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Those crazy guys behind the LimeWire file-sharing application have set up a DRM-free music store--LimeWire Store--where users can choose from 500,000 MP3s, taken from the catalogs of absolutely no major labels. Alternatively, users can download free, lossless versions of millions of songs from every major label using the usual LimeWire "technique." Which, RIAA lawyers would likely argue, is illegal.

If skepticism were a flavor of ice cream, we'd be sitting here with the world's most excruciating brain freeze. Napster managed to redeem itself by having its name bought by another company, having its P2P application vanquished and by offering titles from major labels. LimeWire, however, still operates its hated-by-the-entertainment-industry network of downloaders, and we don't expect Sony or Warner Music to sign any distribution deals until its roster of artists are blocked from the controversial network.

To be fair, LimeWire's new service (which is currently in beta) could be a great place to go looking for new bands and underground artists. In contrast to eMusic's subscription model, LimeWire offers pay-per-track pricing, so you can quickly pick and choose your downloads without committing yourself to recurring monthly charges.

Downloads go for anything between 30 cents (15 pence) and 99 cents (50 pence), with subscriptions varying between $10 (5 pounds) a month for 25 songs, and $20 (10 pounds) a month for 75 songs. eMusic offers plans from 8.99 pounds for 30 songs a month, to 14.99 pounds for 75 songs a month, but it backs those with a library of three million songs. The LimeWire Store is also only available in the U.S., but we couldn't find a single song we'd want to buy for 15 pence anyway.

As a purely Web-based service at the moment, the site is at least attractive, with music reviews written by LimeWire's "real live music-loving employees, drawing upon their years of music industry experience." Terrific.

Maybe those people pirating FLAC files of Amy Whinehouse or Peter Andrex from LimeWire's usual service will have more love than we do. We think you'd be better off watching Encoded.

(Source: Crave UK)

The $100 ZoneBridge enhances the wireless connectivity of a Sonos setup.

(Credit: Sonos)

Sonos today issued a flurry of announcements that will further augment the appeal of its Digital Music System: compatibility with two additional premium music subscription services--Best Buy's Digital Music Store (BBDMS) and the revamped Napster; a new software update that adds a handful of useful features, including search; and confirmation of the ZoneBridge BR100 networking accessory. The details, in brief: ... Read more

The new Nokia N95.

(Credit: Nokia)

Nokia shot to center stage of cell phone land today by unveiling a gallery of new handsets and services at an event in London. We can't get across the pond to cover the news in person (though we did get a very short preview of the handsets last week), but we'll bring you the highlights here. Be sure to click through to read more details on each announcement. Or if you prefer pretty pictures, take a gander at our slide show.

North America finally will get its own version of the powerful Nokia N95. Though it looks just like the existing N95, it adds a few extras, such as more RAM and longer battery life. It also offers 3G support for North American networks. Welcome also to a new N95 with a whopping 8GB of internal memory.

The Nokia N81.

(Credit: Nokia)

There are two new editions of the Nokia N81. Nokia showed off an 8GB model and a version that can accept microSD cards up to 4GB. Both will offer high-end features and will support Nokia's newly launched Ovi Internet brand, where you can download songs from the new Nokia Music Store and games from the company's new N-Gage service.

Speaking of which, the Nokia Music Store will offer millions of tracks from a variety of music sources. You'll be able to browse for music, buy a song directly over the air to your phone, or add a song to a wish list for a later download.

The Music Store will be available through the Ovi brand of Internet services, which is also the focal point for reviving Nokia's unsuccessful N-Gage brand. But instead of bringing us another awkward N-Gage device, Nokia is developing a new N-Gage gaming platform. You'll be able to browse through a wide selection of game titles, download free trials, and purchase games directly from Nokia. The service will also offer community portal for playing games with friends, or even strangers.

The Nokia 5610 Xpress Music.

(Credit: Nokia)

Finally, Nokia also introduced two new Xpress Music devices. The 5310 and 5610 offer the nifty, high-end multimedia features you've come to expect from the Xpress music line. The 5310 has a slim candy bar design, while the 5610 is a slider phone.

All phones and services should be available beginning in the fourth quarter of this year. We don't have specific North American availability information, but we'll pass on the details as soon as they come. And you can bet that we'll have full reviews of the phones as soon as we can get our hands on them.

