Huge news out of MacWorld, beginning this week, three of the four major music labels - Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group - will begin selling music through iTunes without digital rights management software, or D.R.M., which controls the copying and use of digital files. The fourth, EMI, was already doing so.

In return, Apple, whose dominance in online music sales gives it powerful leverage, agreed to a longstanding demand of the music labels and said it would move away from its insistence on pricing all individual song downloads on iTunes at 99 cents.

Instead, the majority of songs will drop to 69 cents beginning in April, while the biggest hits and newest songs will go for $1.29. Others that are moderately popular will remain at 99 cents.

Jason Castro from Rockwall, Texas is one of our favs.

Big stuff coming from the music industry today, News Corp’s MySpace, the world’s largest social network Web site, has formed a joint venture with three major music companies called MySpace Music, it said on Thursday, in a challenge to Apple Inc’s dominant iTunes Music store.  The joint venture includes Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group as minority stake holders in the new company.

MySpace Music will offer free music audio and video streaming supported by advertising, paid-for MP3 downloads, ringtones, artist ticket sales and merchandise. Chris De Wolfe, chief executive of MySpace, described the launch date of the new service as “fluid” with commercial features being added to the site over the coming months. He said MySpace is in talks with more music industry partners to offer their services on MySpace Music.

MySpace said the new product will integrate its existing 5 million artist profile pages with the range of new commercial services in a “360-degree” offering that will be available to its 30 million-strong music fan base.

MySpace Music is seen as a potential rival to Apple Inc’s iTunes Music Store, which takes more than 70 percent of digital download sales and is the No. 2 music retailer in the United States behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The music industry has been concerned about a lack of competition for iTunes in the digital music market.

The music industry, fearful of Apple’s outsized influence over its business, sees another competitor in the song downloads business as a crucial element. “This gives a great new lease of life for the download market,” said Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG president of global digital business.

Financial terms of the new partnership were not disclosed.  But you can expect this one to be lucrative for both players. The deal went through late on Wednesday after Universal Music agreed to settle a 2006 copyright infringement lawsuit against MySpace. A source familiar with the negotiations said MySpace had agreed to pay Universal as much as $100 million to settle. EMI, the fourth big music company, was not part of the initial deal. MySpace’s De Wolfe said his company is talking to all music partners but would not comment on EMI.

A winning bid of $3 million for a huge record collection offered on EBay was apparently a fraud. This seems to be a common occurence nowadays.

A bidder had claimed he would shell out $3,002,150 for the collection of nearly three million vinyl albums, singles and CDs being sold by Paul Mawhinney, 68, of Ross Township.

An agent for the sale, Paul Henderson, said an EBay executive notified him Friday night that the bid was not legitimate and that the bidder’s account had been suspended, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Mawhinney said he began collecting the records when he opened his record shop, Record Rama, in 1968. He closed it Thursday, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

“I am legally blind,” he said. “I had a couple of strokes a few years ago … and it’s time at my age to think about doing something else with my life.”

Mawhinney said that he had already contacted six other bidders who had pledged more than $3 million on EBay and three others who approached him independently. So a sale might end up going through.

50 Cent does the pre-game Super Bowl concert.  Between performing hits like “Candy Shop” and “Ayo Technology” with his crew, the rapper welcomed Deion Sanders and Ludacris on the Pontiac Garage Stage during Thursday’s performance at the 944 Super Village, a makeshift venue constructed by 944 magazine in an empty lot adjacent to Scottdale’s Fashion Square Mall.

Paris Hilton also made a cameo about halfway through 50’s performance. Hilton — who appears topless on the February cover of 944 magazine — emerged from the front row and partially danced her way onstage with 50, drawing the attention of both professional photographers’ lenses and audience members’ cell phones.

Meanwhile, two men dressed as Ooompa Loompas from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” danced on tables in a VIP section.

Backstage, reality TV stars Kourtney and Chloe Kardashian, actor Mekhi Phifer and two women wearing nothing but G-strings and Trump Premium Vodka bottles painted on their nude bodies were spotted. Tickets to the concert went for anywhere between $100 to $1,000.  The whole thing sounds very strange to me.

Radiohead has hit out at the chief of its former label after a news report claimed the rock band rejected a 3 million pound ($5.95 million) advance for its new album and demanded the rights to some of its older albums. According to the report, published last Friday by The Times of London, Radiohead’s demands to EMI Group chairman Guy Hands totaled more than 10 million pounds ($19.8 million).

In addition to the advance, the Times said the band also wanted a 3 million pound international marketing budget for the album, “In Rainbows,” while the reversion of the rights to its previous two albums would have cost EMI 4 million pounds ($7.9 million) in future earnings.  The paper quoted an EMI spokesman as saying, “Radiohead were demanding an extraordinary amount of money and we did not believe that our other artists should have to subsidize their gains.”

It also quoted the band’s manager, Bryce Edge, as saying, “We were not seeking a big advance payment, or a guaranteed marketing spend as discussions never got that far.”

Representatives for EMI in London and New York were not available to comment Tuesday.

Hands’ buyout firm Terra Firma Capital Partners agreed to buy EMI in May for 2.4 billion pounds ($4.8 billion). The financier has warned artists they could be dropped if they do not work hard enough for the company.  Imagine that, having to actually work for your money?

