BUSINESS BRIEFS
MySpace joining music venture
Associated Press
MySpace, the nation's largest online social network, announced yesterday that it is joining with the nation's top three music labels to create a service offering free music streams and paid downloads for its millions of members.
The joint venture will build upon already strong music-sharing aspects of MySpace to create an online destination where users could not only recommend and discover favorites, but also sample or purchase songs and buy concert tickets and ring tones.
The music streams will be supported by ads and rendered to users for free. Executives would not reveal the prices for downloads but said they will be "competitive." The new MySpace music services will be rolled out over the next three to four months.
INTERNET SCAMS COST $240 MILLION
Money lost in Internet-related crimes hit a new high last year, topping about $240 million, according to a government report showing increases in scams involving pets, check-cashing schemes and online dating.
The number of reported Internet scams dropped slightly from previous years, but the total lost jumped $40 million, according to the report released yesterday by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.
The report, based on data from the Internet Crime Complaint Center, shows men lost more than women on average — $765 compared to $552 for women.
The report also shows the amounts lost increased with age. Victims in their 20s lost $385 on average while people over 60 reported lost an average $760 per scam.
The most common crime reported was auction fraud, in which consumers did not get the right merchandise they paid for. A consumer might "pay $25 for a DVD that somebody actually recorded in the back of a movie theater," said FBI spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan.
The second most common crime was non-delivery of a purchased good, followed by confidence fraud, in which scammers ask consumers to rely on them, resulting in a financial lost.
About half the losses involved amounts less than $1,000 and one-third involved amounts between $1,000 and $5,000.
GAS PRICES RISE, THOUGH OIL DIPS
NEW YORK — Gasoline prices extended their record run at the pump yesterday, but took a breather in futures trading as investors collected profits from the previous session's huge advance.
Crude oil futures, meanwhile, fell as the dollar stabilized and prompted selling by investors who previously bought crude as an inflation hedge.
At the pump, the national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.2 cent overnight to $3.289 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. That's the latest in a string of records set as gas prices have followed surging oil futures higher.
In futures trading yesterday, May gasoline fell 4.93 cents to settle at $2.7243 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange, dropping back after soaring 13.44 cents to a record of $2.7736 on Wednesday.
CORN PRICES REACH RECORD $6 A BUSHEL
NEW YORK — Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel yesterday, driven up by an expected supply shortfall that will only add to Americans' growing grocery bill and further squeeze struggling ethanol producers.
Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol. Prices are poised to go even higher after the U.S. government this week predicted that American farmers — the world's biggest corn producers — will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared to last year.
Corn for the most actively traded May contract rose 4.25 cents to settle at $6 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising to $6.025 a bushel — a new all-time high.
Worldwide demand for corn to feed livestock and to make biofuel is putting enormous pressure on global supply. And with the U.S. expected to plant less corn, the supply shortage will only worsen. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in 2008, an 8 percent drop from last year.
