New York - Digital music service eMusic has been forced to remove early Rolling Stones albums and other repertoire from ABKCO Records it has been offering since early April, due to legal issues, Hypebot reported. In a post on its forums, the company said it "triple and quadruple-checked" the licensing issues involved before going ahead and offering the ABKCO catalog. "But this was not enough. Due to events outside of our control, we are being forced to remove the entire ABKCO catalog from eMusic."

New York - Digital music service eMusic on Tuesday announced the availability of its service in Canada, offering a catalog of 3.5 million songs from 33,000 labels in the unprotected MP3 format. The company, which recently passed 200 million downloads sold, offers songs from artists on Canadian labels including Nettwerk, Arts & Crafts, Justin Time, Secret City Records, Mint Records and Paper Bag.

New York - Digital music service eMusic said on Monday that it has now sold more than 200 million downloads since establishing its current subscription model in November 2003, and is currently selling more than 7 million tracks a month across all territories. The company counts over 400,000 subscribers, and claims to be the world's second-largest download service, behind iTunes.

New York - Digital music service eMusic has added 25 albums from the Rolling Stones, through a recently signed licensing deal with Abkco. The deal includes albums released between 1964 and 1970, such as "Let It Bleed" and "Beggars Banquet." Along with early Stones, the Abkco deal brings DRM-free tracks from Sam Cooke, the Animals, Marianne Faithful and others to eMusic subscribers.

Redwood Shores, Calif. - Hudson Entertainment said on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with eMusic to make its catalog of more than 10,000 tracks from independent labels available through the company's digital music service, which counts 400,000 subscribers.

DMW’s CEO & Publisher provides a wrap-up of the top stories of the week. Who’s hot, who’s not and what’s the industry buzz?

I spent the past week at our Digital Music Forum in New York City with 500 senior industry insiders immersed in two days of high level discussions about the future of the music industry. I don’t often toot our own horn, but this was one heck of a great event.

New York - Digital music retailer eMusic on Tuesday announced the launch of a new curated section of its service that will showcase unsigned and underexposed new artists. The eMusic Selects feature will include one or two artists each month, handpicked by eMusic staff, who will receive in-depth editorial coverage both on the eMusic Selects page and on the site's 17dots.com blog. Artists will agree to provide often previously unreleased music exclusively to eMusic in digital format for 60 days, and eMusic subscribers will gain access to a free song download from each act.

New York - Digital music retailer eMusic on Wednesday said it added the catalogues of classical music labels Chandos Records, Telarc and Harmonia Mundi to its subscription-based service. The company noted that more than half of customers who downloaded recent free classical music samplers from its service went on to purchase more classical music, and that a third of these had never downloaded a classical track before.

New York - Digital music service eMusic announced on Wednesday that it now counts over 350,000 paid subscribers to its service, which offers over 3 million tracks from 25,000 labels. The subscriber figures include the both the company's Web-based service, and new mobile download service offered through AT&T. Since establishing its subscription model in 2003, New York-based eMusic said it has sold over 165 million tracks, as well as over 25,000 digital audiobooks in the last 50 days.

New York - Publisher Penguin's audiobooks unit has removed its titles from the website of digital audio retailer eMusic, over fears of digital piracy on a new eMusic service that sells audiobooks in the unprotected MP3 format, The New York Times reported.

New York - Digital music retailer eMusic on Wednesday added a new feature to its service that automatically moves tracks purchased on eMusic to libraries in iTunes, Windows Media Player or Winamp -- a function that previously had to be done manually. The eMusic Remote application is open source, meaning developers can submit improvements, and that the widget will work with Firefox add-ons like FoxyTunes, gTalk and TwittyTunes.

New York - Digital music retailer eMusic, the second-largest seller behind Apple's iTunes, announced on Monday that it has added over 1,000 downloadable audiobook titles in MP3 format to its catalog. Audiobooks from publishers including Blackstone Audio, Hachette, Naxos Audiobooks, Penguin and Random House will be available by subscription, for $9.99 per month for one book or $19.99 for two books. While the audiobook files will be delivered as MP3s, they will include watermarks for tracking where they end up. Some publishers are viewing the addition of their titles as a test. "We're very interested in testing this, but we didn't think it was appropriate to put all of our titles in a test program," Random House Audio publiser Madeline McIntosh told The New York Times. "If we see that piracy of our products is increasing, we would stop."

New York - Independent label Epitaph Records is moving its worldwide digital distribution to the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA), which had previously offered only mobile content for the label, Billboard reported. The label will also end its relationship with digital music retailer eMusic when its contract expires next month.

New York - Digital music retailer eMusic said on Wednesday that it has renewed licensing agreements with four top independent labels: Beggars Group, Matador, Concord Music Group and ATO Records. Additionally, the company said its overall label roster now includes 20,000 independent labels, while its catalog now surpasses 2.8 million tracks.

New York - Digital independent music retailer eMusic said this week that it has now sold more than 150 million downloads. The New York-based firm features a catalog of over 2.8 million tracks from mainly independent artists and labels. The company said it reached the milestone less than nine months after passing the 100 million sales mark, and is now selling about 6 million tracks each month.

San Antonio, Texas - AT&T on Tuesday announced the launch of an over-the-air mobile music download service in partnership with eMusic, a digital retailer of independent music with a catalog of 2.7 million songs.

Los Angeles - At least six independent record labels plan to entirely remove or else limit their catalogs on digital music subscription service eMusic, taking exception to the service's pricing model, Billboard reported.

New York - Digital music service eMusic announced on Tuesday that its subscriber base has now topped 300,000, four months after the company passed the 250,000 subscriber mark. New York-based eMusic, the second-largest digital music retailer behind Apple's iTunes Store, added that its library now offers 2.5 million tracks from more than 13,000 independent labels.

New York - Digital music service eMusic on Thursday announced the addition of three new monthly subscription plans designed for heavy downloaders, which will offer packages of downloads priced at 25 cents per track. eMusic Connoisseur will offer 100 downloads for $24.99 per month; 200 downloads for $49.99 per month; and 300 downloads for $74.99 per month. "At a time when the music industry is shrinking and major record labels are struggling to improve their bottom line with digital sales, eMusic's customers are ready to legally buy even more music," said eMusic president and CEO David Pakman, President and CEO of eMusic. "Our customers have told us that the 90 downloads a month in our highest plan are just not enough."  The company's basic $9.99 service includes 30 downloads per month.