The latest game of digital musical chairs at EMI Music leaves former *Google* CIO Douglas Merrill without a seat, former Second Life exec Cory Ondrejka as the top digital marketing exec—and digital no longer on its own. Merrill joined EMI a year ago as president of digital business, adding the…

As the post-credit bubble world adjusts to deal with pre-bubble deals, Terra Firma has written off half the value of its €2.6 billion (£2.3 billion) investment in music group EMI. The private equity giant revealed in its 2008 annual report that EMI accounts for most of a $1.71 billion (€1.36…

Seeqpod’s founders must feel like Mike Robertson about now. Just as EMI is suing the MP3.com founder for his Sideload site, the label and its Capitol imprint have now filed suit against Seeqpod for copyright infringement, VentureBeat writes. Warner already sued Seeqpod, which doesn’t host tracks but provides a search…

As the music biz tries to cope with a disappearing physical CD sales market, EMI appears to be taking some steps in the right direction. The company’s digital revenues rose to £102 million in the six months to September 30, a 38 percent increase from the previous half’s £74 million…

Another batch of changes from EMI and owner Terra Firma, but, in a statement, Terra Firma head Guy Hands described the new appointments as “the final part of the process of putting in place a new management team at EMI Music under Elio Leoni-Sceti and at EMI Music Publishing under…

Nevermind iTunes, EMI Music is going direct to fans with the surprise launch of a new EMI.com site featuring playlists, recommendations and, soon, the ability to purchase tracks from the label’s artists. The new EMI.com - currently in “beta”, just like EMI itself nowadays - is first and foremost a…

As Terra Firma’s new broom continues sweeping clean at EMI - with restructuring, job cuts and savings on those lavish artist luxuries - it’s clear the new leadership is thinking more radically. For one, it’s tapping former Coca-Cola strategic alliances head Rafael McDonnell, who launched the now mothballed Mycokemusic.com download…

You wouldn’t wish your enemies the job of trying to restructure and revive EMI at this point, but at least they are trying: Elio Leoni-Sceti, the new CEO of the troubled music label, will announce a restructuring of the company today in London, as part of the company’s first half…

EMI is planning a pre-holiday launch of a new music portal that will include the ability to buy downloads, according to the FT. We’ve confirmed that but a source familiar with the project says it is not an attempt to displace digital retailers like iTunes or *Amazon* or as some…

A bit of news you’re reading here first—EMI Music is bringing on Howard Handler as EVP/Head of Marketing for North America. Expect the announcement this morning. Based in New York, Handler will oversee all marketing function in U.S. and Canada; he’ll report to Sam van der Feltz, President of Global…

Record labels have to keep experimenting on new ways to market their products. Case in point: Capitol/EMI says it is partnering with newspaper publisher Gannett (NYSE: GCI) to offer free streams of the forthcoming Brian Wilson (ex-Beach Boys) album before it goes on sale. Starting Friday, That Lucky Old Sun…

Music start-up vet Mark Piibe is moving to the digital side at EMI as global head of digital business development for EMI Music. Effective immediately, Piibe, who had been SVP-Business Affairs for EMI Music North America since December, will oversee business development efforts; he remains based in New Yoirk and…

XM Satellite Radio (NSDQ: XMSR) has settled a lawsuit brought by EMI against the firm over the Pioneer Inno digital media player, which has live recording capabilities. This is the last of the four major record labels to settle the suit filed in 2006, and the terms were not disclosed.…

EMI Music is hiring Linden Lab co-founder and developer guru Cory Ondrejka to the new position of digital strategy SVP, in a move it says will “drive innovation around new revenue opportunities and build a world-class engineering team for the company”. After EMI Music lured Googler Douglas Merrill to be…

SpiralFrog, the ad-funded free music and video download site, has signed a distribution deal with UK-based label EMI, giving it access to the content of two of the four major US labels, reports AP. It signed a similar licensing agreement with Universal Music Group before it launched last September. More…

Another high profile Google (NSDQ: GOOG) departure: VP of Engineering Douglas Merrill has left the online giant and joined the embattled music label EMI as its president of its digital unit, apparently in an attempt to add more digital mojo at the company. The news was first reported here and…

paidContent has learned that News Corp (NYSE: NWS). is pursuing a music joint venture for MySpace—similar to Hulu, its video joint venture with NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), but with variations on the theme. The constant in both instances is content for equity. Under this scheme, MySpace would be the operator…

EMI has licensed Jamba to provide what the News Corp (NYSE: NWS). and Verisign-owned mobile entertainment JV says is the label’s first DRM-free repertoire in Europe to cross both mobile and the PC, we’ve learned. Though tracks may not appear online for another couple of months, the deal was signed…

The New York Daily News and EMI have cooked up a promo for this Sunday (Super Bowl) and Feb. 10 (Grammys): three free downloads for readers of each day’s NYDN. Each copy of the paper on those days will have an insert with a unique code that can be keyed…