Music Ally

Earlier this year, P2P client LimeWire got a new feature that allowed people to share files with their Facebook friends. Well, it’s been slapped down by the social network, after initially asking LimeWire to make some changes to the way it worked.

“Unfortunately, this week we were contacted again… this time not with a change request, but with a notice that they are going to disable the feature,” blogs LimeWire’s Jason Herskowitz. “Rather than leave you with a broken LimeWire, we decided to disable the feature before they did so.”

It’s not the first time Facebook has acted not-so-friendly with file-sharers – earlier this year, it squashed a similar feature on The Pirate Bay.

Lime Wire has announced that it will be selling music from CD Baby’s roster of 240,000 independent artists in its LimeWire Store, after striking a deal with the digital distribution firm. That means Lime Wire now offers more than 3.5 million licensed tracks in its store, even if none of the majors have yet signed up. “CD Baby and LimeWire Store both champion independent artists and give them access to new customers and revenue opportunities, so it’s a perfect partnership, really.”

Ask any major label if they’re planning to sign a deal to distribute tracks through LimeWire’s legit digital music store, and they’ll probably say “I can’t go for that. No can do.” Hall and Oates, on the other hand…

Yes, the pop-soul duo’s back catalogue will now be sold on LimeWire’s store, alongside that of Miles Davis, Fatboy Slim, James Brown and !!!. It’s thanks to deals signed by LimeWire with indie labels Skint/Loaded, Alpha Pup, CAM and Mbop Digital, as it continues to try to make a success of the non-P2P side of its business.

By the way, if anyone can suggest a funnier lyrics-based potential major label quote based on a !!! song to replace our Hall and Oates opener, fire away…

Darknets. Remember the word, because it could be causing much grief in the music industry in the coming months and years.

It refers to private P2P networks where people can share music and other content or files with friends and family only – with no public entry point for, say, rights-holders trying to track illegal file-sharing.

Setting up a darknet has been quite techy, but the latest version of LimeWire apparently makes it simple even for non-geeks. So for all the anticipation in the industry around the verdict in the Pirate Bay trial, if darknets start to take off, battling online piracy will get significantly harder.

Record labels may be trying to find new business models in the digital age, but so are P2P applications and BitTorrent tracker sites.

TorrentAds is a UK-based startup looking to serve adverts on BitTorrent sites, promising “some of the highest CPMs in the industry”, and claiming to be “the world’s first torrent tracker related advertising network”.

News of its launch comes just weeks after US firm Brand Asset Digital unveiled its P2Pwords service, which aims to provide search-related advertising within P2P file-sharing networks like LimeWire.

(via Mashable)