Updated @ 3.00 PM
Biz — Yangaroo announces new capital investment totalling $2.1m…
Do you want to run the music division of the world’s biggest media company? If so, Google is hiring: The search giant is casting about for an executive to run its music service, which doesn’t actually exist…yet [MediaMemo]…
Yangaroo Inc. reports a deepened 2nd quarter net loss of $777,351 compared to $725,651 a year earlier, as revenues move down to $196,534 from $204,842. Company CEO Scott Wambolt says revenue growth is expected in the 2nd half of the year from newly minted relationships with key music video and advertising production partners…
Blockbuster Inc, which has dominated the home video rental business for more than a decade, is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection next month. The LA Times reports the chain has lost over $1b since the beginning of ’08. Court protection from creditors could allow the chain to get out of leases on 500 or more of its 3,425 stores in the US
Copyright – A Boston University doctoral student in physics is appealing a federal judge’s order that he pay 4 record labels $67,500 in damages for illegally downloading music, even though the amount is only a 10th of what a jury said he should pay for copyright infringement on 30 songs. Joel Tenenbaum said yesterday that the reduced damages award ordered last month is “equally as insane’’ as the $675,000 that a federal jury ordered him to pay after a high-profile trial the year before…
Mobile Media – Cloud-based iTunes streaming may take some time for Apple to get up and running due to licensing issues, but a new report suggests that Web-based improvements may yet be coming to the iTunes Store in the form of social networking integration. Whichever way Apple opts to go, the mobile-storage gadget king is under the gun from Google which is readying its own cloud-based music service that’s expected to launch this fall or calendar Q1…
Digital Media – Elevation Partners, which counts U2’s Bono among its principals, has reportedly signed a letter of intent to spend as much as $100m to pick up shares in the Pandora online audio service that has 50m users in the US. Elevation recently upped its stake in Facebook, with an aggregate investment of $210m giving the equity firm 1.5% of the company…
Google’s announcement of Calls, a Gmail-based free audio/video service, requires some fiddling for Canadian usage. According to the CBC, quoting a Google Canada spokesperson, to make the service work in Canada one needs to go into one’s Gmail settings and change the Language setting to “English-US”. This, unfortunately, will default the spellchecker to approve ‘color’ over ‘colour’…
Apple has released a new update to the iWork suite that makes it simple to export documents in the ePub format, allowing them to be read easily on Apple’s iBooks app for iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. In much the same way iTunes manages music libraries and has become a standard digital music player, boosting the sales by the iTunes store, Apple is hoping to leverage use of its iBooks app, betting that it can become the de facto reader for electronic documents and giving it a leg up over Amazon’s Kindle
Mojo magazine’s Sept. edition is available for the 1st time  packaged with LP – Let It Be Revisisted – in a gatefold sleeve. More about the contents, the cost and shipping details here
Talent — These days record labels are practically a dime a dozen, but not being affiliated with a recognizable one can mean one’s career isn’t going to viewed seriously, as Tori Sparks found out when she left the embrace of a major label and joined the DIY brigade. “Record labels are kind of like relationships,†she says. “When someone says ‘I’m with a label’, I equate that with a female friend saying ‘I just met this guy’†[Dreamrow]…
Music –  Ron Hynes intro’s a song from Stealing Genius, the songsmith’s 8th album in a 60-minute Ron Hynes Solo Maritime-only TV Special being aired on the CBC next Saturday, Sept. 4 at 8 pm. Joining him on stage is Amelia Curran, a fellow Juno-winning Newfoundlander. Ron Hynes Solo was directed by Moya Walsh, produced by Picture Plant, Terry Greenlaw and William D. MacGillivray with the participation of Film Nova Scotia, the CBC, and Canadian and Nova Scotia Film Industry Tax Credits…
Archival repackages are all the rage, especially at Sony Music which has announced the release Bruce Springsteen’s The Promise: the Darkness on the Edge of Town Story. The Nov. 16 retro set is being configured as 6 separate packages: Fans can choose between a single or 3CD set, 3DVD package, 3CD/Blu-Ray disc set, or go for the “previously unreleased†songs on 2 CDs or 4 LPs. Needless to say, each and all comes with a laundry list of special features, juicy snaps of The Boss, take-out receipts, endless hyperbole about the world’s wealthiest blue-collar hero, and a no-expense trip for 2 to Joyzee…
Sony is also pumped over the revitalized Rod Stewart who has sold 17m copies of his  American Songbook themed albums so far. On Nov. 19 the raspy rascal releases Volume V which features the soon-to-be new Dad warbling chestnuts such as That Old Black Magic, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and I Get A Kick Out Of You. Sony starmaker Clive Davis, a credited producer visionary behind the Songbook series, enthuses that the new package is “fresh†and that “Rod has never sounded better†…
And Rhino has Once In A Blue Moon, a Trevor Horn remix package of Rod’s covers that includes a gritty version of the old peacock singing Ruby Tuesday …
Live – Usher joins previously announced performers’ Justin Bieber, Drake, Kanye West, B.o.B, and Florence + The Machine on the Sept. 12 MTV Awards …
A Taste Of Lilith Fair hits Auckland, NZ’s Aotea Centre on Oct. 19, pairing Sarah McLachlan with the Dixie Chicks’ off-shoot band Courtyard Hounds and local performers’ The Teacups and Julia Deans…
Obits – Canadian broadcaster Terry Roy Alix, aged 59 …
CJUL AM, first signing on in 1945 as CKSF – the SF standing for Standard Freeholder, Cornwall, ON’s 1st radio station…
