eMusic, the online music download store that started in 1998, has announced that it has added music from its first major label, bringing in Sony’s ‘classic’ catalog, all music that is 2 years old or older.
The store has offered a subscription based model and DRM-free MP3s since its release, and has tracks from thousands of indie labels.
During its 11 years, the company has attracted over 400,000 paying customers, each paying $12 USD per month.
Sony feels placing its newer, more popular songs into eMusic’s unlimited, DRM-free service, is too risky and has therefore excluded the songs. However, Sony’s classic catalog is still very large and includes hits from top name artists such as Britney Spears, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and Usher.
There is a catch though. “As part of the deal, eMusic says it will slightly raise prices and reduce the number of downloads for some of its monthly plans.”
Result for: popular song
Earlier this week, the musician Prince did a cover of the popular song “Creep” originally by Radiohead at a concert at the Coachella. After word spread, tens of thousands of curious fans went to YouTube looking to get at least a glimpse of the performance. There was a problem however, NPG Records, Prince’s label had quickly advised the site to take everything down related to the song and there were no videos to see.
There was one problem with that however. Not even Radiohead could see the fan videos, of their own song. Thom Yorke, lead singer for the group, first heard of the cover via text message and after his bandmate was unable to view a video on YouTube he quickly called his publicist.
“Really? He’s blocked it?” asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. “Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment.”
Yorke added: “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our … song.”
YouTube’s policy is that if they receive a complaint from a copyright owner they take down the infringing video. This situation is a lot more tricky however, as Radiohead owns the song copyrights despite the fact that it is Prince singing it.
Both YouTube and Prince have declined comment on the matter so far.
For now, YouTube seems to still have the videos taken down but videos have emerged on others sites such as DailyMotion for those interested.
