Thursday’s Music 2.0 Briefing: Universal Earnings Drop, “Bad Days” At WMG, Amazon Pepsi Ads & Much More

UPDATED:

Don’t miss yesterday’s piece: "Is The Tipping Point Toast? Music Marketing Needs To Change…Again". Its getting some strong reactions. (Hypebot)

> Universal reported that earnings we’re down 5% in the last quarter of 2007 and 1.7% for the year overall.  (Guardian) The Good news: Digital sales were up 54%.

> As expected Swedish prosecutors have indicted Pirate Bay. (AFP)

> Another stock market analysts sees "Bad Days Ahead For Warner Music". (Seeking Alpha) WMG’s earnings call is Feb. 6th.

> A new NPD study says that 70% of kids ages 9-14 are downloading music with 49% using iTunes and 26% favoring Limewire. (press release) Call me crazy, but I’ll bet those Limewire kids are a lot more active downloaders.

> On OurDigitalMusic you can watch the Pepsi and Amazon mp3 giveaway Super Bowl ads featuring Justin Timberlake, Andy Samberg, Missy Elliott, LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes and Macy Gray.

> The Digital Watermarking Alliance is going to demonstrate the DRM replacement before Congress. (Listening Post)

> THE RIAA FOLLIES: A Federal Magistrate suggest sanctions against RIAA lawyers. And RIAA chief Cary Sherman says they see no need for mandatory ISP filtering even as Verizon and others say they won;t do it without being required to by law. (ars)

> The Copyright Royalty Board has turned its attention to mechanical royalties. (FMQB)

> Madonna topped Forbes Magazine’s Top 20 female earners in the music industry. (Forbes)

> WORTHY CLICK: THE ROCK DOSE dishes up a daily dose of rock wisdom and live video to go with it.