Digi Musik

Snoop Dogg has decided to expand his entrepreneurial achievements by partnering with premium tobacco brand Executive Branch and launching his very own cigar line. He says that his career has taken him to numerous destinations across the globe and that he has been very lucky to sample various kinds of tobacco products.

The deal that Apple is currently discussing about will totally revolutionise the digital music industry. Moving music to the cloud has been an elusive goal for big tech companies and their music industry counterparts, until now. In the past two months, Amazon and Google (GOOG) have unveiled cloud music services, albeit to mixed reviews and indifference from consumers. These new services let users upload their music collections into so-called digital lockers on the Internet and stream the songs they own to a variety of devices.

A new study has said that digital music sales will surpass the CD music sales in 2012.In the report, entitled “Global Recorded Music Market Forecast,” its Digital Media Strategies service says that physical CD revenues, which already plunged 16% to $3.8 billion last year, will decline an additional 29% this year to $2.7 billion.

Meanwhile, it says that digital music revenues will continue to grow, reaching $2.8 billion next year, and therefore surpassing CD sales for the first time.

Iovine has revealed that he wants the digital music to be improving the quality.

Which is why Jimmy Iovine’s battle to improve the quality of digital music is actually worth noting. The Interscope-Geffen-A&M Records chairman has taken up the gauntlet to force the music industry to start offering consumers higher-quality downloads. What exactly constitutes higher quality in the digital world?

Music industry is struggling to make the digital leap of faith possible says Concert of the Decades. His was an extreme view, but at this year's Midem, Europe's biggest music conference, where artists such as Ra Black and Andrew A (pictured below), courted the press, there was an undeniable feeling of transition of power from music's old guard to its digital avant garde.

Frank Turner has recently spoken about his passion and his opinions about Digital Music. Some people may argue that if these musicians are really doing it for the love of music, like they often say, then surely it doesn’t matter. Take the example of folk-punk singer Frank Turner, who spoke to me on this issue.

As a working musician, his money earns his living through, well, making music. He's toured almost constantly for six years, playing in 27 countries. It's for the love, but also necessity.

A new study by PJones Music has shown that 65% of the people will pay for digital content. For those who do spend money online on digital media, most spend between $1 and $10 a month, with 68 percent spending less than $30 a month. (You can see the distribution of amount spend in the chart above).

Digital music track sales have only seen a slow growth in the year 2010 according to reports. The industry, while at least seeing continued growth from digital

revenue has continued to see strong declines in CD sales, with 47 million fewer physical CDs being sold in 2010 YoY compared to 2009.

So far, digital track gains have increased by 95 million this year.

The revenue from 95 million downloads (at an average of $1.29) is nothing compared to the decline of 47 million CDs (at an average of $9.99).

Major Digital Music Players are set to adopt DDEX standards in the future. In all, eighteen companies have announced plans to adopt the DDEX standards as a strategic measure, including EMI Music, The Harry Fox Agency (HFA), Nokia, The Orchard, PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited), PRS for Music, Rhapsody(TM) International, RightsFlow, Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE), Societe Civile des Producteurs Phonographiques (SCPP), Societe des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique (SACEM), Sony DADC Digital Services, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.

UK streaming service we7 announced that it will be driving its digital music service towards ‘Internet Radio Plus’ - bringing personal audio streaming to the mass market.

From today and over the next six months, we7 will release a series of phased innovations to integrate the best of radio and on-demand streaming and change the landscape of radio as we know it.