Talk about getting it from both ends. If you haven’t been following the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) downright persecution of the webcasting industry, you might be surprised to know that not even stations that play independent music can get beyond the RIAA’s reach.

How would you feel about your ISP digging into the stuff you send out to check for pirated content? Sounds kind of Big-Brotherish, doesn’t? A sort of TSA for your data packets. Enter Ma Bell and the Copyright Police.

Sunday, July 15, 2007. Remember that date if you’re an Internet radio fan. It could be the day independent stations go offline. The RIAA wants its money, and it wants it by Sunday.

So as state-funded university tuition rises faster than the inflation rate, grants are becoming nonexistent, and students are actually looking abroad to complete their education cheaper and in half the time, Congressmen cozy with the RIAA are threatening to cut their funding more if they don’t play ball with the recording labels.

I have to wonder if Alberto Gonzales has been watching “Wag the Dog”; the attorney general lacks the power to start a military conflict, but he has put forth a proposal that attacks various forms of copyright infringement.  Some onlookers see this as little more than an attempt to divert attention from Gonzales’s own problems.

In March, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board approved a proposal by SoundExchange, working on behalf of the RIAA, which would implement a significant increase in royalty rates for streaming audio providers. Realizing that these rates would put them under, online radio stations banded together in one last desperate appeal to the CRB to reconsider the decision.

Unfortunately for Internet radio providers, and for music lovers around the world, the judges at the CRB denied the appeal headed up by NPR and joined by several online radio stations.

Physical music sales continued a trend of downward progression and digital revenues are not making up the difference. Within the next two years, total revenues from music sales are projected to dip down to $23 billion, which is half of what the industry brought home a decade earlier.

With the future of industries such as online radio and peer-to-peer networking hanging in the balance, the pendulum of power is shifting from the hands of the suits at the RIAA into the hands of the public. Those who feel they have been wronged by the organization are collectively beginning to fight back.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been involved in a notorious legal dispute with Patti Santangelo for the past two years. In a decision handed down from the presiding judge in the case today, the RIAA was dealt a severe blow that could have far-reaching implications.

Privacy is a hot word around the blogosphere today; Google is protecting it and the RIAA is employing every trick in their playbook to circumvent a user’s right to privacy by pressuring ISPs and Universities to voluntarily hand over identifying information pertaining to users who are allegedly violating copyright law by sharing digital music over the school’s network.

A consortium of record labels which include Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group have filed suit against Alibaba, which is an operator affiliated with Yahoo China, alleging copyright infringement by the site. The announcement comes as record labels, along with the RIAA, are cracking down harder than ever on digital music piracy.

It’s been an up and down week for digital music aficionados, and it’s only Tuesday.

In a decision that could drive the nail in the coffin to Internet radio providers, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board has endorsed a proposal by SoundExchange to enact royalty rates for webcasts and streaming music sites that will stay in effect from 2006 until 2010.

Earlier this week, U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher and John Doolittle introduced the Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007 (FAIR USE Act) for consideration in Congress. Mere days after its initial announcement, the bill is already being targeted for suppression by control-hungry content organizations.

In its ongoing battle of futility against file sharing, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has published a list of the academic institutions that the organization has deemed as the top offenders when it comes to sharing music over a peer-to-peer connection.

In total, the RIAA sent out over 14,500 copyright infringement notices during the last academic year, with Ohio University topping the list at 1,287 letters – accounting for nearly ten percent of the alleged illegal music sharing.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been relentlessly fierce in its pursuit of individuals it deems as “criminals” by filing numerous lawsuits over the past several years.

It looks like the RIAA is trying to do all it can to encourage ISPs to be more forthcoming with identifying information in order to fuel their tactics which amount to little more than a legal means of extorting money from everyday citizens.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been relentless in its pursuit of those individuals found to be taking part in peer-to-peer music sharing. Numerous lawsuits have been filed by the RIAA, most of which are settled out of court for an arbitrary fee.

The RIAA has filed suit against AllofMP3 seeking back royalties for music downloaded between June and October of this past year. The filing of the suit has sparked reaction from both AllofMP3 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Online file-sharing service BearShare, along with operators Free Peers Inc., is packing it up due to a $30 million settlement with the recording industry.

The Inquirer’s Nick Farrell suggests that it was apparent telepathy that allowed Brooklyn resident Marie Lindon to download songs off the Internet without a computer. Others think the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is picking names out of a phonebook, sharing the random wrath of Navin Johnson’s would-be assassin as well as “The Jerk’s” titular characteristics.

A disabled single mother in Oregon has filed a lawsuit in response to a RIAA action accusing her of illegal downloading.

The RIAA and its affiliates have accused more than 13,000 people, through lawsuits, of illegally swapping copyrighted music. With about a quarter of these suits settled at close to $5000 a pop, the record companies have a sweet deal going on. But one woman is standing up to these companies and choosing to fight: Mom.