London - Slicethepie, a site that lets fans help finance the recordings of artists they like, on Tuesday announced the launch of SoundOut, a new feature that lets labels and artists test the popularity of new tracks out with the Slicethepie community, which earns credits for rating and reviewing new music.

New York - TuneCore, a service that provides digital distribution for independent artists' music through online retailers like iTunes and Amazon MP3, has raised $7 million in new funding from Opus Capital.

Seattle - Social music discovery service iLike announced on Monday a partnership with TuneCore, a digital music distribution service focused on independent artists. Under the deal, artists who sign up to distribute their music via TuneCore to services like iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon MP3 will now also receive compensation whenever their songs are streamed on iLike.com. The agreement also covers iLike's syndication network, which includes streaming players for Facebook, Hi5, Orkut and Bebo.

Los Angeles - Paul Westerberg, frontman for the 80's alternative rock band, has made his latest solo album, "49," available for download from the Amazon MP3 and TuneCore stores for just 49 cents. "He finished it on Monday, sent it to me on Tuesday and it was out this weekend," Westerberg manager Darren Hill told Billboard.com. "It's just wonderful that you can actually do this. The freedom an artist can enjoy these days is fantastic. Can you imagine me pitching this idea to a label?"

New York - Music industry trade publication Billboard announced that it will now publish a chart of the top 25 revenue-generating albums and songs on TuneCore, a service that offers artists 100% of royalties and cheap distribution of their works via iTunes, Amazon and other digital retail platforms. The top-selling albums in April on TuneCore were from Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails and Katt Williams, while the top songs were from artists State of Shock, Jonathan Coulton & GLaDOS, Michael Giacchino, Crank Squad, Z and MGMT.

New York - TuneCore, a digital music distribution service that provides artists with low-cost distribution through iTunes and other retailers, has announced that it will now offer a $10 flat-rate fee for distribution of songs to seven retailers. The company lets artists retain all rights as well as 100% of the revenues it receives back from retailers -- which equates to about 62 cents per track on iTunes, according to the Wall Street Journal. TuneCore, which is majority-owned by Guitar Center, says it has so far delivered 400,000 songs on behalf of artists that have earned a combined over $7 million.