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iTunes vs. Spotify and Facebook Music

By now you've heard about Facebook Music and iTunes in the cloud (or iCloud), so what's the difference between the two?

iTunes in the Cloud and iCloud: What it Is
It was determined just before the iPhone 4S release date via an email slip that let it fly that "Once iCloud is set up, it stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices. For example, buy a song with iTunes on your computer, and it will appear on your iPod touch and iPad."

So iCloud is an in-the-cloud storage of music, photos and documents for Apple devices like iPad, iPhone or your computer (any kind, Apple or PC). It does this via a process called scan and match, meaning that Apple doesn't upload your songs that already exist in the iTunes library that lives in the cloud. With a library of 20 million songs available from Apple, most of your library is already in the cloud, and any songs that aren't in the cloud will be uploaded for you.

iCloud comes with 5GB of free storage, and iCloud pricing options are 10GB for $20/year, 20GB for $40/year and 50GB for $100/year for additional layers of service.

It should be stressed that the only streaming music available to you through iCloud and iTunes is the music you already own and music you purchase, a key difference between the iCloud experience and the streaming music services involved in Facebook Music.

Then you can listen via iTunes to streaming music from the cloud through an Internet connection, or a group of files that have been downloaded to your computer or portable device. There's a seamless media experience between these devices, so you're never stuck with music or video on a different device than the one you're using. It just works, as the saying goes.

Facebook Music: What It Is
Although Spotify is the lead music partner for Facebook Music, it includes the streaming music services Spotify, MOG, Rdio, Rhapsody alongside  internet radio player sites like Deezer, Slacker Radio, iHeartRadio, Earbits, Mixcloud, Songza and AudioVroom. The idea here isn't to create a Facebook Music player or app, but rather that everbody has a favorite streaming music service, and allowing the shared experience as a connective tissue" lets everyone use their preferred service while also comparing all of the services. Facebook Music launched back in September as part of the f8 Conference.

What it really comes down to is what you want out of your music experience: mobility of your iTunes library between your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and computer with ease; or the ability to share your listening habits with friends via broadcasting what you're listening to and sharing music with friends via the streaming music services above. One lets you share with your other devices and the other lets you share music with friends.

Check out more news about music apps and streaming music on the Digital Music News page.

New Dirty Projectors Album Gets Darker Side

There's a new Dirty Projectors album coming next year, and it's being recorded right now. Frontman Dave Longstreth has been holed up in a house in rural New York writing and recording for a good part of this year, and the new Dirty Projectors album is going to be (hopefully) released in Spring of next year. What's most interesting about the new Dirty Projectors approach at this point, is that it might have some darker influences.

READ THE FULL STORY

Merlin and YouTube Deal Brings Independent Artists to Google Music Experience

Following quickly on the heels of the YouTube Merch Store, Google and YouTube have reached a deal with Merlin to include independent recording labels on licensing deals, one more way you can get paid as an artist. Earache, Secretly Canadian, Ninja Tune, Cooking Vinyl, Warp, Phonofile, Pschent, Morr Music, !K7 and Inertia are all in on the deal, among others. It covers 14,000 artists.

Which is one more step down the road to what is the looming Google Music announcement.

READ THE FULL STORY

Stone Roses Reunion Tour and New Album is Happening

After a lot of recent online reports have speculated whether a Stone Roses reunion was a rumor or reality, and now the final word has finally come through. There WILL be a Stone Roses reunion. They'll start with two shows in Manchester next year on Jun 29 - 30 at Heaton Park before heading out on a world tour. "If anyone buys a ticket of course, yeah ..." quipped Alan 'Reni' Wren, as they announced the news via the grand old tradition of the British press conference.

CHECK OUT THE FULL PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO

Radiohead Guitarist Drops Info on a 2012 Radiohead Tour

The 2012 Radiohead tour will happen starting in February and run through November, in in both the U.S. and U.K, as an intermittent set of shows, guitarist Ed O'Brien said when speaking to the BBC. Radiohead want it "loud, strong and detailed;" so the European shows will be inside, as the band wants the sound to bounce more and be more bass-heavy in an indoor setting. Their latest album The King of Limbs demands an environment in which the sound doesn't get "diluted a bit."

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

Pirate Bay Founder Charged In Absentia to $1.1 Million and Jail Time

The final chapter of Pirate Bay news on the lawsuit that sunk the battleship ... Pirate Bay founder and legal holdout Gottfrid Svartholm has been sentenced in absentia to a fine of $1.1 million and a year in jail. This is inline with the verdict that the other Pirate Bay founders recieived, although they appealed the decision and received a reduced sentence.

Gottfrid Svartholm was MIA in the court proceedngs, and at the time it was reported that he was in a hospital in Cambodia and was not available to appear in court. There seems to be little known of his whereabouts since then, or if he is even alive, so the court has apparently gone ahead and wrapped up his case according to TorrentFreak.

