I got something in the mail last week I'd been wanting for years: a Too Much Joy royalty statement from Warner Brothers that finally included our digital earnings. Though our catalog has been out of print physically since the late-1990s, the three albums we released on Giant/WB have been available digitally for about five years. Yet the royalty statements I received every six months kept insisting we had zero income, and our unrecouped balance ($395,277.18!)* stubbornly remained the same.

Now, I don't ever expect that unrecouped balance to turn into a positive number, but since the band had been seeing thousands of dollars in digital royalties each year from IODA for the four indie albums we control ourselves, I figured five years' worth of digital income from our far more popular major label albums would at least make a small dent in the figure. Our IODA royalties during that time had totaled about $12,000 – not a princely sum, but enough to suggest that the total haul over the same period from our major label material should be at least that much, if not two to five times more. Even with the band receiving only a percentage of the major label take, getting our unrecouped balance below $375,000 seemed reasonable, and knocking it closer to -$350,000 wasn't out of the question.

So I was naively excited when I opened the envelope. And my answer was right there on the first page. In five years, our three albums earned us a grand total of… $62.47.

What the fuck?

I mean, we all know that major labels are supposed to be venal masters of hiding money from artists, but they're also supposed to be good at it, right? This figure wasn't insulting because it was so small, it was insulting because it was so stupid.

Why It Was So Stupid

Here's the thing: I work at Rhapsody. I know what we pay Warner Bros. for every stream and download, and I can look up exactly how many plays and downloads we've paid them for each TMJ tune that Warner controls. Moreover, Warner Bros. knows this, as my gig at Rhapsody is the only reason I was able to get them to add my digital royalties to my statement in the first place. For years I'd been pestering the label, but I hadn't gotten anywhere till I was on a panel with a reasonably big wig in Warner Music Group's business affairs team about a year ago

The panel took place at a legal conference, and focused on digital music and the crisis facing the record industry**. As you do at these things, the other panelists and I gathered for breakfast a couple hours before our session began, to discuss what topics we should address. Peter Jenner, who manages Billy Bragg and has been a needed gadfly for many years at events like these, wanted to discuss the little-understood fact that digital music services frequently pay labels advances in the tens of millions of dollars for access to their catalogs, and it's unclear how (or if) that money is ever shared with artists.

I agreed that was a big issue, but said I had more immediate and mundane concerns, such as the fact that Warner wouldn't even report my band's iTunes sales to me.

The business affairs guy (who I am calling "the business affairs guy" rather than naming because he did me a favor by finally getting the digital royalties added to my statement, and I am grateful for that and don't want this to sound like I'm attacking him personally, even though it's about to seem like I am) said that it was complicated connecting Warner's digital royalty payments to their existing accounting mechanisms, and that since my band was unrecouped they had "to take care of R.E.M. and the Red Hot Chili Peppers first."

That kind of pissed me off. On the one hand, yeah, my band's unrecouped and is unlikely ever to reach the point where Warner actually has to cut us a royalty check. On the other hand, though, they are contractually obligated to report what revenue they receive in our name, and, having helped build a database that tracks how much Rhapsody owes whom for what music gets played, I'm well aware of what is and isn't complicated about doing so. It's not something you have to build over and over again for each artist. It's something you build once. It takes a while, and it can be expensive, and sometimes you make honest mistakes, but it's not rocket science. Hell, it's not even algebra! It's just simple math.

I knew that each online service was reporting every download, and every play, for every track, to thousands of labels (more labels, I'm guessing, than Warner has artists to report to). And I also knew that IODA was able to tell me exactly how much money my band earned the previous month from Amazon ($11.05), Verizon (74 cents), Nokia (11 cents), MySpace (4 sad cents) and many more. I didn't understand why Warner wasn't reporting similar information back to my band – and if they weren't doing it for Too Much Joy, I assumed they weren't doing it for other artists.

To his credit, the business affairs guy told me he understood my point, and promised he'd pursue the matter internally on my behalf – which he did. It just took 13 months to get the results, which were (predictably, perhaps) ridiculous.

The sad thing is I don't even think Warner is deliberately trying to screw TMJ and the hundreds of other also-rans and almost-weres they've signed over the years. The reality is more boring, but also more depressing. Like I said, they don't actually owe us any money. But that's what's so weird about this, to me: they have the ability to tell the truth, and doing so won't cost them anything.

They just can't be bothered. They don't care, because they don't have to.

"$10,000 Is Nothing"

An interlude, here. Back in 1992, when TMJ was still a going concern and even the label thought maybe we'd join the hallowed company of recouped bands one day, Warner made a $10,000 accounting error on our statement (in their favor, naturally). When I caught this mistake, and brought it to the attention of someone with the power to correct it, he wasn't just befuddled by my anger – he laughed at it. "$10,000 is nothing!" he chuckled.

If you're like most people – especially people in unrecouped bands – "nothing" is not a word you ever use in conjunction with a figure like "$10,000," but he seemed oblivious to that. "It's a rounding error. It happens all the time. Why are you so worked up?"

These days I work for a reasonably large corporation myself, and, sadly, I understand exactly what the guy meant. When your revenues (and your expenses) are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, $10,000 mistakes are common, if undesirable.