Pop star Kylie Minogue, currently in the top ten with comeback single 2 Hearts, has announced a bunch of European concerts for 2008.
The 24-date tour kicks off in Paris on 6 May and will touch down in Germany, Finland and Sweden, among others.  This is very exciting news for all her fans and supporters.

Branded KylieX2008, the tour hits the UK in June, culminating in 2 nights at the O2 arena in London.  The Australian singer, 39, promised fans a “fresh, exhilarating and innovative” set.

Minogue’s last tour was postponed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005.  Following treatment, she returned to the stage in Sydney last December with a revamped show designed to be less physically demanding.

Despite the scaled-back dance numbers and the introduction of an interval, Minogue had to cancel two concerts in Manchester in January 2007 after contracting a respiratory infection.  The dates were later rescheduled.

The star, whose tenth album, X, was released on Monday, said her new tour “will be a look to the future but will definitely include favourites alongside the new”.  Tickets for the UK dates go on sale on Monday 3 December and like most every fan I can’t wait!

High kicking action movie star Jackie Chan has recorded an officially-endorsed song which will count down to the Beijing Olympics, he has said on his website.  He revealed in a blog entry that he had spent three hours recording We Are Ready on a trip to the Chinese capital.  Oh boy, get ready to cover your ears.

The song was written by Peter Kam, who won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival last year for his score to the production Isabella. And an English-language version of it was planned, Kam told Associated Press.  He added that a second Chinese version had been sung by more than 100 pop stars.

Bon Jovi embarks on a world tour of more than 10 countries, beginning with the United States and Canada this fall. Following its 10-night stand at the $375 million, 18,000-capacity Prudential Center, which ends Nov. 10, the Bon Jovi Lost Highway World Tour will visit North American arenas through April 8. Tickets for U.S. dates go on sale Nov. 3, with additional markets to follow in the coming weeks.

AEG Live, the live entertainment division of Los Angeles-based AEG, will produce the tour in North America and Europe. The tour is scheduled to make stops in Japan, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Holland and Austria, among other countries. The trek is in support of Bon Jovi’s latest album, “Lost Highway,” which has sold 862,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Here are Bon Jovi’s North American concert dates: You can bet I will try and see at least two of them.

Oct. 26, 28, 30, Nov. 1, 3-4, 7, 9-10: Newark, N.J. (Prudential Center)
Nov. 14-15: Montreal, Quebec (Bell Centre)
Nov. 17: Ottawa, Ontario (Scotiabank Bank Place)
Nov. 19: London, Ontario (John Labatt Centre)
Dec. 6-7: Toronto (Air Canada Centre)
Dec. 9: Winnipeg, Manitoba (MTS Centre)
Dec. 10: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Credit Union Centre)
Dec. 12: Edmonton, Alberta (Rexall Place)
Dec. 13: Calgary, Alberta (Pengrowth Saddledome)
Dec. 15-16: Vancouver (GM Place)
Feb. 18: Omaha, Neb. (Qwest Center)
Feb. 20: Detroit (the Palace of Auburn Hills)
Feb. 23-24: Chicago (United Center)
Feb. 28: Washington, D.C. (Verizon Center)
March 2-3: Philadelphia (Wachovia Center)
March 5: Pittsburgh (Mellon Arena)
March 10: Toronto (Air Canada Centre)
March 18: St. Paul, Minn. (Xcel Energy Center)
March 31: Denver (Pepsi Center)
April: San Jose, Calif. (HP Pavilion)
April 4-5: Anaheim, Calif. (Honda Center)
April 8: Phoenix (Jobing.com Arena)
April 9: Los Angeles (Staples Center)
April 14: Dallas (American Airlines Center)
April 15: Oklahoma City (Ford Center)
April 20: Kansas City, Mo. (Sprint Center)
April 22: Des Moines, Iowa (Wells Fargo Arena)
April 24: Nashville (Sommet Center)
April 26: Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (BankAtlantic Center)
April 27: Tampa, Fla. (St. Pete Times Forum)
April 30: Atlanta (Philips Arena)

Apple Corps Ltd have announced the much anticipated DVD release of The Beatles’ second feature film ‘Help!’ on November 5th, which will be marketed and distributed by EMI Music.  Directed by Richard Lester, who also directed the band’s debut feature film ‘A Hard Days Night’, ‘Help!’ made its theatrical debut in 1965.

The story follows The Beatles as they become passive recipients of an outside plot that revolves around Ringo’s possession of a sacrificial ring, which he cannot remove from his finger. As a result, he and his bandmates John, Paul and George are chased from London to the Austrian Alps and the Bahamas by religious cult members, a mad scientist & the London police.

In addition to starring the Beatles, ‘Help!’ has a witty script, a great cast of British character actors and features 7 classic Beatles tracks, including:

• ‘Help!’
• ‘You’re Going To Lose That Girl’
• ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’
• ‘Ticket To Ride’
• ‘I Need You’
• ‘The Night Before’
• ‘Another Girl’

The DVD will be a 2-disc set.

There will be 2 editions of the DVD - a standard digipack and a deluxe boxed set that will contain a reproduction of Richard Lester’s original annotated script, 8 lobby cards and a poster, plus a 60-page book with rarely seen photographs and production notes from the movie.

Both the deluxe book and the standard booklet feature an introduction by Richard Lester and an appreciation by Martin Scorsese.  This one is a “must have” for any serious Beatles collector.