His Pirate Bay co-founders have moved on with the new project Bayfiles, an online storage and downloading service that feeds off of the old Pirate Bay name, but is actually a service akin to storage and search sites Megaupload, RapidShare and Hotfile -- which is to say you can do anonymous uploads. But they also have given signs that they want it to be cloud-based storage as well.

Check out more news about music apps and streaming music on the Digital Music News page.

YouTube Merch Store Could Be a Gateway to the Google MP3 Store

If you're a musician, then YouTube just got a lot cooler for you. The recently announced YouTube Merch Store will let you create your own digital "merch table" right on your YouTube channel. They're working with TopSpin for merchandise, concert tickets and experiences (no details on what shape "experiences" might be) and Songkick will kick in concert info, presumably meaning tour dates. There's room for future partners to be brought into the fold as well. The Merch Store has the painfully plain "Google look," something that will hopefully be upgraded over time with the ongoing Google redesign.

Independent labels should dig the fact that Google is reaching out by creating a program to partner with them when their band's music is played on YouTube, including user generated content. Think of the royalties from all of the blog embeds of a YouTube video, and that could be a nice piece of change. There are plenty of details that should come around eventually, it's hard to imagine that this will be the sum total of the YouTube Merch Store.

The YouTube Merch Store is claiming to lean on both the Amazon MP3 Store and iTunes for selling downloads, but as this weekend's news predicts, a Google MP3 store might be just around the corner. If that's the case, we can expect that it will be integrated into the YouTube Merch Store as well. Apparently Google is in licensing talks with the major recording labels for a Google MP3 store to go along with their Google Music Beta.

Check out more news about music apps and streaming music on the Digital Music News page.

Spotify TV is Coming to Boxee

t's Spotify! It's on your TV! It's from Boxee! Spotify is now going TV-ready with a new Spotify Boxee app. It'll let Spotify users access their Spotify accounts on their TV in one of two ways: using a computer that's connected to the TV and uses the Boxee app, or the infamous Boxee box.

"Adding Spotify’s huge music catalogue to a Boxee Box with a Premium subscription costs less than a cup of coffee per week (9.99/month $, € or £). Of course anyone can try the service on their computer for free (with a few ads) or for 4.99/month without ads using an Unlimited account," reads the announcement from Boxee.

In August, Grooveshark got its groove on with Boxee, and Pandora Radio and Last.FM are on Boxee as well. It's a free service that finds TV shows and movies on the web them and allows you to experience them on your TV. The Spotify Boxee app will only let users listen to existing items on their Spotify account, not create new content, so making new Spotify playlists on Boxee is out, at least for now.

“There’s bound to be people who aren’t as happy that you can’t edit playlists or do searches on the app. But, we really wanted to train them to realize that they shouldn’t be doing that stuff on their TV anyways,” said Boxee VP of Marketing Andrew Kippen when speaking to VentureBeat.

The recent Spotify Facebook Music partnership has opened new inroads for Spotify after their U.S. launch earlier this Summer, which led to an app update so that Facebook users can hide what they're listening to. They're calling it the Spotify "Private Listening"mode, and its in response to the recent blow up over too much sharing on Facebook and Spotify. Spotify also has 250,000 paying users in the U.S., as was announced by Reuters.

Digster Playlists Move To Rdio

Digster.FM has expanded to social music discovery service Rdio. Digster already includes social media support for Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Google, so a Digster Rdio app seems like an inevitable thing, given Rdio's social media bent. The only streaming music service Digster used before this was Spotify, and it contains Spotify playlists from both UMG employees and artist-curated playlists. Now Rdio users can get in on the action as well.

"Rdio's innovation and recognition as a leader in social music makes it a perfect fit for Digster," said Mitch Rotter, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Product Development at Digster.

Rdio was developed by the creators of Kazaa  and Skype, which are Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström. Rdio has licensing with all four major record labels and multiple indie labels, with social media tools to share music. Rdio prices run $9.99 for mobile and Web access, and Web access is  $4.99 per month, with both streaming and offline listening and a library of over 12 million songs. The Rdio name is a combination of the words radio and audio, pronounced r-dee-o.

Sigur Ros Add More Inni Screenings Around the World

The Sigur Ros concert film Inni is getting more showings in the U.S. and around the world, in a growing list of more than 100 Inni screenings. It's sold out in New York, London and other large cities, so Sigur Ros is in the process  of setting up more Inni showings. They're also expanding into more theaters in Europe and North America in a grass roots effort in which Sigur Ros crowd sourced ideas from fans to find new places to show the film.

MP3: Sigur Ros - “Ný Batterí” Live from Inni

Sigur Ros first announced Inni in August, with a cryptic video that started the guessing game ... A few days later we learned that it was a Sigur Ros movie from director Vincent Morisset that premiered at the Venice Film Festival.  Then they revealed that Inni was both a film AND a double live album from their Alexandra Palace show in London in 2007. The Inni release date is Nov. 15 in the U.S. and Nov. 7 for the rest of the world. It's available for pre-order now, and you can even land a free ticket to an Inni screening at participating independent record stores.