Spotify

Black Keys drummer: Musicians can't trust Sean Parker

Sean Parker is an enemy of music artists.

That's according to Patrick Carney, drummer of the rock band The Black Keys. Carney offered his opinion of Parker during an interview with radio station WGRD.

"He's an ass----," Carney told the station. "That guy has $2 billion that he made from figuring out ways to steal royalties from artists, and that's the bottom line. You can't really trust anybody like that."

Parker is an investor in Spotify and Facebook, but his connection to Spotify is presumably only one part of why Carney finds … Read more

Spotify intros 12 third-party apps for your listening pleasure

Spotify's announcement late last year that it would be offering an application platform for developers seems to be paying off.

The streaming-music company announced today that there are 12 new apps available on its service from a host of companies, including Universal, Sony, Warner, and Def Jam.

For classical music fans, Spotify boasts a new app called Classify that allows users to find songs based on composers, eras, and moods. Def Jam Recordings has unveiled an application designed for hip-hop and R&B fans that will "give you new experiences in music discovery and curation." There'… Read more

Beats Electronics has a plan and it's much bigger than Mog

If Beats Electronics acquires Mog, the maker of the popular headphones has plans that go way beyond subscription music.

CNET broke the news three weeks ago that Mog, an also-ran subscription music service, was for sale and AllThingsD yesterday reported that Beats intends to acquire Mog, but the deal has yet to close.

A Mog spokesperson did not respond to an interview request. A Beats representative wasn't immediately available.

Sources close to Beats say managers intend to build a Web store that will sell music, headphones, and numerous other products. Apparently, the idea is to cash in on the … Read more

Parker, Fanning: Napster was still better than what we have now

AUSTIN, Texas--Despite the success of Spotify and its competitors, music sharing still hasn't caught up to what Napster offered before being neutered by the courts, that service's founders, Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, said today.

During a on-stage discussion at South by Southwest here, Parker and Fanning argued that though new technologies and licensing models finally allow music lovers to legally access and discover vast collections of songs online, even the best new services are still philosophically behind what Napster originally offered its users.

Parker, who appeared earlier this week alongside former U.S. vice president Al Gore … Read more

As expected, Turntable.fm licenses songs from major labels

Turntable.fm, the music-sharing service that took music fans by storm last summer, has signed licensing agreements with all four of the top recording companies.

Last week, CNET reported that the company was very near to becoming a licensed operation. Turntable.fm is a little bit Napster and a little bit online radio. Users can become DJs and share music within virtual "rooms."

Billy Chasen, the company's founder, made the announcement at the South by Southwest conference. According to a report in Billboard, Chasen gave some credit to the labels for making the deals.

"Our model … Read more

Spotify: Staggering music releases (like movies) won't work

The big film studios have made a pile of money by controlling where their movies are distributed and for how long.

A similar strategy has begun to attract supporters among big-name music acts. The idea is to debut music at Apple and Amazon and force subscription services such as Spotify and Rhapsody to the back of the line. According to the acts that have complained about subscription services, they are less profitable and also allegedly cannibalize iTunes sales.

Already, some acts, including Coldplay, have debuted tracks at iTunes and then later distributed them through subscription sites.

Critics say this will … Read more

Struggling music service Mog for sale

Mog, a subscription music service that competes against Spotify and Rhapsody, is for sale, CNET has learned.

Mog's representatives have contacted a varying range of companies about potential interest, according to numerous sources in the digital-music sector.

Marni Greenberg, a Mog spokeswoman, had little to say. "We're constantly speaking with companies and looking for the best opportunity for our business and our shareholders," Greenberg said. "We don't comment on the specifics of those conversations."

Founded in 2005, Mog is one of the smaller players in a market segment still trying to prove itself. … Read more

Stitcher first with Facebook Timeline news radio integration

Stitcher, an app that is essentially Pandora for news radio, says it is now the first service to tightly integrate such programming with Facebook's Timeline. The move could be the biggest mobile implementation of Timeline to date, the company says.

Stitcher, which gives iPhone and iPad users access to more than 6,000 on-demand news radio shows and podcasts, and which lets those users create custom stations around them, is launching its Timeline integration today, a step it says will help news junkies discover large numbers of new programs as they see, in real-tme, what their friends are listening … Read more

MySpace touts 1 million new users in last month

Are things looking up for MySpace? First Justin Timberlake invests, and then it announces a MySpace TV partnership with Panasonic. Now it's claiming 1 million new users in the last 30 days, which adds up to 40,000 new sign-ups daily.

The former social network giant come music streaming site announced yesterday that because of the launch of the MySpace Music Player, people are signing up at break-neck speed.

"The numbers tell an amazing story of strong momentum and dramatic change for MySpace," MySpace CEO Tim Vanderhook said in a statement, "and the 1 million-plus new … Read more