Nokia launches Ovi, an Internet services gateway

(Credit: Nokia)

Along with announcing a brand-new lineup of handsets, Nokia is also venturing into the brave new world of Internet services. It's called Ovi, which is "door" in Finnish, and it signifies Ovi's open access to existing social networks like MySpace, Flickr, and Facebook right from a compatible Nokia phone. But the big news here is that Ovi will also be a gateway to Nokia's newly launched Internet services, which include the Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps, and N-Gage games. Though Ovi can work on any personal computer, it is really designed for the mobile experience. It will go live in English in late 2007, while additional features and languages are expected next year.

Nokia N81 with the Nokia Music Store

(Credit: Nokia)

The Nokia Music Store will have millions of tracks from a variety of music sources that include everything from major artists to independent labels. You can browse for music, buy the song directly over the air to your phone, or add a song to a wish list for later download. If you like, you may also download the song to your PC and later load it onto the phone. The Nokia Music Store also supports full track streaming on the PC. Another neat thing about the Music Store is there will be a music recommendation engine based on songs you have purchased. Songs are available in 192kbps WMA files, and can be managed either via Windows Media Player or Nokia's own Music PC client. As for pricing, a song will cost one euro each, while a whole album will go for 10 euros. But the interesting part here is that Nokia will also allow you to have a subscription for PC streaming for 10 euros a month.

Right now, compatible Nokia phones include the following: Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, Nokia 5610 XpressMusic, Nokia 5700 XpressMusic, Nokia 6267, Nokia 6500 Classic, Nokia 6500 slide, Nokia 6555, Nokia 7500 Prism, Nokia 7900 Prism, Nokia N75, Nokia N76, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB, Nokia N91 8GB, Nokia N95, and Nokia N95 8GB. Music Store will open in certain European markets later this year, with additional stores opening next year.

MTV, Real, and Verizon Wireless have 'formed Voltron' in an effort to take on the iTunes behemoth.

(Credit: TV Tokyo)

With their new joint digital music initiative, MTV Networks, RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless are taking a direct aim at Apple's iTunes powerhouse.

Called Rhapsody America, the yet-to-launch collaboration among the three companies will combine MTV's relatively unsuccessful Urge music store, the Real-owned Rhapsody subscription download service, and Verizon's V Cast mobile media service to create a music store that reaches across the PC, digital music player, and mobile phone platforms.

The new Rhapsody America company is officially a joint venture between MTV Networks and Real Networks, with Verizon Wireless as its exclusive mobile partner. Urge as a brand will cease to exist, with Rhapsody becoming the service of choice for MTV Networks' MTV, VH1, and CMT music brands. Michael Bloom, general manager of MTV's Urge, has been appointed head of the new company, and the company's offices will be located in New York, San Francisco and Seattle.

Urge had been launched as a music store in conjunction with MTV Networks' music brands, but its highly publicized deal with Microsoft had fallen by the wayside as the software company launched its Zune music player and accompanying music store.

Executives from MTV, Real, and Verizon held a joint conference call on Tuesday morning, filled with talk of "alliances" and "joining forces" that evoked superhero Captain Planet or Voltron. "The collaboration of these three companies is like a perfect storm," said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks' Music/Logo/Films group, who added that they're striving to make Rhapsody America "the best service out there, hands-down."

"The notion of combining with these two marketing behemoths is very, very exciting from our standpoint," said Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of RealNetworks. "This is a relationship that we spent a long time putting together." RealNetworks, which holds the larger stake in Rhapsody America, has been trying to expand its footprint in the music sales world for some time now through high-profile partnerships.

Few details about the revamped Rhapsody were actually disclosed--pricing, for example, or details regarding finances--but the executives hinted that Rhapsody tie-ins will start to appear as part of the MTV Video Music Awards, which will be broadcast from Las Vegas on September 9.

The executives from all three companies talked up the Verizon deal as crucial to the nature of Rhapsody America. "Our audiences have made it crystal clear that they really want their music accessible wherever they might be," Toffler said. Glaser added that over-the-air downloads through V Cast epitomize Real's goal of a "jukebox in the sky," which he said has been the company's aim since it launched the first RealPlayer in 1995.

