Yesterday we remarked that the new Ping social network and music recommendation functionality that has been added to iTunes put the Apple music service into more direct competition with the likes of mflow and MySpace Music though with one weakness, both those other services allow full-track previews of any songs recommended, whereas iTunes still only offers pretty useless thirty second clips.

Presumably Apple are aware of that weakness but don't want to pay the royalty that is due on any full track previews - both labels and publishers usually let thirty second clips go without a licence fee when linked to a retail platform. Now rumour has it that the IT giant was hoping it could find a middle ground to overcome their new service's big weakness without incurring new expense.

According to a CNET report actually published before the launch of Ping on Wednesday, Apple have been trying to get labels and publishers to increase the length of their track previews from thirty to ninety seconds, presumably without incurring any royalty. Whether ninety seconds of preview is really any more attractive I'm not sure but, if the rumours are true, Apple presumably hoped getting to hear about half a track free would make Ping a better music discovery platform.

On Monday, CNET speculated the lengthening of iTunes previews might be among Steve Jobs' announcements on Wednesday. Given it wasn't, either the rumours weren't true or, probably more likely, the labels and publishers wanted more in return for longer previews than Apple were willing to give (who bets the line "but this will help you sell more music" was used at least twice by Apple execs?).

Given Apple seemingly recognise that Ping would be better with a proper preview function, it will be interesting to see if said option is added in due course. Presumably the likes of mflow and MySpace will hope not.

Although the underlying theme of Steve Jobs' latest moment in the spotlight was "look how great we're doing everybody, and I'm not dead, that's a bonus", probably the most significant announcement actually made at last night's Apple press call in San Francisco, for music people at least, was the addition of social networking functionality to the latest incarnation of iTunes.

Along with a rather rubbish new logo (not that the old logo was any better), iTunes 10 will come with a networking element called Ping which will enable artists and users to have profile pages through which they can post updates, reviews and music tips. Other users can then choose to follow artists and friends and use their postings to discover new artists, songs and music.

Described by Jobs as "sort of like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes", the new functionality makes Apple's music software and download store a more direct competitor to services like start-up mflow and, possibly, MySpace Music, which has also tried to combine elements of recommendation, preview and purchase.

Both mflow and MySpace have an advantage over Apple in this regard though, in that they enable users to preview to any song tipped by a friend in full (once only on mflow, as many times as you like on MySpace) whereas Apple only offer their customary and pretty useless thirty second clips.

There would be big licensing implications if Apple were to go the full track preview route of course, though if the much talked about iTunes streaming service ever came to fruition, it could be used to offer more user-friendly previews.

Other innovations in the latest incarnation of iTunes include quasi-TV on demand, better syncing and wireless functionality. The latest version of Apple's music programme is accompanied by a wide-ranging revamp of the iPod range, all of which will be redesigned in one way or another.

German collecting society GEMA failed to get an injunction to force YouTube to take down videos containing one of 75 songs last week.

As much previously reported, the German equivalent of PRS has been in dispute with YouTube over royalty rates for over a year now. After ongoing licensing talks between the collecting society and video site broke down in May, GEMA asked the German courts to issue an injunction to force the Google-owned site to remove any videos containing one of 75 songs owned by publishers represented by the collecting society.

The society argued an injunction was needed now, pending other legal action, on urgency grounds because, given there is currently no licensing agreement between YouTube and GEMA, the writers of the 75 songs in question are losing money every time one of their videos is played.

But, according to Billboard, the Regional Court Of Hamburg, while not passing judgment on GEMA's wider copyright claim, said it was not convinced by the urgency argument so would not issue any interim injunctions. GEMA can, of course, proceed with their other legal action against YouTube, but the 75 songs may continue to be accessed via the video site in the meantime. 

GEMA have a month to appeal the injunction ruling should they wish to.

While Apple was busy launching its new iTunes logo in San Francisco yesterday, rival Sony launched a whole new digital content service at a technology convention in Berlin.

Actually the new service, which goes by the stupid name of Qriocity, has been available in the US since April, but the whole thing will roll out into Europe this autumn, with additional content and devices added into the mix.

A subscription-based streaming service, Qriocity will offer both video and audio content on-demand which can be accessed via a range of Sony devices, including PlayStation 3 consoles, Bravia TVs, Blu-Ray players and Sony PCs. It launches with a film library, with a Spotify-style streaming music option due to be added later in the year.

Sony Europe President Fujio Nishida said: "Via Qriocity, Sony will deliver a variety of digital entertainment content and services... including video, music, game applications and e-books over time".

