Cricket's Muve Music attracts 200,000 subscribers (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Muve Music, the unlimited music plan offered by prepaid cellphone company Cricket, has doubled the number of subscribers it has to 200,000 in the past two months.

The milestone announced Thursday makes Muve the clear No. 2 in the subscription music category behind only Rhapsody, which has about 800,000 subscribers.

Cricket, a division of the nation's seventh-largest carrier, Leap Wireless International Inc., also announced that it would begin offering the service along with unlimited voice, data and texting for $65 a month on Android-powered smartphones by the end of September. Up until now, the service has only been offered on a traditional cellphone with stripped-down capabilities for $55 a month, a deal that also offered unlimited voice, data and texting.

Cricket's music service has grown rapidly since launching in January, partly because it bundles the music service with customers' regular cellphone bills and eliminates incremental charges for downloading new songs. Users on average download more than 400 songs per month and listen to music two to three hours per day.

Songs acquired through Muve and other subscription plans cannot be transferred off the phone and expire if the monthly subscription is cancelled, but can be listened to outside of cellphone range.

Rhapsody has been around since 2001 and costs $10 a month on its own. Starting last month, Rhapsody leapt into competition with Muve by offering a bundled $60 monthly plan that also covers voice, data and texting on Android phones in partnership with MetroPCS Communications Inc., the nation's fifth-largest wireless carrier. Rhapsody has been offered as an add-on service through Verizon Wireless for several years.

Despite having a smaller following, Muve said it accounted for 70 percent of plays of the top 10,000 songs played on mobile devices in July in the so-called "tethered streaming" category that it shares with Rhapsody, MOG, Spotify and Rdio, citing Nielsen Co. statistics. The category does not include songs purchased through Apple Inc.'s popular iTunes service, which charges a one-time price for songs that can be transferred and kept forever.

Jeff Toig, general manager of Muve Music, said the usage data is "staggering."

"They're putting down their MP3 players, their iPods, and they're making the phone the centerpiece of their music experience," Toig said.

Recording companies like Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group Corp. are enthusiastic about licensing music to subscription services because one-time download sales through online stores such as iTunes and Amazon.com haven't made up for a decade-long drop in CD sales.

Wireless carriers see music plans as a way to attract new customers and keep them longer while boosting monthly revenue. More than half of Muve Music's customers are new to Cricket, the company said.

Muve's Android interface is the same as the one it launched on the older Brew platform for feature phones, but its response time is somewhat quicker. Toig said the company is preparing upgrades that take advantage of Android's notification bar and improve Muve's search function.

It is also contemplating song files that contain more data than now because the Android platform will be compatible with Wi-Fi wireless networks. Larger file sizes would not tax the company's cellphone network if downloaded over Wi-Fi.

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Royals Quebec visit attracts protests (AFP)

MONTREAL (AFP) – Hardline separatists plan to protest Prince William and Kate Middleton's visit to Quebec next month, saying the future British monarch symbolizes Canadian federalism and Anglo-Saxon dominance.

The separatist Quebecois Network of Resistance (RRQ) plans to organize a rally at noon on Sunday, July 3 at the Quebec City Hall, using the slogan "William, Get Lost!" as its rallying cry.

The protest is expected to coincide with the royal couple attending a ceremony intended to showcase the relationship between the Royal 22nd Regiment, Canada's best-known Francophone military regiment, and Quebec City.

"If Prince William and Princess Catherine want to come to Quebec as British citizens for a honeymoon they pay for themselves, we don't have a problem with it," RRQ leader Patrick Bourgeois told AFP.

"But if they come at the invitation of the Canadian federal government, which wants to offend and humiliate Quebec separatists, we will be there."

Bourgeois sees Prince William's visit as a purely political operation designed by the federal government to show the world that Quebec knows its place within Canada.

He is seeking a repeat of 2009, when demonstrations forced a visiting Prince Charles -- Prince William's father -- to enter a military barracks in downtown Montreal by the back door.

Years before, on October 10, 1964, police armed with nightsticks charged a crowd of students and separatists protesting Queen Elizabeth's visit to Quebec in an incident remembered as "Truncheon Saturday."

Quebec and most of the Lawrence River area was occupied by French colonizers starting in the 16th century. Britain, which had colonies further south, disputed the French control.

After several conflicts, many fought with help from their respective Indian allies, Britain wrested control of the region from France in the 1763 Treaty of Paris at the end of the Seven Years' War.

Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth, has been independent since the 1930s even though the queen remains the formal head of state.

Referendums for an independent Quebec were held twice, in 1980 and 1995, and separatists lost each time, although by a very narrow margin in the latest round. Though weakened by its defeat at the polls and internal fighting, the separatist movement is still hoping for a third chance with voters.

According to opinion polls, two thirds of Canadians would like to break institutional links with the British crown.

The British royalty, however, has ardent supporters of its own, represented by the Monarchist League of Canada, which claims 10,000 members, including 500 in Quebec, said provincial spokesman Etienne Boisvert.

Boisvert, whose French ancestors arrived in Quebec in the 16th and 17th centuries, conceded that France and Britain have a history of difficult ties.

But, he said, it was the British who "brought a parliamentary system of government, democracy and the doctrine of individual rights to North America."

He called the monarchy a "feudal institution that knew how to reinvent itself."

And the fact that the queen lives 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) away is not a concern for him, as she is represented in Canada by the governor general, David Lloyd Johnston.

In monarchist circles, people have proposed making a member of the royal family head each one of the 16 Commonwealth realms.

"Prince Harry, who has virtually no chance of becoming king, could set himself up here and found a Canadian branch of the monarchy," Boisvert speculated. "Or the future king could rotate -- six months in Canada, six in Australia, six in London."

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