A pair of beleaguered torrent heads faced off against the law today. After the October 2007 raid on beloved invitation-only music-sharing site OiNK, U.K. authorities finally levied charges on its founder, Alan Ellis, after extending his bail four times because of lack of evidence. Ellis has been charged with conspiracy to defraud and will face trial starting September 24th. Four OiNK uploaders who were arrested in the shutdown, dubbed “Operation Ark Royal,” will soon learn whether they too will face legal action. Daniel Dove, the administrator of EliteTorrents, was found guilty of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement in Washington, DC. Dove was sentenced to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $20,000. The site, which specialized in movies, was shut down in 2005. Eight other Elite admins and uploaders were previously convicted on conspiracy charges.

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Photo: Getty

The next big digital step for albums may arrive this October, when U.K. rockers Snow Patrol release their new LP A Million Hundred Suns packed with interactive applications for iPod Touch and iPhone. Whereas most iPod-bound albums just include the music and cover photo, Suns‘ “interactive album art” will also boast additional photos, lyrics, extra artwork and other downloadable content — a special liner-notes package and then some. While Snow Patrol’s album extras aren’t expected to make their physical CD unnecessary due to its smaller target audience of iPhone and iPod Touch users, it does reflect the potential and the possible future of the digital medium. Apple users have already proven they’re willing to watch movies on an iPod video, so reading lyrics and interacting with the artwork seems like a logical next step.

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After a year in the works and countless debates over what albums and tracks should make the cut, Universal Music Catalog has launched Lost Tunes, a U.K. download store with a seemingly bottomless catalog and rare, exclusive and “overlooked” tracks (one caveat: people in the U.S. won’t be able to purchase anything until later 2008). The site will tap into artists on the Trojan, Fiction, Decca, Verve, A&M, Motown and Stax labels. Individual tracks are priced at $1.96, with albums starting at $11.85.

“Think of us as your small local record store run by a team dedicated to helping you find the very best music,” a statement from the store reads. “Alongside the rarities, we’ve also picked what we think are unmissable albums for you to add to your collection, and we’ve pulled together articles and reviews to help you discover music that we know you’ll love.”

In all, Lost Tunes has eight categories including rock, pop, dance, reggae, soul, jazz/blues, roots and spoken work, plus an extensive 28 sub-genres. (more…)

Last year, NBC CEO Jeff Zucker complained that Apple “destroyed the music business in terms of pricing” by sticking to its guns on the 99-cents-per-song model. But now entertainment execs might be landing some payback, in the form of Amazon MP3. This week, the online-shopping powerhouse’s DRM-free download store announced two ongoing discount promotions, called “Daily Deals” and “Friday Five,” and both feature big names at basement prices. But the trade-off for labels sick of iTunes pricing is that some tracks at Amazon MP3 cost more than the standard 89-99 cents (a seven-minute track from Coldplay’s Viva la Vida is going for $1.94).

Amazon MP3’s “Daily Deals” offers popular titles at a hefty discount, while “Friday Five” unloads five classic albums for $5 weekly from Friday to Sunday. (more…)

Nine Inch Nails have unleashed a new, thirty-six-song instrumental album called Ghosts I-IV, which is available for download right now. The album, recorded over a ten-week stretch last fall, is what Trent Reznor calls “a soundtrack for daydreams.” “I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective — dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture,” Reznor said on the Ghosts Web site. “I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference.” Reznor parted ways with his Interscope in late 2007.

Much like Radiohead’s novel In Rainbows sales scheme, Ghosts I-IV is available in a multitude of different formats at different costs. (more…)

Moby’s new album Last Night doesn’t come out until April 1st (no fooling!), but he’s providing a taste of the new project via a free DJ mix. The diminutive dance maven has teamed up with online music site RCRD LBL to serve up a gratis download of an eight minute dance mash-up of highlights from the upcoming record. Last Night, a dance-focused four-on-the-floor album, represents something of a return to form for Moby, whose last two albums have been relatively laid back affairs. To get a taste of what’s to come from the mind of Moby, click here.

