A new Reuters report claims that the music industry needs to learn about the "dark side of the Internet" if it's ever going to gain the upper hand against piracy. At a conference in Cannes, France, music executives sounded upbeat about the industry's chances. For example, recent partnerships with the likes of Nokia, Amazon and News Corp.'s MySpace represent a step in the right direction. However, according to Reuters, in 2008, some 95% of the music downloaded from the Internet, or more than 40 billion files, was illegal, leaving the overall music market down around 7% compared to 2007. Michael …

When it comes to television, content may be king, but on the Web, community reigns supreme--at least that's what BusinessWeek says. It used to be that if you wanted to lure the most viewers to your TV channel, all you had to do was produce the best shows. It doesn't necessarily work that way on the Web, however, as the same show can be viewed on multiple sites. As Arash Amel, senior analyst with London-based media researcher Screen Digest, points out: "Every major studio right now is following a nonexclusive strategy" on the Web. Because of this, "the question for …

Technophiles expect Barack Obama to govern "with unparalleled transparency and citizen interaction," says Wired, following a presidential campaign in which the president-elect embraced "every form of social media." For example, at the social networking destination My.BarackObama.com, supporters could create profiles, interact with one another, and went on to plan some 200,000 dinners and fundraisers. Users could also log in and get a complete list of swing-state voters to telephone, which generated some 3 million calls in the final four days of the race. Republican candidate John McCain didn't have any similar efforts. According to Wired, Obama had four times …

U.S. venture capital fund raising fell 71% in the fourth quarter, thanks to a decreasing appetite for risk by large institutional investors, Forbes reports. New data from the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters shows that venture capitalists raised just $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $11.7 billion a year ago. For the full year, U.S. VCs raised a little under $28 billion, down 21.4% from the $35.5 billion raised in 2007. Venture capitalists use the money, which is supplied by large investors like pension funds, university endowments and charitable foundations, to make bets on small companies, …

Google on Tuesday lost the engineering director who helped oversee the development of the Android mobile operating system to Coupons, Inc., a software maker, The Wall Street Journal reports. Coupons, whose software helps marketers create, distribute and track coupons, will now add Steven Horrowitz as its chief technology officer. Horrowitz's move follows that of Dipchand Nishar, former VP of products, who left Google for social networking site LinkedIn. Andy Rubin, the Google exec who has spearheaded the Android effort recruited Horrowitz in February 2006. In an interview with the Journal, Horrowitz said that after "spending so much time and energy" …

The Department of Justice may have scuppered the Google-Yahoo search deal, but Microsoft still isn't satisfied. The proof: the software giant recently underwrote a new International Advertising Association survey in which 100 members responded to questions about search advertising competition, and whether Google's enormous power scares them. However, IAA Executive Director Michael Lee noted that while the survey was partially underwritten by Microsoft, which is an IAA corporate member, the questions were created by the organization independent of Microsoft. "It is our study," Lee told Ad Age. "The results ... are what they are, no editing on anyone else's part." …