Swedish Music Fans Start to Steer Clear of Pirates

Martin Thornkvist, who runs a record label in Sweden, was looking online for the new album from the American band Vampire Weekend a few weeks ago. He turned first to Spotify, a free, legal digital music service; unable to find it there, he eventually bought it from Apple’s iTunes music store.”A half year ago, I would have gone directly to the Pirate Bay,” he said, referring to the notorious, unlicensed file-sharing site whose founders were convicted of criminal copyright violations last year in a Swedish court. Though the Pirate Bay is still operating, Mr. Thornkvist said he hadn’t even thought about downloading the album from the site.To read this report in The New York Times in full, see:
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/technology/internet/25iht-music.htmlAlso see:HP deal strengthens Omnifone’s position in digital music battle
The latest salvo in the digital music war will be fired today when British group Omnifone announces it has clinched a crucial deal with Hewlett-Packard, the largest PC manufacturer in the world, to have its MusicStation unlimited track download service pre-loaded onto computers and laptops.The deal, which covers 10 European countries including the UK, comes as online music service Spotify continues to gain ground in Europe, and Apple is understood to be planning to announce its own streaming music service for iTunes on Wednesday. Late last year, the Californian technology company snapped up small music start-up Lala. It has expertise in online storage and streaming and that deal was widely seen as preceding a move by Apple into the streaming music market.
www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/25/hp-bundles-omnifone-music-downloads