Deezer Raises $130 Million In Fourth Round Of Funding

Deezer is a France-based music streaming startup company that has raised $130 million in their fourth round of funding.  Access Industries (the parent company of Warner Music Group) and Idinvest put the $130 million into the company.  Idinvest is a previous investor in the company.  Around $32.6 million of that funding will be used to buy out the previous shares.  Orange used to own around 11% of the company and considered acquiring them at one point.  Deezer is doing well in France, but they are now looking to expand internationally.  Many of Deezer’s subscribers are coming from bundles with mobile plans. [TechCrunch]

YouTube’s Top 5 Channels Drive 1.5 Billion Monthly Streams

According to Nielsen, the top five YouTube channel partners drove a combined number of 1.5 billion total streams in May 2012.  The top 5 channel partners include Vevo, WMG, Machinima, Fullscreen, and Maker.  YouTube gives content creators tools and programs to improve skills, build audiences, and monetize videos.  YouTube received 136 million unique viewers who streamed 16 billion videos during May 2012.  Below are some additional bullet-points put together by Nielsen.
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Amazon Close To Signing Four Major Music Labels For Cloud Service

Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services is nearing a deal to have the four major music labels on-board. EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music have all signed deals that will allow Amazon to offer a scan-and-match download service that Apple has on iTunes Match. Amazon will be able to access every song that a listener owns without having to directly upload each track that was not directly bought from the Amazon MP3 store.

Apple Signs Sony, EMI, and Warner For Cloud Music Service

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has signed EMI, Warner Music, and Sony for their cloud music service. The only major music label left to sign is Universal Music Group. Universal is believed to be signing very soon. Both Amazon.com and Google launched cloud music services without support from any of the major music labels. The Apple iCloud service is believed to launch at the WWDC on June 6th. [TUAW]

Apple Negotiating Unlimited Music Downloads

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in negotiations with major music companies to give customers easier access to the music that they have purchased across multiple devices. Apple is negotiating with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group.
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Apple Buys Out Music Streaming Company Lala.com

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has bought out steaming music company Lala.com. Earlier this year Warner Music Group invested in Lala and it seems like their investment has paid off.

While this is good news for Lala’s board of directors, the acquisition may spell bad news for Lala users. Lala users can stream music an unlimited number of times for ten cents per song as of right now. Lala users may lose that ability if Apple starts to make some changes. Apple is highly interested in Lala’s engineering talent and technology for their music streaming in the cloud abilities. Lala has $35 million in funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Ignition Partners, and Warner Music Group.

The financial details are unknown.

Google Taking On iTunes By Striking Music Deal With Four Major Labels

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is challenging Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) by selling music. Google spent the last several weeks preparing deals with the four major music labels: Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, EMI, and Universal Music Group. The new Google service is expected to be called Google Audio.

When Google Audio launches, I wouldn’t be surprised if YouTube changes their default music purchase promotion to their own service. Currently when watching music videos on YouTube, there is a link to buy the song on iTunes or Amazon.com.

I don’t expect Google to do very well in this service because iTunes has already monopolized the music download market. iTunes is the number one music retailer in the world, even beating Wal-Mart. Google attempted to challenge iTunes by selling videos through Google Video, but it did not have much of a business impact.