Paul McCartney apparently isn’t a fan of having his work aired on music streaming services such as Rhapsody and Spotify. The former Beatles member has pulled both his solo tracks, as well as tracks from Wings, from music streaming service Rhapsody.

This isn’t the first instance of McCartney moving to have his work removed from music streaming services, and it doesn’t appear that it will be the last. Back in 2010, McCartney’s music was taken off of Spotify, and he appears to be on an anti-streaming campaign as of late, with his work being dropped from a variety of other streaming services.

“Rhapsody members have enjoyed streaming Mr. McCartney’s music for more than four years and are sure to be very disappointed to find that it has been restricted,” Rhapsody said in a statement sent to GeekWire. The company noted that the content is still available on its radio offering.

“As the number-one premium subscription music service in the U.S. with more one million paying subscribers, Rhapsody has generated significant revenue for Mr. McCartney, his label and his publisher over the years, and has provided a compelling alternative to piracy. We have a great relationship with the label and Eastman Management, so this development was a shock.”

A variety of artists have recently voiced complaints that they weren’t adequately compensated by the streaming services for their works; Coldplay, Tom Waits, and Adele have all opposed having their work streamed.

Not all record labels agree, however.

“Overall, the labels have been very supportive of streaming and view it as the future of the music industry,” according to the Rhapsody statement. “We will continue to work with labels, artists and management to keep as much content available on premium streaming services like Rhapsody as possible.”

Source: GeekWire

Paul McCartney pulls his music from streaming services is a post from: The Inquisitr

When it comes to the online world and music you got to admit the music industry trade groups like RIAA and ASCAP are tenacious, stupid but tenacious.

Recently ASCAP has been trying to convince the courts that streaming or downloading of music from digital music lockers like Yahoo and Rhapsody constituted a “public performance” and as such companies like these needed to pay an extra licencing fee meant to go to the songwriters.

In the first decision by a district court ASCAP came out the winner as the court also came up with an extremely convoluted formula that involved all the revenue from the offending companies. This meant that companies like Yahoo would have had to pay some of its search revenue to ASCAP – explain that one.

Lucky for Yahoo and Rhapsody an appeals court overturned the ruling and in the process noted that a download does not constitute a public performance. Well obviously ASCAP wasn’t overly happy with the decision and appealed to the US Supreme Court.

It was announced today that the Supreme Court will not hear the case which means that the lower appeal court’s decision will stand and ASCAP can go back home with its tail tucked between its legs.

Finally some sense from the courts on what should have been common sense to begin with.

via Techdirt

US Supreme Courts says music downloads are not public performances is a post from: The Inquisitr

Rhapsody on Monday announced that they have purchased the Napster music platform from current owner Best Buy. The company also announced that Best Buy will retain a small minority stake in the company.

The acquisition is expected to close on November 30 and financial terms for the deal have not yet been disclosed.

Rhapsody Acquires Napster From Best Buy is a post from: The Inquisitr

Rhapsody announced today that Google Android users can now access songs without an internet connection. Okay so you’ll need a connection to first find and download those songs, but then the company’s offline caching allows for playback when you don’t have a connection.

According to Rhapsody, users can download tracks and playlists and then play them from anywhere.

Brendan Benzing, Chief Product Officer of Rhapsody said of the new feature:

“We believe all the music you could ever want should be at your fingertips at all times,” while adding “The ability to download music to your favorite device mimics the experience millions of consumers have enjoyed on MP3 players for years, which makes the subscription model even more attractive to them. The Rhapsody app transforms an Android to an MP3 player on steroids; beefed up with Rhapsody’s extensive catalog of more than 10.6 million tracks.”

While the app is currently available on Blackberry and iPhone devices, the offline playback mode had only been offered on Apple devices until today.

The Rhapsody app can be downloaded for free from the Android Market, while the company’s service will cost you $9.99 per month.

Rhapsody Brings Music Caching To Android Phones is a post from: The Inquisitr

The service isn’t limitless, though: You’ll be able to listen to 25 full-length tracks a month. After that, you’ll be prompted to pay for a Rhapsody streaming subscription. If you turn it down, you’ll only be able to listen to 30-second samples until the start of the next month.

On the whole, the service works surprisingly well. Searching for an available artist brings up a box at the top of the results with play buttons for four popular songs and the option to see more songs. Once you click play, a second player box opens at the bottom of the search results. You can still navigate around the page with the box open and the song playing — it’ll stay at the bottom of the window — but once you click to any other page, the box and the song both go away.

I’m reluctant to say it, but this actually isn’t a horrible idea. It may be one of Yahoo’s first moves that does something to add value into its search product — a novel concept. Will it get people to switch over from Google? Likely not. But it might get them to use Yahoo a handful of times a month for music-specific searching, and that’s at least something.

In any event, it reeks far less of desperation than Microsoft’s “we’ll pay you to use our search engine” idea.

Yahoo Offers Streaming Music Within Search is a post from: The Inquisitr

The deal — branded as V CAST Music — will give users the option of getting unlimited music downloads to their phones for $15 a month. The charge includes the option to download on two other compatible phones or PCs. There’s also a per-song download option, costing $1.99 a pop.

The service is now available on the LG Decoy, LG Dare, MOTO W755, Samsung SCH-u550, Samsung Glyde, and Samsung Juke phones. Some other phones can get a store-initiated software upgrade to gain support.

Rhapsody Goes Mobile With Verizon is a post from: The Inquisitr