Music Ally

Every morning, Music Ally subscribers are sent our daily email bulletin, offering a snapshot of news, analysts and rumours from the last 24 hours. We’re sharing today’s for free on this blog, to give an idea of what subscribers get in their inboxes by 9.30am GMT. If you’re interested in subscribing, you can sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Read on for today’s Bulletin, and do pass this link on to any colleagues or contacts who  you think would be interested too.

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The Wall Street Journal is the latest august publication to print a long list of leaked info on Apple’s upcoming tablet, gleaned from its sources within the company. But right at the end, there’s something just as juicy for the music industry.

“Apple has also been planning a revamp of its iTunes music service by creating a Web-based version of it that could launch as soon as June,” claims the article. “Tentatively called iTunes.com, the service would allow customers to buy music without going through the specialized iTunes program on computers and iPhones.”

It goes on to suggest that Apple plans to ramp up its affiliate partnerships with online radio services and review sites, populating them with ‘Buy’ buttons for the new store.

Meanwhile, MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson’s claim that Apple is also working on a cloud music storage service has been bolstered by a CNET report saying the very same thing: that Apple has been talking to the four major labels about its plans to let people store copies of their iTunes music libraries on Apple’s servers.

“The benefits to an iTunes user would include the ability to back up music and access songs off the Web from any Internet-connected device and conceivably from anywhere in the world,” suggests the article. It could launch this Spring, and might even be announced at next Wednesday’s tablet launch event.

MP3tunes boss Michael Robertson is stirring again, this time digging into Apple’s likely strategy for its iTunes Store in a guest post for tech blog TechCrunch.

“Leveraging their ubiquitous iTunes software Apple plans to upgrade their users almost overnight to a cloud music service in an ambitious move to beat Amazon and others to a cloud music service,” he writes, saying that the strategy is also designed to “sidestep new licenses from the major labels”.

He predicts that recently-acquired Lala will be crucial to this strategy, NOT because of its 10-cent song streaming rental model, but for its music locker technology. “An upcoming major revision of iTunes will copy each user’s catalog to the net making it available from any browser or net connected ipod/touch/tablet.”

What, you might think, does this mean for existing music locker companies like, well, MP3tunes?

In the fourth part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001 and part three on 2002 published earlier this week) we examine 2003: the year that US labels started legal actions against individuals and the year that the iTunes music store launched for the PC.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2003, as we reported it at the time.

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So Rage Against The Machine are going to deny X Factor winner Joe McElderry the Christmas Number One in the UK, are they? A Facebook campaign says yes, but massive discounts of the former single online suggest not.

Online download stores Tesco and Amazon are selling the MP3 of McElderry’s The Climb for £0.29 – undercutting iTunes’ price of £0.99. EDIT - as a commenter points out, the RATM single is also £0.29 on Amazon.

It’s part of a wider price war as Apple’s rivals try to seize market share in the run-up to Christmas by discounting – Tesco is also chopping the price of the Top 10 albums when bought digitally.

Interestingly, McElderry’s single isn’t streamable on Spotify, but is on we7. We wonder what the thought process is behind that decision.

UPDATE: It seems Rage Against The Machine are narrowly beating McElderry based on Sunday and Monday digital sales…

UK newspaper The Times has come up with a new spin on music giveaways. Tomorrow’s edition claims to be the first ever to give away a complete album on iTunes.

Its magazine supplement will have an iTunes card, allowing readers to download five tracks from the band’s new live album – which isn’t out until 26th October – and five of their classic hits (including Losing My Religion and Man On The Moon).

Newspapers have been keen to use music as a promotional tool in recent times, although more often with bundled CDs rather than digital downloads. The Times is launching a microsite too featuring band interviews. It’s part of a wider iTunes promotion – more free tracks from other artists will be given away with the paper over the course of next week.

The ongoing saga over whether Palm’s Pre smartphone can or can’t synchronise with iTunes has another chapter, with Palm having restored the feature in the new release of its webOS smartphone software. Apple has blocked the feature twice now in iTunes updates, with Palm finding a workaround each time. We sense if neither side gives up, this could be heading to the courts.

The talks between Eminem’s music publisher Eight Mile Style and Apple over their pending court battle broke down yesterday, meaning the case will kick off as planned today. “The case did not settle today and we are expecting to start trial first thing tomorrow morning,” said Eight Mile Style lawyer Howard Hertz.

The lawsuit focuses on Apple’s sale of 93 Eminem tracks on iTunes, which were licensed from Aftermath Records, which Eight Mile Style claims didn’t have the right to approve. It seems the publisher isn’t just trying to get a share of the profits Apple and Aftermath made from sales of the tracks, but even a slice of Apple’’s iPod sales that were “attributed to the 93 songs”.

Could be a tough one to prove, that latter point. How many people bought an iPod specifically to play Eminem songs on?

Apple is reportedly having last-minute talks with Eminem’s representatives in an effort to avoid a court battle over unauthorised sales of the rapper’s back catalogue on iTunes.

Today is the deadline for reaching a settlement, before the court case kicks off in Michigan tomorrow. Eminem’s publishing company Eight Mile Style claims that Apple has sold 93 tracks on iTunes without permission, making $2.5 million in revenues, while label Aftermath made a further $4 million.

The case follows an earlier lawsuit against UMG by Eminem’s production company FBT Productions over digital downloads and ringtones royalties – although UMG prevailed in that case. The new case isn’t the only lawsuit that could have big implications for digital sales, though. The Allman Brothers Band is taking UMG to court over a digital royalties dispute too.

UK design and usability agency ExperienceLab recently completed a piece of independent research into online music services, rating four of the key players in the UK for downloading, streaming, organising, discovering and sharing music.

Assistant consultant David Loughlin shared a topline summary with Music Ally, including some of ExperienceLab’s tips for best practice when running a music service. We thought you might find it of interest, so it’s reproduced below.

“ONLINE MUSIC SERVICES USER EXPERIENCE – AUGUST 2009

Introduction

The growth of online music services has changed the way that people discover, buy, organise and listen to music. The way that services support these activities plays a key role in their success. At ExperienceLab, we carry out experience design and usability research to help clients produce simple and satisfying products and services.

With Virgin, Sky and BT set to launch online music services in the coming months, we decided to take a look at the user experience of some of the key players in the UK market. This article presents a summary of what we found and offers some usability tips for designers and developers working in this competitive market.

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