Music Ally

It’s a busy week for British digital music stores We7 and 7digital. We7 has announced that it’s signed EMI for its ad-supported streaming music service, with the label also making its MP3 catalogue available for users to purchase. Meanwhile, 7digital has started selling MP3s from Universal Music Group, making it one of the first European music stores to do so. It appears to be the start of a rollout across Europe though - German store Saturn has just started selling UMG MP3s too.

Universal Music in the UK and Ireland has announced a joint venture with Sky to launch an MP3 music store and a hybrid subscription & MP3 download service. It’s the first major licence deal by Universal for MP3s; and is another huge vote of confidence in the concept of download to own subscription services. (more…)

So can you sell promo albums on eBay or not? The finest legal minds on both sides of the Atlantic are figuring it out. So, in London a DJ and music critic has been arrested on suspicion of theft and money-laundering, after allegedly selling 150 pre-release albums on eBay including Kelly Rowland, Foals and Grand (more…)

Universal Music Group and mobile tech giant Qualcomm have announced a partnership to develop a load of direct to consumer mobile services in the US. The platform will not only help UMG to sell mobile content through artist mobile portals but it will also provide tools for the label to manage mobile campaigns.

Danish telco TDC has completed its set of major labels for its groundbreaking Play service, which offers unlimited music downloads to its mobile and fixed-line subscribers. Universal Music Group has signed up for the service, joining WMG, Sony BMG and EMI. Meanwhile, TDC says that the amount of music downloaded (more…)

Qtrax has finally signed a licensing deal with a major label, in the form of Universal Music Group. Don’t worry: UMG is actually quoted in the press release this time, so the deal does exist. At the same time, Qtrax has announced a deal with Universal Music Publishing Group. It’s not clear how soon UMG’s catalogue will be (more…)