music, the music industry trade body, says that he is confident that the Digital Economy Bill will be passed before the general election.

Ditto Music launched their Digital Distribution Service in North America this morning at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. Ditto are giving away 1000 free iTunes releases to US artists.

BBC Radio 4 listeners heard programmes including The Archers interrupted by songs played on under-threat digital channel BBC 6 Music.

The Asian digital music market stands to pay big to anyone who can make the listeners pay -- something they've so far resisted.

A CULTURE OF PIRACY: Chinese music lovers are not accustomed to paying for digital tunes, but a couple of Stanford grads have a business model to change that.

In a last ditch attempt to arrest the terminal decline in CD sales, Universal Music has decided to make CD’s cheaper than digital downloads. According to AllThingsD The world’s biggest music label is pushing a plan to sell all its CDs at a retail price of $10 or less, Billboard reports. Given that all the big [...]

Universal Music Group, one of the "Big Four" major labels, is the first to react to the years-long decline in CD sales. CD sales are down 15.4% this year, a slightly slower decline than the two years prior but still a huge drop, and though digital sales are nearing the volume of physical sales, revenues are still plummeting. Retailers and consumers alike have clamored for lower prices on CDs ...

Good chance that if you're reading this story, you haven't bought a CD in a long time. Would you think about it if they got cheaper? That's what Universal Music Group is hoping. The world's biggest music label is pushing a plan to sell all of its CDs at a retail price of $10 or ...

Tickets are now available for Country in the City, a country music festival/fundraiser to benefit Pet Connection Programs Inc. in Marilla. The event will take place from 2:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Sat., May 1 at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center in downtown Buffalo. Tickets are $40 and are now available at all Tops stores in Western New York and at Tickets.com.

Book lover Phil Breidenbach is taking part in an experiment that may shape how patrons use the Shaler North Hills Library and perhaps other local libraries.  read more »

Over the past decade, the music industry launched hundreds of lawsuits against consumers in an attempt to halt illegal downloads of digital content. Although many in the industry have backed off from that approach, the challenge remains to find a business model that generates sufficient revenue for musicians and record label companies. Jim Griffin, working as an advisor to Warner Music Group, is ...

Industry Study: Europeans Download Euro10 Billion Worth Of Pirated Music, Films, Software

AUSTIN, TEXAS --- Some trend-spotters point to Daniel Ek, a 26-year-old Swedish technology enterpreneur, as the music industry's next Steve Jobs or Shawn Fanning.

PRS for Music, the music rights agency, has called for the music industry to create a market where online services can flourish in order for digital revenues to continue to offset the decline in physical sales.

With books following music and movies into the digital realm, Shasta Public Libraries is going with the data flow. The library system in September purchased its first batch of downloadable digital titles. Today the library offers 900 eBooks, audiobooks, videos and music files. And that number will grow, said Megan Owens, outreach coordinator.

AUSTIN -- The new "instant play anywhere" video game digital distribution platform, GameStreamer has commenced brand building at the uber trendy "SXSW" festival by funding a party and band showcase at East Austin's Shangri La venue on the music festival's opening day.

If you haven’t heard of Winait Technologies Limited, they are a technology company based in Shenzhen City, China that offers a variety of different gadgets including gift cameras, music players (MP3/MP4/MP5) and digital video camera. Their latest product is the Winait CD130BT, an ultra thin, portable digital camera that is 13.5mm thin. Other then this, [...]

Growth in digital music sales in 2009 offset the continuing decline in CD sales for the first time according to UK collection society PRS For Music. Digital revenues grew 73% (12.8m) to 30.4m in 2009 as platforms such as Spotify, MySpace Music, Amazon and iTunes expanded. That compared to an 8.7m drop in physical revenues through the year. Total revenues grew 2.6...

The Digital Living Network Alliance has inducted five new Promoter Members.  AT&T;, Dolby Laboratories, Qualcomm, Technicolor and Verizon have joined DLNA's 21 existing Promoter Members.  All maintain a shared vision of connecting the digital home with DLNA Certified® products to make the creation and sharing of photos, videos and music easier than ever before.

Proposal to close digital new-music station brings strong response, with further 624 complaints over Asian Network The BBC has received nearly 8,000 complaints about the decision to close its digital radio station BBC 6 Music. 6 Music, along with the BBC Asian Network, will stop broadcasting at the end of 2011 under proposals put forward by BBC director general Mark Thompson as part of his ...