The story from Last.fm about how they’ve found that providing free music has helped stimulate sales (Free Music Encourages Sales)is certainly doing the rounds reaching the inkies as well as numerous music blogs.

Although the article relates to making tracks free on Last.fm and linking them to affiliated paid download sites.  I’m sure the clear evidence here is going to be used by to add weight to the claims that P2P sharing doesn’t do as much to hurt sales as the major record labels would like everyone to believe.

The Guardian online have written a good piece about what has happened to Talk Talk and their main man Mark Hollis.  The article can be found here.  A worth while ready as some of the battles between Hollis and his record labels have had long and important impacts on other artists contracts.

According to the Guardian online Glen Merrill the recently hired executive (formerly with Google) to help move EMI into the digital age has acknowledged that research into file sharing is not the evil thing the industry has been saying that it is. Merrill suggests that part of the problem is that P2P users are buying music but through channels that they can’t or aren’t currently measuring.  Merrill also stands up against the RIAA strategy of suing its customers. The full article can be found at – File sharing ‘may be good’, says EMI executive – The Guardian.

From a personal perspective, the assumption that a download equates to a lost sale is flawed.  When release patterns between different parts of the world are staggered people (particularly enthusiastic fans) may well download the album for the part of the world where an album has been released and then purchase it locally once the album becomes available.  A situation that is of the industry’s own making as evidenced by the fuss over CD-Wow’s CD sourcing which means it is legally only allowed to source CDs from within Europe.

The worrying thing is that others within EMI seem not to have a good handle on the record business, and as a result artists are leaving or looking to leave EMI like a sinking ship.  Meaning that EMIs profits will slip and the easy scape goat new digital sales strategies destroying an forward progress in the record industry’s mentality to P2P and online music.  Call me a doom monger, but the record industry does have a history of going for the easy blame.

MySpace has joined the online selling of DRM free music having announced it has signed three of the majors (Sony BMG, Universal and Warners) so far.  This is a natural step given that MySpace managed establish itself as a natural place for musicians and groups to establish a web presence (particularly for smaller artists).  However as Read Write Web point out it is surprising that there is no mention of signing agreements with the labels and organisations which probably attract more traffic to MySpace (after all the major artists can and do have their own significant web presence).

It will be interesting to see if MySpace and other social networking sites as they start to sell MP3s make any impression on iTunes currently dominant position.

 Stereogum have coordinated several free tribute albums to major artists by compiling covers of significant albums such as REM’s Automatic For the People.  Now Stereogum have pulled together a tribute to Bjork’s post called Enjoyed: A Tribute to Björk’s Post (go here for more information). Post included the hits ‘”IT’s Oh So Quiet” and “Hyperballard”.