The online music retailer eMusic has put out some interesting data that, it is claimed, supports the famous “Long Tail” theory of online retail. Chris Anderson (picture), the editor in chief of Wired magazine, coined the phrase in a 2004 article, claiming that Internet retailers would sell more niche products at the expense of mass-market items. However, this theory was challenge in a recent study by Will Page and Andrew Bud, which claimed more than 10 million of the 13 million music tracks available on the Internet failed to find a single buyer last year. In response, eMusic has reported that 75% of the tracks in its catalogue were bought at least once in 2008.

New York - Digital music service eMusic said this week that internal data showing that 75% of the songs in its 5 million-track catalog were downloaded last year prove that the "long tail" theory of retail has merit, at least when it comes to its own service. A study in November from the MCPS-PRS U.K. licensing body concluded that the long tail theory was flawed, after finding that of the 13 million songs on the Internet, ten million had not sold a single copy.

New York - Digital music service eMusic announced on Thursday that it has now sold 250 million MP3 downloads since 2003, when it established its current subscription model. The figure includes downloads sold in the U.S., Canada and 26 countries in the European Union. The company also said that its catalog now encompasses over 4.5 million tracks. By contrast, Apple has sold more than 5 billion songs from its iTunes Store.

Dallas - Restaurant chain Pizza Hut on Monday announced the launch of a digital music promotion with eMusic, which will offer 75 free song downloads to customers at PizzaHut.com through Dec. 27. Those placing food orders on the website will receive a link to a site where they can download 25 songs from a "special Pizza Hut playlist," as well as any 50 songs from eMusic's catalog as part of a 14-day free trial subscription of eMusic.

New York - Digital music service eMusic is laying off about 10% of its staff, and continues to seek a replacement for CEO David Pakman, who departed weeks ago to join venture capital firm Venrock, All Things D reported.

New York - David Pakman, the CEO of digital music service eMusic who announced earlier this week he would step down and take a position at an unnamed venture capital firm, said in a blog post today that he will be joining Venrock as a partner. "Venrock has been focused on building a substantial practice in digital media," Pakman wrote. "A veritable juggernaut of venture and entrepreneurial experience has been assembled to take an existing powerful platform and add on top of it a highly-focused digital media practice. I am not the catalyst for this, but am lucky enough to be joining the effort."

New York - Digital music service eMusic announced on Monday that president and CEO David Pakman is stepping down to become a partner at an unnamed "premier venture capital firm."

New York - Digital music service eMusic announced on Monday that it now counts over 40,000 record labels on its roster, and a total of over 4 million tracks in its library. The New York-based company sells MP3s from mainly independent artists via a range of subscription plans where individual tracks cost as little as 39 cents each.

New York - Digital music service eMusic on Tuesday began introducing several new features that will pull relevant content from around the Web into its site, while allowing users to share eMusic content across social networks, bookmarking sites and blogs. Customers will now see content from YouTube, Flickr and Wikipedia on relevant album pages on the eMusic site, and will also be able to bookmark album pages and send them to 18 social media sites, including Facebook and Digg.

New York - Digital music service eMusic is looking to expand into selling TV episode downloads, but would only do so if they could be delivered DRM-free, NewTeeVee reported, citing eMusic CEO David Pakman. To this point, New York-based eMusic has mainly offered independent label music to subscribers. The report said that such a service, which the company said would be targeting "long tail" programs and not current primetime hits, would likely take a year or so to launch.

New York - Digital music service eMusic on Tuesday announced a "modest price increase for some of its users," which will see the cost of its monthly Basic Plan raised from $9.99 to $11.99.

New York - Digital music service eMusic said on Thursday that it has added nine new publishers to its MP3 audiobook store, which it says is now selling nearly 13,000 titles per month. Joining the store are Simon & Schuster Audio, BBC Audiobooks UK, Reagent Press, Hay House, L.A. Theatre Works, Tantor Media, Phoenix Books, Listen and Live, Brainsync and Audio Evolution. "We look forward to testing the DRM-free waters with eMusic, as we believe their customers will be strong audiobook consumers," said Chris Lynch EVP and publisher for Simon & Schuster Audio.

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.