music industry

Citigroup has foreclosed on U.K.-based record label EMI Group, taking it back from private-equity firm Terra Firma, which bought EMI from Citigroup for a whopping $4.7 billion in 2007.

Barry Diller announced his impending resignation as Live Nation chairman Tuesday, perhaps putting an end to his tussle with the rest of its board for control of the struggling concert promoter and talent agency nearly a year after its merger with Diller's Ticketmaster.

In today's legal news, the Supreme Court has expressed interest in a case involving a teenager's illegal music file-sharing, the legal battle over stem cell research has already pushed some scientists to other fields, and a third woman has alleged that a Wisconsin DA harassed her with sexual text messages.

The centerpiece of Apple's recent product announcements was its new music social network Ping. The core technology from Ping appears to be have been built by the team from Lala.com, the music streaming startup that Apple acquired in January 2009. But without the streaming music model, Ping is half the service Lala used to be. It's not a bad product, it's just not terribly transformative.

For many rap and hip-hop artists, behind all the trash talk and posturing, it's all about business. Forbes recently released its Hip Hop Cash Kings list, and the 20 big names on it racked up a total of about $300 million, despite the weak economy and the Internet revolution that is killing the CD business.

Hip-hop pays well, very well, at least for Jay-Z. Forbes reports Jay-Z racked up $63 million in the past year -- owing about $22 million in federal and state taxes, a sum greater than the total earnings of every rapper and hip-hop mogul besides second-ranked Diddy.

It's the $20 billion question: What is to be done about the recording industry? Since it appears that the players inside that industry do not know how to save themselves from implosion, outsiders are looking to chart a new course toward sustainability and profitability. Now, Google (GOOG) is...

Tommy Tutone, one of the most famous one-hit wonders from the 1980s, is ticked off at people who are selling the phone number he made famous in his 1982 anthem "867-5309/Jenny." The latest person to try and cash in on their association with the song is Justin Kaplan of Southampton, Pennsylvania,...

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been waging an ongoing war against small-time pirates for half a decade now. By initiating large numbers of lawsuits, even against people who have illegally downloaded 10, 20, 30 copyrighted songs, the RIAA had essentially terrorized...

Until recently, the big music labels shelled out crazy green to get their talent in front of TV cameras for promotional appearances. Each time a star performed on an awards ceremony or a top-flight chat show, record labels spent excessive amounts to put their moneymakers in front of the cameras....