Credit card company Visa International said Wednesday that it has suspended service to music download site allofmp3.com, a Russian digital music download service considered considered a pirate by the music industry.

“It’s no longer permitted to accept Visa cards,” said Simon Barker, a Visa International spokesman. “The action we’ve taken is in line with legislation passed in Russia and international copyright law.”

The news comes as allofmp3.com launches a public relations campaign to counter claims by the U.S. government that the site is an outlaw operation.
U.S. trade representatives say allofmp3.com is profiting from unauthorized music sales. Executives of allofmp3.com say that the company carefully adheres to copyright law in Russia.
via CNET News

Maniac Tools has released MIDI Converter Studio 5.2, a utility that converts MIDI files to popular music file formats, such as MP3, WAV, OGG and WMA.

The software is capable of processing various types of MIDI files - MIDI 0, MIDI 1, Karaoke MIDI, RIFF MIDI 0, RIFF MIDI 1.

MIDI Converter Studio 5.2 offers users a quick way to convert MIDI files, by dragging and dropping source files directly from Windows Explorer onto the program window. Users can also tweak bit rate and frequency and Mono/Stereo settings before conversion, and insert tags, which aren’t normally a part of MIDI format, into the converted files.

In addition to converting single MIDI files, MIDI Converter Studio can be set to work in batch mode to process dozens or hundreds of files at the same time. The converted files can be played back with a built-in player (part of MIDI Converter Studio 5.2).

The price of a single copy is 24.95 US Dollars. A free demo version is available at for evaluation.

Jupiter Research is predicting that annual mobile music revenues will top $14bn worldwide by 2011, with Asia Pacific expected to contribute 40% by this time, Europe 27%, North America 18% and Rest of the World 15%.

Juniper predicts that with the advent of new technologies and increasing competition fuelling the drive for product innovation, there will be a significant shift in market emphasis from ringtones downloads to full track downloads in the next five years.

During the period 2006-2011 total revenues from mobile music services (including ringtones, ringback tones and OTA full track music) will see the proportional market share for ringtones fall from 81% to 51%, with OTA full track music rising from 9% to 32%. Continue reading ‘Mobile Music Market to Reach $14 Billion in 5 Years’

MarketWatch reports that at least three major music companies have cut off CD shipments to Tower Records after record executives said the retailer stopped paying its bills, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

The newspaper said Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group Corp and EMI Group sources confirmed privately that each of the companies had stopped sending albums to the Sacramento, Calif.-based chain, which has struggled with declining sales as digital technologies have changed the way consumers buy music.

The L.A. Times, citing industry sources, said Sony BMG Music Entertainment also suspended shipments.

While the trend to digital distribution has been 10 years in the making, it appears to have blindsided Tower Records. Music retailers will have to reshape their businesses in line with digital distribution and playback, or their market will shring to oblivion.

Tech pundits can’t seem to get enough of sticking it to the RIAA and looking for convoluted justifications for downloading music illegally.

While no one ever went broke telling people what they want hear, a lot of these tech experts are doling out advice that is at best, wishful thinking, and at worse, indefensibly stupid.

The latest example of this is a rumor circulating among tech bloggers that if you get caught illegally sharing files on the Internet and are sued by the RIAA, you’ll get off just by pointing out that Internet addresses aren’t people. In fact, some sites, like TechDirt and others, go so far as implying that you should disable security on your computer network so that you can use this argument as a defense, if you should get sued by the RIAA.

While it might be appealing to some to think that you can get away with sharing music illegally by opening up your WiFi hub to anybody, it’s a bad idea to get your legal advice from tech pundits.

In fact, when tech-savvy journalists make that the case that opening up your WiFi hub may give you license to share music illegally with impunity, they’re making a case that’s morally wrong, legally questionable and technically stupid.
Continue reading ‘Rumor Alert: RIAA Will Drop Cases If You Point Out That An IP Address Isn’t A Person’