After all the lawsuits they have started, they finally won one. In a major win for record companies seeking to establish precedent for prosecuting those who trade copyrighted material on the Internet, a federal jury awarded six firms $222,000 in damages from a Minnesota woman who shared music online. Jammie Thomas, 30, was ordered to [Continue]

From this article in the Las Vegas Sun. Don has a number of very valid points. He should know, he’s been in the business 53 years. I think he raises a number of valid points, that the record business is more into looks and flash than actual music. I mean, look at all the “pop” [Continue]

SFGate reports that although the recent crackdown and lawsuits have caused a 22% drop in downloading, the drop in CD sales actually accelerated during the same period. The BBC has an article with an EMI exec who gives the standard industry view on issues. But CNN Money has an article about Universal Music Group’s plans [Continue]

There have been a number of rumors that Apple is preparing a online music service. Four of the five major record companies have committed their music to the Apple service. It could be launched next month. A new version of iTunes will utilize the AAC audio format (MPEG4), which allows for Digital Rights Management. Using [Continue]

zibalatz writes “I recently saw this ad on some trashy “world’s best commercials”-style tv show and I thought it was fantastic. The production company has made a number of similarly clever and memorable ads but this one really caught my attention.” Well, it could be the most clever ad ever, but if it doesn’t get [Continue]

The NY Times has an article about Mark Turner and the state of the Jazz Music Industry. Mark’s a great player who has a different sound and style. A refreshing change to the endless Coltrane/Brecker clones out there. It’s too bad Warner Brothers dropped him. [Continue]

This website comprises hundreds of documents (texts, scores, audio and video files) associated with music copyright infringement cases in the United States from 1845 forward. All of these documents have been collected, edited, digitized, organized, analyzed, and commented upon by staff at Columbia Law Library and the Columbia Center for New Media [Continue]

Tenor Madness writes “Hey, just thought I’d say how great this site is!! I love it..theres so much good stuff on here. I like the solo transcriptions..they are hard to find. I got a question for everyone. How do you think Jazz has shaped music as it is today and how has it affected the [Continue]

Anonymous Coward writes “I read about DownSlam here some months ago. Just wanted to let you know they are now accepting music uploads for their new disribution model. If this catches on it could really put the screws to the recording industry. After all, they have been screwing us for a long time now and [Continue]

According to Wired, the recording industry wants the right to hack into your computer and delete your stolen MP3s. Lobbyists for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) tried to glue this hacking-authorization amendment onto a mammoth anti-terrorism bill that Congress approved last week. A copy of an RIAA-drafted amendment obtained by [Continue]

Dotcomscoop.com has an interesting story that says the RIAA is going to try to sue KaZaZ, Morpheus and Grokster. Internal memos from within the RIAA outline the record label’s findings and strategy going ahead. Now, why can’t the RIAA stop wasting it’s money and set up a cheap subscription service? Going after two foreign [Continue]

NPR has an excellent article about the growing trend of ‘real’ radio stations abandoning streaming media due to concerns about advertising, royalties, and (you guessed it) the DMCA. Basically, stations are finding that web streaming isn’t increasing their listener base, but is increasing their costs. Meanwhile, there’s a [Continue]

I lifted this from Slashdot. According to this 8/20 RIAA press release, the RIAA is concerned about CD burners. Hilary Rosen, president and CEO of the RIAA, said: “Many in the music community are concerned about the continued use of CD-Rs . . . and we believe this issue deserves further analysis. A preliminary survey [Continue]

Digital Prosound has some reprints of two Mix Magazine articles about the state of MIDI. the first article discusses with the history of MIDI and the problems with USB and MIDI. The second article discusses MIDI over IEEE-1394 (Commonly known as FireWire). Personally, I’m all in favor of FireWire taking over as it’s faster, and [Continue]

You know, news like this is beginning to tick me off. Why can’t the RIAA, instead of engaging in legal battles, come up with a subscription service or on-demand service or SOMETHING. They seem to just NOT want to have anything to do with online technologies. I wonder what it will be like in 5 [Continue]