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Updated: 8:10 a.m. PDT

Is Apple rethinking its music strategy?

As part of a deal to offer devices featuring preprogrammed music, Apple would have to agree to share sales revenue from the devices with the labels, says a source close to the deal. Cutting the labels in on iPod or iPhone revenue would mark a sharp turn in Apple's strategy.

The deal being discussed by the labels and Apple calls for the company to license the music and also "kick in a piece of the device sales," said the source. The Apple device, which hasn'… Read more

SpiralFrog continues to dodge bullets.

The troubled ad-supported music service that has needed loans to keep operating was supposed to pay creditors $7 million by April 19. At least from the outside the situation looked bad because it was only three months ago that SpiralFrog needed a $2 million loan. Where would a start-up that's only been in business for six months get that kind of money?

Turns out, SpiralFrog's managers renegotiated the loan terms and the company now has a year to repay, according to a company spokeswoman.

So SpiralFrog keeps hopping, but for how much longer? … Read more

A digital rights group in Ireland condemned legal action taken by the major music labels against an Irish ISP.

Lobby group Digital Rights Ireland warned that attempts by the four largest music labels to hold ISPs accountable for copyright violations committed by users threatens privacy, and Ireland's reputation as an "Internet-friendly country," according to a story on Siliconrepublic.com.

"Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are intermediaries. They are not, in law, responsible for what Internet users do, any more than An Post is responsible for what individuals send in the mail," Digital Rights Ireland chairman, TJ … Read more

DivX, parent company of defunct video-sharing site Stage6, on Tuesday disclosed how it came to the decision to shutter the service rather than to sell.

"Potential copyright litigation" was one of management's top considerations leading up to the shuttering of Stage6, Dan Halvorson, DivX's chief financial officer, said during a conference call to announce the public company's fourth-quarter earnings. There was reason for concern. Turns out DivX, a maker of Internet-video technologies, had lost a bid to avoid fighting costly copyright suits just a few weeks before Stage6 was closed, records show.

Halvorson almost certainly … Read more

The company that owns the rights to a vast majority of The Beatles music catalog has questioned reports that the Fab Four have cut a deal with Steve Jobs.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the joint venture owned by Sony and singer Michael Jackson, has thrown cold water on newspaper stories out of London that The Beatles catalog would soon be available on iTunes. A spokeswoman for Sony/ATV Music Publishing told CNET News.com that the reports are "untrue."

Sony/ATV is a pretty good source. While EMI Group owns the recording rights to The Beatles catalog, Sony … Read more

How important is music to Google's YouTube.com? Out of the 12 all-time most viewed YouTube clips, nine are professionally made music videos. At least one rock video has been watched more than 75 million times on YouTube.

But do the performers in the videos share in the advertising revenue generated by their work?

Some top music managers have told CNET News.com that their clients haven't seen any money from the licensing deals the four largest music labels have signed with YouTube over the past 18 months. According to a statement from Google-owned YouTube, the Web site … Read more

Open Season Episode 12 was a very special session for us, as we got Fake Steve Jobs (aka "Dan Lyons") to join in. We spent a fair amount of time talking with Dan about his position on open source and why he gets so much flak for his coverage of the open-source community. Dan is hilarious and often insightful. It was a pleasure to have him on the podcast.

One of our best. Have a listen. (Also, the link provides my coconut cream pie recipe, which is definitely worth having.)

So what happened to all the settlement money that Napster and Kazaa were forced to pay the record labels?

That's the question some music artists are asking, according to a story that appeared Wednesday in The New York Post.

The Post quoted two talent managers who said that artists have yet to see their cut of the Napster-Kazaa settlements. This isn't pocket change we're talking here. Napster paid $270 million to settle its copyright infringement case and Kazaa forked over $100 million. Some on the talent side suspect the top four record companies of foot dragging or … Read more

Getting things done service The Class Connection is nowhere near as exciting as The French Connection, but potentially useful for students looking to organize the whirlwind of planning and information sharing that getting a modern day education entails. The service combines calendaring, messaging, flash cards, and social networking to help students manage their work and daily schedules alone or with others. The hope is that students can become better organized, and if everyone in the class uses it, they'll have a centralized place to share files, notes, and study materials with one another.

The most useful part of the … Read more