Listen to the top (music) radio stations around the country and you will hear a great mix of music for the masses. Experienced program directors know that success hinges on the right mix of popular artists, up-and-comers, and an occasional surprise or two. This intricate balancing act will keep a mass audience coming back day after day, but what happens when that same audience goes online? Music for the masses becomes music for me.

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They are already the world’s largest concert promoters, they’ve branched out to form their own ticketing service and record labels, and now Live Nation will seek to challenge iTunes’ digital music dominance by launching their own music service through their website. [MORE]

Source: Rolling Stone

Steve Jobs decreed the price of digital music to be 99 cents per download over five years ago, but competing with free has been difficult for Apple and others that have followed in its footsteps. Jobs himself admitted that only three percent of the music on iPods was purchased from the iTunes music store. [MORE]

Source: Wired

The Copyright Royalty Board on Thursday froze the rate that digital-music stores, such as iTunes and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, must pay music publishers. [MORE]

Source: CNET

Apple has threatened to shut down the iTunes music store if an obscure three-person board appointed by the Librarian of Congress increase the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters by six cents per song. [MORE]

Source: Wired

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch will officially take on Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Thursday. [MORE]

Source: CNET

The buzz is mounting, at least for those who care about MySpace. Granted, that’s a sizable audience, but one could argue that iTunes’ audience is even larger, and entrenched to boot. So is Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace music venture, which could be launched this week, anything to buzz about? [MORE]

Source: Wired

Apple arrived fashionably late to the music-recommendation party Tuesday with a new version of iTunes that suggests songs that listeners might like to buy from Apple’s online store. [MORE]

Source: Wired

There’s been a lot of speculation lately about whether iTunes is a boon or burden to album sales. [MORE]

Source: CNET

Simplify Media is a new iPhone/iPod Touch app that can stream your iTunes music library straight to your phone over a WiFi or cell network. Given the iPhone/Touch’s current disk space limitations (16 GB max) this should be great news for those of you with large music libraries. [MORE]

Source: Webmonkey