It's not Sony's first attempt to get a slice of the digital music market, of course, though its original download service, Connect, only ever excited nine people and was quietly shut down in 2008. File formats and digital rights management constraints were always a big issue for Connect. In Australia and New Zealand, Sony more recently launched a more conventional MP3 download service called bandit.fm, which would complement the Qriocity service if it were to be rolled out globally.

In sort of related news, everyone seems to think Amazon is about to enter the streaming music and movie market too. Good times.

More techie innovations, and Spotify has announced a tie up with wireless audio company Sonos, which means premium users of the streaming-music platform will be able to play music around their house employing the Sonos Multi-Room Music System.

An upgrade to the Sonos software later this month will enable users to make Spotify their wireless musical input, meaning music from the streaming service will be playable in rooms around their house, with the option to play different music in different rooms. The wireless system can be controlled via a Sonos device, or iPhone or PC with Sonos software installed.

MySpace have launched a new Facebook syncing facility so that users can automatically have their MySpace updates posted to their Facebook profiles, which means bands who still update their MySpace Music page can communicate with their Facebook followers too.

The syncing is currently one-way - so Facebook updates can't be automatically posted to a MySpace profile - though that two-way functionality is reportedly also in development.

Lots of people have commented on the significance of MySpace now syncing up with their one-time arch rivals, so we won't.

According to the All Things Digital website, Google is busy trying to find someone to run its new much talked about in development digital music service.

There has been speculation that Google will enter the digital music market for years now, but for the last few months it's seemed more and more likely that something is actually in development. As previously reported, the web giant recently hired the services of legal lady Elizabeth Moody, who has lots of experience in negotiating licensing deals for digital music flim flams.

All Things Digital cite various sources who say Google have been sounding out various digital medi executives in the US about them heading up a gTunes type service, but are yet to actually offer anyone the job. One hopes they don't go the MySpace route and launch a really shit service before bringing in a chief.

It is still unclear whether Google are going for an iTunes style download service, a Spotify like streaming platform, or a 'store your MP3s with us' digital locker type whatnot. Or maybe some sort of hybrid of all three.

US-based streaming music flim flam Pandora marked its fifth birthday yesterday by adding a new bit of functionality so that users can kick off their personalised music stream by picking a whole genre rather than a specific artist or song.

Said Pandora Senior Music Curator, Michael Zapruder: "Our listeners have been telling us for a while that they'd like an easy way to start a station from popular genres with the option to personalise the station from there. We wanted to find a uniquely Pandora way to address this consumer need so we created a number of genre stations that are carefully seeded with relevant songs and constantly refreshed with new releases".

So that's all exciting. In related news, Music Week has reported that Elevation Partners, the equity group in which Bono has an interest, wants to buy a stake of Pandora. Which is not exciting at all.

Apple are going to announce something. Yes, people, now is indeed the correct time to piss your pants, you are well ahead of me. Yesterday the tech company sent out invitations to an event next Wednesday in San Francisco. They didn't say what they were announcing, but the invitations do feature a picture of an acoustic guitar, so it's assumed to be music-related.

At this time of year, Apple generally unveils its new range of iPods. But that's boring, so I'm going to join everyone else in speculating about what new product might be about to hit the market. I'm pretty sure it's going to a brand new type of music player, which predicts future trends and automatically writes and records music for you based on your own personal tastes. As a result, there will be no need for actual musicians any more, thus solving the problem of illegal file-sharing.

This will all be officially announced at 10am PDT (so, 6pm in the UK) on 1 Sep.

RIAA president Cary Sherman has said that America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, drawn up by the US government in 1998 in collaboration with ISPs, internet companies and the content industries, contains too many loopholes which allow ISPs and other web-based companies to ignore online copyright infringement without any legal comeback. Sherman was speaking at the Technology Policy Institute in Aspen this week, CNET reports.

As much previously reported, the most common interpretation of America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act is that online services are not liable for infringement, so long as they remove offending content as soon as they are made aware of it being on their systems.

Sherman said: "The DMCA isn't working for content people at all. You cannot monitor all the infringements on the internet. It's simply not possible. We don't have the ability to search all the places infringing content appears, such as cyberlockers like RapidShare".

However, despite his concerns, Sherman added that he did not see new legislation as the solution to this (though did not rule it out), preferring to reach agreements with web firms directly. He explained: "We're working on [discussions with broadband providers], and we'd like to extend that kind of relationship - not just to ISPs, but search engines, payment processors, advertisers. [But] if legislation is an appropriate way to facilitate that kind of cooperation, fine".

In the UK and France efforts to reach voluntary agreements with the net sector that would result in ISPs taking on a piracy police role failed, and new laws were subsequently lobbied for and passed (though not, as yet, activated).

