Well color me surprised but not all of the record companies are happy with UK ISP Virgin Media’s planned subscription service for downloading music.

The UK company believes that consumers want to be able to download as much music as they want and without it being loaded down with DRM restrictions. It’s newly announced subscription service is built around this idea that will allow their subscribers to download as much music as they want for an additional monthly fee and allow them to keep it permanently. The fee for the service hasn’t been announced but people in the know are suggesting it will be around the £15 mark.

At this point only Universal and some smaller indie labels have signed up with the ISP’s service. The other record companies, like Warner Bros, EMI, and Sony Music aren’t too happy with the service as they believe that it will cannibalize their existing digital sales. They also don’t believe that it will do anything to convert persistent file-sharers.

A Virgin Media spokeswoman said it’s committed to launching a “comprehensive” service this year. “We’re making good progress in developing the service and are on track to launch before Christmas,” she said. “We’re in talks with both major and independent labels and are committed to launching a comprehensive service.”

However, while record labels are keen to work with Virgin because of the reach it offers via its 3.7m broadband subscribers, they argue the music download service needs to make commercial sense.

A label executive involved in the negotiations said the labels support Virgin Media’s music plans in theory, but any service must deliver both feasibility and scale.

“We want to work with Virgin Media as a partner but any deal has to sit comfortably with how we value our assets against how it values its customers,” he said. “We have to evaluate each deal as it comes in and make sure we’re happy with the overall value of the proposition.”

Source: New Media Age – Record labels cast doubt on Virgin Media’s music model

Somehow I don’t hold out much hope that the Virgin Media subscription idea will end up seeing the light of day.

Virgin’s solution to piracy not sitting well with all record companies is a post from: The Inquisitr

Being unemployed can be an hell of a stressful time for anyone except maybe for the CEOs with their millions of dollars cushions to rest their fat asses on. For the rest of us though life in general gets a lot harder. With having to figure out just how you are going to be able to pay all those bills and still have a home to live in is enough to drive anyone off the deep end.

So it was interesting to read that Virgin Mobile has instituted a new service for their customers. The service is called the Pink Slip Protection and customers on Virgin’s $49.95 monthly unlimited plan you can use the service to help pay your phone bill with Virgin while you are laid off. The only other stipulation is that you must be receiving unemployment benefits.

[hat tip Technologizer]

Unemployed Virgin Mobile users get some help is a post from: The Inquisitr

Virgin Megastores Closing

There are currently six Virgin Megastores locations still open across America, including the store in New York City’s Times Square. That store, according to published reports, was set to make $56 million last year — but when the nationwide economic trouble began, the trends suddenly dropped and the store did not meet its projection. Overall, the stores are said to ring in $170 million a year, compared to $230 million a year back in 2002 (at which point Virgin had 23 U.S. locations).

The 52,000-square-foot Times Square Virgin store will close first, with a final day scheduled for April. The other five stores will shut down in June. About a thousand jobs will be lost in all.

Virgin Megastores first opened in 1992 with a store on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard. The U.S. branch of the company was bought by Related and Vornado Realty Trust in 2007.

About 150 Virgin Megastores will remain open in parts of Asia, the Middle East, and France. Those locations, unlike the closing U.S. ones, are all still owned by the Virgin Group.

Virgin Megastores Closing All U.S. Locations is a post from: The Inquisitr

Virgin Galactic, the company planning to take tourists to the edge of space in 2009/2010 have turned down a $1 million offer to shoot a “a sex-in-space movie.”

According to reports, Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic disclosed the offer at the International Astronautical Congress Tuesday. Whitehorn said simply that “That was money we had to refuse, I’m afraid.”

Porn in space fails to reach liftoff is a post from: The Inquisitr