Music Ally

TechCrunch has a report – based on the obligatory unnamed “source at Google” – claiming that YouTube is doing more than 1.2 billion video streams every day. That’s way more than most current analyst estimates, although Google doesn’t publicly reveal such data.

“That pretty much means everyone on the internet, on average, is watching one YouTube video per day” says the tech blog. Based on estimates that YouTube has around 40% of the market for online video views, that would equate to around 80 billion total video streams on the internet every month. It ties in with a separate prediction from Cisco that by 2013, video will account for 90% of consumer internet traffic.

Anyway, 1.2 billion streams is pretty impressive for YouTube – that sound you can hear is furiously-scribbling pencils in PRS for Music’s accounts department…

This week has seen a revival in the spat between TechCrunch and Last.fm, over the former’s allegations that the latter shared user data with the RIAA following the leak of U2’s recent album. Now Last.fm’s parent company CBS has chimed in, once more slapping down the accusations.

“Both CBS and the RIAA have already stated quite clearly, for the record, that absolutely no individual user or listener information was supplied to the RIAA by Last.fm or any division of CBS Corporation in the past, nor do we plan to do so in the future,” says its statement.

“The story posted by the website was based on an unnamed tipster. No inquiry was made to CBS or Last.fm about the veracity of the anonymous source. Those who consult such blogs should be aware of the standard by which such postings are sourced and published.”

With TechCrunch having published a leaked email that it claims proves CBS did share data with the RIAA, this one could run and run.

TechCrunch is suggesting that Warner Music Group is hopping mad about its deal with MySpace Music in the US, because the deal “has no per song streaming cost, but includes a revenue share on advertising displayed when the song is played”.

In other words, the rival majors are getting sacks of loot for the billions of song streams on MySpace Music, and WMG isn’t.

We’re sceptical, to say the least – WMG isn’t in the habit of cutting over-generous deals for the likes of MySpace, surely? But TechCrunch says the label is already strapping on the knuckledusters for the negotiations when its deal is up for renewal.

We reported yesterday on the controversy that broke this weekend, following a claim on tech blog TechCrunch that Last.fm had handed over user data to the RIAA relating to the U2 album leak.

Having denied the story in several places, Last.fm founder Richard ones has now unleashed his rage on TechCrunch in the company’s own blog, with a post headlined “Techcrunch are full of sh*t” (we’ve added the asterisk).

He slates the “vicious and completely false rumour” – and it does seem that TechCrunch is on exceptionally thin ice, given that the original piece was based on a single-source tip that said “I heard from an irate friend who works at CBS that…”

If the story is indeed false, as it seems, Last.fm will surely take legal action.

MySpace Music is due to launch any day now, and leaked screenshots seemingly of its homepage and an artist page for the Jonas Brothers have been published on tech blog TechCrunch.

The homepage has a clean look, with a main artist hit, and featured playlists and videos. It certainly looks more stylish than the average MySpace profile – which is presumably the idea.

TechCrunch is keen to stress that the images “may be old mockups, or they may be photoshopped fakes”. But if genuine, they hint at the direction the fledgling service is taking. See the other shots by reading the original post.