iTunes

Music publishers and labels may not be the only bumps in Apple's road to launching its upcoming Internet radio service.

Some experts, according to The Washington Post, say federal antitrust laws may gum the works for Apple as well.

Apple's share of the music download business with iTunes is above 60%, which reportedly "means regulators are likely to monitor any move into a related business to ensure that the company isn't improperly using its muscle to squeeze out competitors," writes the paper.

The key issue, according to the experts with whom the paper spoke, would be if Apple's licensing deals with labels and publishers took advantage of the company's size and market share to unfairly box-out companies like Pandora or Spotify in the competition for customers.

The company is currently embroiled in antitrust legal proceedings involving e-books.

Read more from The Washington Post here.

The latest version of Apple's industry-leading media software iTunes became available yesterday -- about a month later than expected. It may be late, but don't say it's slow.

Computer World calls the new app "a speed demon." After the laboring and trudging of iTunes 10, Gizmodo says: "So fast. We can't believe it's iTunes. When scrolling through the iTunes' new graphics heavy album view, the tiles fly by. Apple must have completely rewritten the app to get these results." Gizmodo really liked the new MiniPlayer too. See the video tour of the new app here.

Information Week has a walk-thru too, here. They seem to be particularly impressed by iTunes 11's looks: the iTunes store, navigation menus, the synching interface, and more.

Maybe the real game-changer here is the app's integration with iCloud (Apple's online storage system that allows users to keep media "in the cloud," as opposed to their own machine, and access files via streaming). TechCrunch (here) calls this its most important improvement, enabling users to much more easily browse and stream content. A user can stream and download songs when purchased, or buy more, without leaving his/her music library.

Apple "is a company pouring billions into this infrastructure with aims to ultimately supplant and marginalize services like Spotify," says Digital Music News (here). With the new iTunes, "Apple is offering enhancements to make localized access (sort of the equivalent to Spotify's cacheing) across devices like the iPad and iPhone."

Another new "Spotify-like" feature TechCrunch points out is called "Up Next," which mimics Spotify's "queue" feature. Very simply, it allows building "on the fly" playlists (just put the track(s) you want to play next into the queue).

"As Spotify users will tell you, it was one of the key features that made the service popular. It is a perfect party tool as well," writes TechCrunch.

Apple's introduction to the software is here.

The BBC is reportedly in talks with commercial music services to build subscription, on-demand access to the hundreds of thousands of music recordings in its vast archive.

The new service, dubbed Playlister, would be a "music equivalent of (the BBC's) iPlayer catch-up service," The Telegraph writes. The iPlayer allows users to access any BBC programming that has aired in the previous seven days and stream it online. (BBC Radio content is streamed on the UK Radioplayer.)

A BBC spokesman told the paper, "The BBC is regularly in conversation with digital music providers about how we strengthen radio’s position as the number one place for discovering music in the UK."

The Telegraph explains, "The BBC has talked about the idea of making its vast archive of music recordings public in the past, but has always run into trouble clearing the rights." The BBC is now reportedly "in talks with Spotify and similar music services, such as the French-run Deezer and Apple’s iTunes music store in an effort to side-step the problem... Partnering with commercial operators could also help the BBC avert a potential row with private sector companies over whether the corporation is treading on their toes." (Note the parallel here to reaction in Canada to CBC's music streaming here and here.)

RAIN is in Berlin on Friday for RAIN Summit Europe. Our keynote speaker is Jonathan Forster, Spotify General Manager Europe & VP Ad Sales. Also appearing are Deezer Deputy GM, Head of Ad Sales David Deslandes and UK Radioplayer Managing Director Michael Hill.

Read more from The Telegraph here.

Internet radio and on-demand streaming services contributed about $54 million -- or 25% -- of Warner Music Group's recorded music division's digital revenue last quarter. That reportedly amounts to about 8% of Warner’s total revenue for that period, reports AllThingsDigital. (Note, this revenue does not include the licensing paid by cloud/locker services from Apple and Amazon.)

"What’s more encouraging for Warner — and presumably, the rest of the big labels — is that streaming revenue is growing quickly, but doesn’t seem to be cutting into traditional digital sales from outlets like iTunes," writes Peter Kafka. "Just as encouraging: Warner says that after you net out the effect of currency fluctuations, the increase in digital sales was bigger than the decrease in physical sales."

Dare we to even imagine that streaming services like Internet radio might have a promotional benefit to the copyright owners?

Read more in AllThingsDigital here.

The EU's governing body yesterday introduced legislation designed to strengthen the European digital music market by streamlining how copyright royalties are collected.

Though nation members of the European Union act together on a wide span of issues, each nation has its own set of agencies that administer composition, publishing, sound recording, and mechanical copyrights for music -- 250 collecting societies in the 27 EU member states alone.

The result is that digital music companies (for instance, leading webcaster Pandora) are forced to negotiate individual agreements with each of these bodies for each country in which they'd like to operate. In the end, for most operators, it's too complex and expensive, and so instead they simply block listening in countries with which they have not forged agreements (and why Pandora isn't legally available in Europe). [See our related coverage about Pandora in Australia and New Zealand here.]

The current situation, the European Commission says, limits consumers' choices, hurts those who hold music copyrights, and promotes unauthorized music sharing. Though the Commission passed legislation in 2008 for "pan-European" licenses and to break down the national barriers it felt held back the growth of digital music, it was ineffective. 

Read more in The New York Times here.

On-demand streaming music service Spotify is now the second-largest source of revenue for the major music labels, according to Business Insider.

However, the gap between Spotify and iTunes -- the #1 source of revenue for labels -- apparently "remains extremely large," according to Business Insider's unnamed source. iTunes paid an estimated $3.2 billion to the labels in 2011.

An "optimistic view" of the situation, writes Business Insider, is that "the labels will support Spotify as an alternative to iTunes... Spotify will become a revenue source the labels [will] come to depend on." Business Insider reports (here) 23 million people used Spotify last month.

Spotify may soon generate even more revenue for the music industry if its recently-launched free web radio service takes off (RAIN coverage here and here). In related news, SoundExchange last week announced it has made $1 billion in royalty distrubitions since 2000 (RAIN coverage here).