So which artist was the first to sell a million ringtones? Who had the most-downloaded song last year? And what obscure bands have risen to fame thanks to the popularity of the Guitar Hero video game series? You can find the answers to those questions and others in ContentNext’s “10…

EMI Music and Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) have agreed to extend their existing marketing and distribution deal in India and the Middle East and will also enter into their first partnership in Turkey, the companies announced today. Under the terms of the multi-year deal, EMI will become the local…

Hyderabad-based mobile-content distributor IMI Mobile is buying digital music distributor DX3 of London as a beachhead into European and non-mobile markets. The UK company distributes music to white-label platforms like that of UK broadcaster ITV (LSE: ITV) and handled mobile download marketing for EMI’s pop band Alphabeat, but wants to…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is close to formally launching its iTunes store in India states this BS report. A truncated version of the India store, featuring only iPhone apps has been live for a while. The main meat, which includes music, movies, podcasts and TV shows are conspicuous by their absence.…

OnMobile Global has inked exclusive deals with around 40 companies from the South Indian Music companies Assocation (SIMCA). Medianama reports the deal value is around Rs 8.5 crores. A fairly small amount considering it will be spread across 40 labels, of which Satyam Audio has majority content share, accounting to…

Sure enough, the days without incident were indeed numbered. T-series has issued a notice to Guruji.com amongst other websites including MSN, MySpace and Bharatstudent. It has accused them of allowing users to upload content on their platforms. The report features quotes from T-Series, VP (digital content), Neeraj Kalyan, stating in…

Sequoia funded Guruji.com has launched a music search service. The release claims the service indexes songs ranging from 1932 till date, across all ‘major’ Indian languages. I put it to the test by throwing names of classical Indian artists from a 2003 recording and was pleased to find it threw…

Why did Times of India buy Virgin Radio? Because of the internet, A.P. Parigi, CEO of its TIML unit, suggested to FT. “‘Now is the time, Parigi,’ (group CEO Vineet Jain) told me. ‘Pick an asset and an appropriate price.’ He sees this market as one of untapped potential because…

Indian Music label T-Series today obtained an interim injunction against Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Inc and Yahoo India from the Delhi High Court, contentSutra has learned. The Court issued a notice, in the interim, restraining Yahoo from streaming T-Series owned content on their portal Yahoo Video. T-Series is the largest music…

While some have been saying that the horizontal portal is waning in influence, Web18, the internet company from the Network18 group is set to open its so-called-horizontal portal In.com for beta testing. I met Rishi Khiani (COO, Web18) and Varun Singh, (CTO, Web18) yesterday for a sneak peek at In.com.…

MySpace India, which as been live since January, has finally been “officially” launched: there’s a gig today in Mumbai featuring Pentagram, The Super Fuzz, Them Clones, followed by an after-party featuring The Raghu Dixit Project, Shaair and Func and Swarathma. MySpace is also planning a Developer Platform workshop in Bangalore…

Mohit Anand, formerly the Country Manager For Microsofts Entertainment & Devices Division will be joining Channel [V] as General Manager for Channel [V], from the 21st of April, reports Indiantelevision.com. It’ll be interesting to see if Anands time in the gaming business (he was with MS for eights years), and…

The Kareena Kapoor - Saif Ali Khan starrer Tashan (English: Style) appears to be running into hot water with Onyx dragging Hungama and Yash Raj Films (YRF) to court over an alleged breach of contract. The matter, up for hearing on March 31, refers to a joint-venture YRF entered into…

This could be a key event for content providers in India. Three industry bodies - Film and Television Producers Guild of India (FTPGI), the Indian Music Industry (IMI) and ASSOCHAM have signed MoUs to together ensure a parity in rates for content, and join forces for combating piracy. At Convergence…

Well, it’s a sign of the times that another top media honcho is turning entrepreneur: Amar K Deb, head of Channel [V] has put in his papers, and is looking to set up a website in the entertainment genre. Agencyfaqs reports that the site will be launched in four-six months,…

The Delhi High Court has given YouTube and T-Series time to settle their copyright infringement dispute, and the case will be heard next in July. Representing YouTube and Google (NSDQ: GOOG), legal bigwig Arun Jaitley said that YouTube doesn’t upload the content on the site - people from all over…

Geodesic Information Systems has tied up with mobile operator Idea Cellular to launch Idea Radio over GPRS. Idea Radio - of the Mundu Radio solution - gives users access to a number of Internet radio stations over GPRS, over and above the standard FM Radio fare one gets in India;…

Satellite radio broadcaster Worldspace (NSDQ: WRSP) bet heavily on the music-crazy India - they notched up 164,000 paid subscribers - but continued to make losses. The proliferation of free FM radio channels didn’t help, neither does the fact that the company couldn’t offer Worldspace to consumers on the move (cars…

MY FM, the FM station from the Bhaskar group has launched a portal - www.myfmindia.com. Don’t go by the press release (here, doc file): They’ve launched podcasts, but the execution is pretty shoddy. The first couple of podcasts that I heard from this page (streaming works only with IE) has…