Tag archive: emi

Things are not looking good for music streaming service Grooveshark. After getting hit with lawsuits from Universal Music, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment, EMI — the only company with whom Grooveshark actually had a licensing deal — has now filed suit against Escape Media Group, Grooveshark's parent company, claiming that Escape has failed to make a single royalty payment. While the lawsuit, filed in the New York State… Read More

A start-up called Free All Media says its offering free music downloads through Facebook—no monetary cost, legal, iPod compatible, high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Artists get paid; you get their music free, and even the Free All Media company supposedly turns a profit. Free is a nice word but usually its a marketing trapcard, so its only natural for you to be a little skeptical. There is always a catch, and in this case users get their free music… Read More

Online music service eMusic, at long last, has deals of some sort with all of the big four major music publishers: the company announced today that it has signed a deal with EMI that brings more than 15,000 albums from EMI artists like Radiohead, Roxy Music, Beastie Boys, and LCD Soundsystem to eMusic. “We are thrilled to further expand our music catalog and give members the ability to discover and own more music through our… Read More

It's no secret that the music industry is struggling to stay afloat after years of plummeting CD sales, taildragging failures to convert to digital media distribution, pervasive music piracy, and a diverse marketplace where many performers eschew labels for a DIY Internet-based business model. So someone would have to be crazy to invest serious money in a major music label, right? Billionaire Len Blavatnik is hoping that means… Read More

Back in 2009, online music market BlueBeat made headlines by offering Beatles songs for sale for prices as low as $0.25 a track—long before the Beatles finally succumbed to the lure of online music sales and let their music be sold via Apple's iTunes. A court order (followed by an injunction) took Beatles music off BlueBeat in short order, but the record labels concerned over BlueBeat's activities—EMI, Capital, and… Read More

The United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for a lawsuit to proceed against all of the “Big Four” music labels—Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony, and EMI—over conspiring to fix pricing for online music downloads at $0.70 cents a song back when the online music business was just getting started. The court's decision is actually one of inaction: the Supreme Court has declined to review a… Read More

Online music store eMusic has always struggled against the iTunes, Amazon MP3s, Napsters, and RealNetworks of the world by offering literally millions of tracks from independent musicians and music distributors at cut-rate prices via a monthly subscription service. And, while many commercial digital music stores have been swallowed by the sands of time (and misbegotten DRM technologies) eMusic successfully evaded the DRM nightmare and is still… Read More

British rock bank Pink Floyd has apparently won a court fight with record label EMI over selling individual tracks from its famous concept albums as individual downloads. The court order prevents EMI from selling individual tracks from the band's concept albums as digital singles; UK high court judge Andrew Morritt ruled that a clause in the band's contract with EMI stipulated that EMI was to preserve “the artistic integrity… Read More

U.S. District Judge John F. Walker has issued a preliminary injunction barring online music sites BlueBeat and BaseBeat from streaming or selling any tracks from EMI artists—and that includes the Beatles, along with popular acts like Coldplay. Record label EMI had filed suit against BlueBeat and its owner Hank Risan for streaming and selling tunes by the Beatles and other EMI artists without the labels' permission. While the vast majority… Read More

Online video site Hulu and music label EMI have announced a new partnership that will bring music and concert video from EMI artists to the popular service. The first offering under the deal will be a special channel dedicated to Norah Jones, who has a new album coming out this week. “We think Hulu is an excellent, high-quality environment and a great place to connect with fans,” said EMI Music North America's Ronn Werre, in a… Read More

A federal judge has ordered BlueBeat.com stop selling tracks from The Beatles and other EMI artists pending a hearing in EMI's copyright infringement lawsuit against the site and its parent company, Media Rights Technologies. EMI filed suit against BlueBeat earlier this week, claiming the company had no right to offer music from the Beatles and other EMI artists online—The Beatles in particular have famously withheld their… Read More

The music industry has never been averse to letting its lawyers do the talking, and today bring two more instances of lawsuits filed over the chaffing interface between the music industry and the digital world. Record label EMI is suing the online music distribution site BlueBeat.com for selling digital versions of Beatles' music online without authorization, and rock-pop band No Doubt has filed suit against Activision for using their… Read More

U.S. District Judge Howard Matz on Friday dismissed the 2007 suit in which Universal accused Veoh of supporting and inducing copyright infringement. Matz ruled that Veoh was taking reasonable steps to prevent and take down infringing videos uploaded by its users and that gave it protection from copyright suits in federal law. Veoh CEO Dmitry Shapiro called the decision “a great victory.” The company noted that with the ruling, it… Read More