World Music

Warner Music Owner Bets on Competing Digital Services By Ben Sisario - March 6, 2013 - NY Times: Media Decoder Blog Len Blavatnik, the Russian-born billionaire investor who bought the Warner  Music Group two years ago, has placed big bets on multiple digital music services as the streaming model grows around the world. Daisy — still only a code name, and not confirmed as the service’s eventual brand name — will compete with Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio and others by letting users stream millions of songs by subscription.Mr. Blavatnik’s holding company, Access Industries , is one of several parties investing $60 million in Daisy , a planned service by Beats Electronics, the high-end headphone company, Beats announced late Tuesday. The others are Marc Rowan of Apollo Global Management ; James Packer, of Australia; and the Texas oil heir Lee M. Bass. Read More: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/warner-music-owner-bets-on-competing-digital-services/

For Many Digital Music Services, Free Is Not a Choice By BEN SISARIO - January 28, 2013 - NY Times Media Decoder Blog The competition among streaming music services is going global. It is also increasingly going free. As CD and download sales cool, the music industry is looking to subscription services like Spotify, Rhapsody and Deezer to provide an attractive alternative to pirated content. But the growth of these companies has been relatively slow, and to compete against one another, more of them are opening free tiers — a move that gets attention, but has always caused worries that it could undermine the value of music. Read More: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/for-many-digital-music-services-free-is-not-a-choice/