Microsoft's bullheaded foray into the music-player market, despite Apple's complete domination, seems as silly a proposition as entering the seemingly impenetrable videogame console business in November 2001. The only problem is that the success of Microsoft's Xbox is a fluke which owes much to Sony's missteps and runaway sales of Halo. The Zune, in all its redesigned glory, has no such killer app — just the same music, more or less, as Apple's iPod. And the Zune's main selling point?

All the record-label kevetching that the Internet is killing their livelihood may actually be true. But it's not college kids sharing files in broadband-equipped dorms that they need to worry about. Radiohead is releasing its new album sans label. Novel, but the interesting bit is that the band is giving a choice to consumers: Pay $82 for a super-fancy, boxed edition of In Rainbows, or download the album — for whatever you think it's worth. This follows a similar campaign by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails who says once his band's label obligations are completed, it will release digital albums for about $4. Of course it's not just the music industry that should be concerned.

Well, maybe not everyone. But the tide is certainly turning against Apple's music and video store, which has held a near-monopoly on digital media distribution. Vivendi says the contract between its Universal Music Group and Apple is "indecent." We like the sound of that, but somehow it doesn't sound like Vivendi meant it as a compliment. Like NBC Universal, in which it holds a minority stake, Vivendi wants more control over pricing — the option to charge more for new, in-demand content than old library tracks. While Apple has a few stalwart supporters, like Fox, at the moment, it's likely that many content providers are waiting for enough key players to take the plunge before determining whether to abandon ship or demand more flexibility. Particularly if they're getting a better deal from Apple's new competitor, AmazonMP3.

The Internet retailer has finally launched its long-awaited digital music store as a public beta, with prices that undercut Apple's iTunes by a dime. The music also comes free of digital-rights-management software, which raises the question: What will Boing Boing editor and anti-DRM crusader Cory Doctorow do with all his free time? [Amazon]

Apple is promoting its Starbucks partnership by giving away 50 million songs at the chain of coffee shops. The new wireless service "Now Playing" allows iPhone- and iPod Touch-using Starbucks patrons to preview and purchase the music that happens to be playing in their local shop. [AppleInsider]

Woot has even more Zunes to "give" away at the bargain price of $129. Apparently the fire sale is to clear shelf space for a rumored Zune 2.0 — though at these prices, who will be left to buy the new version? [Woot]

Apparently digital-music piracy isn't as prevalent as we thought. Canada's Royal Mounted Police simply made up the fact that the country loses $30 billion to software piracy. We thought only gossip blogs did that kind of thing. The figure, a jumble of Internet research and corporate propaganda from the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (members include the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Software & Information Industry Association), has helped shore up Canada's anti-piracy laws. Let this be a lesson to you kids: Don't always believe what you read on the Internet. Even if the Mounties wrote it.

Trent Reznor, frontman for Nine Inch Nails, is on the warpath against his record label, Universal Music Group. In Sydney, Reznor kicked off the NIN concert with an appeal to the crowd to steal his music until the labels realize they're ripping people off. This follows his attack on the recording industry while playing the Beijing Pop Festival earlier this month. He asked Chinese fans who couldn't obtain legal copies of his album to download it off the Web. Reznor views labels as greedy entities — charging progressively more for records without passing any additional revenue to artists. Once the band's contract with Universal is finished, Reznor plans to sell music directly to his fans for about $4 an album.

Gracenote runs the service that automatically fills in song names, musicians, and album names when you rip a CD to your PC's hard drive. Without it, we'd be stuck spending years entering CD track data manually. But the company is no longer without competition — and it just lost a big client to a rival. Gracenote has been discreetly dropped by RealNetworks. A tipster alerts us that RealPlayer and Rhaposdy are now using All Media Guide's identification service, Lasso. Real joins a growing list of AMG adopters, including Sony and Apple. It's no surprise that the music services, facing thin margins, are shopping around.

The Recording Industry Association of America — known throughout college campuses for blanket accusations of music piracy and legal scare tactics — will have to curb its wanton copyright-infringement lawsuit-slapping ways. The RIAA uses a "making available" clause in copyright law that allows it to quickly target anyone it suspects of copyright infringement. If you have a file-sharing client and copyrighted media on your machine, you've helped spread illegal files, the RIAA's lawyers reasoned. But last month, a federal judge from the southern district of California threw out this legal theory — and put the music industry's strategy in jeopardy.