Also speaking at the debate, YouTube's Lance Kavanaugh disagreed with Sherman's view on US copyright law, saying: "It's our view that the DMCA is functioning exactly the way Congress intended it to. There's legal plumbing to allow that to happen, to allow those small companies to innovate without [the] crushing fear of lawsuits, as long as they follow certain rules. Congress was prescient. They struck the right balance".

Of course, YouTube would be supportive of the DMCA as it has been recently interpreted by US judges, because one such interpretation enabled them to defeat a multi-million lawsuit from MTV owners Viacom. The video site circumvented liability for hosting MTV content without Viacom's permission because they operated a take-down system. Viacom are not impressed by that interpretation of the law.

As also previously reported, last week, following a joint announcement from Google and US ISP Verizon regarding so called net neutrality, in which the two companies announced a joint commitment to ensure that all net users will always "have access to all legal content on the internet" (ie so smaller online publishers won't be disadvantaged in favour of the bigger service providers), a consortium of American music business types - including the RIAA, indie labels body A2IM and collecting societies BMI, ASCAP and SESAC - called on the two web giants to add cracking down on piracy to their joint mission.

Discussing Google's anti-piracy efforts directly, Sherman said that although YouTube and other Google-owned sites operate their own filtering systems to catch illegal content, the web giant "could stop filtering tomorrow and have no liability", provided it continued to respond to take-down notices issued by content owners. He also added that there was plenty more that could be done, saying: "If you enter in 'Beyonce MP3' [into Google's search engine] chances are, the first thing you'll see is illegal sites".

According to reports, iTunes has adopted a new policy of offering better promotion to tracks which are serviced to the download store at the same time as radio. In fact, one source told CMU that this is now the only way to get tracks onto the main page on the market leading download store, resulting in a number of lead singles (those released before a full album, so where there is no album track equivalent already available) expected to go to number one missing out.

As previously reported, the pre-release window traditionally exists so that record labels can build a profile for a new track through radio play and other promotional activity over a number of weeks, with the aim of maximising first week sales so that the single enters the chart in a high position. The high chart ranking then brings further exposure on radio and in the mainstream print media, normally securing further single sales and, it's hoped, building wider interest in the album release that will normally follow.

The problem is that in the digital age as soon as a track appears on radio, many music fans want immediate ownership of it. It's argued that because these people cannot legitimately buy the song they go onto illegal file-sharing networks instead. As early as 2004, a piece of CMU and MusicTank research reported that this was one of the excuses used by file-sharers as to why they went the illegal route rather than buying tracks from the then fledgling iTunes Music Store. However, most major labels still like to have the pre-release promotional window as part of their marketing plan.

This was the subject of a MusicTank debate back in March. Read CMU's full report on that here.

If it is true that iTunes is refusing to promote tracks that have already received radio play, this could fore a change of policy from the majors and the closure of the pre-release window. Or it could be the point at which labels stop placing so much emphasis on the iTunes store as a digital marketing tool.

US streaming music site Playlist.com filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month, according to CNET, because it owes the four major labels $25 million in unpaid licensing fees.

Originally an illegal site, Playlist.com managed to secure deals with all four majors last year. As previously reported, EMI, Warner and Universal sued the online service, formerly known as Project Playlist, in April 2008. EMI dropped its litigation a year later, though Warner and Universal continued a little longer.

Announcing its deal with the digital service in March last year, EMI Music Services man Ronn Werre told reporters: "Making our music available on a fan favourite like Project Playlist is part of EMI Music's mission to connect artists and fans and to give fans more ways to discover new artists. Project Playlist is becoming a fan favourite. Our artists also know that word-of-mouth among friends is a powerful part of music discovery".

However, after the site defaulted on payments due to the majors at the end of May, a number of those deals were reportedly withdrawn, though content from all four companies is currently still available on the site, meaning that Playlist.com is not only in debt but now operating semi-illegally again.

According to court documents seen by CNET, the company is trying to raise new financing, in part to cover its debts. However, unless it does something impressive with the rest of that new financing, it's likely to find itself in trouble again not too far down the line. Which doesn't make it an especially attractive investment opportunity.

Fireplayer, a new iPhone music application that claims to be "the next generation of music app", launched yesterday with content from Universal Music, Ministry Of Sound, Infectious and others.

Developed by Bounce Mobile, the software allows music fans to download tracks and create remixes of them, which they can then share on Facebook.

Available as a free download in the iTunes app store, Fireplayer comes packaged with two free tracks, Hed Kandi's 'La La La', which has been commissioned for the application, and 'Demons' by South Central, which is available exclusively ahead of its release later this year. Further tracks will cost users £1.79 each - pricey considering it's not possible to listen to or export the original version of the track, as far as I can tell from using it.

