Warner Music loses money on lawsuits as digital music sales soar
Even as its digital music sales zoom Warner Music Group continues to lose money on numerous lawsuits related to alleged price fixing of music downloads. In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Warner Music said it had been named in 14 class-action lawsuits, most of which allege a "conspiracy among record companies to fix prices for downloads."

Warner Music said, "The company intends to defend against these lawsuits vigorously," in its 10-Q statement filed Friday. The accusations come three months after Elliott Spitzer, New York's Attorney General, began investigating whether the music company agreed to fix download prices.

Meanwhile, sales from digital-music downloads in the quarter ended March 31, were $90 million, or 11 percent of the company's total revenue and triple the sales from the same period last year.

Consumers have begun downloading music from the Web instead of buying CDs at their neighborhood music store helping to loosen the stranglehold the music industry once held on music distribution.
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U.S. economy adds fewer though better paying jobs
Employers in the U.S. added fewer jobs than expected last month, and wages jumped because factories were filled with more high-paying positions, a report by a US media agency said. The unemployment rate stood at 4.7 percent.

The 138,000 gain in payrolls for April followed a revised 200,000 increase the month before and was the smallest rise since October, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. Hourly earnings were up 3.8 percent from April 2005, the biggest gain since August 2001. The Federal Reserve has started tightening credit and is expected to increase interest-rate next week. Treasury prices and stocks rose on signs slower employment growth may moderate pressures on wages in coming months.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 4 basis points to 5.11 percent as of 3:45 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor's Index of 500 stocks rose 13 points, or 1 percent. Interest-rate futures showed traders were certain the Fed will increase its benchmark rate to 5 percent, from 4.75 percent, on May 10. The contracts showed there is about a 36 percent chance the rate will reach 5.25 percent by June, down from 48 percent before the report.

The U.S. economy expanded at a 4.8 percent annual rate last quarter, the fastest in more than two years. Growth is projected to average 3.4 percent this year, down from 3.5 percent in 2005.

Among blacks, the unemployment rate rose to 9.4 percent, today's report showed. The jobless rate for Hispanics held at 5.4 percent and for whites rose to 4.1 percent from 4.0 percent.

The unemployment rate for teenagers fell to 14.6 percent in April. For women, the jobless rate rose to 4.3 percent and it rose to 4.2 percent for men.
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