If you’ve been following the music-tech news lately, you’ve probably heard about the rather sudden and unexpected acquisition of digital music service Lala by Apple, Inc. Speculation has run rampant about why the country’s largest music retailer — which sells individual music downloads via its iTunes store — would purchase a company that’s made a name for itself via “cloud-based” access.

Lala has had a few different business models since it was launched by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bill Nguyen in 2006. Originally it was a CD trading site, where members would rip and trade their discs with other members. From there, the company morphed into a MP3 hosting service that offers on-demand streaming. Currently, users are able to listen to a broad catalog of fully-licensed albums one time for free, after which they can purchase individual downloads or, for ten cents, buy the right to stream a tune as many times as they want. Customers are also able to upload their own MP3 collection and access it remotely from any computer.

Read on for more about what this could mean for digital music. read more

If you follow new technologies for the digital distribution and access of music, you’ve undoubtedly come across the name Spotify. In recent months, the Sweden-based service — which offers a deep catalog of high quality streaming audio via a rock-solid and intuitive desktop client — has racked up the press mentions on both sides of the Atlantic. Spotify’s Daniel Ek will be presenting at the Future of Music Policy Summit 2009 (Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Oct. 4-6). Reserve your spot now! read more