News of the finance

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/dollarsignpuzzlepiece_67.jpg align="right"The U.S. single-track download market slipped 0.2% to 597.4 million tracks in the first half of the year according to Nielsen SoundScan.brbrThe data may suggest that the digital music singles market has rstrongeached a saturation point/strong. Variable pricing, which has set top new releases at strong$1.29 /strongrather than the more standard $.99, may have also contributed to flat sales.pOn a more positive note, download sales of the more profitable strongalbum format grew by 12.7%/strong to 42.2 million. Digital albums now make upstrong 27.4% of all album sales/strong. That's encouraging news, but not nearly enough to offset the continuing decline in CD sales./pa href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/07/new-music-sales-reports-send-mixed-signal.html" class="bluelink"Comments/abrbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=4kxJ5SqTxC4:xEm9BtdCqd0:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=4kxJ5SqTxC4:xEm9BtdCqd0:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=4kxJ5SqTxC4:xEm9BtdCqd0:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/dollarsign.jpg align="right"A new NPD Group study based on just under 4000 consumer image from www.splicelicio.us interviews predicts that between 7 and 8 million...brbr... iTunes users in the U.S. have a strong interest in paid music subscription options. Those surveyed indicated a willingness to pay a minimum monthly fee of $10, either for streaming music or access to their personal music libraries on multiple devices. There are an estimated 50 million iTunes users in the U.S. and according to NPDs research, a model that offers iTunes users free access to their own music libraries would attract 13 to 15 million subscribers.pstrong style="font-family: Verdana;"A $1 Billion Opportunity/strong/ppThe numbers are all based on a limited survey but the future of streaming music looks promising.nbsp; "After the services launch, user numbers could conceivably rise substantially, as they upgrade to newer connected devices and actually experience the benefits of cloud-based music," said Russ Crupnick, VP and senior entertainment analyst for NPD. "The market opportunity is close to $1 billion in the first year, which is roughly two-thirds the revenue garnered by the current pay-per-download model."brbr"We dont yet know what, if any, effect these services might have on the traditional pay-per-download music model, or whether consumers will ultimately spend more on digital music overall, if or when any of these options eventually rolls out," Crupnick added./pa href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/07/npd-survey-itunes-in-cloud-worth-1b-in-first-year.html" class="bluelink"Comments/abrbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=OzipR13JgLQ:yjjuuL491x4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=OzipR13JgLQ:yjjuuL491x4:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=OzipR13JgLQ:yjjuuL491x4:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/music0215.gif align="right"The amount that the RIAA paid out to its lawyers in 2008? $16,000,000. The amount that the RIAA recovered as a result of their efforts? $391,000.brbr"So all in all, for a 3 year period," Ray Beckermann reports "they spent around $64,000,000 in legal and investigative expenses to recover around $1,361,000." br / br / a href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/07/the-amount-that-the-riaa-paid-out-to-its-lawyers-in-2008-16000000-the-amount-that-the-riaa-recovered-as-a-result-of-thei.html" class="bluelink"Comments/abrbrcentera href="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/cc?z=1pos=1"img src="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/vc?z=1dim=9392pos=1" width="500" height="75" border="0"/a/centerdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=Edv6wA6J25I:aSd74CKNaLY:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=Edv6wA6J25I:aSd74CKNaLY:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=Edv6wA6J25I:aSd74CKNaLY:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/ifn-07162010_67.jpg align="right"Google reported solid second quarter earnings with revenue up 24 percent but missed analyst's estimates for the first time in two years. brbrimg src="http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/ifn-07162010.jpg" align="left" border="0"Google's earnings per share were $6.45, just below Wall Street's forecast of $6.52. The earnings miss is being partially blamed on Google adding 1,184 full-time employees, bringing it s workforce to a total of 21, 805 people. br / br / Paid clicks increased 15 percent over the second quarter of 2009, but decreased 3 percent over the first quarter of 2010. Net revenue for the quarter was $5.09 billion, beating analyst's expectations of $4.99 billion.br / br / a href="http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q2_google_earnings.html" class="bluelink"Google /ahas cash, cash equivalents, and short-term marketable securities of $30.1 billion compared to $26.5 billion in the first quarter of 2010.br / br / "Google had a strong second quarter," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "Solid growth in our core business and very strong growth in our emerging businesses drove 24% revenue growth year over year."br / br / "We saw strength in every major product area, as more and more traditional brand advertisers embraced search advertising and as large advertisers increasingly ran integrated campaigns across search, display, and mobile. We feel confident about our future, and plan to continue to invest aggressively in our core areas of strategic focus."br / brbrcentera href="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/cc?z=1pos=1"img src="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/vc?z=1dim=9392pos=1" width="500" height="75" border="0"/a/centerdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?a=y3zCFwmgtbk:gME4R1pMjIQ:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?a=y3zCFwmgtbk:gME4R1pMjIQ:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/music0215.gif align="right"A U.S. District Court has issued a summary judgment in favor of YouTube in the longstanding $1 billion case brought by Viacom.brbrThe decision granted YouTube safe harbor under the strongDigital Millenium