Battery

Just a year ago, most media companies believed the formula for Internet success was to offer free content, build an audience and rake in advertising dollars. Now, with the recession battering advertising online, in print and on television, media executives are contemplating a tougher trick: making the consumer pay.
Publishers like Hearst Newspapers, The New York [...]

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SHANGHAI — Can global music companies make money by giving away songs in China, where piracy is rampant?
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Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press
GIVING IT AWAY AS ONLY GOOGLE CAN A program to distribute free music downloads in China is aimed at attracting advertisers.
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Associated Press
A Chinese police officer [...]

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BERLIN — YouTube has stopped showing music videos in Germany as a dispute over royalty payments in Europe spreads.
On Tuesday night, YouTube, a unit of Google, began blocking music videos in Germany after the expiration of its 17-month contract with GEMA, an agency representing songwriters, composers and music publishers. YouTube made a similar [...]

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SHANGHAI — Trying to gain ground in one of the few markets where it is behind, Google said Monday that it had begun to offer in China links to free music downloads, a service it does not offer anywhere else in the world.
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Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press
Kai-fu Lee of Google [...]

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PARIS — Metro, a German retailer, is expected to announce on Wednesday that it is buying a controlling stake in a company that provides technology for online music downloads.
Metro plans to acquire 24-7 Entertainment, which handles the logistics of music, video and ring tone downloads, including digital rights management, for companies like telecommunication operators [...]

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In early December, Juliet Weybret, a high school sophomore and aspiring rock star from Lodi, Calif., recorded a video of herself playing the piano and singing “Winter Wonderland,” and she posted it on YouTube.
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YouTube
Juliet Weybret on YouTube, protesting the site’s removal of her music video.
Add to PortfolioGoogle [...]

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SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s YouTube and the Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music label, are in advanced discussions over a licensing agreement that could lead to the creation of a premium site for music videos, according a person briefed on the talks.
The discussions remain fluid and the terms of the agreement, [...]

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PARIS — The digital music company Omnifone said Monday that it planned to bring unrestricted downloads or streaming songs and music videos to European homes, legally, through agreements with Internet service providers.
The company said it had reached deals with the four major music companies to offer the service through broadband connections to television set-top [...]

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Last month the music industry and Apple, long uneasy partners, seemed a picture of harmony when they agreed on new terms for pricing on iTunes, Apple’s online music store.
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The iTunes home page, Apple’s soapbox for promotions.
RelatedWant to Copy iTunes Music? Go Ahead, Apple Says [...]

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CANNES, France — After years of futile efforts to stop digital pirates from copying its music, the music business has started to copy the pirates.
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Lionel Cironneau/Associated Press
An entrance on Sunday at the music industry’s conference in France, where Nokia said it was expanding Comes With Music.
Online and [...]

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