Friday Business Links: Sony/ATV To Develop TV Series

• Sony/ATV Publishing is creating a television series called "American Storytellers." The series will turn the stories of country songs into one-hour dramas. (Billboard.biz)

• Bit torrent search engine Minivova generated €1,000,000 in revenue in 2007. Be careful of the wording in the article. It says Mininova "earned" €1,000,000, which implies revenue net of expenses. The €1,000,000 figure is actually top-line, gross revenue. Still, it's an important discovery. The Pirate Bay's ability to generate revenue -- which indicates the degree to which it is run like a proper business -- was a part of its recent trial. (Ars Technica)

• Country album sales are down 15.3% this year but its market share is down only half a point to 10.0%. (Music Row)

• A review of the recent upgrades to MySpace Music. Nothing great, in my opinion. (TechCrunch)

• Download the 39-minute In The City podcast of this week's first meeting of the Featured Artists Coalition. (Download MP3)

• Milwaukee's Atomic Records will soon close. "As the viability of record stores have dwindled over the years, I can’t help but feel that our importance to the community has dwindled also. We’ve received an enormous amount of love from people since we announced the closing but it’s been often accompanied by a hushed confession that music just doesn’t play as big of a role in their lives anymore." (Popmatters, via Daily Swarm)

• Arrington was right. Music is free. Download 1267 files, 6.15GB of music from bands performing at this year's SXSW. (Home of the (UNOFFICIAL) SXSW 2009 Torrent, via TorrentFreak)