From ABCNews.com: "The Audio Mill's RadioActive Tuner, due to be released in a beta test version this week, scours Net radio sites and picks out the data identifying artists and song titles. Users can choose their favorite artists and get directed to the radio stations most likely to play those artists...

"But the program's most controversial feature is that it acts as a virtual tape deck, recording 'Net radio files that can be played back at any time. It can even be set to record, say, all the U2 or Jennifer Lopez songs that it hears, unattended, so a user can play them back later.

"Making copies of regular radio broadcasts is legal, but it's not clear whether it's legal to record off streaming radio sites, said copyright law expert and Vanderbilt University law professor Steven Hetcher...

"RadioActive Tuner isn't the first tool for stream ripping. There's a free program called 'Streamripper' for Windows and Linux that does the trick, but only for streams from broadcasters Shoutcast and Live365 in MP3 format — no other broadcasters, and certainly not RealAudio or Windows Media streams."

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From Businesswire: "SurferNETWORK.com and BroadcastURBAN.com, Inc., a leading Washington, D.C.-based Urban radio webcaster, have signed a letter of intent to form a strategic alliance, resulting in increased revenues for Urban radio stations streaming their broadcasts on the Internet.

"SurferNETWORK will invest capital, hardware, streaming services and its patent-pending targeted ad insertion technology in BroadcastURBAN, in return for a minority equity position in BroadcastURBAN, shared advertising revenue and membership on its board of directors...

"Major market stations are already streaming with BroadcastURBAN, including WBLS-FM, New York; KJLH, Los Angeles; WBEE, Chicago; and WHUR, Washington, D.C. BroadcastURBAN's approximately 100 stations offer R&B, jazz, hip-hop, gospel and reggae formats and reach millions of listeners throughout the U.S with their terrestrial broadcasts."

Read this press release here.

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BY PAUL MALONEY
An organization calling itself the Offshore Napster Server Initiative has begun soliciting donations to set up a Napster-type trader server outside of the reach of major world governments.

The proposed site will be the extremely small, man-made helicopter-pad-of-a-nation Sealand -- which really is a country and not at all an amusement park or dolphin aquarium. Sealand, which resembles a large picnic table, is located just a few miles off the east coast of Great Britain.

According to the government's official site, the principality "will earn revenues based on its contractual relationships with local Sealand businesses. Currently the only such business is an Internet company called HavenCo Ltd. that has secured all the available Sealand real estate to convert into a secure computer co-location facility." As of yet, there is no Sealand Starbucks.

It's not known at this time if such international "nose-thumbing" as allowing the trade of copyrighted Britney Spears song files will hamper any Sealand efforts to gain admission into international organizations like NATO, the EU, or the United Nations. It's also not known what role other world governments might take should a conflict arise between the small "rogue nation" and, say, a busload of Metallica roadies.

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From PRNewswire: "XM Satellite Radio announced the successful launch of its first satellite, XM 'Rock.' Liftoff occurred at 5:33 pm EST (Sunday) off the Sea Launch Odyssey Launch Platform in open waters of the Pacific Ocean on the equator. The first signals from the satellite were captured by a ground station in Australia at 6:43 pm EST as planned...

"'Roll' (XM's other main satellite) will launch in early May, also from Sea Launch's platform in the Pacific. 'Rock' and 'Roll' will both operate in geostationary orbit above the United States. By using two powerful satellites, each with the same nationwide coverage, XM will ensure maximum signal and system reliability."

Read the press release here.

April 2, 2001	Digital Media Outlook: New York, NY
May 3-4, 2001	Streaming Media Asia 2001: Hong Kong