... Please look to our site "Save Internet Radio" as well as RAIN tomorrow for an important development in the industry's effort to make the Copyright Office, legislators, and other important government officials aware of what our industry is facing. ...

From The Village Voice: "You have to be pretty desperate to attack your industry's most enthusiastic potential customers, especially in the middle of an economic downturn. But that's exactly what National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences president Michael Greene did with his already infamous speech at last month's Grammy Awards, transcribed at the official Grammys ...

"Greene took the industry's frustrations out on fans, raging against 'musical dreams haplessly snared in this World Wide Web of theft and indifference.' Metallica and Dr. Dre's lawyer Peter Paterno put it less floridly in The New York Times: 'If I were in charge, I would put viruses everywhere on these services. That would stop Little Johnny from stealing this stuff.'

"Jeff Harris is one of those 'Little Johnnys...' He buys CDs less than once a month these days, he says, although he's purchased a bunch based on files he downloaded — the Strokes, Blur, Heart, Bauhaus — and many of his MP3s are copied from CDs he owns, which makes them legitimate. Jeff has heard of people downloading entire albums and burning them onto CD-Rs, but he's never done it himself.

"'I try not to think of the moral implications,' he says. 'But I'm not sure if the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] understands what the music industry should really be about...Harris is especially annoyed by the new wave of copy-protected CDs that don't play in computers: 'I like to own the actual physical object, and also to be able to take [the music] with me or play it on any system...'

"Record labels can frame this situation in a couple of ways. One interpretation is to consider unauthorized file trading as straight-up theft; the other is to treat it as a cheap and easy promotional tool — and the gateway to a new market...

"Peer-to-peer music trading may never be as big an issue as its opponents fear. If you're downloading illicit MP3s on a significant scale, you probably have (1) a very fast Net connection, (2) not enough money to buy CDs, and (3) lots of time to wrestle with recalcitrant software, hardware, and networks. Which means you're probably a college student. At a certain intersection of disposable income and spare time, it makes much less sense to go through the hassle of downloading an album's worth of songs, burning a CD, and printing artwork than it does to buy the damn thing...

"So what will actually emerge from the chaos?..The best bet is that the whole kerfuffle will blow over, the same way the home-taping issue did years ago. The major labels will offer their own downloads in a form that the market demands and basically ignore the peer-to-peer underground. Young people will keep exchanging sound files with each other, then graduate and get jobs and crave physical artifacts and pay for most or all of their music."

Read this entire Village Voice article here.

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... We think that this article is excellent and was worthy of a short respite from "all-CARP, all the time." Yet at the same time, it speaks to the topic of webcasting too. In fact, it does a nice job (especially if you follow the link and read the entire piece, not just we've excerpted) of giving our "webcasting-focused" eyes a view of the bigger picture of the position in which major record labels now see themselves. In the words of a colleague, as far as the recording industry is concerned, "everything's broken." An immediate conclusion one might draw is that like the industry lashing out at an inappropriate target (the music consumer) over file-sharing, their energy is equally misdirected when it comes to trying to squeeze webcasters for exorbitant royalties. Is it possible that, with a wildly uncertain future, labels are grasping at straws for survival? Yet isn't it interesting that despite evidence that file-trading might actually help promote artists and encourage record sales, labels see crushing it (and attacking their customers) as their only course of action? The parallel to draw is that despite the promotional opportunity presented by webcasting, the record industry is intent on alienating those that could actually help them to simply maintain their way of life. Whether the situation the labels are in is truly "life or death" doesn't matter. They see it as such, and they won't hold back when it comes to defending themselves, or developing new revenue streams. -- PM ...

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From a press release: "With a motto of 'matching those who need streaming services with those who provide them,' Blue Falcon Networks, Vendaria, and VitalStream are among the initial charter members of the Streaming Chamber of Commerce.

"'Just as the Chamber of Commerce in your city works to develop and grow the economic fortunes of various businesses in your community, the Streaming Chamber of Commerce does the same for streaming oriented companies and enterprise corporations,' says founder and chairman Mark Bingaman...

"The Streaming Chamber of Commerce is focused on educating enterprise companies, and emulating the business practices and organizational networking that they understand...

"Enterprise firms, educational, and governmental groups may request streaming information, referrals, and free advice [here]. Streaming companies may request membership applications at the same address."

Read the entire press release here. Bingaman is former associate editor of Streaming Magazine.

From CNet News.com: "Internet video and audio pioneer RealNetworks accused Microsoft in court on Wednesday of seeking to restrict RealNetworks' products because they posed a threat to the software giant's Windows operating system monopoly...

"RealNetworks alleges that Microsoft withheld technical data from RealNetworks to ensure that RealNetworks' audio and video player would not work as well with Microsoft's Windows operating system as the Windows Media Player...

"Windows XP contains a function, [RealNetworks Vice President David] Richards said, that allows users of Windows Media Player to easily copy songs onto a CD and search their files for a song. But Microsoft's tactics prevented RealNetworks' media player from offering the same functions, he said...

"Microsoft attorney Richard Pepperman spent the afternoon questioning Richards, looking to undermine RealNetworks' claim of being a victim.

"Pepperman displayed one e-mail from Richards in 2000 that tells a RealNetworks sales executive that the company's media player was 'ubiquitous,' and that 49 of the 50 top broadcasters used the company's format for streaming media..."

Read this entire article from yesterday CNet News.com here.