Copyright Act /strong(DMCA). It follows similar court decisions that grant online services like YouTube protection as long as they work with copyright holders tonbsp; manage infringment.p Viacom strongmay appeal/strong, but given similar recent judgments in other courts, could choose not to. "This is an strongimportant victory/strong not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other," wrote strongKent Walker/strong, Vice President and General Counsel of YouTube parent strongGoogle/strong on the company's a href="http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/06/youtube-wins-case-against-viacom.html" target="_blank"blog/a./pa href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/06/court-says-youtube-not-guilty-of-infringment-in-viacom-case.html" class="bluelink"Comments/abrbrcentera href="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/cc?z=1pos=1"img src="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/vc?z=1dim=9392pos=1" width="500" height="75" border="0"/a/centerdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=lTllwZQutM4:uRiFu7MMgiI:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=lTllwZQutM4:uRiFu7MMgiI:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=lTllwZQutM4:uRiFu7MMgiI:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/dollarsignpuzzlepiece_67.jpg align="right"Just as when Apple recently bought Lala.com, yesterday's purchase of music streaming service Melodeo by computer giant Hewlett Packard...brbr... points straight towards a cloud based media offering. But unlike Steve Jobs, HP executives were not so silent:blockquotep"Melodeo is one of the only companies which possess the technology to aggregate a consumers digital media, manage it in the cloud and stream it to the user on any device, along with additional streams of content," said strongHP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan/strong in a statement. "While it is premature for us to unveil specific plans as it relates to Melodeo, we expect to use this technology to deliver digital content across multiple devices and platforms."/p/blockquotep style="text-align: center; font-family: Verdana;"strongMelodeo's Killer App: Effin Genius/strong/pp style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;""Pandora on steroids" is how Melodeo's Dave Dederer recently a href="http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/06/report_hp_buys_melodeo.html" target="_blank"described/a the company's Effin Genius iPhone app./pp style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;""It looks at all of the music files and playlists on your iPhone or iPod and then uses our own proprietary collaborative filter to generate new playlists based on the music you already have," said Dederer, a former member of the istrongndie rockers Presidents of the United States of America/strong. Melodeo also has also developed custom mobile apps for bands and music oriented games./pa href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/06/hewlett-packard-pays-30m-for-music-streaming-service-melodeo.html" class="bluelink"Comments/abrbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=a_quJWRS2gk:r_uU1FEqHgs:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=a_quJWRS2gk:r_uU1FEqHgs:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=a_quJWRS2gk:r_uU1FEqHgs:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/ifn-06252010_67.jpg align="right"GetJar, the second largest app store, has closed $11 million in Series B funding from Accel Partners.brbrimg src="http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/ifn-06252010.jpg" align="left" border="0"The company says it will apply the new capital to continued innovations on its sites GetJar.com and m.getjar.com.br / br / GetJar says it wants to aggressively expand its offering on "open" smartphone platforms such as Android, BlackBerry and Symbian. In the past year, GetJar has tripled the number of employees, quadrupled the number of downloads per month, signed partnerships with Sprint and maintained its profitability during the challenging economic environment. br / br / "We doubled down in this Series B due to GetJar's momentum as the leading open platform in the mobile apps space," said Rich Wong at Accel Partners. br / br / "Mobile app developers need to get discovered, build a marketing channel for mobile users, and scale to massive user bases. With over 1 Billion downloads to date, a href="http://www.getjar.com/" class="bluelink"GetJar /ahas led the industry to create this unique, cross platform app store solution." br / br / Research recently released by Juniper forecasts that the global app market will be worth over $30 billion by 2015 with a significant part of this opportunity fro publishers coming from multiple platforms. br / br / "We look forward to our continued partnership with Accel Partners and this new funding will be instrumental in taking GetJar to the next level in our business strategy for aggressive global expansion and product development," said Ilja Laurs, Founder and CEO of GetJar.br / br / brbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?a=A3D4HZjzciA:GbIYRDMInHM:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?a=A3D4HZjzciA:GbIYRDMInHM:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_dailywrapup?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/music0215.gif align="right"JPMorgan Chase is facilitating an auction for Indie music publisher Bug Music with an asking price of $300 million. As reported by the New York Post, Bug has already received the first round of bids from numerous interested parties.brbrAmong this list are several of the majors, including Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony/ATV Music and a partnership between KKR and BMG. The next round of bids is due on June 18.brbrWith a going price of $300 million, Bug is a seeking a higher multiple of their price to earnings ratio than other music companies in similar sales. According to the Post, the $300 million sale price would put Bug at 12 times the net publisher's share. Bug's annual revenue is estimated to be $70 million.brbr"Typical music publisher multiples currently range from 8 to 10 times net publisher's share for quality assets. Historically they've trended more toward the 10 to 15 times range." Lisbeth Barron, a Berenson amp; Company banker with expertise in the music industry told