I still think he was a jackass, though, and that sentence continues to haunt me. Because $10,000 might have been nothing to him, but it was clearly something to me. And his inability to take it seriously – to put himself in my place, just for the length of our phone call – suggested that people who care about $10,000 mistakes, and the principles of things, like, say, honoring contracts even when you don't have to, are the real idiots.

As you may have divined by this point, I am conflicted about whether I am actually being a petty jerk by pursuing this, or whether labels just thrive on making fools like me feel like petty jerks. People in the record industry are very good at making bands believe they deserve the hundreds of thousands (or sometimes millions) of dollars labels advance the musicians when they're first signed, and even better at convincing those same musicians it's the bands' fault when those advances aren't recouped (the last thing $10,000-Is-Nothing-Man yelled at me before he hung up was, "Too Much Joy never earned us shit!"*** as though that fact somehow negated their obligation to account honestly).

I don't want to live in $10,000-Is-Nothing-Man's world. But I do. We all do. We have no choice.

The Boring Reality

Back to my ridiculous Warner Bros. statement. As I flipped through its ten pages (seriously, it took ten pages to detail the $62.47 of income), I realized that Warner wasn't being evil, just careless and unconcerned – an impression I confirmed a few days later when I spoke to a guy in their Royalties and Licensing department I am going to call Danny.****

I asked Danny why there were no royalties at all listed from iTunes, and he said, "Huh. There are no domestic downloads on here at all. Only streams. And it has international downloads, but no international streams. I have no idea why." I asked Danny why the statement only seemed to list tracks from two of the three albums Warner had released – an entire album was missing. He said they could only report back what the digital services had provided to them, and the services must not have reported any activity for those other songs. When I suggested that seemed unlikely – that having every track from two albums listed by over a dozen different services, but zero tracks from a third album listed by any seemed more like an error on Warner's side, he said he'd look into it. As I asked more questions (Why do we get paid 50% of the income from all the tracks on one album, but only 35.7143% of the income from all the tracks on another? Why did 29 plays of a track on the late, lamented MusicMatch earn a total of 63 cents when 1,016 plays of the exact same track on MySpace earned only 23 cents?) he eventually got to the heart of the matter: "We don't normally do this for unrecouped bands," he said. "But, I was told you'd asked."

It's possible I'm projecting my own insecurities onto calm, patient Danny, but I'm pretty sure the subtext of that comment was the same thing I'd heard from $10,000-Is-Nothing-Man: all these figures were pointless, and I was kind of being a jerk by wasting their time asking about them. After all, they have the Red Hot Chili Peppers to deal with, and the label actually owes those guys money.

Danny may even be right. But there's another possibility – one I don't necessarily subscribe to, but one that could be avoided entirely by humoring pests like me. There's a theory that labels and publishers deliberately avoid creating the transparent accounting systems today's technology enables. Because accurately accounting to my silly little band would mean accurately accounting to the less silly bands that are recouped, and paying them more money as a result.

If that's true (and I emphasize the if, because it's equally possible that people everywhere, including major label accounting departments, are just dumb and lazy)*****, then there's more than my pride and principles on the line when I ask Danny in Royalties and Licensing to answer my many questions. I don't feel a burning need to make the Red Hot Chili Peppers any more money, but I wouldn't mind doing my small part to get us all out of the sad world $10,000-Is-Nothing-Man inhabits.

So I will keep asking, even though I sometimes feel like a petty jerk for doing so.

I do not share this information out of a Steve Albini-esque desire to rail against the major label system (he already wrote the definitive rant, which you can find here if you want even more figures, and enjoy having those figures bracketed with cursing and insults). I'm simply explaining why I'm not embarrassed that I "owe" Warner Bros. almost $400,000. They didn't make a lot of money off of Too Much Joy. But they didn't lose any, either. So whenever you hear some label flak claiming 98% of the bands they sign lose money for the company, substitute the phrase "just don't earn enough" for the word "lose."

** The whole conference took place at a semi-swank hotel on the island of St. Thomas, which is a funny place to gather to talk about how to save the music business, but that would be a whole different diatribe.

*** This same dynamic works in reverse – I interviewed the Butthole Surfers for Raygun magazine back in the 1990s, and Gibby Haynes described the odd feeling of visiting Capitol records' offices and hearing, "a bunch of people go, ‘Hey, man, be cool to these guys, they're a recouped band.' I heard that a bunch of times."

**** Again, I am avoiding using his real name because he returned my call promptly, and patiently answered my many questions, which is behavior I want to encourage, so I have no desire to lambaste him publicly.

***** Of course, these two possibilities are not mutually exclusive – it is also possible that labels are evil and avaricious AND dumb and lazy, at the same time.

Reprinted with permission from Too Much Joy.

What surprises me about these facts and figures—apart from iTunes skyrocketing again after the introduction of variable pricing—is the fact that CDs are not completely dead yet. They are clearly going down, but I had this mental image in which all of those round mirrors were destroyed, melting like Dali clocks in a desert of indifference. [Mint]

Basically, as you can see in the picture, you will see play buttons alongside different songs when you get search results. If you press play, a popup from MySpace (iLike) or Lala appears, letting you play the full song and giving you buttons to buy it or get more info. You will also have the chance to check out the band on other services/sites, including Pandora, iMeem and Rhapsody. (As you might imagine, there's no mention of iTunes in all of this.)

