May 8 - 2:05pm EDT   Seeqpod has been providing clues that suggest it may have been acquired by Microsoft. After entering bankruptcy and suffering repeated site shutdowns, the music-playing search site has come back with a notice that it's undergoing a "metamorphosis" and links to Microsoft's Live Search site instead. Seeqpod chief Kasian Franks has previously acknowledged that his company was in later-stage talks with a major media firm and, when combined with the new front end change, may have acknowledged a completed deal. [full story]

April 7 - 11:20pm EDT   Amazon MP3 and Walmart weren't immune to pressure for variable song pricing and today started quietly charging higher prices for popular songs. In particular, about 10 of the top 100 songs on Amazon now meet the same $1.29 prices as similar tracks on iTunes, including recent Beyonce, Britney Spears and The Fray songs. Walmart's store, in turn, is now charging $1.24 per song for some titles and has a section dedicated to tracks at the higher price, most of which have been long-term hits rather than just recent releases. [full story]

March 30 - 11:35am EDT   report maintains that compared to Baidu, Google has not offered high quality legal music downloads, which hurt its popularity. Google will share its advertising revenue with the music labels to make downloads legal and keep artists happy. The brand-new service so far offers 350,000 tracks from Chinese and foreign artists, although this is expected to jump to 1.1 million songs over the next few months. [full story]

March 4 - 4:40pm EST   A new device and matching service from a startup could offer serious competition in online video to larger rivals like Apple and Netflix. ZillionTV's self-titled service will give users a core networking device, known as the Z-bar, that would have no local video storage of its own and would instead stream movies and TV shows online. Rather than following the similarly network-based Roku's model of tying in existing services, however, ZillionTV will offer its own service and let users either buy or rent per title as well as download free, ad-subsidized versions. Viewers will also choose their preferences for ads to provide more relevant content. [full story]

January 2 - 1:25pm EST   By Jeff Valvano Media tracking agency Nielsen SoundScan this week noted that physical album sales in the US have dropped a significant 20 percent between 2007 and 2008 to just 360.6 million copies. The drop marks the seventh decline in eight years and is credited partly to both a shift towards online-only music sales as well as illegal file trading. Nielsen warns in particular that the steepest drop came in the fall, when music labels normally depend on an increase due to holiday gifts. [full story]

December 29 - 3:05pm EST   A new video-sharing website may be in the works, as the four major music labels -- Universal, Warner, EMI and Sony BMG -- are in preliminary talks for creating their own web portal, according to a weekend Financial Times report. Early last week, news came of the four labels planning to band together to create a site devoted to music videos and related content. More recently word has leaked of the three options the labels are considering, due to unhappiness with the ad revenue derived from the Google-owned YouTube. Under consideration is a premium service on YouTube, a totally new site, or a partnership with Hulu, the film and TV site jointly owned by News Corp. and ... [full story]

December 22 - 2:45pm EST   The four major music labels are in the midst of negotiations that could result in a new, company-indendent service for music videos, an alleged source tipping Alley Insider says. EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner are said considering a joint venture that would put all their music videos in a central location. The effort would let them tighten their control over ads and potentially generate more revenue than YouTube as well as separate its content from amateur videos that happen to share similar music. [full story]

December 15 - 4:00pm EST   Hold-out major labels are split on what they want before allowing DRM-free tracks on the iTunes Store, anonymous sources claim. Although Apple CEO Steve Jobs has claimed to want DRM-free tracks on iTunes, only EMI and a host of independent labels have so far offered any material which can be copied without arbitrary restrictions. Apple benefits financially from DRM by forcing iTunes customers to use iPods for many tracks; this is not why DRM-free tracks have been slow in proliferating however, according to the sources. [full story]

November 26 - 3:45pm EST   Warner Music sub-label Atlantic Records today said it became the first major music company whose digital sales outpaced its conventional CDs. The group's sales of full songs, ringtones, and other content online now accounts for 51 percent of Atlantic's revenue. The label, which represents artists like Kid Rock and T.I., credits the change to spreading out where and how users can get music rather than depending heavily on a single source. [full story]

November 25 - 3:30pm EST   Apple may have already completed negotiations with the three major record labels not yet on iTunes Plus, reports suggest. Apple is only recently said to have begun talks with Warner, Universal and Sony BMG to open up its catalog for the DRM-free Plus service, which currently hosts EMI and a collection of independent labels. Although Plus tracks are popular, allowing unlimited backups and broader media player support, most major-label tracks on iTunes are locked to Apple's FairPlay DRM. [full story]

November 19 - 3:40pm EST   Apple is discussing deals with the three major music labels yet to sign on to iTunes Plus to remove the locks on their music as well, alleged sources tell CNET. Two reported contacts describe "preliminary" negotiations that would expand Apple's deal for music without copy protection beyond EMI and independents to include Sony, Warner and Universal. The talks are said to have been spread over the past several months for at least two labels and aren't certain to result in a favorable income. [full story]

October 21 - 3:20pm EDT   Lala today introduced a music service it claims will escape some of the limitations of conventional music stores. The self-titled service functions as a regular online service with unprotected MP3 songs downloadable at a minimum 89 cents per track but also grants customers immediate access to their collections over the web by scanning users' existing music collections in iTunes or other apps, including FairPlay-protected iTunes Store purchases. [full story]

September 30 - 2:05pm EDT   Several major studios plan to sue RealNetworks for what they believe is inherent copyright infringement in the company's RealDVD ripping software, according to a tip sent to the AP. Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner are all said to believe that the software is deliberately bypassing the CSS encryption on DVD movies and so violating their copyrights. They also plan a temporary injunction on just-begun sales of the app, the unnamed source indicates. [full story]

September 22 - 7:45am EDT   The major music labels and SanDisk today tried to revive physical music with slotMusic. The concept is aimed at music phone users who want quick access to music as though it were a CD, but also to users who prefer to have a physical backup of digital music: each 1GB microSD card comes with an album's worth of music in 320Kbps MP3 files, enabling the music to be played right away or transferred to any computer through a bundled USB adapter. The extra space allows special features such as videos and can be used as storage space of its own. [full story]

September 15 - 11:40am EDT   Several movie studios and hardware manufacturers have unwrapped plans to produce a universal approach to copy-protected video that would escape a dependence on any one format and would also loosen some restrictions on video. To be called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the initiative currently includes Fox, NBC Universal, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros. as well as Windows Media creator Microsoft, Comcast and hardware makers that include Cisco, Philips and Toshiba. Best Buy and Verisign are also involved. [full story]