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Reports that new download service Qtrax has struck deals with the four major record labels to offer their catalogs for free, legal P2P downloading may have been greatly exaggerated.

Qtrax’s program was supposed to launch last night at midnight, but as of 12:30 PM EST, it’s still not available. This morning, reports indicated that three of the four major labels (Universal, EMI, Warner Bros.) denied signing a deal with Qtrax. However, Qtrax music site is still offering up albums by EMI all-stars Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

Qtrax utilizes a program where the labels are paid in ad revenues on a per-download basis, allowing Windows users to download DRM-encoded WMA files, making them playable on some portable music devices—but supposedly not iPods (more…)

Last year at Macworld—the convention that helps consumers figure out how to surround themselves with gadgets stamped with an Apple logo—Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, which created bulges in the pants of technophiles everywhere. At today’s 2008 keynote, entitled “Something in the Air,” Jobs introduced the MacBook Air, an aneroxic laptop that can fit snugly in a manila envelope and is almost half as thin as the already-skinny rivals out there today. There’s no CD drive, but it comes with all the bells and whistles found in a MacBook Pro, weighs three pounds, boasts five hours of battery life, and will be released in two weeks for $1,799. (more…)

Napster will undergo yet another identity change in its tumultuous history, as the digital-music service will return to its MP3 roots by allowing users to purchase songs and albums in DRM-free MP3 format, meaning its tracks will now be compatible with a wide range of portable players, including the iPod. Napster—the program that launched a million illegal-downloading sites, fueled the eventual decline of the record industry and drew the ire of Metallica—has been operating mostly as a subscription music-streaming site since 2002, when Roxio purchased the beleaguered Napster brand. Shawn Fanning’s ex-company plans to unleash their MP3s during the second quarter of 2008. Last week unconfirmed reports indicated that Sony/BMG will be ditching the unpopular DRM model. Amazon’s MP3 store and iTunes Plus are already vending DRM-free.

• After news broke yesterday that Scott Weiland had been arrested for DUI (his second) on November 21st, his rep quickly released a statement: “Scott Weiland was recently involved in a minor accident in Los Angeles and denies he was driving under the influence. He voluntarily took a Breathalyzer test which the defense believes registers well within the legal limit. He is anxious to get to court on December 13th and clear this matter up.”
• Akon has pleaded not guilty to endangering a minor and a second-degree harassment violation. The collaboration king was charged last week in conjunction with a June fan-tossing incident and was released from jail without bail yesterday; he’s due back in court January 16th and faces up to one year and fifteen days in prison if convicted.
• The world’s largest music group and cell-phone maker have struck a deal that hopes to bite a chunk out of Apple’s music and phone dominance: Universal has announced a partnership with Nokia called Comes With Music that will offer new music-phone buyers free unlimited downloads by Universal artists for twelve months after their purchase via Nokia’s new Ovi mobile Web service — and users can keep the tracks when the year is up.
• After six years of groundwork, plans to build a $28 million museum honoring the legacy of Motown have been scrapped by label founder Berry Gordy Jr. and Detroit development officials. The city pulled out after nothing had been built on the site of the intended Motown Center, which Gordy on blames lack of funding. Planners say there is a possibility of moving forward on project far smaller than the intended museum/venue combo.
• U2 producer Daniel Lanois’ sixth solo album, Here Is What Is will be the first album digitally released in a “high resolution CD-quality WAV” format when it becomes available on December 15th. The album will be on sale in WAV and MP3 at redfloorrecords.com, and includes conversations with famed producer Brian Eno from Lanois’ documentary of the same name, which also features previously unheard U2 tracks.

[Photo: Getty]

• According to Paul McCartney, in 2008, the Beatles catalog may finally be available in digital-music stores. McCartney tells Billboard “it’s all happening soon,” and “there’s just maybe one little sticking point left, and I think it’s being cleared up as we speak.” McCartney makes no mention of a possible remastering of the Beatles tracks, however, and instead says that delay is due to “contractual” issues.