In essence, Google isn't playing the music at all. It's up to MySpace and Lala to manage the rights of the full-song playback business, and to serve up the content. For more info, check out the YouTube video or Google blog. They say they'll be rolling it out to US Google users over the next day, so be on the lookout. [Google]

Rhapsody claims its catalogue includes 8 million tracks, but unfortunately they only stream at 64kbps quality. [Real Networks | iTunes]

Update: Rhapsody has been approved. More information.

The screenshot is courtesy of a Gdgt hands-on, which explains that "unlike Spotify's yet-to-be-released iPhone app, Rhapsody's app lacks offline capability." No local storage until version 2.0, apparently. Bummer.

Also worth noting: the free app won't support Rhapsody Unlimited subscribers ($12 a month).

Even if the app is approved (that is, Apple doesn't balk at competition to iTunes on its own device), you kinda get the feeling it'll be a tough sell beyond existing subscribers until they get the local storage sorted. In the meantime, the company plans a limited time free-trial, and an Android version. From its blog:

"We are working diligently on an Android app and once we're done there, we plan to turn our sights on more mobile platform and carrier app stores"

[Real Networks Blog and Gdgt]

I think anyone reading this understands that the internet is the new trading post for artists, listeners, critics and salesmen. It's impossible to avoid some of the marketing campaigns carried out on MySpace and YouTube, but mostly music's move to the internet gives listeners more power to develop their own tastes, for better or for worse. You can turn to MP3 stores, recommendation services, internet radio and podcasts, MySpace—and even personal music blogs and forums that'll help you "sample" pirated music. Here's my take on each method of discovery and the relevance it has to listeners:

Recommendation Services

The Pandoras, Rhapsodys and Last.fms of the world are nice, because they do most of the discovery work for you, without pushing some corporate agenda on you behind the scenes (...ahem...Clear Channel). Even better, these services cater their first song selections around your initially revealed tastes, and as you give the software feedback as to what you like and don't like, they continue to refine and improve their artist recommendations. Zune's Mixview also provides a similar service, visually recommending similar artists and songs to those already in your library.

But my problem with a service like this is that you don't necessarily get music that's really new or groundbreaking. Sure, it might be new or exciting to the casual music fan, or just someone who spends all their time listening to these services, but for the true junkie—okay, maybe "music snob"—it's hard to really be wowed by any of these services. We've seen and heard most of it before.

MP3 Stores

Sometimes looking for new music to actually buy is a great way to discover new stuff. Whenever I stop through the legendary Amoeba Records in SF to buy actual, real CDs and vinyl, half my stack is full of stuff I'm completely unfamiliar with. The same holds true with MP3 stores.

Whether it's the monoliths like the iTunes and Amazon mp3 stores, or smaller music peddlers like Boomkat, Bleep, Beatport or Juno, most these stores not only let you click through and listen to all the 30-clips you can handle, but they have tons of recommendations in the sidebars, allowing you to explore similar artists and sounds. The only problem with this? If you don't want to buy all these tracks, hunting them down again is a drag. And in the case of some of the more obscure stores, you might not find the songs anywhere else.

Internet Radio and Podcasts
The beautiful thing about radio in its prime was that, top hits and genres-aside, you never knew what you were going to hear at any specific moment. That unpredictability has an addictive quality to it, and internet radio preserves that spirit to a degree. Though not as popular in the era of the iPod, I still tune in to internet radio stations when I'm feeling bored with my music collection.

Two of my personal favorites are KCRW out of LA, which sticks to indie and the non-top-40 pop hits, and Rinse FM out of London, which has a current rotation of DJs spinning Grime, Dubstep, House and whatever other electronic genres are currently bubbling over there. My favorite thing about these two stations are that they put the content above all else—playing music they like, and not necessarily music that will sell. (On perhaps the complete other end of the music spectrum, Wilson recommends similarly free-minded stations WFUV in New York, and KEXP in Seattle.)

The risk you run in your path of discovery, however, is that if your ears are at the mercy of the DJ you're listening to on internet radio, and if you don't like their taste, hard luck.

MySpace and Twitter

This is what I sort of view as the great democratic project in music. The complaint while the internet was in its infancy was that big media and big corporations had too much influence over what music made it, and what didn't. Obviously that's all changed, in large part to MySpace.

As a social media service at large, MySpace is an eyesore and an abomination. But as a place to discover new music, believe it or not, it's an invaluable goldmine. Big artists, small artists, fat artists, skinny artists—hell, your mom—all have the same basic framework at their dispersal to reach the masses when they're using MySpace. Here you can find your favorite established artists sneaking new tracks up on their page, you can find work from newer artists who have no official releases out, or you can stumble upon that completely random, brilliant band of 17-year-olds from Pawnee, Oklahoma throwing out avant-garde acid pop.

But the best part, is that you can click around their grid of friends, who most of the time are other musicians, and you can get lost in musical worlds you didn't know existed. I spent eight hours doing this one night last winter, and found enough new artists and styles that kept me interested for the rest of the year.

