As predicted by music and technology experts for more than a year, AOL announced the launch of MusicNet - a new premium online music subscription service designed to give AOL members a way to find, download, listen to and burn digital music safely and legally. Integrated into the AOL service, MusicNet is available to AOL members at any speed -- whether they connect to AOL via a dial-up connection or use AOL Broadband over any high-speed connection. Subscribers to the service will have access to a large selection of complete, virus-free music files that download at faster speeds than other services. Launching with more than 250,000 songs with new additions each week, MusicNet on AOL's catalog includes, very significantly, music from all five major record labels as well as larger independents plus exclusive content like several recordings from Sessions@AOL. The service enables subscribers to find and listen to music in CD-quality sound, manage their ...

Roxio Inc, the current owners of the Napster name and it’s associated intellectual property, has just announced that they are in negotiations with the five major record labels to provide content for a new-pay-per download online music service. This news comes just one day before AOL announced the launch of their revamped downloadable music service called MusicNet on AOL.

Cell phones have come a long way. First it was text messaging, then came Internet access, color screens and built in cameras. AT&T Wireless and Warner Music Group (WMG), a division of AOL Time Warner, have announced the next step in the evolution of hand help communications devices. In the first music marketing deal of its kind, WMG and AT&T Wireless have signed a non-exclusive agreement which will allow AT&T Wireless' nearly 20 million subscribers to have access to music clips, artist news, tour dates and artist images. Users can also purchase ring tones from a constantly updated catalog of songs from WMG artists for between $0.99 and $1.99 each. Amazon.com has also signed on to allow users to purchase WMG artist’s CDs directly from their phones. Dubbed the "Warner Music" channel, customers in the U.S. can access content from ...

Despite pumping over $85 million in life-support money into Napster, it looks like German media giant Bertelsmann will not be purchasing the now defunct online music swapping service. On Tuesday of this week a bankruptcy judge blocked the sale of Napster Inc. to Bertelsmann AG yesterday citing conflicting loyalties by Napster executives.

With over 52,000,000 users reportedly using Napster in its prime in 2000 and reportedly over 80,000,000 total downloads of Kazaa and Morphieus, the genie is definitely out the bottle with downloadable music for the music industry. The RIAA is claiming it is killing the business but is doing little more than suing companies and complaining about piracy in response to the second year of poor sales. It is obvious they need to stop the bleeding and stop it fast.