ARTISTdirect, Inc. is a Santa Monica, Calif.-based music news website.  Recently, ARTISTdirect signed two deals that revolves around music lyrics.  EMI Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group will allow ARTISTdirect to add the lyrics to over 1 million songs.  The financial details of the deal were undisclosed. 

“EMI has the publishing rights to some of the greatest, most beloved songs ever written and performed and we are truly delighted to be able to share them with our community,” stated Dimitri Villard, the Interim CEO of ARTISTdirect. “In the past, music fans have had to rely on user generated lyrics posted on the Internet that were often inaccurate or incomplete; this partnership helps create one of the largest repositories for official lyrics as written by the songwriters.”

This move competes directly with Gracenote, a subsidiary of Sony.  Gracenote provides the lyrics through 80 music publishers, including EMI and Universal.  Another competitor of ARTISTdirect is OHHLA.com.

Related Links:
1. BusinessWire
2. ARTISTdirect

Ashley D. MacIsaac is taking an unorthodox approach to signing a record deal.  The bankrupt 33 year old, Canadian-born, fiddle-playing man has decided to put 50% of his future earnings for sale on eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) at a starting price of $1.5 million Canadian dollars. 

MacIsaac danced to Celtic music on Late Night With Conan O’Brien in 1997.  On that same taping, MacIsaac exposed himself when kicking up while wearing a kilt.  “I’m 33, I have at least a good 40 years of earning power ahead of me and I think it’s (C$1.5 million) a reasonable starting point,” stated MacIsaac during a phone interview with Reuters.

“I’m not David Bowie, I’m not Madonna, I’m not Eminem, I’m Ashley MacIsaac, so to set a price at that (C$1.5 million), I thought, was fair market value,” added MacIsaac.  Madonna made a similar deal worth over $100 million when she signed with Live Nation Inc.  David Bowie also issued bonds of future royalties for his future hits as well. 

The winning bidder will get half of the profits made from the Celtic singers music album sales, movies, DVDs, and other publications until MacIsaac retires.  The first 10 albums created by MacIsaac was distributed through Universal Music Group. 

 
New Orleans Rapper and Hottest MC in the Game (MTV), Lil’ Wayne will be selling downloads of his new album, Tha Carter III to fans through his website, on social network pages, and his own blog with the Musicane widget.  Musicane will offer fans the ability to buy the whole album or individual songs.  The Musicane widget will also have previews of Lil’ Wayne’s music. 

Musicane will also stream interviews and sell other products in the near future.  MP3s bought through Musicane will be in 320 kbps and will be DRM-free.  This means that the music will work on any MP3-supported digital portable music player including the iPod and the Zune.

“Lil Wayne is a natural fit to help further this movement not just because of his stature in the music world but more for his bold attitude toward change. He knows that the new model for the flow of music distribution is rooted in empowering the fans, not the traditional gate keepers that tend to slow everything down,” stated Musicane’s President/COO Vikramaditya Jain. 

Lil’ Wayne fans will be able to embed the widget in their own blogs and will be able to pay directly through the widget.  Fans that do this will be able to share revenue generated by the sales in their embedded widget. 

Musicane was founded by Vikramaditya Jain and Sudhin Shahani in 2006 and Will.i.am of the Black-Eyed Peas is a partner in the company.  Musicane has a deal with Universal Music Group that allows them to sell their entire catalogue of music in the MP3 form.

Singles on Tha Carter III includes Lollipop, A Milli, Got Money (featuring T-Pain), You Ain’t Got Nuthin (featuring Fabolous & Juelz Santana), and Mr. Carter (featuring Jay-Z).

Below is a screen shot of what the Musicane player looks like [note: the play button doesn't work because it's an image screen shot and not the actual widget]:

Universal Music Group represents some of the biggest names in various music genres.  Some of their top selling artists include Janet Jackson, The Killers, Bon Jovi, Elton John, 2Pac, Jay-Z, Eminem, 50 Cent, The Pussycat Dolls, Luciano Pavarotti, and Kanye West.  UMG is owned by French-company, Vivendi and made about €480 million ($660,576,000) in net income for the year of 2005.

Thousands of albums will be available DRM-free on artist websites, but the tracks on Apple iTunes will remain DRM.  What does this mean?  This essentially means that when a user purchases tracks on iTunes, the file format tends to be .MP4 rather than .MP3.  And .MP4’s are known to play primarily on the Apple iPod and many other music players are known to be incompatible with .MP4 files.

“Clearly the handwriting is on the wall for DRM-protected content,” said Michael Gartenberg, a Jupiter Research analyst. “We are seeing more of the players fall as they recognize that it’s just a hassle for the consumer and doesn’t really help the piracy problem.”

Apple had no comment about the new initiative.  Universal said that they are not including iTunes for now to test as a control group to see how piracy impact music sales.  “There’s no doubt these guys are poking a stick at Apple,” added Gartenberg.

Universal Music tracks will be DRM-free from August 21st to January 31st.  Will they see an increase in sales?  We’ll find out at the end of the month.

Universal Music Group has announced that they bought equity in Loud.com. Loud.com is an urban music social network website which is a subsidiary of Vivendi, is based in Paris, and also works under the name, Battlerap.com. Vivendi also owns 20% of NBC Universal.

Loud.com is a place for upcoming hip-hop artists, freestylers, and producers to upload their samples and could potentially win prizes such as opening for the Wu-Tang Clan in Hawaii.

“Universal’s strategy is to become actively involved in all areas of media where our artists and our music are present,” mentioned the Vice Chairman and CFO of UMG, Nick Henny. “Loud.com has created an incredibly vibrant and growing online hip-hop community that features not only compelling user-generated content, but also the means for users to create their own music and compete for a record deal. Loud.com is quickly emerging as one of the leading new online ventures that successfully reaches the new generation of international and multicultural youth.”

Loud.com sells audio files of hip hop beats for 99 cents. Users can create blogs within the site and can search for profiles and add friends.

“We are delighted that UMG is joining the Loud.com family,” stated the co-founder/CEO of Loud.com, Joseph Safina. “When Steve Rifkind and I started Loud.com, our hope was to create a virtual home for hip-hop fans around the world. To our delight, it has quickly evolved into an online community, competition, A&R site and marketing company all rolled into one. With UMG now on board, we’ll be able to offer even more compelling services to our members.”

The amount UMG invested in Loud.com was undisclosed.