Friday’s Music 2.0 Briefing: EU Digital Roadblocks, UMG Buys Univision, Dueling Concert Giants & More

> A fragmented digital marketplace is hurting European download sales. (ars)

> Universal Music Group is buying the Univision Music Group from Univision Communications.  The purchase includes Univision Records, Fonovisa Records, Disa Records, Univision Music Mexico and Univision Music Publishing. (FMQB)

> Artists managers are demanding a share of the revenue that labels received from settlements with Napster, You Tube, Kazaa, Bolt.com and others. The Napster alone was  $270 million. (NY Post) While the managers claims may seem like another money grab as the ships sinks, in truth their artists lost revenue when their music was used by these music services yet on the labels profited from the settlements.

> LIVE INC NEWS:

• According to Billboard.biz "a deal is imminent for a partnership of Ticketmaster and Madison Square Garden Entertainment owner Cablevision to acquire about 49% of AEG Live, the live entertainment arm of Anschutz Entertainment Group". (Billboard.biz)
• Live Nation posted a smaller but still significant $18.5 million loss for 4thQ 2007 due it said to fewer big ticket acts touring. (press release)

> The man behind MP3.com and other more recent Music 2.0 startups like MP3Tunes, Michael Robertson, has a new product called SyncWizard
that scans any PC, locates the most valuable personal data from mp3’s
to your Outlook contacts and stores it in an encrypted format online.
The data is safely back-upped in the cloud or can be opened online for
any location. (InformationWeek)

> Creative Commons creator Lawrence Lessig has ruled out a run for Congress.

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