Its Finished: Sony BMG would become the last of the top four music labels to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet.

Dumb and Dumber: The World’s Dumbest File Sharer, Jammie Thomas, who became the first person to go to court in a P2P case was dumped by her lawyer who foolishly advised her to make a principled fight of the matter in court – thereby turning what would have been a $2,000 tax into a candidate for bankruptcy. Her Lawyer is cutting his losses and will no longer represent Jammie. P2P site TorrentSpy notes that Toder was a maritime law specialist and describes his performance as “a frankly lacklustre non-existent defense”.

The Register says…

“Can there ever have been a more empty and worthless cause than fighting for the right for artists not to be paid? I suspect that one reason for the lack of popular support for Thomas may be that when it comes to getting stuff for free – we’ve never had it so good. With so much cultural material available for nowt over the internet, only a sentimentalist or the chronically impatient net user ever has to pay for anything again. And the price for this is merely an ever-falling broadband fee.

Christmas Download Surge in UK: Sales of single track downloads increased from 52.5 million in 2006 to 77.6 million, according to the British Phonographic Industry. CDs still dominate with 95 per cent of all album sales on physical formats. Nearly three million tracks were bought in a record week, one million up on the equivalent period in 2006.

Idol Champ Dropped: Some break and some don’t. American Idol champ Taylor Hicks has been dropped by J Records. Clay Aiken will most likely be released as well in the following year.

Label Market Share – courtesy of Digital Music News..

Universal – 31.9%
Sony BMG -Â 24.9%
Warner – 20.28%
EMI – 9.37
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