Today's hot trend in the news appears to be giving users remote and mobile access to theirs and others' iTunes music libraries.

From a Melodeo press release: "Melodeo Inc. today announced nuTsie, a new mobile music service that allows consumers to get their entire iTunes library on their mobile phone. The nuTsie free public beta allows anyone to easily shuffle through all of their iTunes music and playlists in hi-fi quality on their mobile phone or on the Web.

"nuTsie allows users to access all of their favorite iTunes music on a wide variety of today's most popular phone models, with no expensive device upgrade required.

"nuTsie is built on Melodeo's proven high-quality, low-bandwidth mobile streaming technology, which means consumers never have to hassle with synching their phone to a computer, downloading music or dealing with limited storage capacity on their phone...

"nuTsie does not download actual iTunes song files, so there are no storage issues, sideloading hassles or piracy worries. Instead, nuTsie works by referencing a consumer's iTunes library and playlists and then making the same track titles available for streaming from nuTsie's servers via the Web and mobile phone.

"nuTsie combines Melodeo's innovativestreaming music technology with an enhanced 'radio rules' shuffle algorithm that ensures artists, record labels and music publishers are paid for every use of a song...

"The nuTsie service can also be accessed via a browser on any Web-connected computer."

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x This new product from Melodeo seems wonderful in several ways... It's a solution that lets you listen to your iTunes playlists on a different computer (e.g., at a friend's, at work, at an Internet cafe). It's a solution that lets you listen to your friends' iTunes playlists on your computer (or at another friend's, at work, etc.). It's an elegant solution to getting your music — and a whole lot of other music as well (an infinite number of tracks!) — onto your cell phone. The unique heart of the idea, if it's not clear above, is that they're taking consumers' iTunes playlists, turning them in radio stations, and paying statutory royalties on them. Clever! On the other hand, some quibbles: 1. It's one of the worst brand names we've heard this year. (We thought "Slacker" was bad; this is worse by an order of magnitude.) 2. They're being really difficult about their support for mobile devices — as if they don't want to admit how few devices they support. If nuTsie knows their product doesn't work on Palm OS devices or the Verizon network, why don't they just say so?!? (From the website: "There are numerous other phones we haven't tested yet. There's a reasonable chance that nuTsie will work of several of those phones. I guess the question is: are you feeling lucky? Give it a try. It's free, after all." Sorry — my time is not free.) Also, "Sprint customers: You can register for free to allow your phone to install nuTsie and other 3rd party applications here." I go to that page and I see no such functionality. Melodeo CEO Jim Billmaier tells RAIN, however, that " Our target is 3G phones and the list will grow over time.  [Our] Mobilcast [product] is now supported on about 100 phones…nuTsie will get there quickly…and include smartphones. " 3. For the web-based product, is listening to others' iTunes playlists actually preferable to listening to a well-programmed Internet radio station? I'm not sure I see it. 4. If I have to pay $20+/month for a data plan to listen to my iTunes library on my cell phone, I think I'd rather either (A) carry my iPod in the other pocket or at least (B) buy an iPod shuffle for on-the-go use. Also, that approach would be commercial-free, which nuTsie isn't going to be (unless either I pay, or my carrier pays for it) 5. On the other hand, if I'm paying for a data plan anyway, mmmm, maybe! This way I don't have to carry my iPod in the other pocket. (Although I risk draining my cell phone's battery life...) 6. On the third hand, rather than listening to "radio" that's actually some friend's playlist, if I could wouldn't I rather listen to a brand I know and trust — like Pandora or RadioIO or SomaFM or AccuRadio or LaunchCAST? (My bias may be showing here, though. I could be wrong about this.) -- KH x x

An announcement today from CD-swapping service Lala.com will allow users to browse large catalogs of major- and independent label music, in the hopes that new music discovery will lead users to make new digital music purchases.

Lala's announcement received the treatment from major print and online news sources, and we've compiled "highlights" from a number of those sources below:

Free music, in hopes of sales From the Wall Street Journal: "The music industry is so desperate for new ways to make money that a Silicon Valley start-up is trying a counterintuitive approach: giving the music away as a way to jump-start sales. "Starting today, visitors [Lala.com] will be able to listen for free on their computers to the digital catalog of Warner Music Group Corp. and hundreds of smaller independent music companies. Lala executives say they are working to secure licenses with the other three major music companies." "It's like a subscription music service, but without the monthly subscription fee. Lala is betting that in return for getting all that free access to music at home, listeners will pay to buy the songs they want to take with them on iPods and other music players. The prices will range from $6.50 to $13.50 for an album... "More important still, the new service will work with... iPods — something no iTunes competitor featuring major-label content has been able to do... "Prices will be 'dynamic,' or based on demand for a particular title and other factors, including the existing content of a user's personal music library." Subscribers can read the WSJ article here.