Once users have created their remix - done by dropping the track's individual parts in and out and using a limited range of effects - they can be shared via Facebook or email, giving others the opportunity to listen to your shoddy work via Fireplayer's own streaming music player.

Bounce Mobile CEO Martin Macmillan told CMU: "We developed an app which enables people to interact with their favourite music in a new, engaging and addictive way. We've worked hard with key content providers to offer music across a range of musical genres, which gives Fireplayer mass market appeal and a unique proposition. Our focus is on fun but our business model also means the artists, labels and publishers can drive new and complimentary digital revenue streams. "

At launch, there are six tracks available to purchase, including 'ABC by the Jackson Five, 'Call Me' by Go West and 'Break Your Heart' by Taio Cruz, with more to be added soon.

For an idea of the app's potential, here's a mix of 'Demons' by South Central I just put together, largely by jabbing at the buttons randomly: http://stream.fireplayer.com/greyhound/dyn/music.mp3?action=stream.LinkServeMix&id=72

Twelve people accused of involvement in an elaborate money laundering scam whereby they uploaded songs to legit download sites, including iTunes and Amazon MP3, and then bought them with stolen or cloned credit cards thus generating royalties for themselves (and, they hoped, nicely cleaned stolen loot) are due to begin their trial in London next month.

As previously reported, the group, who all hail from around the UK, though mainly Wolverhampton, were arrested in June last year in a joint operation between the Metropolitan Police and the FBI. Eight men aged between nineteen and 24 are accused of uploading around 20 tunes they'd produced to the digital music stores. They then went online using 1500 different stolen credit cards and bought their own music, spending over £450,000, and earning themselves £200,000 in royalties.

Four others will face charges related to the scam. The trial is due to begin at the City Of Westminster Magistrates' Court on 15 Sep.

Following a joint announcement last week from Google and US ISP Verizon regarding so called net neutrality, in which the two companies announced a joint commitment to ensure that all net users will always "have access to all legal content on the internet" (ie so smaller online publishers won't be disadvantaged in favour of the bigger service providers), a consortium of American music business types have called on the two web giants to add cracking down on piracy to their joint mission.

The Recording Industry Association Of America, indie labels body A2IM and collecting societies BMI, ASCAP and SESAC are among the signatories to an open letter to Google top man Eric Schmidt. They focus on the "legal" bit of Google and Verizon's commitment, and argue that the flip side of that commitment is that ISPs should help in the crack down on the distribution of illegal (ie copyright infringing) content on the internet. The US music industry is busy lobbying the ISP sector there to take a more proactive role in policing piracy though, as in Europe, the net firms are not exactly embracing such a role.

The letter reads as follows (complete with American spellings of some words, for added authenticity):

Dear Mr Schmidt:

We write to you on behalf of the broad and diverse music community represented by our organizations. We read about your recent joint policy proposal for an open internet and commend you and Verizon for advancing the public conversation on this important issue.

The music community we represent believes it is vital that any internet policy initiative permit and encourage ISPs and other intermediaries to take measures to deter unlawful activity such as copyright infringement and child pornography. The principle of distinguishing lawful from unlawful activity has become a firmly established tenet of broadband policy - articulated clearly by FCC Chairs Powell, Martin and Genachowski, leading Members of Congress from both parties, and industry executives. It is also contained in the standard user policies of many legitimate businesses that operate online.

We all share the goal of a robust internet that is highly accessible, secure and safe for individuals and commerce. An internet predicated on order, rather than chaos, facilitates achievement of this goal.

As you well know, music is a powerful driver of broadband adoption and related applications. So, too, the internet has become a crucial part of the music discovery process and a central platform for commerce. The number and range of music services is exploding. Our ability to invest in and create the next generation of music is grounded on crafting Internet policies and procedures that respect intellectual property.

Accordingly, we are deeply interested in the details of your proposal as they may relate to the protection of content and to making sure that the distinction between lawful and unlawful activity has operational meaning.

The current legal and regulatory regime is not working for America's creators. Our businesses are being undermined, as are the dreams and careers of songwriters, artists, musicians, studio technicians, and other professionals. That's why we look forward to working with you, other stakeholders, the FCC and the Congress to make the distinction between lawful and unlawful relevant in the marketplace so that the internet fulfills its promise for consumers, subscribers, providers, creators and business.

Google and Verizon are yet to respond.

SoundCloud has announced a raft of new features linked to a stepped up partnership with the dudes behind Creative Commons, the only slightly complicated copyright system whereby creators allow other creators to use their work for non-commercial projects. 

