Quoted: Who's to blame for falling music sales? Illegal music downloaders? Internet radio consumers? Britney Spears? Regardless of the cause, the music industry has largely seen declining music sales as a

The long-awaited free ad-supported music download service SpiralFrog faces new competition from a similar service called We7, which already has over 75,000 songs with another 125,000 on the way, and an estimated total of 500,000 by the end of the year, although some tracks are not available to US-based IP addresses. The company recently inked deals with V2 Records and Sanctuary Records (others to join later).

I interviewed We7's CEO Steve Purdham to find out more about the service, which allows users to download MP3 files that have an audio ad embedded at the beginning of the track (as opposed to SpiralFrog's soon-to-be-launched service, which will show users a video ad). If you're too lazy to edit the ad out of the song, you can buy an ad-free version of the song -- or just wait until the ad expires, when you're allowed to download a clean version.

Quoted: SpiralFrog is gradually reemerging after a period of turbulence, though major financial and business challenges remain. The co...

Quoted: Ad-supported download concept SpiralFrog has recently brokered a licensing pact with IODA, an independent digital distributor. ...

-uPlayMe (www.uPlayMe.com), developer of a desktop application which automatically connects people through their shared tastes in music, movies, TV shows and other digital content, announced today it has closed a multi-million dollar funding round including investments from Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG - News), Village Ventures, and other investors.

A new study released Tuesday by the Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation estimates that global piracy of recorded music has cost the United States $12.5 billion in economic output and 71,060 jobs annually.

The IPI describes the report, entitled "The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy," as the first of its kind to "credibly estimate the impact of sound recording piracy not just on the recording industry, but also on the U.S. economy as a whole."

According to the report, prepared by Stephen Siwek with Economists Inc., every year the U.S. workers lose 71,060 jobs and $2.7 billion in earnings. Of the 71,060 jobs, the report states, 26,860 jobs would have been created in the sound recording and downstream retail industry and 44,200 jobs would have been added in other industries if not for the piracy. Of the $2.7 billion lost in earnings, $1.1 billion is attributable to the sound recording industry or downstream retail industries and $1.6 billion in earnings by workers in other U.S. industries.

Music companies can no longer justify investing in artists if they only control their recorded music output, Edgar Bronfman Jr said yesterday as Warner Music's chief executive spelled out plans to "redefine [its] role in the music value chain."

Warner would seek to expand in artist management, marketing and digital distribution, he said, highlighting a $110m investment last month in Front Line Management, the largest US artist management company, as an example of the deals it was looking for.

Announcing higher net losses for the three months to June 30, Mr Bronfman also signalled a more discriminating approach to deals with digital music partners, warning that the plethora of music websites had created "a sense that music is ubiquitous, to a degree that's probably not helpful to us".

Quoted: Is rock’n’roll the new venture capital? For bands slogging round pubs and clubs, “financing” used to mean a mate moving through the crowd with a hat.