More Music Industry News: Music Game Slump, SoundExchange $$, Chasing PBay Founders & More

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• Music game sales drop hurting all of gaming – Analyst Michael Pachter forecasts 12% drop in sales over last year in large part because of an ongoing drop in music game sales to $250 million from $468 million in 2008. (Billboard)
• AOL begins 1200 layoffs. (NY Times)
• WaTunes has announced a strategic partnership with Dijit, a web and mobile-based widget that lets you sell and share premium content across iTunes, Palm, Android and other application storefronts and any social network.
• Responding To SoundExchange… By Their Numbers – A guest post from Fred Wilhelms, a lawyer whose concerns about SoundExchange are worth reading. (Techdirt)
• Record Labels Demand Cash From Pirate Bay Founders – Universal Music, EMI Music, Sony BMG and Warner Music are demanding one million Swedish kronor from two Pirate Bay founders. A Swedish court banned them from operating the site last year, and the labels argue that they have failed to comply. (TorrentFreak)
• SXSW injected $99M into Austin economy last year. (Austin Business)