“Music 2.0 In The News,” or “Some Things I Wanted To Share”

One of my favourite examples of “recent highlights” posts comes from Jaffe Juice. Here goes my attempt at that style!

• Billboard.biz about the recent RIAA-suit failure

A judge finally defined illegal file-sharing in such a way that puts the burden on the RIAA to prove that copyrights are being infringed. While I still think that the lawsuits are ridiculous, giving record labels everywhere a bad name, this decision finally forces the industry to put up a fair fight… at least in this Arizona federal district.

[Update: apparently, I got the scoop before Wired this time!]

• Wired’s interview with Justin Ouellette (of Muxtape fame)

When I read this interview, I actually smiled a little. The labels and artists getting in on this early are definitely the smart ones: more sharing = more publicity for them!

• Certain music sales are actually climbing

People (myself included) have been talking about the resurgence of vinyl for a while with little-to-no industry-approved statistics to back them up. This just in, from the RIAA themselves. Now, who would have thought that MP3s, while good enough to replace the sound quality of CDs, may actually be contributing to the growth of the higher fidelity, warmer sound, and nicer packaging of vinyl albums?

• Baby-dancing-to-Prince video is back up and going back to court

I was out of the blogosphere too long: I had never even heard of this video, let alone it being taken down. But seriously, did Prince (or Universal) really think that the 30 seconds of music shared in this clip would hurt their sales? The decision on whether this is legally fair use is ludicrous, but will be made soon enough…

• Gerd Leonhard’s apocalyptic view of music’s future (if we continue the way we’re going)

Reading this short essay made me laugh and made me cry. Its obvious extremism only made me think of what’s actually to come if the RIAA and its supporters keep up their fight in the “War on Share-erists.”

• A new music blog tries to bring us back to the heyday of MTV

Remember the glory days of MTV, back before it was all about Carson Daly, Tila Tequila, and The Hills? Lights Are Flashing, a new blog from a good friend of mine, revives the old format of “drunken imagery, followed by a brief word about music, followed by a music video, all culminating in where you can find this new music.” Show him some love by clicking over (and check out this post, highlighting a great track from Wiley and its spoof video on Youtube).

See you next time!