The big questions at our mobile music panel at our recent EconMusic conference: why is mobile music in decline and what will an effective business in this sector look like? Tom Erskine, Head of Go-to-Market, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Music explained the problem to lie in the relationship between the digital…

Late last month we had our first EconMusic conference at the Natural History Museum in London, where we talked about all things digital music, including how its affected by the mobile industry, piracy, as well as the new trend of artists bypassing stores to reach out directly to their fans.…

Here’s Reuters TV’s package from our EconMusic conference in London on Tuesday, in which singer-songwriter Billy Bragg called for reforms that would help social media sites to pay artists more money. Also see the photo gallery.

Thanks to everyone for coming to our inaugural EconMusic conference in London on Tuesday, which was chock full with interesting discussions from a stellar lineup of speakers. Here’s the photo gallery to catch up with. Videos coming soon. See you next year!

Everyone, by now, is familiar with Radiohead’s no-label, direct-to-fan experiment last year. But a growing number of operators is playing with different interpretations of a thesis that’s been around as long as the internet - that the label nowadays is an anachronism, and that bands can finance and release music…

Billy Bragg used our EconMusic conference in London to urge the emerging wave of web services to pay artists fairly for using their songs. “Everyone’s making a shitload of money, it seems, except the content providers,” said the singer-songwriter, who has previously criticised MySpace and MTV on artists’ rights and…

Just one outtake out of many from the energetic discussion about social media and music taking place now at EconMusic. Billy Bragg: “That’s my income stream you’re pissing with.”        

Mobile music, the art of welding a Walkman to a handset, has so much promise - but in most countries outside the Far East it’s still just that. Two thirds of mobile users don’t want music, said a recent survey from Jupiter Research, so its research VP Mark Mulligan, our…

Legal music services are going to have to give consumers a much better experience than the usual downloading a song for free, but what those services might look like is still in question. Still, the panelists in the Paying Vs. Piracy session at EconMusic are banking that enough consumers are…

It’s clear that BPI CEO Geoff Taylor has his hands full. As the head of the UK record industry’s trade association, he has had a long slog trying to get the British government, as well as the country’s ISPs, to take the issue of illegal downloads seriously. In July, the…

Today’s the big day—we’re holding our EconMusic conference at London’s Natural History Museum Tuesday afternoon. The event will include a keynote Q&A with BPI CEO Geoff Taylor and several panels about new commercial models, mobile music, social media and direct-to-fan efforts.  Our ContentNext team, including Robert Andrews, Staci D. Kramer,…

Our EconMusic conference is just seven days away and we’ve finalised our programme details along with the speakers’ list. Meet us at London’s Natural History Museum to talk about all things digital music, including its effect on mobile phones and social media. Musician Billy Bragg, BPI CEO Geoff Taylor, Last.fm…

With less then two weeks to go, we’ve added to an already excellent lineup for our EconMusic conference at London’s Natural History Museum on Sept. 23.  Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, signed on for our keynote Q&A. Danny Rimer, a partner at Index Ventures, Steve Purdham, CEO of…

Did we mention that Billy Bragg is speaking at EconMusic, our London conference examining the digital music business on September 23? Billy has previously taken on MySpace for its policy on artist royalties and Bebo for building a fortune off musicians’ work. At EconMusic, Billy joins Last.fm, Mog.com and others…

As a bit of compensation for the end of summer, we’re offering tickets to EconMusic at a special back-to-work 20 percent discount for this week only. We’ve got a great lineup for the half-day conference, which will take place Sept. 23 at London’s Natural History Museum—and we’re still not done.…

As if it weren’t clear from their recent memorandum of understanding with the BPI and government, the UK’s biggest ISPs are actively looking to create commercial music services that would replace current illegal downloading. Music retailer 7digital says some of them have approached it about creating new subscription offerings like…

Some 2.3 million people skanked Radiohead’s latest album from BitTorrent sources during the two months it was legally available for free. A research paper from P2P monitor Big Champagne and the UK’s MCPS-PRS royalty collector said the “staggering” number “far exceeds what outsiders have reported as the estimated download total…

The UK’s six largest ISPs will today announce a plan to tackle illegal music and movie downloading by sending warning letters to thousands of customers. Threatened with legislation by April if they fail to implement their own solution, two ISPs, Virgin Media and BT, already began sending letters last month…

Pretty soon, everybody will be offering a subscription music service. Latest is BSkyB; it’s secured Universal’s Total Music repertoire (which includes Amy Winehouse) for a new launch that will allow unlimited MP3 downloading and on-demand streaming for a monthly subscription in the UK and Ireland. And it’s starting a new…