Creative Commons-licensed tracks hosted on the SoundCloud platform will now be listed on a dedicated page at www.soundcloud.com/creativecommons, and the site's search engine will now allow users to search for free-to-use samples.

SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung told CMU: "Providing the talented and varied userbase we have on SoundCloud with more options to share and create their own original works is core to our mission. Partnering with Creative Commons is great for our users and any audio creators in the CC community as we look to build a huge library of sounds, samples and songs to inspire more new creativity. These new features will facilitate this process and help to consolidate all the disparate sources of CC audio around the web for future creators".

For more information, have a read of this: http://blog.soundcloud.com/2010/08/19/reuse-soundcloud-style/

Music discovery site Epitonic.com is to relaunch, it has been announced.

Set up in 1999, the site worked with record labels to provide free MP3 downloads. All tracks were hand selected by the site's team of writers, attaching the music to impassioned editorial content and also making available in streaming form.

Although that all sounds pretty standard now, it certainly wasn't at the time. This and the fact that Epitonic was brilliant helped to make it highly successful. But as traffic grew, the site hit hard times, and was bought by Palm Pictures before falling quiet in 2004.

Now co-founder Justin Sinkovich has announced that he and his original team have re-acquired the rights to the site and plan to relaunch it later this year.

Sinkovich said in a statement: "I never really thought I would be proudly announcing that I will be relaunching Epitonic alongside many of my partners and friends from the original site. I was elated - and honestly a little shocked - to reacquire the rights to Epitonic, and it has been amazing to reconnect and reformulate a launch plan. Everyone I've talked to in the music and online communities has been incredibly supportive and excited to see Epitonic come back to life".

But before they can do that, they need some cash, which you can give to them here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1096570561/epitoniccom-relaunch-by-the-original-founders

Or for more info, check out www.epitonic.com

The Grooveshark iPhone app has been pulled from Apple's app store just days after it was added because of a complaint by the UK office of Universal Music.

As previously reported, the mobile app from the sometimes controversial US-based streaming music service was initially rejected by Apple, presumably because some content owners had accused Grooveshark of infringing their copyrights. But last week the app, which takes the Grooveshark service mobile, was approved. However, it has now been removed from Apple's store because of, Grooveshark say, Universal UK's complaint.

In a blog posting yesterday, Team Groove said: "Earlier this afternoon, Apple sent us a letter notifying us that, due to a complaint they received from Universal Music Group UK, Grooveshark for iPhone has been, strangely, pulled from the App Store. This comes as an absolute surprise to us, and we are not sleeping until we figure out exactly how to fix this and get Grooveshark for iPhone back in the App Store".

While EMI and Merlin have entered into licensing deals with Grooveshark, Universal are suing the digital firm, though the lawsuit came out of Universal US so it's interesting that Universal UK have filed this complaint. Nevertheless, it is believed the complaint is related to the litigation.

The app will remain operational for those who have already downloaded it, and presumably it is still out there for anyone with a 'jail-broken' iPhones. Grooveshark made it available that way when the app was first knocked back by Apple earlier this year.

Former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde has said that it's time for the rogue file-sharing service to make way for new technology. Speaking at the Campus Party 2010 in Mexico, Sunde said that The Pirate Bay is essentially a redundant technology, but its user base nevertheless continues to grow, hindering the development of newer systems.

Towards the end of his talk, Sunde told the audience: "The Pirate Bay should die, really. Nobody works on The Pirate Bay, it's just there and it works all the time. And it's still growing. If you see the site, nothing has happened in five years and still more and more users are using it, which is bad. We need some form of new technology. So, that's kind of the future for The Pirate Bay, hopefully dying, and being replaced with something better of course, because the Pirate Bay really sucks".

Watch Sunde's talk here: youtu.be/jvyqo25tgWM

Nokia's rather rubbish all-you-can-eat download service Comes With Music is being rebranded under the phone firm's Ovi brand. Moving forward it will be known as Ovi Music Unlimited on a global basis.

Dressing up the rebrand as a good thing, rather than an admission that the Comes With Music offer has been resolutely dismissed by most critics and music fans, Nokia said in an email to customers this week: "We are excited to tell you that Comes With Music will soon be part of Ovi. Along with the new name and sleek new look that is easier than ever to use, with Ovi Music Unlimited you'll still have access to millions of free tracks, plus, easier way to brows, search and download music".

Although one of the first all-you-can-eat services to market, Comes With Music uses DRM that locks tracks to the device it is downloaded to, making the whole thing rather unattractive to most consumers.