Live Nation, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars attracting acts such as U2, Jay-Z, Nickelback and Madonna has announced it will soon begin selling DRM-free MP3s from artist’s individual pages. So far, three of the Big 4 labels have signed on with Live Nation.
Live Nation has also confirmed it will be setting up its own ticketing service to compete with Ticketmaster and the company can now claim that it handles everything from merchandise to distribution and every step in between.
Sony Music, Universal Music Group and EMI have all signed on and negotiations with the last major label are still in progress. Artist have complained that iTunes, the current market share leader, does not have strong “artist pages” and lose sales because of it.
“Looking ahead, our primary goal remains centered on maximizing our global concert pipe for our client – the artist,” explained president and CEO Michael Rapino, “and expanding into direct ticketing/online distribution, completing the world’s only concert-to-fan direct platform for artists.”
Result for: itunes
Aiming to convert physical DVD bargain hunters to digital copy owners, Apple has set up a special “This Week’s Great Movies Under $5″ page on iTunes that will offer a few movies every week for $4.99 USD, a steep discount from their normal price point.
For the inaugural week, there are mainly older action movies such as Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Last Action Hero, Air Force One and The Karate Kid.
Although Apple has not made clear how long each discounted movie will last on the page, we can assume that it will be only for the one week period of Tuesday to Tuesday.
Result for: itunes
Marking the first time they have ever done so, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced that the two-disc DVD and Blu-ray offerings of the comedy Pineapple Express will include a free digital copy of the film downloadable from iTunes in addition to the digital copy that can playback on PCs and the Sony handheld PSP.
Previous Sony digital copies had not been compatible with Apple devices such as the iPod or iPhone nor on Mac computers.
Sony says it will offer iTunes downloads on a “select basis” for now on.
“SPHE is thrilled to expand the value and convenience of our digital copy program to the iTunes community,” said Lexine Wong, senior VP of worldwide marketing at Sony. “Consumers can enjoy Pineapple Express where and how they like—whether with the full home entertainment experience of Blu-ray high def or DVD or on the go with their laptop, PSP or iPod.”
