May 7 - 7:55pm EDT   Peer-to-peer music service Qtrax may be more than three months late, but new reports have the company finally signing a deal with Universal Music Group. Back in January, the new company announced it would work with the four major labels to bring users free music, with ads as the sole source of revenue. The labels, comprised of EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner, promptly denied the claims. [full story]

May 6 - 10:50am EDT   The UK iTunes Store has added a variety of TV shows from NBC/Universal (iTunes link) in spite of their absence from iTunes in the US. Selection is currently limited, but incorporates seasons of Heroes, House, Eureka, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and The Incredible Hulk. Unlike the standard iTunes pricing model, notably, which is consistent across all shows, active shows at the UK store (such as Heroes) are being priced at £1.89 per episode, while defunct ones have a separate rate of only £1.19. [full story]

April 30 - 10:40am EDT   Nokia today rebuffed claims that its Comes With Music service will damage the company financially. The Finnish cellphone maker denies that the deal will force it to accept losses on music downloads and says instead that the service was created from the outset for profit rather than the unfair deal biased in favor of music labels, as suggested by earlier reports. [full story]

April 28 - 4:20pm EDT   The music site Project Playlist has been hit with a lawsuit filed by the record industry, Reuters reports. Some nine labels, including companies owned by Warner, EMI and Universal, have filed suit in the US District Court of Manhattan, accusing the site of numerous copyright infringements. The site lets users search for songs and create streaming playlists, in a much more targeted fashion than services such Pandora or Last.fm; the site does not, however, have a license for any of the content it offers, even though it makes money on advertising. [full story]

April 22 - 7:25am EDT   Sony BMG today said it would join Nokia's Comes With Music unlimited music service, adding support beyond the initial Universal Music Group catalog. The announcement confirms recent rumors of talks and will let anyone purchasing a Comes With Music-based phone download unlimited music over the course of a year-long subscription. At the end of the term, phone owners can keep any downloaded tracks and either pay for a Nokia Music Store subscription or buy music a la carte. [full story]

April 17 - 10:50am EDT   Universal Studios, at one time backing only the discontinued HD DVD high-definition movie format, will announce on Thursday it will start releasing all of its new movies on Blu-ray starting this summer. The studio was quick to switch camps once HD DVD's demise was final, but has not released any Blu-ray titles or made any announcements until today. The first Blu-ray title from Universal will be Doomsday, which will be released sometime this summer and, like all its movies, on the same day as the standard DVD of the movie. [full story]

April 8 - 1:20pm EDT   Slacker, the creator of its namesake Portable Radio Player, has announced a deal for the support of all four major record labels: Warner, Universal, EMI and Sony BMG. The Portable is an unusual "radio" device in that it does not stream live music, but rather syncs with the Slacker service via USB or Wi-Fi, and copies up to 40 "stations" for listening offline as well as on. As music plays listeners can rate their tracks, and ban ones they do not want to hear again. [full story]

April 3 - 12:40pm EDT   MySpace and three major record labels -- Warner, Universal and Sony BMG -- have confirmed earlier reports by announcing the creation of MySpace Music, a new online store. Visitors will have at least two options in visiting: streaming music for free, with the costs covered by advertising, or paid downloads, making MySpace the latest rival to outlets such as Amazon or Apple's iTunes Store. Also possible may be some form of subscription service, but this is still under consideration. No launch date has been announced. [full story]

April 3 - 11:00am EDT   MySpace's frequently rumored music download store could launch as early as today, according to a rumor put forward by CNET. The publication claims to know sources who say that an initial announcement is planned that will expand the site's currently hands-off music section into a service that offers a combination of downloads and streams. Mirroring past stories, the feature would allegedly let users either pay to download full MP3 songs and ringtones or else stream songs for free on the web. Users could also buy their concert tickets directly from the site. [full story]

April 3 - 9:30am EDT   iTunes for at least a short while has been single largest outlet for music sales in the US, according to new data collected by The NPD Group's MusicWatch Survey conducted in January. The digital store at the time accounted for 19 percent of all music bought in the country versus 15 percent for Wal-Mart's combined in-store and online sales. Best Buy managed 13 percent, while Amazon sat further back at 6 percent despite offering the second-largest digital store in the US. RealNetworks' Rhapsody was the second digital-only store in the market but commands just 1 percent of the US marketplace. [full story]

April 1 - 1:55pm EDT   Charismac Engineering has announced Discribe v6.0, a new version of the Mac OS X disc (including Blu-Ray) burning software has been completely rewritten from the ground up in Universal Binary Code. The new release has a new user interface that is more intuitive and easier to navigate. It also includes an extensive list of requested features from previous versions. Meanwhile, Primera Technology, a manufacturer of CD, DVD, and Blu-ray Disc duplication and printing equipment, announced an agreement with Charismac to include Discribev6.0 software in all Bravo-Series and XR-Series Disc Publishers. [full story]

March 28 - 5:00pm EDT   Warner Music Group has revealed that it's in the midst of developing an organization that it hopes will turn around mounting losses at traditional music labels. Headed by former Geffen label head Jim Griffin, the unnamed effort would take the concepts behind Universal's Total Music to a more label-independent format. Rather than send music to one label, customers of the service would see a fee for unlimited music downloads bundled into the cost of the Internet service that would be used for a general money pool; the money would then be distributed across all labels to compensate both themselves and the artists as they see fit. [full story]

March 24 - 2:20pm EDT   CardRaider 2.0.2 ($20) utility for recovering photos and movies from digital camera memory cards. Recovered images can be sent directly to iPhoto. It can even find photos and movies on damaged or reformatted media cards that don't show up in the Finder. In addition to JPEG files, CardRaider will detect and recover professional "raw" formats, as well as MPEG, AVI, and QuickTime Movie files.The new version adds support for recovering additional pro formats including Hasselblad H3D (3FR), Epson Raw (ERF), Leica Raw, and Mimiya Raw (MEF). It also fixes an issue with recovering some Kodak Raw (KDC) formats. [Download - 2MB] NetFinder 3.1 ($25) website and general file management and ... [full story]

March 19 - 3:35pm EDT   EMI is eager to join Nokia's controversial Comes With Music service, the music label said today in a press conference. The company has revealed that discussions are underway which would add EMI's catalog to the current offerings, which are limited to tracks from Universal. Without detailing the progress of talks, EMI's Finland head Wemppa Koivumaki said he hoped his firm's music would be in place for the official Comes With Music launch in the latter half of 2008. [full story]

March 5 - 8:35am EST   Facebook is investigating the possibility of its own music store, say reported insiders. While the social network recently launched its Music on Facebook service for following artists and buying their music through iTunes, the company is reportedly in talks with major labels to offer content of its own. While no aspects of the deal have been finalized, label officials reportedly say that a deal would most likely include free, ad-backed streaming audio similar to MySpace's profile pages but allow paid MP3 downloads usable on any operating system and portable player. [full story]