DOT-DOT-DOT-COM: THE UNLIKELY RETURN OF MP3.COM

Believe it or not, CBS plans to relaunch MP3.com late this month, according to Music Week. The company acquired the site when it bought CNET Networks for $1.8 billion in 2008. “It is an interesting brand as it has global recognition and still gets around 3m unique visits on a monthly basis,” CBS Interactive Music Group President David Goodman noted. “It’s mainly from search, as when people look for free music online, ‘MP3.com’ comes up. We believe there is a lot of opportunity to refresh it. We will be starting off with 1m tracks on MP3.com, available for free legal download. It’s primarily for new and unsigned acts that are mainly the result of leveraging the Music Manager on Last.fm—which allows people to upload their music to Last.fm Radio. It reflects a lot of things we are trying to do with Last.fm.” Somewhere, Michael Robertson is smiling… Eight Mile Style, Eminem's publisher, has accused Audi of using “Lose Yourself” without permission in a video on its site for the 2012 Avant. That’s the same song that has been used so effectively in Chrysler’s latest TV campaign. Joel Martin, principal of Eight Mile Style, told the N.Y. Post, "No one has approached us for a license. I still can't believe it. There is something strange about it. The Chrysler commercial is known all around the world and had 12 million [hits] on YouTube, and for Audi or the agency to come up with this spot, I can't figure it out."… SoundCloud has made a deal with Tumblr that will enable users to share audio files uploaded via SoundCloud on their Tumblr blogs, Digital Media Wire reports SoundCloud’s mobile iPhone and Android apps offer audio capture on-the-fly, and files created can now be shared directly to a Tumblr blog. SoundCloud users can also now automatically push any songs they like on the service to Tumblr… Many more adult Americans are using Twitter now than late last year, according to DMW, citing a new report from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life project. As of May, 13% of online adults said they were tweeting, up from 8% last November, and 54% said they access Twitter from their mobile devices. The data also indicates that blacks are four times more likely than whites to be Twitter users. One in 10 African-American Internet users now visit Twitter on a typical day… Hacker group LulzSec, which claimed responsibility for an attack on PBS sites over the weekendas a form of protest against a documentary about WikiLeaks, says it has targeted Sony as its next victim, CNET reports. “Hey @Sony, you know we’re making off with a bunch of your internal stuff right now and you haven’t even noticed?” LulzSec tweeted… Apparently sick and tired of banging his head against the wall in a futile effort to get the majors on board for the U.S. launch of Spotify, Faisal Galaria, the company’s head of global business development, has exited his post.