More Microsoft music store information

From this article in Rolling Stone:

The company has kept details of the Microsoft music store under wraps and declined to comment for this article. But according to sources close to Microsoft, the store will open to the public with somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 tracks for sale at ninety-nine cents apiece. Within a couple of months, it will match Apple's 1 million offerings. Reports that Microsoft will use its financial clout to become the first site to offer the Beatles catalog (the band reportedly demands tens of millions of dollars for a long-term exclusive arrangement) could not be confirmed.

Seems like 500,000 songs or more is the minimum "cost of entry" for the music store business unless you are a boutique store selling exclusive content (i.e., a band selling its own live recordings).

And from the article, some rumors about Microsoft talking to Apple:

One source close to the matter says that Microsoft has made several overtures to Apple to make its store compatible with the industry-leading iPod but has been rebuffed. (Apple declined to comment.)

MSN Music store open next week

Microsoft's music store, according to this post on Radiant Digital that links through to this article on Microsoft Watch, is planned to open next week, specifically on September 2.  It will be interesting to see what Microsoft's answer to Apple's iTunes looks like.

Amazon early adopter music

This is pretty cool, Amazon has a new Early Adopter Section for music.  According to the site:

These are the newest and coolest products our customers of Music are buying. This list, updated daily, is based entirely on purchase patterns.

Also remember that you can point your feedreader (RSS reader) towards this address to receive the top 10 songs from iTunes.

Bjork and this business of music

Here are some great quotes from Bjork on the music business; originally seen at this post on Boing Boing:

Is commercialisation ruining music, I ask, or words to that effect.
“You know, a hundred years ago, if you wanted to do music you would probably be playing on street corners. I could have been in a hundred Rokk í Reykjavíks and fifty Sugarcubes then and still not become famous. But when all the money started coming into music it attracted a new type of person who hadn't been there before, gambler types who like to wager a lot of money on this and that, hoping for giant returns. Now, with the internet, people are going to have to ask themselves whether they want to go into music even if they may not become multimillionaires.”

“You know, its ironic that just at the point the lawyers and the businessmen had calculated how to control music, the internet comes along and fucks everything up.” Björk gives the finger again, this time waving it into the air. “God bless the internet,” she adds.

By the way, Bjork's new CD, Medulla gets released some time next week, but you can order it here from an overseas shop early if you are a huge fan (this information comes directly from the Boing Boing post)

Promoter to offer concert downloads

Unfortunately it's not an announcement about us doing it, but it's encouraging for the industry as a whole; the following story was originally spotted here on News.com:

Music promoter the

Mean Fiddler

has signed a deal with Universal Records that will let fans download live tracks from bands who are playing at events such as the Reading Festival. The deal will also cover concerts at Mean Fiddler venues in Britain, which have hosted Universal artists including the Scissor Sisters, Black Eyed Peas and Queens of the Stone Age. Subject to approval from the Universal artists, songs will be sold for 99 to 150 pence each.