We linked a story back in January about how the indie record store Amoeba was doing well despite general industry woes. The Chicago Tribune says indie record stores in general are doing well – how can this be?? “Business is great, fantastic,” says Marc Weinstein, co-owner of Amoeba, which also …

An editorial by Thomas Keane Jr. on why CDs and the music industry in general are on their way out – nothing terribly new to Blogcritics readers, but a great line makes it worthwhile: Still, the RIAA fundamentally believes that its customers – largely the young – are pirates; given …

While FCC chairman Powell is the clear goat in the media regulation wars, misreading congress AND the public in his arrogant push to deregulation, this article by Jube Shiver in the L.A. Times says Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps is one of the heroes: Short on funds, the Democrat …

Michael K. Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, proves in this editorial in the NY Times that he just doesn’t have a clue. He is arguing about broadcast competing with cable when it is the overall consolidation of the media into the hands of a few omnipowerful corporations, and …

The way this is working is the RIAA – as a very well funded institution with lawyers out the ass – has about zero per unit cost to subpoena all of these file sharers, while for the targets, the cost in real and potential cost in money, time and emotional …

A not particularly large, but notably skanky spam operation appears to be run by a 21-year-old right here in Northeast Ohio, according to an excellent article by Plain Dealer tech writer Chris Seper: Every month hundreds of thousands of e-mails chug through the computers at Isolate Networks, offering aphrodisiacs, erotic …

It sounds like they’re trying to do it right: By Christmas this year, Napster’s enigmatic cat logo will again lure consumers into downloading music. But this time it will discard its file-sharing heritage and be entirely legal, with a wealth of new capabilities. Chris Gorog, chairman and CEO of Napster’s …

Two former Radio Free Blogcritics featured artists, Scott Andrew LePera and Shannon Campbell got together virtually to make some impromptu music for the Blogathon this past weekend – cool results are here. Congrats to all who participated!

Last week the ARIA relased the results of a survey that claimed file sharing is killing the Australiam music industry. There were questions: Music industry analyst Phil Tripp sent in a long list of queries last week, most of which I thought merited answers. I sent most of them across …

You don’t hear about a lot of Armenian-American baseball players, or rock stars for that matter. From a press release: System of a Down guitarist and L.A. Dodgers fan DARON MALAKIAN has made the team for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 45th Annual “Hollywood Stars” baseball game to be held at …