On the Twitter side, it's mostly just good for gathering names and news, but the fact that more musicians, writers and other people of interest are using the service to jot down thoughts means you get to see what they're into at any given moment. People ranging from The Root's ?uestlove, to The New Yorker's music writer Sasha Frere-Jones, to Diplo all twitter frequently about the new music they're digging at the time.

The Online Music Media

The big music magazines, like Rolling Stone and The Source, went from influential and respected in their prime for their great taste and writing, to walking punchlines later on for their willingness to make a buck at the cost of content. What this did was open the door for music blogs to jump in and give readers a new place to figure out what's new and good in the world of tunes.

Most of the bigger/more general music blogs (Pitchfork, Stereogum, Gorilla vs Bear) will never be the first ones to break a new artist, but they will be quick to tell you when known artists have new works available or coming out soon. Smaller, niche blogs (The Fader, Xlr8r, Valerie), however, will cultivate their sites like boutiques of taste, and always look for what's next in music, as opposed to what's now.

Filtering through sites like this takes a decent amount of work, however, and is for the dedicated music fan. Lesser enthusiasts need not apply.

"Sampling"

The Somali method is for the most hardcore of the hardcore. People who don't want to wait for the media to tell them what's what, and would rather just "sample" it for themselves, hit the internet hard and heavy for albums that leak weeks, sometimes months, ahead of their release.

"Sampling" these albums is not for the faint of heart. It takes a general sense of music knowledge, music news, ability to follow the right websites and some technical know how. Bittorrent (and once upon a time, Oink...RIP) is a hotbed for many music leaks as they hit, but since it's tough to mask your IP address if you're not in a private community, it's easier to "sample" the same album using RapidShare, MegaUpload or Mediafire. (In case you're wondering, avoid RapidShare at all costs, use Mediafire whenever possible...you'll save like 5 years of your life).

Generally the best place to "sample" these links to new album leaks are in the threads music-related forums. This could be a forum for an artist, a record label, a genre, or just music in general, but people always start an upload thread full of links for you to troll.

There are also blogs and sites that keep track of the latest leaks. Bolachas Gratis is probably the most famous of the bunch, famously hopping from blog service to blog service, finding a new home to post links to albums for you to "sample." Nodata.tv aims to do something similar, while there's another site, Did It Leak, that just lists albums it's seen floating around the internet. They even have a Twitter feed.

These days, once you have an album title, its as simple as visiting Google Blog Search, MAYBE typing an album name in the search bar in quotes, and MAYBE adding a 2009 and "+rar" or "+zip" to the search string (NO IDEA what those mean!). Search around for a few bit blogs that may have a link, and bam—new music to "sample".

This is undoubtedly the best method for pure discovery, because it lets you chase down the latest and greatest in music without being tainted by anyone else's opinion or tastes. But it also requires an obsessive, nerdish approach to music fandom that may have ramifications on your social life. Not to mention a total disregard for the economics of the music business, and for the needs of artists to be remunerated for their work. So, you know, proceed with caution.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

Besides adding Rhapsody music, an enhanced Flickr with "mosaic" photo viewing, and DLNA connectivity for streaming video, music and photos from computers and servers around the house—three pretty obvious moves—Moxi now gets distributed with the PlayOn client for Windows, which actively takes Netflix, Hulu, CBS and other high-quality on-demand web video streams, and steers them right to the set-top box.

For the time being, Moxi is condemned to be the "other" CableCard-savvy set-top box. Yeah, it's lightyears better than the boxes most cable operators willingly hand over to you, but TiVo has worked hard at both interface and expansion, mixing Netflix, Amazon VOD, Rhapsody and other services into its menu to make it that much more valuable. Moxi has taken the cue, and is piling on services too.

Rhapsody was an obvious addition, and just like everywhere else Rhapsody turns up, there's a free 30-day no-strings-attached no-credit-card trial, which is nice.

It's also nice that Digeo added DLNA. It's not quite the DLNA 1.5 that we talked about in reference to Windows 7 (remember Play To?), but it is good enough to serve up video and other files via a simple browser.

What surprised me was that Moxi didn't add any VOD service directly to the box. I thought Netflix was getting in bed with everybody, but it sounds like they're tied up with the big CE companies now, and Digeo doesn't make the cut. So, instead, Digeo starts sharing PlayOn, this Windows app (which usually costs $40) that's sort of in the XBMC/Boxee/Twonky family of software. Moxi owners get it free, and use it to browse Hulu, YouTube, CBS.com and plenty of other VOD services, even grabbing their own Netflix video choices too. Any video you select is carried over your home network to the Moxi box and your TV.

The good news is, we have a box now, and I intend to test all of this once the firmware update happens. But even now I am heartened that the newcomer to the BYO-set-top-box category is pushing ahead. Remember, it's $800 for the Moxi HD, and now only sold on Amazon or Moxi.com, but that includes service for as long as you run it. I'm not saying buy one, at least, not yet, but I do think they're finally putting out a product worthy of review.