Perhaps emboldened by Prince's move to sue YouTube, eBay, and Pirate Bay for encouraging others to violate his copyrights or — more likely — seduced by Web Sheriff who is assisting both artists to create a minor media brouhaha, disco band The Village People has announced its own plans to sue YouTube for a video featuring Hitler and a coterie of prominent Nazis singing "YMCA." Unlike Prince who seems to have given little regard for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's provision which allows potentially infringing parties an exception until a take down notice has been issued, Web Sheriff and The Village People have sent more than 500 take down notices for the same offending clip.Every time YouTube complies, another user uploads the same video — which may provide The Village People an actual legal argument . On the other hand, while The Village People have every right to be offended by their music being associated with Nazis, doesn't Hitler dancing and singing gay men's disco have as much artistic value as... Well, gay men's disco. It could constitute a fair-use artistic expression in its own right, for all I know.

Being either too aggressive or too compliant can be disasterous when negotiating with Apple so News Corp's president Peter Chernin opts for the safety of being obvious. On upcoming music negotiations with the computer maker: "I assume it will be prickly and dicey and contentious like all negotiations are and like all negotiations should be." [Reuters]

Do you have a problem enjoying today's music? Blame the MP3, says the recording industry. Apparently the ubiquity of iPods (and their low-quality headphones) means many producers are using the MP3 as their reference platform. Since the digital music files often cut out a lot of high frequencies in order to minimize file size, bands are releasing albums that sound increasingly wretched.

Not everyone thinks that Columbia Records chief Rick Rubin's proclamation of a music subscription future is crazy. Universal Music is currently exploring the subscription business model, according to Digital Music News's sources. The initiative, known as TotalMusic, would tie digital music to Internet service providers — forcing all internet users to pay for music, regardless of whether they'll actually use it. Apparently this idea isn't too popular with Internet service providers, because it would increase costs (ESPN 360 has suffered similar problems in its attempt to pass costs onto ISPs instead of the end user). No doubt Universal Music views TotalMusic as a brilliant solution to piracy woes — if everyone is forced to pay for music, none would pirate. Of course, that logic posits that everybody pirates ... and everyone wants Universal's music.

It's, like, the chirping of crickets meets Rihanna's hit song "Umbrella." Who (or what?) could come up with such a stupid combination? The recording industry, of course!. So here it is, folks: The Ringle. Get it! It's a ringtone and a single, slammed together. Obviously, since consumers enjoy downloading singles from iTunes and purchasing ringtones for their cell phones, they'd like that one-two punch bundled onto a single CD. Who wouldn't want to travel to your local Best Buy to buy something you can safely acquire in your living room? An estimated $5.98 will get you a ringle, plus a remix and, maybe, an older track.

"The iPod will be obsolete," says Rick Rubin, co-head of Columbia Records. In order to combat file sharing, the recording industry needs to operate on a subscription model, he says: "You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television," he explains. Oh, you mean already extant services like Napster, Rhapsody, or Yahoo Music? [The New York Times]

Vivendi announced that its Universal Music Group unit's digital music sales during the first half of 2007 have doubled over the past year. Despite that, it ran a $102 million loss. World of WarCraft, Vivendi's popular online game, boosted the company's videogames divisional profit to $162 million, almost double the same period last year. [PaidContent]

Almost 100 percent of digital music downloads in China are illegally acquired, reports BusinessWeek. Search engines Baidu and Yahoo China both offer MP3-specific searches alongside traditional image and video queries. [BusinessWeek]

Sony is closing its Connect digital music store early next year. Why? Apparently no one was interested in a proprietary audio format that only plays on the manufacturer's devices. Apple, it seems, is the only merchant that can get away with that. [Gizmodo]

LimeWire, the file-sharing software maker that's attempting to go legit, is starting a "Better Know A Blogger" series on its corporate blog. The first victim is Anthony Volodkin, founder of the music blog aggregator The Hype Machine. Never mind that the Hype Machine was cool, like, a year ago. Volodkin briefly discusses his inspiration for the site, which gathers up links to currently popular MP3 files on music blogs, as well as plans to roll out some social media features. Heads up: volodkin is the guy with the long hair in the Firefox shirt. his interviewer fails at introductions 101.