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Google appears to be working on an online music store that will compete with the established offerings of Apple and Amazon. How competitive this online store will be is unclear, at least based on what is currently reported about its status. Google reportedly has held talks with Universal Music Group, Sony Music, EMI Group and Warner Music Group to license their catalogs, but only EMI Group is said to be close to inking a deal.
Research In Motion on Thursday announced its new BBM Music service, a cloud music offering for BlackBerry Messenger. BBM Music enables social and viral music discovery by allowing users to build a community-based library with friends’ selections. A closed beta of BBM Music has launched in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Spotify, a popular European streaming music provider, launched in the U.S. on Thursday. The music site is starting off its U.S. venture with an invitation-only beta that includes free, unlimited and premium plans. Spotify was first launched in Sweden in 2008 and currently boasts 1.6 million paying users and more than 10 million users total.
Pop star Lady Gaga is reportedly joining with Google’s Eric Schmidt to produce a new social media site called "Backplane." Tony Carter, Gaga’s manager, is at the helm of the operation and is attracting capital from important backers. So far, the company has raised more than $1 million from a group of investors including Tomorrow Ventures, headed by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.
The founder of LimeWire LLC, the distributor of the LimeWire file-sharing software program that was found to infringe copyrights on a massive scale, has reached an agreement with the music industry’s trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America, to settle its lawsuit for $105 million. The $105 million is far less than the $1.4 billion the plaintiffs were seeking.