Digeo® Releases Major Enhancements to Flagship Moxi® HD DVR

Moxi® Entertainment Experience Gets Even Better with PlayOn™ Internet Video; Rhapsody®
Music; Home Theater Controls; and Enhanced Photos, Internet Services and DLNA-Certified™
Home Networking

KIRKLAND, WA – April 09, 2009 – Digeo, Inc. today announced new features and enhancements to the
Moxi® High Definition Digital Video Recorder (HD DVR), further advancing the world's best DVR. The
Moxi HD DVR has new services available directly from the on-screen menu including Internet video from
YouTube, Netflix, Hulu™ and more streaming directly to the TV through MediaMall Technologies'
PlayOn™ media server software as well as the streaming digital music service from Rhapsody®. The
Moxi HD DVR also now includes eControls, a home automation feature that allows users to customize the
home theater experience by adjusting lighting and other Z-Wave supported products. The Flickr® online
photo service and MoxiNet Internet browser were also enhanced, and Moxi is now certified to support the
DLNA® standard for improved home networking.

These new services will be available automatically to customers with a Moxi HD DVR via a software
upgrade at no additional charge from Digeo.

Additionally, as part of this new functionality, the company is offering existing and new Moxi customers a
PlayOn® license key (value $39.99) free for a limited time, as well as a free 30-day Rhapsody trial (value:
$12.99).

"In the current economic climate, people are more focused on at-home entertainment options and on
getting the most out of their HD investments," said Greg Gudorf, CEO, Digeo. "The world's best HD DVR
now delivers even more valuable entertainment services for the best home entertainment experience."

The Moxi HD DVR is designed to appeal to the most demanding digital cable entertainment enthusiasts.
With its native HD interface and Emmy® award-winning Moxi Menu, dual tuners, and up to 75-hours of HD
recording space (up to 300 hours at standard definition, and expandable well beyond with an external
eSATA drive), the Moxi HD DVR makes it effortless for consumers to discover, experience and share high
definition media from their digital cable provider, PCs on the home network and the Internet.

Adding to an extensive list of advanced features and services, the enhancements announced today as
part of the Moxi HD DVR Spring 2009 software release include:

• PlayOn – This media server software currently provides access to Internet videos from YouTube,
Hulu, CBS, Netflix, CNN, ESPN and more through the Moxi HD DVR from a PC on the home
network. Video formats are automatically converted so Moxi users can watch Internet video
directly on their widescreen HDTV.

• Rhapsody® – The leading on-demand digital music service is now available through the Moxi HD
DVR, allowing users to easily listen to any one of more than 7 million songs from all the major
record labels and hundreds of smaller independent labels. Rhapsody delivers complete control
over the music experience, helping users to easily find and play full length tracks, build playlists of
favorites or listen to Rhapsody's professionally programmed genre & artist channels. Starting
today, Rhapsody and Digeo are bringing music without limits to every user of the Moxi HD DVR.

• Media Link – Certified to support the DLNA home networking standard, Media Link connects the
TV or home entertainment system to PCs on a home network. Moxi users can easily stream
digital movies, videos, music and photos from their PCs for viewing or listening from the comfort
of their home entertainment environment.

• eControls – Moxi users can now manage their home entertainment environment through the Moxi
menu to set the mood. Users can adjust most Z-Wave-certified products such as lighting (e.g.,
turning sets of lights on, off or dimming), control volume and power on AV devices, as well as
monitor IP baby-cams or outside cameras, all from the remote control.

• Mosaic – A new browsing feature for the Flickr® online photo service available through the Moxi
menu, Mosaic allows users to rapidly scroll up, down and across their photos as they are
displayed as mosaic tiles on the display.

• MoxiNet –Moxi registered users can now bookmark their favorite websites at Moxi.com and
browse them on their home entertainment display using the Moxi remote as a virtual mouse. This
expands upon MoxiNet's quick access to news, sports scores, movie times, weather and other
information from the Internet.

For more details, including details of the PlayOn license key offer, technical specifications and screen
images of the Moxi HD DVR expanded feature set, please visit: www.moxi.com. You can also follow Moxi
on Twitter at www.twitter.com/moxi_hd or on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/c9vuxf

About Digeo
Digeo, Inc., a Paul Allen-backed company, provides premium home entertainment products including
digital video recorders (DVR). The company's mission is to enable the best consumer experience in high-
definition entertainment for the connected home. The company's flagship product – the Moxi® HD DVR
with Emmy® award-winning menu and features – serves as the hub for whole-home distribution of digital
entertainment. The Moxi platform empowers consumers to discover, experience and share high definition
media, including TV, movies, music, games, photographs and video. The Moxi HD DVR is available
directly to consumers at moxi.com or via Amazon at www.amazon.com/electronics. Moxi products are
also available through cable providers, with nearly a half million units deployed to U.S. households to
date. Digeo continues to innovate and provide Moxi solutions to the cable and IPTV industry, including
the licensing of the Moxi platform and services to consumer electronics manufacturers and service
providers. To learn more, please visit www.digeo.com.

Both the Ibiza Rhapsody Mini and Ibiza Rhapsody Touch are equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities for content browsing and instant downloading. While they are still working on getting YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accessibility, the Mini and Touch are already set to go with Rhapsody, Flick, Audible, and Internet radio.

