50 Cent says he isn’t snorting coke, but some in the industry may think that he’s talking like he’s high. In an interview with P√•l Nordseth in Oslo, Fitty denied taking coke on live TV in Zagreb and then went on to talk about how file-sharing was inevitable and that the music industry needed to [...]

The December issue of Wired has a profile of Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris that reveals why Universal has seemed to be aimless in its reaction to the growth of Internet music. “There’s no one in the record industry that’s a technologist,” Morris explains. “That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the [...]

The music industry is working on an all-you-can-eat music model, Total Music, that is generating a lot of interest. The idea behind¬†Total Music¬†is that you’ll buy a portable music player or mobile phone¬†and either pay an inexpensive monthly fee¬†for access to unlimited music, or the cost will be hidden in either the purchase price for [...]

The music industry is questioning its relationship with Apple and is looking for alternative business models. According to a Businessweek report, a strong contender in their vision for the future of commercial music is the idea of turning music into an all-you-can-eat service, Total Music, that would cost about $5.00/month, but would be rolled into [...]

Madonna has reportedly joined other major musicians dumping their labels for non-traditional music deals. Madonna is close to signing a US $120 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation. In the deal, Madonna will receive a mix of cash and stock in exchange for allowing Live Nation to distribute three studio albums, promote concert tours, [...]

Nine Inch Nails announced at its site that it is going forward without a major-label contract: I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts [...]

Despite the tremendous popularity of legal music downloads, and the widespread availability of free legal music downloads, music piracy is at an all-time high, according to a report out today that urges the record industry to make legal buying easier and cheaper. Why? A growing band of consumers are unconcerned about being prosecuted for illegal downloads, according to Entertainment [...]

The UK’s Mail On Sunday has given away about three million copies of Prince’s new album, Planet Earth. The promotion has generated heated debate in the UK, because some consider the giveaway an insult to the music industry. The giveaway is a high-profile example of an established musician experimenting with new ways of getting their [...]

Cambridge University PhD candidate Rufus Pollock has published a paper that takes a look at the economics of copyrights, and concludes that the optimum length of copyrights is 14 years, a fraction of their current length. Pollock’s research (pdf) looks at the economic benefits of both copyrighted work and work that has entered the public [...]

Apple’s iTunes Music Store was the third-biggest music retailer in the U.S. in the first quarter, moving ahead of Amazon and Target, according to new research from the NPD Group. ITunes ranked behind Wal-Mart and Best Buy. NPD tabulated units sold, not revenue. Wal-Mart accounted for 15.8 percent of music units sold during the quarter, [...]