Performance Rights Act might shut down some radio stations

From ars technica:

An assessment by the GAO on the possible ramifications of passing the proposed Performance Rights Act seems to believe the money machine would be tilted to the labels, as if that's a big surprise. Unfortunately, the GAO, in this initial and incomplete statement, forgot to mention how it might affect .. you know... the public? Not to worry, the FCC has asked for the juicy details in the next report. I'm sure the other part won't change.

It is "payola" if the labels pay a radio station/deejay to play their tracks. It appears to be "fair" to force the radio station to pay to "play" (i.e., "advertise") tracks. If no one can hear you, do you really make a sound?

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Is your IP address on this 'Hurt Locker' hit list?

From cnet, if you downloaded the movie -- why??? But if you did, and now you're worried, cnet has a link to the list of IP addresses.

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Thom Yorke Warns the Music Business 'Will Fold in Months'

From spinner, Yorke is quoted as saying the music industry is a "sinking ship" that will completely fold in months-- not years-- months. The interview was for a new school textbook aimed at getting young people involved with political issues. That's the impressive part. Who knew there was such a textbook?

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The Rise And Fall Of The RIAA

From techdirt, a chart for those who like graphics and still aren't sure about the future of the BF (that's Big Four) and whether the sue-'em-all campaign is helping/hurting. That is, if you had any real question about it. Anyone want to start a pool predicting the exact day?

Especially interesting is this: "As we discussed last fall, now that musicians do have termination rights, they're lining up to use them and take their copyrights back from the labels. They can start getting the copyrights back in 2013. If you're looking for a date when the bottom totally falls out for the RIAA labels, that may be it. When the rights to their back catalog starts to drop out, this chart looks even worse. " One day the copyright holder might even be the artist instead of a corporation. What a novel concept!

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In other news, too many links to add them all, LimeWire still looks to be on life support. They continue to try to work with the labels, in spite of the fact that the RIAA has made it painfully repeatedly obvious they only want to dance on the graves of all file-sharing sites. After all, they own the copyrights to practically every song ever written, and even if they don't, they have the lawyers to sue anyone who says otherwise.