Although both MP3 players will be 3.5x2.0x0.4 inches—and will come in sizes ranging from 8GB-32GB—the Mini has a 2.2-inch color screen with a four way d-pad and supports MP3, AAC and WMA, while the Touch is equipped with a 2.8-inch touch screen, bluetooth connectivity, and is able to play MPEG-4, H.264, VC-1 and DiVX 3/4/5, and stream stereo audio.

Stay tuned as there is still no word on pricing or release date. [CNet]

So how do they get away with it? Well, Lala assumes that you're doing most of your listening over the web—as a result, the songs that cost a dime are only playable through a browser, like Rhapsody in the olden days. If you want the DRM-free MP3 for your portable player (or whatever), you're looking at a more typical 89 to 99-cent sticker price. All songs in the 6 million+ track catalog can be sampled once for free before you commit to purchasing them, and the 10 cents for a web purchase can be credited toward your MP3 purchase, so it's not money lost.

If you listen to most of your music sitting at the computer, and have qualms about stealing it, Lala may very well be a good way to go. It's like a soup made up of the best components of other online music services such as iTunes, Rhapsody, Pandora, and Last.fm. The site is appealing, the music recommendation engine is good, and there's some value in there. If you're the type of person who would add just one or two new songs per day to your personal playlist, this kind of a la carte pay system is a lot cheaper and more practical than Rhapsody. You can build up a nice collection for a few dollars a month, and you don't keep paying after you've amassed all the music you need.

Finally, web browsers and internet connectivity is becoming, if not already, the norm in smartphones, I mean "coms", and Lala plans to expand to meet this market. They already have an iPhone app in the approval process, which will play recommended songs and hopefully soon, your web library too. An app that acts like Simplify and Pandora together? It could be a real winner, but we'll reserve judgment till we see it in action. [Lala]

PALO ALTO, Calif., October 21, 2008 – Lala is unveiling the first and only free service to instantly provide anywhere Web access to an existing MP3 music library such as iTunes. Replacing the outdated approach of uploading MP3 files from a PC, Lala introduces a licensed technology to instantly match songs from consumers’ personal music library with the Web-based catalog on lala.com.

Adding new music to a collection is easier and less expensive than ever. Sample any full song or complete album for free. Add songs to a Web collection for only 10 cents, and buy DRM-free MP3 downloads for as low as an additional 79 cents.

“We live our lives in a browser, whether it’s emailing, watching television shows or using Facebook” said Geoff Ralston, CEO of Lala. “When I launched Yahoo! Mail few thought hundreds of millions would depend on Web email. My music belongs online in the same way. Will there be anything without a browser in 5 years?”

Microsoft Explorer, FireFox, and Safari browsers on both Windows and Mac OS are supported.

Major and Independent Labels Support
All four major labels including EMI Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group and publishers have licensed Lala with partnership agreements to stream and sell music online.

And unlike ad-supported music sites, Lala has garnered support from over 170,000 independent labels and distributors.

"We thank Lala for their support of A2IM and the independent music community and congratulate them on the launch of their new service which includes tens of thousands of independent artists, labels, aggregators and distributors," said Rich Bengloff, President of The American Association For Independent Music (A2IM). "As the primary advocacy group for the independent music community, we also applaud Lala for recognizing the value of independent labels and artists to their business and providing inclusion to the independent community in their launch."

The Most Affordable Music on the Web
Lala offers consumers the easiest, most affordable way to buy music on the Web. Lala’s catalog includes over 6 million songs which users can play once for free before buying. For as little as 10 cents, users can buy a Websong, a new product that gives users the ability to play as often as they choose from their web collection. The Websong fee can be applied towards the purchase of the DRM-free MP3 version of the same track. MP3s are priced from 89 cents or 79 cents with a prior web song purchase.

Unique Features of lala.com
· Completely advertising free service
· First and only fully licensed service for free Web hosting of a personal music library
· Instant matching of MP3s and iTunes Fairplay songs to the Web without uploading
· Fully featured web-application in a browser with speedy look-ahead search, drag and drop playlist creation, and instant, continuous music streaming
· 6 million and growing song catalog
· Free sampling of the entire catalog as songs or albums
· Websongs available for purchase at 10 cents or less
· DRM-free MP3s for additional price of 79 cents
· Support of popular Web browsers including Windows Explorer, Firefox, and Safari
· Support for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS
· Catalog of all four major labels and publishers
· Catalog of 170,000 independent labels

Me being an all-you-can-eat hater (not of the buffets, of course) does come from the somewhat hypocritical position of someone who, ahem, occasionally pirates music. And I don't think I'm alone here; once we all discovered you can find an instant high-speed download link to just about any album after less than five minutes of Googling with almost no exceptions, it's hard not to succumb. With a music subscription you can at least pretend like you're supporting the artists you love, but in the end, your $20 a month is far less potent than buying the records you love on vinyl or a T-shirt straight from the band, or going to a show and bringing all your friends.

Also, I use iPods. There isn't an elegant all-you-can-eat solution there yet, but an unlimited iTunes subscription would change the scenario. And if it was for life, like some of the rumors have mentioned, well, we've got a tough decision on our hands.

