Vodafone has claimed that it has 450,000 music subscribers to its unlimited subscription music service (the biggest in Europe?) Sadly there is no way to compare this to Nokias Comes With Music service so it is hard to know if this figure is impressive or not.

From mocoNews- “No single kind of digital service is going to save the music business on its own, but every little helps. Doing its bit, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) came to the Midem music-biz event having totted up the number of paying customers it has for unlimited subscription music – the model that offers perhaps the most likely salvation…

The result: 450,000 around Europe. That makes it the continent’s biggest subscription music operator, it claimed (Spotify has just over 250,000, it said during the conference, and is looking to provide its service to mobile carriers). Voda attracted 100,000 music subscribers in December alone, it said at the event in Cannes.

The telco first started offering unlimited, DRM’ed music downloads for £1.99, via subscription-music vendor Omnifone’s MusicStation service, in September 2007, so has been in the game a relatively long time, but it’s recently started concentrating again on a la carte downloads, striking deals with major labels to remove DRM. That allows is to offer a bundle of 10 MP3s a month to consumers – an offering that labels have made standard to many retailers.”

MP3 is of course the format of choice for digital music at this time, but plans are afoot to bring something new to the party. The MusicDNA format will supposedly provide “lyrics, videos, artwork and blog posts, which will continually be updated, as well as the music.”

From the BBC- “It has been created by Norwegian developer Dagfinn Bach, who worked on the first MP3 player in 1993.

And its investors include German researcher Karlheinz Brandenburg, who is credited with inventing the MP3.

British record company Beggars Group, whose labels are home to Vampire Weekend, MIA and The Strokes, has signed up to use MusicDNA, as has US label Tommy Boy.

But no major labels are currently on board and the MusicDNA files are likely to be more expensive than current music downloads.

It will also be in competition with Apple’s iTunes LP, which gives users added content including bonus tracks, lyrics and video interviews.”

The European Commision wants to limit the volume of all MP3 players, and presumably smartphones as well. The reasons make sense, but personally I like my music ‘loud’ and would not be impressed. How about you?

From BBC- “The European Commission is calling for a suggested maximum volume to be set on MP3 players, to protect users’ hearing.

The commission wants all MP3 players sold in the EU, including iPods, to share the same volume limits.

This follows a report last year warning that up to 10m people in the EU face permanent hearing loss from listening to loud music for prolonged periods.

EU experts want the default maximum setting to be 85 decibels, according to BBC One’s Politics Show.

Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top limit of 100 decibels.

In January, a two-month consultation of all EU standardisation bodies will begin on these proposals, with a final agreement expected in the spring.”

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 28, 2009 — Didiom, an award-winning mobile media service provider, today announced licensing agreements with finetunes-solutions and A-Train Entertainment. The agreements enable Didiom to make highly regarded catalogs of independent music available to millions of BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phone users. Didiom also has announced that, for the second year in a row, it has been honored with a Gold Award for Best Consumer Information from the Horizon Interactive Awards, a prestigious international competition that recognizes outstanding achievement among media producers.

Didiom’s free mobile service allows users to stream songs, playlists and podcasts from their home computer to their phone over the air, and also to buy new music from Didiom’s Mobile MP3 Store. Unlike any other service, Didiom gives users the power to bid on more than 1.5 million songs directly from their phone. When users find a song or album they like, they can buy it or name their own price to get deep discounts. By using a proprietary algorithm, Didiom accepts and rejects bids on the spot. As an additional incentive for users to discover new music, Didiom is implementing a cash bonus program that pays up to a 35% bonus toward music downloads. There are never any membership or service fees. Users pay only for the music they download through Didiom’s secure, credit card service.

“Didiom takes placeshifting and variable pricing to a whole new level and makes mobile music complete, interactive and affordable,” said Ran Assaf, Didiom’s founder and CEO. “A-Train and finetunes-solutions share our entrepreneurial spirit and passion for indie music, which now accounts for almost 40% of digital music sales in the US. We are delighted to add these world-class distributors to our burgeoning roster of music partners, and look forward to mobilizing their rich catalogs.”…

Vodafone has become the latest music provider to drop DRM. Hooray! “11 March 2009 — Vodafone announces today that it has signed deals with the world largest record companies Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music to offer their tracks and albums DRM free (without digital rights management) across Vodafone markets for both mobile phones and PCs.
The new deals are the first of their kind for a mobile network operator enabling dual delivery of DRM free music to a wide range of mobile phones and PCs with no …

Here’s an interesting article at Times Online which suggests that younger people prefer the tinnier sound of digital music to analogue which people over a certain age seem to prefer. I always presumed that a good MP3 player was perfectly acceptable, until I heard my friend’s stereo system playing vinyl (over £5,000’s worth)- the difference was incredible!
“Many people complain that pop music was better in the good old days. Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen are poor substitutes for the Beatles and Bob Dylan, the argument goes.
Older fans also insist that …