WebProNews

Tag: UMG

  • Amazon Closing in on Deals With Major Music Labels

    Earlier this week the Amazon Cloud Player app was released for the iPhone. The app allows customers to stream or download music from their Amazon Cloud Drive, and functions as a normal audio player. Now it looks as if Amazon is looking to expand its service with deals involving the major U.S. record labels.

    According to CNET, Amazon has already hammered out agreements with UMG, EMI, and Sony. It will soon complete negotiations with Warner on a similar agreement.

    Why Amazon is just now reaching agreements with the record companies is anyone’s guess. The CNET article floats the idea that the company might be trying to match Apple’s iTunes Match service, which, for a subscription fee, will turn a user’s non-iTunes-bought music into a high quality version sitting in their iCloud drive – all without any uploading involved. Currently, Amazon Cloud Drive requires users to upload all of their music before it can be streamed. Amazon certainly has the music library to make an iTunes Match-like service possible.

    It’s also possible, though, that Amazon is planning a subscription service similar to Rhapsody or Spotify. The Amazon Cloud Player could be augmented to stream free music with ads, or to give users wide access to Amazon’s catalogue of music for a monthly subscription fee. Whatever Amazon chooses to do with its new music license deals, though, it’s clear that more options and content are headed to customers

  • MegaUpload Drops Lawsuit Against Universal Music

    With all this hoopla over MegaUpload’s current battle against multiple counts of copyright infringement among other serious charges, it’s easy to forget that MegaUpload at one time was bringing a lawsuit of its own against Universal Music Group. If you need a refresher, check out our previous coverage of the lawsuit.

    Unfortunately for MegaUpload, and fortunately for Universal Music Group, Kim Dotcom and company have bigger fish to fry. MegaUpload’s lawyers have decided to drop the case against Universal Music Group. The obvious reason being that they need to focus all of their legal attention on the current extradition fight and the charges brought against the company by the U.S.

    Just because they dropped the lawsuit for now, however, doesn’t mean that they’re going to keep it that way. MegaUpload attorney Ira Rothken has told TorrentFreak that the company will be “permitted to refile the case if it chooses to do so.”

    While MegaUpload may one day reopen its lawsuit against UMG, Dotcom and his lawyers need to focus on the upcoming case. The first step, according to MegaUpload, is filing a motion in response to the US indictment. Dotcom told TorrentFreak that their “upcoming court fillings will reveal the full nonsense dimension of the indictment.”

    Check out the MegaUpload Mega Song to relive those magical moments when all MegaUpload had to worry about was a lawsuit against UMG:

  • Exclusive: YouTube Responds to UMG vs. Megaupload

    This morning we brought you a story concerning the conflict between Megaupload and Universal Music Group. Last week Megaupload, which has been the target of the RIAA’s and MPAA’s ire for its perceived role in piracy, posted a video in which a number of big-name stars sang about their support for Megaupload. UMG flagged the video via YouTube’s automated content management system. When Megaupload protested and re-posted the video, UMG removed it again.

    Challenged to provide proof their right to have the video removed, UMG sent YouTube’s legal department a letter in which they effectively claimed that a special agreement with YouTube meant that they did not need to have a specific copyright claim on a video’s content in order to have it removed via the content management system.

    In the course of preparing this morning’s story I sent requests for comment to YouTube, and to Kelly Klaus, the lawyer for UMG who sent the letter. While no response from Mr. Klaus has been forthcoming, I just received a response from a YouTube spokesperson, who had this to say:

    Our partners do not have the right to take down videos from YT unless they own the rights to them or they are live performances controlled through exclusive agreements with their artists, which is why we reinstated it.

    There you have it. UMG did not have any exclusive agreement with YouTube that would allow them to remove the video.