Urban Music 2000 Blog - Music News, Celebrity News, & Gossip

Michael Jackson products could start appearing on store shelves, cell phones, even in X-Box add-ons if a judge signs off on a merchandising deal.
The current administrators of the singer’s estate have presented several proposed contracts to a probate judge for approval. The agreements offer a taste of how the King of Pop may be sold [...]

Instead of scrambling to dismiss Jay-Z’s claims on “Death of AutoTune,” the technology’s creator Antares Audio is using the superstar’s stance for product advertisement. Dubbed the “next generation” of professional pitch correction, Antares Audio has created Auto-Tune Evo.
The new technology immediately deciphers the pitch of any inputted information, and finds the closest match in the [...]

Nine Inch Nails‘ frontman Trent Reznor announced yesterday (May 7) that Apple has approved an update of the Nine Inch Nails iPhone application.
Earlier this week, Apple rejected the update, saying it was in violation of a policy that bans “obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind,” as previously reported.
Reznor responded with [...]

The world’s largest music store, Apple’s iTunes, plans to boost
the price of many hit singles and selected classic tracks to
$1.29 on April 7, breaking the psychological barrier of 99 cents
in what could be the first big
test of how much consumers are
willing to pay to download individual songs. Although the date
for higher prices has not been [...]

Google’s YouTube and Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, said on Thursday they will launch a premium music video website as they bid to increase revenue from YouTube’s huge usage.
The new advertiser-supported site, featuring professional videos, will be called Vevo and is expected to launch in coming months, the companies said.
The deal is [...]

Now that selling song downloads through video games has achieved liftoff, the business appears poised to rocket into orbit.
In 2008, “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” users downloaded more than 50 million tracks from the games. Game-linked song downloads are expected to surge in the coming year as the music-simulation games continue to extend their reach [...]

Making music just got easier. A Japanese game maker has teamed up with the nation’s leading mobile phone network carrier to enable users to play an orchestra with their fingertips.
Game manufacturer Taito has created the “Chokkan Classic” software for NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode Internet service that lets users to pick their instruments and the melody [...]

In a move that could start a new wave in PC sales, Dell and Paramount Pictures today announced that they have signed a joint venture that will see “Iron Man” come pre-loaded on Dell computers for anyone who wishes to order the unit.

So far, the details of the deal are a bit disappointing. Paramount is [...]

Five Hollywood studios have agreed to help pay for a $1 billion-plus rollout of digital technology on about 20,000 movie screens in North America, a precursor to showing movies in 3-D.
Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, a consortium of major theater chains, announced the deal Wednesday. The rollout in the U.S. and Canada, covering about half of [...]

Yahoo Inc plans to open its online music site to feature information about songs and artists from outside services such as Apple Inc iTunes or Amazon.com, an executive said on Thursday.
“We are going to completely open up Yahoo Music in the next few weeks,” Scott Moore, the executive in charge of Yahoo’s media businesses, [...]

Google Inc has launched a music search service in China that will give users access to free downloads of licensed songs, while capturing advertising revenue for music providers in a market rife with piracy.
The service poses a challenge to Baidu.com Inc, which dominates China’s Internet search market but has, along with other Chinese search [...]

Lil Jon, who was in musical limbo after his longtime record label TVT Records went bankrupt earlier this year, has reached an agreement that frees him from his TVT obligations while entering into a new venture with digital entertainment company The Orchard, which is purchasing TVT’s assets.
Lil Jon will work with the Orchard’s Brand [...]

Tapping on fake instruments and screeching into microphones connected to video game consoles has become lucrative for both the music and gaming industries. Downloadable tunes for music-based games “Guitar Hero,” “Rock Band” and “SingStar” have become as vital as iTunes itself — and one of the last ways to expose youngsters to classic rock.

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The genre [...]

A tech-savvy university near the Missouri Ozarks is resorting to an old standby to reduce illegal music downloads by students: the pop quiz.
Missouri University of Science and Technology now requires students to ace a six-question quiz on digital copyright law to get six hours of access to peer-to-peer software they can use to share [...]

Apple Inc’s iTunes digital media store edged out Best Buy Co and Target Corp to become the second-largest U.S. music retailer, behind Wal-Mart Stores, according to data released on Tuesday from tracking firm NPD Group. Based on 2007 sales, legal music downloads now account for 10 percent of music acquired in the United States, but [...]