TastemakerX is a new music discovery app that allows users to develop an influence score, building a follower base based on music tastes, social graphs and finding the right bands at the right times; CEO Marc Ruxin called it "fantasy sports for music lovers." Elsewhere, CDs remain a valuable commodity, while consumer confidence rose but still lags far behind.

The Concord Music Group/Hear Music catalog of Paul McCartney was ordered removed from subscription services, affecting some of his recent solo albums, as well as a slew of older releases by McCartney and Wings that were reissued in 2010.

iLike, an online service for sharing and discovering music that was one of digital music’s most exciting startups, is officially dead. Visits to the iLike.com URL are being redirected to a MySpace page with a notice about iLike’s demise.

ReDigi, an upstart digital company that sells "used" digital music, has announced that it has successfully fended off the recording industry's motion for a preliminary injunction.

Today marks the release of "We Are The Works In Progress," an album to benefit Japanese disaster relief featuring such artists as Terry Riley, Four Tet, Fever Ray, Deerhunter, Interpol and David Sylvain and Ryuchi Sakamototo performing alternate and demo versions of songs. The album was compiled and organized by Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead. 

File-sharing site BTJunkie shut down of its own accord, following in the footsteps of FileSonic and FileServe in willingly removing itself from the fray in the wake of the highly-publicized Megaupload and Pitate Bay legal actions. Elsewhere, the death of SOPA leads to even more questions about Internet law, and Google+ keeps growing but still lags behind.

During the week of Feb. 6 in Billboard History: The day the music died: when a plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Big Bopper tragically crashed, the show went on -- for which Bobby Vee was grateful. Also, Motown goes country, jazz and Pat Boone; and "High School Musical" has "Glee"-like numbers pre-"Glee."

The Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville played host to the launch of Artist Growth, a suite of cloud-based artist management tools for web and mobile. The launch brought out stars from Vince Gill and Steve Winwood to Artist Growth CEO Matt Urmy and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to Marley, the first documentary about iconic musician Bob Marley made with the support of the Marley family, to be released April 20. Marley would have been 67 years old today.

Eric Church has a song called “Springsteen” on his current album “Chief,” but the country rocker has discovered he has something else in common with the Boss since he moved up to the arena level: ticket resellers who are all over his tickets, going as far as joining his fan club to game a system he and his team set up to provide value for fans.

The NFL and NBC are apologizing for British singer/rapper M.I.A.'s extended middle finger during Sunday night's Super Bowl halftime performance of Madonna's new single, "Give Me All Your Luvin.'"

An invitation for an "Exclusive Private Event" to see the Grammy-nominated DJ sensation Skrillex instructed invitees to meet at NYC's WeSC Concept Store and prepare to be "Blindfolded and Driven to A Secret Location." The murky details didn't prevent droves of model-types, mussy-haired indie boys, candy ravers and music bizers like WMG Chairman of Recorded Music Lyor Cohen from checking out Skrillex's highly-danceable set of bombastic beats.

Live Nation's stock jumped 3.4% Friday following reports that tickets for Madonna's 2012 tour would go on sale after Sunday's Super Bowl, where the singer is performing at the halftime show. Elsewhere, Amazon's Kindle Fire is helping get music to Android users but is still far behind the iPad, and Kickstarter's platform just keeps growing.

Nine of EDM's most influential business creatives, from DJ/Producer Afrojack to HARD Events founder Gary Richards to Atom Empire co-founder Stephanie LaFera.

Drake's ex-girlfriend, Ericka Lee, has claimed she was the voice on the other end of the now-famous phone call in "Marvin's Room," and is now suing Drake for excluding her from sharing co-writer royalties

Universal Music Publishing Group executive VP of international Andrew Jenkins has been elected as chair of the International Confederation of Music Publishers at the organization’s general assembly annual meeting, held at MIDEM on Jan. 29, serving a two-year term. Elsewhere, Imagem signed two global publishing deals, and Reel Muzik Werks signed up La Toya Jackson and others.

A New Zealand court today denied an appeal for bail  by the jailed founder of the file-sharing website Megaupload. Kim Dotcom must now remain in jail at least until his first hearing in a U.S. extradition request, scheduled for Feb. 22.

Sister Sledge have banded together with an Oscar-nominated actress and songwriter to file a major class action lawsuit against Warner Music Group alleging they were cheated out of millions of dollars based on improper calculations of revenue from digital music sales. Eminem's publisher brought a nearly identical claim against Universal Music Group and won a fairly important decision at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010

A controversial 2007 paper on P2P’s impact on CD purchases has got a second look -- with conclusions the music industry will like. A new paper based on the same survey data used in that 2007 paper finds clear evidence that P2P has negatively impacted music purchases in Canada. Also, Ticketfly put out some figures showing it too grew mightily last year. And Maybe the outcry over subscription service holdouts will subside a bit now that Coldplay’s “Mylo Xyloto” showed up on Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and Mog on Wednesday.

Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward requires a "singable" contract that reflects some dignity and respect toward me as an original member of the band" in order to move forward."