VentureBeat

The rumor of Apple unveiling an “iTunes Unlimited” option for its popular digital music store always gets people in a tizzy. After all, who wouldn’t want to have access to large chunk of the service’s library of music anytime they wanted for a flat fee?

After laying dormant for several months, the rumor popped up again yesterday when messages from anonymous sources went out to a few Apple blogs claiming to have details about the service which would be unveiled in September and launched in October. The details seemed somewhat plausible, though the apparent tie-in with MobileMe seemed a bit odd. Still, as I noted, I wasn’t buying it.

Apparently, neither are the music executives whose music would be sold through such a plan, according to Silicon Alley Insider. Though it will only say it checked with a “variety” of executives at “major” music labels, the tech blog feels confident enough in those sources to write today that iTunes Unlimited isn’t happening.

Is it possible execs at the labels would lie about a plan? Sure. After all, the original Financial Times report back in March said Apple was holding talks with “big music companies,” and I would have to assume there is some overlap between the “big music companies” and the “major” labels that SAI speaks of. But more likely is that it’s not happening anytime soon.

That’s not to say talks of some kind aren’t happening. They probably are. As the music labels continue to combat piracy, talk of trying various business models for music continually comes up. The head of Sony BMG earlier this year said that there was a possibility of a subscription-based digital music service that would work on all portable devices, and mentioned the iPhone as one of them. A subscription-based service implies some sort of copy-protection and for that to work on the iPod it would probably have to work through iTunes.

But for now we’ll continue to wait for iTunes Unlimited. And I’m fine with that, especially if Apple actually charge the rumored $129.99-a-year for unlimited access. That’s more than I spend on iTunes music now, and more than I ever plan to.

[photo: flickr/acaben]

Social networking site MySpace and music have worked well together in the past. New bands got recognition, popular bands gained new fans. Now MySpace is looking to extend that relationship by launching a full-scale music store. This launch will be happening sometime within the next 5 days, according to Reuters.

The service will be appropriately titled “MySpace Music”, and is said to have the support of at least 3 of the major labels. Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Vivendi’s Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group Corp. would each have a stake in the new service along with MySpace parent News Corp. It is not clear if the other big label, EMI, is involved.

None of the companies are talking, so details are scant at this point, but the service is said to be a direct competitor to Apple’s iTunes. It’s well known that the record labels have long thought that Steve Jobs has held too much over their industry. Their slowness in delivering DRM-free music to iTunes while giving it to AmazonMP3 may be helping that service grow (our coverage). MySpace Music could well be an attack on another front.

The fact that EMI is not known to be involved in the MySpace Music partnership makes sense as well — EMI is still the only major label giving Apple DRM-free music, so they presumably have a pretty good relationship.

MySpace Music is launching now because News Corp. and Universal Music have finally settled a longstanding lawsuit, according to Silicon Alley Insider.

[photo: flickr/orange beard] 

Today, music label Sony BMG’s chief executive, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, spoke about the possibility of an online music subscription service that would work with all digital music players, according to Thomson Financial. Yes, all — including Apple’s iPod, a device Schmidt-Holtz specifically mentioned.

Talk of Apple looking into a new, unlimited music subscription plan for its iTunes music store garnered a lot of attention last week (our coverage). The company was said to be in talks with unnamed labels about such a service which would be a radical departure from their standard 99-cent-a-track purchase-to-own model. Given the proximity of the stories and how much they overlap, it certainly seems possible that Sony BMG and Apple are holding talks on this very matter.

For such a service to work on the iPod, any company would need Apple’s support to either modify or change the DRM the device currently accepts. Some are interpreting such compatibility the other way and think it means Sony may try to do a DRM-free subscription service — but how exactly a subscription service with no security in place would actually work is unclear, and seems unlikely.

Another key alignment in the two stories is Schmidt-Holtz’s statement that users may be able to keep some songs indefinitely, even after the subscription expires (an expiring subscription once again seems to indicate DRM). There was a very similar statement in last week’s Financial Times report about the possible iTunes subscription service. This is a fairly odd/complex idea for two sides to come up with completely independent of one another.

Schmidt-Holtz indicates that his company’s idea for a subscription service would likely involve a flat-rate monthly payment plan. This too was mentioned in the Apple report, though most people focused on the more intriguing idea of adding a $100 charge to everyone iPod sold which would allow it unlimited iTunes access.

Sony BMG wants its service to work with all digital music players, not just the iPod. The company is also said to be in talks with the other music distributors on the deal and hopes to set such a service up as early as this year.

YouTube, the two-year-old San Mateo start-up that raced ahead to become the leader of online video sharing, is facing the fight of its life.

Microsoft’s launch of its YouTube clone, called the Soapbox, made official today — see announcement with an offering of a way to sign up for a beta account, is only the latest challenge. (The dancing man with MSN colors strikes us as somewhat unhip, but then what can we expect a corporate giant to do? In fact, when looked at again, we see it is a cute metaphor for an old fogey getting with the program.)

Its fate may really lie in excruciating talks taking place with the Universal Music Group, which must decide whether to take YouTube to court or instead embrace and even invest in it.

The YouTube story is significant because there’s more confusion about YouTube’s prospects, its inherent uniqueness and its legality than ever before. Moreover, there’s more at stake in the world of online video than most of us realized just a few months ago. It is where movies, music and advertising meet — and billions are at stake, and anxious incumbent music giants are angry. The proliferation of broadband, new technologies making loading videos dead easy, and the high price of buying music compared to simply sharing it free on YouTube, is giving that upstart the edge. –>

Here in Silicon Valley, the buzz is all about video, music and then more video — and throw in some talk about how to take it mobile. There’s a new announcement every day. (Just yesterday: Silicon Valley chip giant Intel announced a deal with AOL to place AOL Video onto Intel’s Viiv home computers. SanDisk, the Milpitas maker of music players competing with Apple’s iPod, signed a deal with Seattle’s RealNetworks, owner of music service Rhapsody, to imbed that service direclty into its Sansa e200 MP3 player. And Google is reporteldy talking with Apple about having Google vidoes downloadable to the iPod).

On the plus side for YouTube, the company announced a deal with Warner, whereby Warner will open its music library to YouTube users to integrate into their videos. But public details of the deal are few, and Warner still has the right for veto, and the royalty and revenue split agreement is unknown.

That deal came a few hours after entrepreneur Mark Cuban wrote an aggressive but notable piece titled “The coming dramatic decline of YouTube,” and outlined why YouTube is going to get sued and will implode just like Napster did in Web 1.0, even though Napster eventually cut deal with Bertelsman. In a bizarre coincidence, the Napster remnant company is losing money and just yesterday put itself on the block, as mentioned). The problem, Cuban said, is that you can search for songs on YouTube, and have them play, while minimizing the video screen — even those songs are copyrighted and no one is getting paid. If you read the comments on Cuban’s blog, you will see that outright confusion prevails about YouTube’s prospects.

YouTube’s fate may really lie in talks it’s having with Universal Music Group and Sony BMG. Fresh reports say these are talks about distribution deals. YouTube has long said it is engaged in talks, so it is difficult to say how real these reports are. Just last week Universal threatened to sue. Now apparently YouTube has offered to sell an equity stake to the labels, though that’s an easy offer to make when you are against the wall.

Finally, as Rafat at PaidContent points out, the filtering technology YouTube has to implement by the end of this year, to meet the accord with Warner Music, is significant. It is similar to technology already offered by both Audible Magic and Snocap, which works on audio — the main area of concern right now. If YouTube implements this rigorously and agrees to take down any infringing content that somehow slips past those filters, it has a pretty good defense, no?

This will be a drama to watch.