Beatles Still Offline, EMI Loses Money, DJ Hero, Lala

Why the Beatles haven’t made their catalogue available online, EMI reports massive losses for the first half of 2008, DJ Hero is confirmed by Guitar Hero publisher Activision and new online music service Lala combines iTunes with social networking features. Check out the round up:

• We’re in 2009, and the Beatles have yet to make their songs available on iTunes, Amazon, Zune, or any of the other major online music stores. MSNBC reports that The Beatles’ business entity, Apple Corps, has to agree to anything done by EMI, which owns the group’s recordings, and the two sides have yet to cut a deal. There is speculation as to whether the music will ever go online, but industry executives say “we have to reach fans wherever they are.” [MSNBC]
• EMI Group Ltd. reported a first-half loss of $221.9 million on Friday as cost cuts failed to outweigh falling CD sales. Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd., the private-equity firm run by Guy Hands that bought EMI in 2007, is struggling to turn the company around, as reducing marketing spending and paying smaller advances to musicians isn’t enough to make up for piracy. [WSJ]

• Activision has confirmed that DJ Hero, a spin-off of the popular Guitar Hero series, is in development. The game will include a turntable, and is scheduled for release later this year. While Guitar Hero sales are through the roof, the game has been criticized for its too-simplified approach towards music. Let’s hope DJ Hero isn’t lacking in robustness. [Music Radar]
• New online music service Lala, has been launched. Features include being able scan personal music collections, including your iTunes library, onto Lala’s servers and access the songs from any Internet browser. Prices for songs range between 10 cents for web-songs, and 89 or 99 cents for downloadable mp3s. It is also possible to share songs across social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Blogger. [SFGate]

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