Universal Music Group and Bolt have announced that they have reached an out-of-court settlement resolving the lawsuit brought by UMG against Bolt. UMG sued Bolt for copyright infringement in connection with the unauthorized use of UMG’s video and music content on the Bolt website. Universal sought damages of up to $150,000 for each video distributed [...]

Universal Music wants you to pay an iPod tax – a royalty fee that would be levied on every iPod sold. Universal recently cut a deal with Microsoft to get a cut of the sales of the Zune portable music player in exchange for closer ties with the label. The move raised concerns that it [...]

Owners of iPods and other portable media players are thieves, according to Universal Music CEO Doug Morris. “These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. “So it’s time to get paid for it.” Microsoft recently announced that the Zune’s purchase price includes a cut for [...]

MySpace announced today that it plans to screen user posts to block unauthorized copyrighted music audio recordings from being hosted on the site. MySpace will automatically screen audio recordings uploaded by community members to their profiles. The technology is designed to let MySpace identify copyrighted music for designated rights holders and let MySpace block the [...]

One more reason YouTube as you know it is dead: YouTube cut deals with the major music labels shortly before closing their deal with Google, giving the music industry ownership stakes in YouTube in exchange for video and music licensing deals. YouTube quietly cut deals with three of the four major RIAA member companies – [...]

It looks like the “wild west” days of video sharing may be over. YouTube as you know it is dead. The company plans to remove all videos that infringe on music industry copyrights, and is working with music companies to promote ad-supported distribution of music videos. Now the music industry is going after other video [...]

More evidence that YouTube as you know it is dead: YouTube and Universal Music Group (UMG) have announced an agreement that promises to remove videos from the site that use Universal music without authorization, and replace them with ad-supported content. Under the agreement, UMG will let YouTube users incorporate music from UMG’s recorded music catalog [...]

US satellite radio firm XM is being sued by the major record labels over the Inno, a device that lets users record satellite radio broadcasts to be listened to at a later time. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Inno, which stores music and divides it into tracks, infringes copyright. The [...]