More importantly, it's a potential arsenal in the fight to catch up with Apple's iTunes store, the inarguable leader in the digital music sales industry: iTunes offers no mobile download capabilities. John Stratton, Verizon's executive vice president and chief marketing officer, reminded those listening to the conference call that V Cast mobile phones now support 4GB of storage and will support eight by the end of the year--an underhanded nod to the storage capacity of Apple's own iPhone.

The formation of Rhapsody America is the latest move in a music industry trend to prime new strategies for an assault on iTunes. Most recently, Universal Music Group announced that it would not be renewing its contract with Apple's music store and that it would be making portions of its catalog available without digital rights management protection to a number of non-iTunes outlets, one of which is Rhapsody.

(Credit: Apple.com)

MacRumors has confirmed that the forthcoming version of iTunes will contain a built-in ringtone creation utility for songs purchased via the iTunes Music Store. Users will be able to right-click on purchased songs and select "Make into Ringtone," which will give them a small audio workspace to select the 30 seconds they want to use as a new ringtone. According to MacRumors, the use of this feature will cost $.99 per track--a fee which goes toward licensing the music for your mobile phone. That means the total fee for a ringtone is $1.98.

There's no confirmation of whether users will be able to use this feature on music ripped from CDs or other DRM-free tracks.

All things considered, this isn't a bad price for a ringtone. However, for many mobile phone users, iTunes has long been a fairly simple way to convert music tracks into mobile ringtones using its importing tool. It's been confirmed that the iPhone won't play your full music tracks as ringtones.

iTunes 7.3 will be required for both activation and sync of the iPhone. Apple is expected to release the updated software Friday morning.

The U.K.-based EMI Group continues its campaign to provide its digital music library free of DRM restrictions: it just announced that it has licensed the entire catalog to PassAlong Networks, which operates the StoreBlocks music retail technology used in online stores like F.Y.E. and BreakthruRadio.

The songs will be sold in MP3 format at a 320 kilobit rate--more than typical digital music bitrates of 128 to 192kb, and more than the 256kb premium songs offered by Apple's iTunes Store--but pricing has not yet been determined.

In April, EMI announced in conjunction with Apple that it would be providing its entire digital music catalog with improved sound quality and no digital rights management to the company's iTunes Store. EMI simultaneously announced plans to offer the "naked" catalog to other music sales outlets. The iTunes Store began selling the DRM-free songs late last month, and also in May, Amazon announced plans for DRM-free music downloads with EMI as the first major partner.

Currently, PassAlong Networks has access to almost 3 million songs, about 2 million of which are independent-label tracks in MP3 format. A PassAlong Networks spokesman confirmed to CNET News.com that the company is also exploring similar DRM-free opportunities with other labels.

A side note: The rest of PassAlong Networks' songs are sold in a Windows Media DRM format that is incompatible with Apple computers, and as a result, many PassAlong-powered stores would not load on this reporter's Mac laptop. It's unclear as to whether or not the stores will be opened up to Mac buyers now--we'll update this post when PassAlong representatives e-mail us back with an answer to the question.

UPDATE: A PassAlong representative answered my question on Wednesday morning. The EMI tracks will indeed be Mac-compatible, and a Mac-friendly relaunch of PassAlong stores like F.Y.E. is on track for mid-July.

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Apple is poised to announce a deal in which it will sell iTunes store tracks through social-networking site Bebo. At first, it appears that this applies only to Bebo's 8.8 million users in the U.K. and Ireland, where the service is most popular, but the story hinted that it may expand to the rest of Bebo's 33 million-strong user base if successful.

According to the Financial Times article, any band or artist with a Bebo profile--there are approximately 500,000 of them--that's already part of the iTunes catalog will be able to embed an iTunes widget into its page and sell its music through it. Bebo will in turn promote the iTunes features with a free "single of the week" that aims to highlight upcoming and lesser-known artists.

This marks the first time the iTunes store has partnered with a third-party social-networking site to sell its music. The Financial Times suggests that the official announcement from Apple will come Wednesday and that the Bebo partnership may be active on the same day.

Side note: Could a Facebook Platform application be on the way for the iTunes store?