News

Scrambling over tight profit margins, online music stores are merging or selling themselves off. Remember that the reason iTunes grabbed so much market share is because their focus is on selling hardware — the music is a break-even proposition for…

That’s the question independent music store owners have to ask themselves — and answer — in order to survive.

This is exactly the kind of article that lulls baby bands into believing that they can be transfigured by a single show. What happens at SXSW is carefully staged — bands are slotted to make their debuts as major label…

Due to some family obligations, I didn’t get to go to SXSW this year. I’m hoping to hit the NXNE baby-confab in Toronto, though. Anyway, the reports are starting to come in and it looks like the expense accounts still…

Koch and Artemis can turn a profit when a project moves 100,000 units. A major label now requires 1,000,000 units to get an album into the black. How many records do you know of that made their money back with…

The European Parliament adopted an overbroad Directive on Intellectual Property Enforcement that gives rightsholders powerful new enforcement tools to use against intellectual property infringers. EFF opposed the proposed Directive because it did not distinguish between unintentional, non-commercial infringement by consumers…

Canadian downloaders have been S.O.L. lately, as Apple’s iTunes, Napster 2.0, and Real’s Rhapsody service are only available to people with a U.S. billing address. Enter Puretracks, a Windows-only Canadian service. The soon-to-be-launched service will be available to all Web…

John Butler, despite asking not to be called a poster boy for independent music, has been shaking up the Australian charts with his first two albums. Number three hits shelves today, and it will be compelling to see if and…

More evidence that niche, independent record retailers have a future in our economy.

Get past the first page of sniping, and Pud has interesting commentary on the firings at Warner / Elektra / Atlantic.

Clint Black shows off his new baby, Equity Records.

As our outside-the-U.S. readers surely know, it’s not just tough to get bookings these days, it’s nearly impossible to get into the country to play gigs.