music downloads news stories on Newser

Google Planning Music Store

Rob Quinn — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:14:00 CDT

Google is pushing further into the entertainment business with an online music store that it aims to have up and running within weeks, sources tell the New York Times . Music industry execs say the MP3 store will probably be linked to Google's Music Beta cloud service. Google wants to have...

Judge Kills Off LimeWire

Rob Quinn — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:50:00 CDT

File-sharing site LimeWire has been effectively killed off by a court order. A federal judge has issued an injunction ordering the service to permanently disable its software and to end the sharing of unauthorized music files, the Wall Street Journal reports. The popular site was found liable for copyright infringement...

Watch an Ad, Get an MP3 Download: Genius or Goof?

Nick McMaster — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:34:57 CDT

A new site thinks it has the answer the music industry’s woes: Free All Music will allow users to download a high-quality mp3 with no copy restrictions in exchange for watching a 15-second video ad of their choosing. The site then takes a user’s handle and uses it to produce...

Dylan Album Out Early—if You've Got a Citi Card

Harry Kimball — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:20:08 CDT

Citibank rewards customers will have first dibs on Bob Dylan’s first-ever Christmas album. The lucky cardholders will be able to download Christmas in the Heart online during the week before Oct. 13, when it goes on sale to the general public. An exec tells Reuters the offer will have “high...

New Zune HD Scores, but Lags on Content

Jason Farago — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:36:11 CDT

Microsoft's Zune music player has long been the iPod's dowdy stepsister, but the new, fourth-generation Zune HD is finally "a portable media player that you can be proud to carry around," says Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal . The new device features a "stunningly vivid" touchscreen, impressive graphics, a...

Radiohead: No More Albums

Kevin Spak — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:52:20 CDT

Radiohead has recorded its last album, frontman Thom Yorke told the Believer in a recent interview. Instead, the band will focus on download-only singles and EPs. “None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again,” he said. Though the band believes there’s “still something...

Radiohead Stuns With Anthem for WWI Vet

Jason Farago — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:39:07 CDT

Radiohead made waves when they let fans download their last album for whatever price they wanted, yet a new online-only track has been released in the past week to far less fanfare. "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" commemorates the last British veteran of World War I, who died last month...

Minnesota Mom Fined $1.9M for Illegal Music Downloads

Rob Quinn — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:12:34 CDT

A Minnesota woman has been fined $80,000 per song for each of 24 music files she illegally downloaded, CNN reports. The court ordered Jammie Thomas to pay $1.92 million to the Recording Industry of America. Her original trial—America's first for music file-sharing—granted the RIAA just $220,...

Music Gang Busted in iTunes Royalties Scam

Rob Quinn — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:08:26 CDT

A group of ten British DJs have been arrested for allegedly using stolen credit cards to download their own music from iTunes and Amazon, the Times of London reports. The gang is believed to have made $300,000 in royalties from the $750,000 they spent buying 19 compilations they...