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Artists and record labels who have been agitating for parity with songwriters took a major step forward this past Wednesday when the House introduced H.R. 848 the “Performance Rights Act”. The bill would require terrestrial broadcasters to obtain a license from holders of copyright in sound recordings whenever they transmit music.

Leading to the movie industry’s “Napster moment?” That’s the contention of this article: Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios (pdf)

Adam Singer is a musician and “social media guru” who used his expertise in both fields to find a more harmonious means of online promotion. As a relatively “unknown artist”, Singer saw little return on efforts to profit from his works as CDs and digital downloads, selling only a few copies with “mixed results”.

Make: television is a new TV program from the wonderful crew behind MAKE Magazine that focuses on DIY culture and “celebrates “Makers” - the inventors, artists, geeks and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels.”

Eric Goldman reminds us (here, here) that angry companies and individuals are still suing Xcentric Ventures, LLC and Ed Magedson left and right over reports submitted to Ripoff Report.  Ripoff Report is a website that allows users to post reports about individuals and companies that they believe have "ripped them off" or

A recent post on music blogs and MP3 distribution at UK webzine Drowned In Sound raised some interesting questions about the legality of sharing online and caught our attention as a result. The posting focused on the case of blog Berkeley Place Indie (now Berkeley Place) that, like many music blogs, posted free MP3s of artists and songs that they liked.