More Music Industry News: Google Music, Spotify, Thumbplay, Gail Zappa, VEVO, Blackwell & More

(UPDATED) Lots of action at WMG yesterday as the executives suites at both Warner Brothers Records and indie arm ADA and Rhino all saw major shakeups. But as talented and smart as some of the new team running these divisions are, there's no reason to believe that this isn't more about consolidating Lyor Cohen's power and saving a little money than it is about the radical change needed to keep the ship from sinking further.

• Music marketer and blogger Ty White has a great post on our sister blog that details case-studies into the success of Facebook ads and how one artist was able to find 5,000 fans through them. (MusicThinkTank)
• Some details about the new Google Music service. (Billboard) With downloads and an online music locker as the centerpieces, its evolutionary and not revolutionary…
• Spotify has 10 million EU users and 500,000 paid subscribers. (Music Ally) Not a very encouraging paid conversion rate.
• Apple has just approved a major update for the Thumbplay Music iPhone app which ads the ability  to store playlist and albums in their phone’s memory for offline listening.

More Music Industry News & Commentay:

• Mike King interviews Gail Zappa: Copyright, Creativity, Covers, and more
• Life After Comes With Music: Thoughts and Reflections Nokia’s Music Product Strategy (Mark Mulligan)
• VEVO, YouTube and American Express are partnering to deliver a live streamed performance of John Legend and The Roots on September 23 from NYC be directed by filmmaker Spike Lee.
• Digital distributor IODA announced that its artists and labels were nominated 35 times in more than 20 categories of this year¹s Latin Grammy awards ­ including Record of the Year, Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album.
• Gang Of Four talk abut crowdfunding their new album. (Guardian)
• Not enough entertaining surprises at MTV's Music Video Awards. (WashingtonPost)
• Chris Blackwell on Island Records’ Legacy. (WSJ)
• Music fans buy a slice of stars. A look into fan-funding and it's complications. (BBC)
• Illegal downloads: music industry to carry cost of catching pirates. Coalition says film, TV and music industries must bear financial burden of pursuing illegal downloaders. (Guardian)
• Goo Goo Dolls Frontman Admits To Using Limewire; Says He Likes Fan-Made Video More Than His Official Video. (TechDirt)
• A survey commissioned by the National Assoc. of Broadcasters found 76% of U.S. cell owners would consider paying "a one-time fee of 30 cents" to gain access to local radio stations on their phones. (DMW)
• Why It's Important Not To Call Copyright Infringement Theft. (TechDirt) 
• The rise of streaming media: One composer earns more on Spotify than iTunes. (TNW)
• The return of the amateur critic. (ABC) 
• Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing Age Than Before It: An extensive study into the effect of digitalization on the music industry in Norway has shed an interesting light on the position of artists today, compared to 1999. While the music industry often talks about artists being on the brink of bankruptcy due to illicit file-sharing, the study found that the number of artists as well as their average income has seen a major increase in the last decade. (TorrentFreak)