Bertelsmann, who all but exited out of music business when it sold its portion in Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG back to Sony last year, is back in it: it is ramping up its new-ish music rights/publishing venture BMG Rights Management in a deal with PE firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts &…

The latest ruling in a copyright case brought against Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and its YouTube subsidiary doesn’t move the needle much on the core issue but it means the bill should be lower if—and that’s still a big if—the company loses in court. The English Premier League started a class-action…

After years of uncertainty, so-called “pureplay” internet broadcasters finally have a copyright deal that should give them enough breathing room to stay in business. The agreement announced today between the record labels and the online radio stations offers an alternative to the higher royalty payments imposed in 2007 by the…

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and cofounder of HDNet, offers running commentary on Blog Maverick. This post, which follows an earlier look at Free versus Freely Distributed, is published here with his permission. The problem with companies who have built their business around free is that it is…

So how exactly does unlikely Pirate Bay bidder Global Gaming Factory X intend to profit from the scourge of the entertainment industry, and pay content owners? CEO Hans Pandeya, who offered SEK 60 million (£7.4 million) this week, tells paidContent:UK he wants to sell users’ unused hard disk space to…

Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song—and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track—but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public.

The RIAA has won a nearly two-year-old copyright infringement suit against news-sharing and communication network Usenet.com; the verdict comes on the heels of a similar win against file-sharer Jammie Thomas (to the tune of $1.92 million). In 2007, the RIAA accused Usenet (a precursor to social networks like Facebook and…

Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music Entertainment has taken a stake in indie digital music distribution service IODA. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Sony did say that it would integrate parts of IODA’s online music platform with RED, the independent music distribution company it acquired back in 1994. IODA boasts a…

»  Kindle pricing is getting a run for it money from eReader. [NY Times] »  College Humor has a new video out about Bing’s challenge to Google (NSDQ: GOOG). [CNET] »  In the latest numbers from SoundScan due out this week, Michael Jackson will have claimed eight out of the…

Not your typical targets for a music copyright infringement lawsuit: The big companies that run paid online music subscription services. But MCS Music America, which says it administers almost 45,000 tracks, is suing Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), basically saying that they left some seemingly…

Vibe magazine hit the deadpool today, but if Quincy Jones has his way, the music magazine he founded nearly two decades ago will thrive again—albeit online-only. Jones sold Vibe to Wicks Group in 2006; he told EbonyJet.com that he’d already begun the process of trying to buy it back. The…

Vibe magazine is the latest pub in the process of closing up shop, GlobalGrind reported. It’s not clear when the last issue will hit the stands or if the website will be preserved. Representatives for the mag were not available. The music and lifestyle pub, which focuses on R&B and…

Swedish publicly listed software company Global Gaming Factory X says it wants to buy The Pirate Bay SEK60 million ($7.8 million) and will begin compensating copyright ownersfor material its users find and download. GGF announced today said it will also buy P2P technology company Peerialism and plans “to launch new…

Michael Jackson is likely to posthumously rocket to various number one slots around the world—and digital music retailers could do a kind of business that would only be bettered by eventual digitization of The Beatles.

The XM Satellite unit of Sirius XM Radio (NSDQ: SIRI) decided to raise its $350 million debt sale to $525 million as it sought to meet unexpectedly strong demand from buyers. That sent the company’s share price up nearly 16 percent to 45 cents. The senior notes, which come due…

Another day, another major label legal challenge… Elio Leoni-Sceti’s EMI has filed a lawsuit against Florida-based music streaming site Grooveshark, as AllThingsD reports. The site currently offers tracks from all four majors and has escaped the attention of their lawyers, until the suit was filed in New York in May.…

Pop music news and gossip site Musictoob thinks it has found a way for some aggregators to get around accusations of stealing content. The site has launched a new tool that lets any blogger link to outside stories, which then show up under the blogger’s URL but are still hosted…

A month after writing off its entire investment in music social-networking site Imeem, Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) is increasing its stake in the company. AllThingsD reports that Warner is getting a bigger piece of the company in exchange for a new licensing deal in which Imeem will pay Warner…

With 95 percent of the world’s music downloads still estimated to be illegal, the world’s biggest music label is pushing the nuclear-option button. Universal, which has already been offering its catalog through all-you-can-eat DRM’ed services, is now offering the whole thing for MP3 download through an upcoming new unlimited-music package…