Unproven business model has risks From the Associated Press: "[Lala.com] has an agreement in principle to sell nearly 200,000 songs from Warner Music Group Corp. for 99 cents each, starting Tuesday. Members will also be able to play the Warner songs for free, and the company will pay Warner a penny each time someone listens to a song." "Nguyen estimated the... company would pay $140 million for licensing fees over the next two years if member numbers grow as projected. Executives are talking with the other big labels: Sony BMG, EMI and Universal." "Analysts said Lala is taking a huge risk. As a full-service music site, it will compete not only against Apple Inc.'s iTunes, which sells 5 million songs a day, but e-commerce powerhouses Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc." "To download songs to an iPod, members must download a 3-megabyte plug-in that runs on all major browsers on Windows and Macintosh computers. Because the songs aren't stored on the PC hard drive,... Lala will dispense with traditional digital rights management,... [Lala.com Business Developer John Kuch pictured left] "Founders were secretive about how the technology works, noting that they've filed for numerous patents. The technology worked well in demonstrations last week." Read the AP article here.

Basic idea: iTunes on the web From Ars Technica: "Lala... is betting the company on a new plan: provide access to streaming music, on demand, for free, and to do so legally. There is no catch... "Here's how the new service works: like the old MP3.com, it allows users to scan their hard drives for music, then upload songs to a 'digital locker,'... "This music then becomes available from anywhere that the user logs into a Lala account. The idea is that it's iTunes, but on the web. Playlists can be created and managed, and iPods can even be filled directly from the site. Read the Ars Technica article here.

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x From Kurt's "Radio and Music" blog This plan sounds, if I'm understanding it correctly — how can I put this politely? — mind-numbingly ludicrous! WSJ's Ethan Smith reports that Lala is paying major labels $6 to $8 per month per user — "about the same wholesale rate paid by online music-subscription services like Rhapsody." There's no way... NO WAY!... Lala could make that much money in profit from download sales. "Lala gets around the copy-protection issue" of downloading music into an iPod by using a plug-in that puts the tracks directly onto the iPod, where they can never be moved! At $6.50 to  $13.50 per album! Ludicrous! "After the installation has finished, lala.com will scan your computer for your music and upload the music to lala.com for access from any computer in the world." Is it actually uploading the music files? If Lala already has ripped 100,000 CDs, why does it need your copies? (This is like when Spock's half-brother tried to commandeer the Enterprise in "Star Trek V," allegedly on behalf of God, and Kirk asked, "Why does God need a starship?") "Lala founder Bill Nguyen...calls the Lala gambit an 'all-in' proposition, readily acknowledging that if it if fails, his company will most likely go under." Has he ever heard of market research or user testing? x

x None of the stuff that's going on this week — Slacker, Lala, etc. — is particularly consumer-driven, in my opinion. Rather, they're all plays to get tens of millions of dollars out of venture capital firms while the social-networking / online-music space is perceived as "hot". From the VCs' point of view, if one out of ten of these ideas is a home run, and the other nine fail, they're fine. That's the VCs' business model. -- KH .

From a Rock.com press release: "Laguna Hills, California-based music portal Rock.com is compelled to issue this release to demonstrate how inconsistent the recent CRB Internet performance royalty increase [RAIN coverage here] is with Rock.com's ability to actually pay royalties based on the new scheme.

"'I am trying to make this less of an emotional debate and just show the world in simple terms that there was a huge bust in rate determination... ' said Steve Newman, CEO of Rock.com.

"'Here’s the basic math: The performance royalty rate in 2010 is 0.19 cents per song played. When we multiply this by 20 songs per hour, the royalty cost per listener hour is 3.8 cents. Rock.com’s streaming costs are an additional 1.2 cents per listener hour, so our direct radio costs with royalties, even before salaries and overhead, is 5 cents per listener hour.

"'On the revenue side, Rock.com can receive at most 0.3 cents per radio advertisement per listener. If we were to run 7 ads per hour... that would provide a maximum 2.1 cents of revenue per listener hour. This is less than half the costs of running the Internet radio part of our business.'

"For this reason, Rock.com strongly endorses The Internet Radio Equality Act (S. 1353 in the Senate, H.R. 2060 in the House)...

"'We believe that the increased CRB Internet performance royalties are simply so high that there must have been a significant error made by not considering the realities we face in running Internet radio stations,' Newman said. 'We have no objections to paying a fair royalty that is economically viable for Rock.com and our industry.'"

Read this entire press release online here.

...	x Steve's analysis shows why, in the real world, there couldn't be viable "willing buyers" at the rates set by the CRB judges. -- KH x x