Internet Music Retailers Race to Cut Prices

'Gift voucher' email contains infected file

(NEWSER) - An iTunes gift voucher scam is doing the rounds just in time for Black Friday. Users receive an email saying they have been awarded $50 of iTunes credit which they can access by using a security code in an attached file, the BBC reports. The file actually contains malware which opens up the user's computer to hackers, allowing them to grab passwords. More»

Company aims to have service up before iTunes Match

(NEWSER) - Google is pushing further into the entertainment business with an online music store that it aims to have up and running within weeks, sources tell the New York Times . Music industry execs say the MP3 store will probably be linked to Google's Music Beta cloud service. Google wants to have the store open before Apples iTunes Match service is rolled out, the sources say, although it's not clear whether the company will be able to cut deals with record labels in time. More»

Adele's 21 not your typical pop hit

(NEWSER) - And the top digital album seller of all time is ... Eminem? Lady Gaga? Nope, sorry, it's Adele , the young English singer-songwriter. Adele's sophomore release 21 has now sold 1.017 million online copies, beating out Eminem's 1.005 million for Recovery, reports Hitfix . Even more impressive is how Adele got her numbers—instead of a huge opening weekend like most pop stars, she has been selling strongly but steadily for weeks now, since 21 was released on Feb. 22 in the United States. More»

Amazon deal helps album hit milestone

(NEWSER) - Lady Gaga's new album Born This Way has zoomed to mega-hit status with sales of 1.11 million copies in its first week, making it the hottest-selling debut for an album since 50 Cent's The Massacre in 2005, according to Billboard . Only 17 albums in the last 20 years have hit a million in their first week of sales, although Gaga had a huge boost from an Amazon promotion, notes the Wall Street Journal . More»

Tim Berners-Lee blasts those chipping away at its 'egalitarian principles'

(NEWSER) - Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British engineer credited with inventing the World Wide Web, has a message for us: Social networking sites, app developers, and other entities, if left unchecked, will ruin his creation—which now belongs to all of us. "The web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles," he writes in Scientific American , but "some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles." His complaints:

• Social networking sites: They are "walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web," making each site "a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it."
• Smartphone apps: "It is better to build a Web app that will also run on smartphone browsers," rather than a "closed" smartphone app, he writes, adding that he is especially wary of the iTunes store, which is not an "open marketplace."