So today's question is an epic three-parter (this has been on my mind for a while). First:

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

For those in the "hell no" category:

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And finally:

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five million songs in your pocket – every one is yours to DISCOVER, play and enjoy

Verizon Wireless Teams Up with Rhapsody to Enhance the Leading Mobile Music Service with Unlimited Subscription Music for $15 a Month and the Simplicity of Digital Rights Management-Free Songs

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and SEATTLE – Mobile music enters a new era today as Verizon Wireless and Rhapsody®, the digital music service from RealNetworks® (Nasdaq:RNWK) and MTV Networks, launch V CAST Music with Rhapsody. Combining Verizon Wireless’ world-class, over-the-air mobile music service with Rhapsody’s leading desktop solution, V CAST Music with Rhapsody delivers unlimited monthly access to music on up to three Rhapsody-compatible mobile phones and players and online on multiple PCs and web browsers, for less than the cost of a single CD. In addition, customers who purchase music over-the-air are able to download the master copy of the songs or albums to their PCs free of digital rights management (DRM) software that restricts how and where music can be played.

With V CAST Music with Rhapsody, Verizon Wireless customers are still able to purchase songs over-the-air for $1.99 and get two copies of the song: the first for their phones, the second for their PCs in the DRM-free MP3 format. When customers download the V CAST Music with Rhapsody Software to their PCs and sign up for the monthly subscription, they have the ultimate music management service, including:

o Unlimited subscription syncing with access to more than five million songs







o Creating and accessing playlists, viewing playlists of other users, including celebrities







o Burning, importing and converting CDs to play anywhere







o Managing an existing digital music collection for free and syncing it to their mobile phones







o Buying non-protected MP3s of songs on the PC for 99 cents per song







o Buying songs on the phone, over-the-air – get two copies of the song for just $1.99 (one is over-the-air, the second master copy is the MP3 file customers download onto their PCs)

By subscribing to V CAST Music with Rhapsody, customers can discover new music from millions of songs, without breaking the bank. Whether a hard core music fan or a casual listener, customers of all music appetites will love the flexibility that 5 million songs give them to discover new music, listen to old favorites and find just the right song to suit their mood.

While Verizon Wireless customers continue to have the ability to get their favorite music while on-the-go via full song over-the-air downloads, ringtones and ringback tones, V CAST Music with Rhapsody also provides them with an award-winning desktop music application, allowing them to sync their favorite music quickly and easily, directly to their mobile phones. Now music lovers will be able to manage their collections with the most comprehensive music management tool and take their music with them anywhere.

John Harrobin, senior vice president of digital media and marketing for Verizon, said, “V CAST Music with Rhapsody fulfills Verizon’s promise to deliver the best mobile experience to our customers. Now, music fans can not only get the benefit of immediate access to music over-the-air, but also – in partnership with Rhapsody – customers can seamlessly integrate the leading mobile music service, available on a choice of devices they carry with them everyday, with the ultimate desktop experience.”

Rob Williams, senior vice president of music products for RealNetworks, noted, “Working with Verizon Wireless, we are able to extend the reach of the award-winning Rhapsody service to millions of mobile phones. V CAST Music with Rhapsody gives mobile phone users the best experience of any music service on the market while also giving them access to unlimited music, whether at home or on-the-go.”

Verizon Wireless customers who simply want to manage or buy music can download the V CAST Music with Rhapsody software for free at www.verizonwireless.com/music. Customers interested in a subscription may sign up for $14.99 monthly subscription online or by visiting a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, including those in Circuit City, or by calling Customer Service at 1-800-2-JOIN-IN.

V CAST Music with Rhapsody will be available on the marquee V CAST Music with Rhapsody device, the Chocolate 3 by LG, when the phone becomes available in July; the service is also available today on select phones, including the LG Decoy™ and LG Dare; MOTO™ W755; Samsung SCH-u550, Samsung Glyde™ and Samsung Juke. Customers using the MOTORIZR Z6tv, MOTORAZR² V9m or LG VX8700 may bring their phones into a Verizon Wireless Communications Store to receive a free software upgrade on their phones to access the service.

For more information about Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.

Falcone was particularly excited about the Squeeze network, which lets you manage all your music online, and says that because of the open-source and Linux-friendly nature of Squeeze, the "tweaker or hacker type" will have lots of fun.

In the written portion of the review, Falcone mentioned that "it lacks the iPod's speed-sensitive ability to quickly jump up and down through long lists," something that scares me a bit because I have lots of music and very little patience. Also in the prose, Sonos is mentioned as an expensive rival good for people who want to fill five or more rooms with sound, or people who already own Sonos.

In the end, Falcone says he "couldn't be more pleased with it," which is good news for those of us unwilling to start at $1,000 for a wireless audio system, and bad news for the good people over at Sonos. Sorry dudes! [CNet]

RHAPSODY AND YAHOO! ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP IN DIGITAL MUSIC

Yahoo! to Exclusively Offer and Promote Rhapsody for On-Demand Music Services

SUNNYVALE, CA AND SEATTLE - February 4, 2008 - Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Rhapsody® America, the award winning digital music service of RealNetworks® (RNWK) and Viacom's (NYSE:VIA and VIA.B) MTV Networks, today announced a broad strategic relationship in digital music. Rhapsody will be the exclusive on-demand music service for Yahoo!, replacing Yahoo! Music Unlimited. Yahoo! Music and Rhapsody also intend to collaborate on other digital music services such as music downloads. The partnership introduces Rhapsody's award-winning subscription music service to the largest online music audience through Yahoo! Music and reinforces Yahoo!'s focus on providing users with a destination to easily access the best music services and content from across the web.