• Alice in Chains, with William DuVall assuming Layne Staley’s vocal duties, are hoping to release an album of new music in the latter half of 2008, even though no complete songs have been written. The band’s last album of new material was 1995’s Alice In Chains.

• Queens of the Stone Age were forced offstage during a concert at a California drug-rehab center after only one song. The band opted to open their set with “Feel Good Hit of the Summer,” which contains the lyrics “Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol/C-c-c-c-cocaine.”

• Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis was honored by the Queen of England, who took the opportunity to ask about the fest’s infamous mud. Next week, George W. Bush is expected to honor Perry Farrell for all his hard work on Lollapalooza by throwing a kegger.

• The geniuses at Gibson have created a limited-edition stock of self-tuning, robotic guitars. The guitars would help roadies at concerts who are responsible for tuning numerous guitars, as well as amateurs who have no idea how to find an E.

What It Is: Pandora, the intelligent custom radio station service, on your cell phone. Pandora uses real human musicologists to pick out common patterns in music (pitch, instrumentation, rhythm, bpm, etc), then inputs those findings into the Music Genome Project, a technology that helps pick related tracks. Users pick a song and Pandora creates a personalized radio station based on your picks. Rate the songs you like with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and Pandora’s personalized picks get even more precise. Now Pandora will work on certain phones anywhere you get an AT&T signal (it’s also available on Sprint cell phones, too), so it’s finally available to you in locations other than some dark and dingy office or apartment where your computer resides.

Who It’s For: Picky, snobby, and savvy music aficionados who get around.

What We Like: Unlike the majority of “custom” radio stations you find at various online music stores and services, Pandora is actually smart and gets music selection right. So it stands out on the Web, but in the mobile space, it’s a seriously towering winner. (more…)

There might be a few defecting record labels on iTunes’ horizon. After Universal Music Group’s exclusive contract with Apple’s digital-music service ran out earlier this year, UMG proposed a month-to-month contract that allowed the label to entertain offers from other music services. At year’s end, according to the Washington Post, Warner Music Group may consider a similar contract. It’s the latest move by the industry to tip the balance of power between themselves and Steve Jobs. Apple has had the upper-hand thus far, setting a price limit on MP3s and videos that some labels believe is under market value.

Considering that up to 20 percent of music revenue comes from digital sales, in the wake of declining CD sales, labels are eager to gain leverage to get Jobs to eliminate his price limit. That leverage, besides the elimination of exclusivity, is the iPodization of TV shows. (more…)

Those eager to snag the new Hives album off OiNK the other day came to a saddening realization: As we reported, the long running, invite-only BitTorrent Web site had been shut down in a combined effort by British and Dutch police. The operator of the site, a twenty-four-year-old man from Middlesborough, U.K., was arrested and will likely face so many charges, not even T.I. would want to switch places with him right now. Plus, users who went to the site were greeted with the ominous message, “A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users.” Has the record industry and the Interpol that didn’t come out with Antics finally struck fear in the hearts of illegal downloaders after being on the brink of defeat? It’s like The Empire Strikes Back, but with the RIAA cast as Darth Vader.

While many folks will miss OiNK and its album-leaking ways, a few points: (more…)

Since iTunes Plus launched with cautious fanfare in late May, things have been relatively quiet on the Plus front. The service, which mainly featured EMI’s stacked catalogue (sans Beatles and Radiohead), offers higher-quality, DRM-free MP3s at a greater cost than the normal iTunes store. That has changed: As of today, Apple lowered the price on DRM-free tracks from $1.29 to $0.99. Price-cutting isn’t the only news over on the Plus side: the service will also add more independent labels to their roster of DRM-free tracks. iTunes’ latest moves are likely a response to the prices on Amazon.com’s digital music service, which offers DRM-free tracks for 89¢ to 99¢.

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