Over in the US, the Copyright Board Of America decided that the amount publishers and writers get from each download is to stay at 9cents. The board discussed raising the royalties rate to 15c per download, a move that forced Apple to state they would scrap their market leading iTunes store if it stopped making a profit. iTunes serves 85% of the market making it doubtful that any increase to their 99c rate would damage their business.

London Record Store To Remain Open
Meanwhile, my favourite CD shop in the west end has been sold. Sister Ray went into administration back in July but has now been rescued by an unnamed independent individual who has “music retail experience”. The W1 premises will apparently stay put and all staff will keep their jobs. The new owner has a lot to do to keep this business floating amid strong competition for the last remaining hard-copy music buyers.

Dirty Pretty Split

Dirty Pretty Things have announced their split, after completing their tour this month.

Three years after their formation in the wake of The Libertines the band are to pursue their own musical projects. Singer & writer Carl Barat told NME that this will not include a reformation of The Libertines. I’m one of the thousands that would pay vast sums to see a reunion of The Libertines but I can’t help but wonder if Pete & Carl would generate the energy they did eight years ago.

More Ways To Get Music
Indie labels are dismayed this week at their initial exclusion from the new Myspace Music service. Myspace teamed up with the big four (Sony, Warner, EMI & Universal) to bring their catalogues to the ad-driven free streaming service which also includes to option to purchase MP3’s via Amazon MP3. London based Merlin, which represents 12,000 Independent Record Labels, said it is “at odds to understand” why Myspace launched without it’s group participation. We consider it odd too given that Myspace Music owes it’s success completely to the independent artists that were the first to put their music on the site.

The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic (around £130) will launch in the UK on October 16th. The phone comes with a years unlimited access to the Nokia Music Library with tracks provided by EMI & Universal. You might think this is a good idea, and you’d be right, but what you should know is that the tracks downloaded will not be mp3’s and they’ll be marinated in DRM  (Digital Rights Management) meaning you probably won’t be able to anything other than listen via your phone.

Blogs Responsible For 30% of Pirated Music
I also learnt this week that direct download links (DDL, on sites that offer up mp3’s) account for 30% of all [pirated] music traffic on the Internet. There is a growth now of pirate sites offering full albums, artwork and tracklisting’s completely free via file hosting services like Rapidshare.

Also this week, The Automatic were dropped by Polydor only to be re-signed by B-Unique. Their new label buddies Kaiser Chiefs latest album “Off With Their Heads” leaked on the internet this week. Expect a very generic Kaiser Cheifs sound.

Listen To:
Kaiser Chiefs - Half The Truth.mp3
Kaiser Chiefs - Like It Too Much.mp3

[The album "Off With Their Heads" out October 20th. Pre-order it now from Amazon.co.uk]

For More:
www.myspace.com/kaiserchiefs
www.musicweek.co.uk
www.mypsace.com/dirtyprettythingsoffical
www.nokia.co.uk/5800xpressmusic