In the coming months, Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers will be migrated to Rhapsody's digital music service through a simple process that will convert Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers' music libraries to Rhapsody. Current Yahoo! Music subscribers will have the opportunity to maintain their existing pricing tiers for a limited time period after migration to the Rhapsody service. Additional details will be communicated to Yahoo! Music subscribers closer to the date when account migration begins.

"By partnering with Yahoo!, we are connecting Rhapsody's 'jukebox in the sky' with one of the biggest music audiences on the web," said Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of RealNetworks. "Soon, tens of millions of Yahoo users will be able to access their favorite music through Rhapsody - wherever they go, whenever they want it."

"This agreement allows Yahoo! to continue its focus on being the Internet's leading starting point by creating an indispensable music experience that will drive music fans to Yahoo! first on their path to music discovery," said Scott Moore, Senior Vice President and Head of Media, Yahoo!.

The partnership coincides with an announcement by Yahoo! that it has acquired FoxyTunes, the company that developed a popular toolbar plug-in that enables users to control more than 30 desktop and Web-based music players. FoxyTunes also allows users to easily find lyrics, videos, bios and more, based on what is currently playing in a user's media player. By giving Yahoo! users an easy and agnostic tool with which to control and play music, FoxyTunes' functionality across multiple music sources and services also furthers Yahoo!'s goal to be more open. To read more about this announcement, please visit Yahoo!'s corporate blog at yodel.yahoo.com.

"Our partnership with Rhapsody, the acquisition of FoxyTunes and the release of the web-based Yahoo! Media Player moves Yahoo! Music closer to our goal of enabling users to play all of the music on the Web," said Ian Rogers, Vice President of Video and Media Applications, Yahoo!. "But, it doesn't end there, Yahoo! Music will continue to innovate and forge new ways to marry music content with the rich content of the Internet."

"Rhapsody connects fans with more music, in more ways and through more devices than any other on-demand music service," said Neil Smith, Vice President of Marketing for Rhapsody America. "As an unlimited access, on-demand service, Rhapsody is a perfect complement to Yahoo!'s vibrant Yahoo!Music site."

The Duet is platform friendly, running on Macs, PCs and Linux machines and handling a buttload of non-DRM file formats, including Apple Lossless, FLAC, WMA Lossless as well as MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP2, MusePack and WMA. There's no telling yet how well the Duet can organize all of your music, and if it can do the Sonos trick of playing the same song throughout the house with no delay. Still, it's clear that this is a direct attack, with the Duet packing a Sonos-like third-party music supply from Rhapsody and Pandora.

Fact Sheet Plus More Pics:

Logitech® Squeezebox™ Duet Network Music Player
Listen to the music you love in any room in your home
Shipping: January 2008
Price: $399.99 (Controller and Receiver)1 Available at: www.logitech.com

Product Description
With the Logitech Squeezebox Duet Network Music System, music lovers can listen to digital
music on the home-entertainment system in their living room, the stereo system in their bedroom,
even on the mini-system in their kitchen - anywhere they have audio gear. And control it all from
the palm of their hand. The Squeezebox Duet offers an innovative controller with a full-color LCD
screen and compact receiver, enabling people to wirelessly browse, select and play all their PC
music on their existing stereo systems.

Key Features
o Multi-room controller with 2.4-inch color LCD screen
o Convenient interface includes scroll wheel, familiar menus, intuitive buttons
o Controller displays song titles, album art, personalized wallpapers and additional
information including RSS Feeds and radio station information2
o Support for a wide variety of digital music files, including uncompressed and lossless
formats
o True 802.11g wireless networking and dual internal antennas
o Easy to add more Squeezebox receivers, allowing people to listen to a different song in
each room, or synchronize their receivers to hear the same song throughout the house
o Connect to SqueezeNetwork, Logitech's always-on Internet radio and music aggregation
service, which enables Squeezebox Duet owners to stream music - even with their
computers turned off
o Access a directory of thousands of Internet radio stations and subscription services
including Pandora, MP3tunes and Rhapsody

System Requirements
o 256 MB RAM
o Ethernet or wireless network
o 20 MB hard disk space
o Windows: 733 MHz Pentium running Windows NT/2000/XP
o Mac: OS X 10.3.5 or later
o Linux / BSD / Solaris / Other: Perl 5.8.3 or later
o Broadband Internet connection3

Warranty
o Two-year limited warranty

First, there's a $330 unit available in four colors, with 30GB hard drive and Bluetooth for wireless headphones and A2DP streaming. It will also have an FM radio and "custom skinning" for a personalized UI. Next up, in the "near future" will be a $230 4GB flash-based model, and a $250 8GB one. Neither of those will have Bluetooth. Prices don't include Rhapsody portable subscription, which at last check was $15 per month.

In addition to browsing all of Rhapsody's content, you can pick up free AOL Video clips, subscribe to podcasts directly from the device, and update firmware without going to a PC. [Rhapsody and Haier via Electronista]