the Post.brbrPrivately owned, Bug is one of the largest indie publishers in the world, holding copyrights to more than 250,000 songs, inclduing "What a Wonderful World," and "The Real Slim Shady." as well as current chart toppers by acts such as The Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody" and Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night." - stronga href="http://CelebrityAccess.com" target="_blank"CelebrityAccess/a Staff Writers/strongbrbra href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/06/indie-publisher-bug-music-for-sale-for-300m.html"Comments/abrbrcentera href="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/cc?z=1pos=1"img src="http://aj.600z.com/aj/9395/0/vc?z=1dim=9392pos=1" width="500" height="75" border="0"/a/centerdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=czSwPgjXjPQ:g0ESWgEx0gg:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=czSwPgjXjPQ:g0ESWgEx0gg:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=czSwPgjXjPQ:g0ESWgEx0gg:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/dollarsign.jpg align="right"A new U.S. Government Accountabilty Office study which surveyed "stakeholders" predictably concludes that some that the proposed Performance Rights Actandnbsp; requiring broadcast radio to pay performance royalties might force some stations to make "adjustments...brbrsuch as reducing staff levels, switching to a strongnon-music format/strong, and strongceasing operation/strong."nbsp; /ppThe study also concludes that the bill could stronghelp record labels/strong by providing a major new revenue stream and that they could "use the additional revenue to stronginvest more heavily in the creative process/strong of music." /pYeah, right.brbrSince money is involved, strongis anyone be surprised /strongthat the radio station stakeholders would tell the GAO that they'll suffer; or that the labels, as potential recipients of the cash, would suggest that they'll do wonderful things with their windfall? brpstrongHighlights of the GAO study:/strong/pulli"According to industry stakeholders, strongboth the recording and the broadcast radio industries face economic challenges/strong. Digital technology and piracy have decreased the sale of records, the recording industrys main source of revenue. Economic conditions and the fragmentation of listeners among newer media platforms, such as the Internet and mobile devices, have reduced advertising sales, broadcast radios primary revenue source."/librli"strongBoth the recording and broadcast radio industries benefit from their current relationship/strong, according to industry stakeholders. The recording industry receives broadcast radio airplay, which promotes sales for sound recordings and concert tickets. For the radio industry, sound recordings attract listeners to radio stations that sell advertisements."/librli"The proposed strongact would result in additional costs for broadcast radio stations/strong. Costs from performance royalties would vary based on whether the station broadcasts music and its gross annual revenue. Stations may also face administrative costs from record-keeping and playlist reporting requirements as well. According to broadcast industry stakeholders, some radio stations that are unable to adjust to these new costs may reduce staffing levels; change from music to non-music programming, such as news, talk, or sports; or discontinue operations."/librli"The proposed act would result in strongadditional revenue for record companies, musicians, and performers./strong Musicians and performers whose songs are broadcast on the radio would receive an additional income stream. According to recording industry stakeholders, record companies could use the additional revenue to invest more heavily in the creative process of music."/li/ulp"We provided a draft of this report to FCC and the Library of Congress. In its letter, FCC emphasized the financial difficulties in the broadcast radio industry."/pa href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/06/study-says-perfomance-rights-act-could-shutter-some-radio-stations-help-labels-invest-in-artists.html" class="bluelink"Comments/abrbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=8MjvCbYOJVI:NL5nkvbhCSg:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=8MjvCbYOJVI:NL5nkvbhCSg:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=8MjvCbYOJVI:NL5nkvbhCSg:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div

img src=http://images.ientrymail.com/internetfinancialnews/music0215.gif align="right"Things must be tough over at Atlantic Records and its parent WMG. First label group president Lyor Cohen is selling his $28 million NYC townhouse and now Atlantic is asking fans to help fund an artist's second recording for the company.brbrWhile working on his sophomore album for Atlantic Records, trip-hop artist Natty is recording a separate stripped down collection of original songs. But rather than pay for the project, Atlantic has teamed up with fan-funding platform a href="http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/natty" target="_blank"Pledge M/aa href="http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/natty" target="_blank"u/aa href="http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/natty" target="_blank"sic/a to ask Natty's fans to throw down the cash.nbsp;/pbr / p To encourage fans to invest, Natty's offerings offerings include 8 for the EP, introducing Natty from stage for 70, a private acoustic concert in your own home for 600 - 5,000 (not sure why there's such a wide price range), all the way up to Natty remixing your track for for 1,200. Atlantic hasn't announced if they'll be taking theirnbsp; normal full royalty from Natty on the EP. We only know that they won't be sharing the money with the fans that paid for it. /pa href="http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2010/04/major-label-atlantic-asks-fan-to-help-fund-new-natty-release-via-pledge-music.html" class="bluelink"Comments/abrbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=cSavju_rsf4:5jCeUh29OeU:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=cSavju_rsf4:5jCeUh29OeU:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?a=cSavju_rsf4:5jCeUh29OeU:63t7Ie-LG7Y"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/IFN_financialblogtalk?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"/img/a /div