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EMI Music has pitched Robbie Williams into its OpenEMI software developer sandbox. The platform is now ready now for partner The Echo Nest and its global network of over 10,000 developers to start working on new digital ideas for the artist’s music, writes Mark Terry.

The Robbie Williams Artist Sandbox features all the music from his solo career to date, including his seven number-one albums, plus live tracks, remixes, videos, concert footage, images, artwork and additional digital content.

Lyrics outfit LyricFind has inked deals with EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music Publishing and Sony/ATV Music Publishing, marking the first time licences from all four major publishers have been commercially available on a global basis.

Pulse Films has grabbed financial support for There Are No Innocent Bystanders, a documentary about The Libertines 2010 reunion directed by music snapper Roger Sergent, on fan-finance website PledgeMusic, writes Mark Terry.

The film puts the audience in the rehearsal room and backstage at warm-up gigs in preparation for the big festival shows, as well as on a pub crawl visiting The Libertines’ old London haunts, plus an extended interview with Pete Doherty ‘like no other seen before’.

Rock’s share of UK album sales ran to 29.4% in 2011, a significant drop from the most-recent high of 41.5% in 2004, according to the BPI. Seven of the Official Top 10 albums of 2011 were classified as pop – Adele’s 21 grabbed number-one spot – upping the genre’s share from 30.9% to 33.6% year-on-year.

Pop sold double the number of singles achieved by rock artists, where the genre, led by Coldplay’s Paradise, closed the year with an 18% share of the market.

Advertising is a major source of funding for digital piracy worldwide, says the IFPI in its Digital Music Report 2012. “Illegal music sites may offer their content for free, but they are often commercially driven, and advertising revenues are a principal source of funding for many of them,” the organisation says.

Artist will.i.am – aka Intel’s director of creative innovation – is gearing up for world tour as part of the Intel Ultrabook Project, writes Mark Terry. The 12-city, 12-month tour, which will kick off in Mexico City at the end of the month, will deliver a dozen original pieces of music inspired by the cities will.i.am visits, and 10,000 downloads of each piece of music will be available exclusively on the Intel.com website.