Popular music site MuxTape was ordered to shut down by the RIAA back in August, but the site is coming back with a new concept, and that is to help bands get exposure. Ok, that was the goal the whole time, according to Founder, Justin Ouellette, but now it’s only going to be a service for bands.

The Digital Media Association (DiMA), the National Music Publishers’ Association (NIMPA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), along with the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and the Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) have reached an agreement on how music creators will be compensated for music distributed online.

It’s been a rough time of late for Internet Radio, and music sites in general. Pandora’s expecting to shut down. Karaoke videos have been pulled. Muxtape was shut down.

Internet radio sites aren’t the only ones facing recording industry woes. Even Karaoke performances are coming under fire. Users of "The Sims On Stage" (a site owned by Electronic Arts) were recently greeted with the following message:

A man falsely accused of file sharing by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is asking the U.S. Supreme Court if the RIAA will have to pay his legal fees.

"This case is about the ability of an innocent defendant accused of copyright infringement to defend himself in court, litigate his defenses, and, if successful, recover his attorney’s fees to the same extent as a prevailing plaintiff would under the same circumstances," argued Cliff Thompson of San Antonio, Tex. in his petition.

In the April issue of Blender, they take a look at the "20 biggest record company screw-ups of all time."

Topping the list is the major record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for rejecting a billion dollar settlement from Napster and not finding a way to make money off file sharing services.

Despite collecting millions in settlements with online music services accused of enabling music piracy, the RIAA’s artists may not be seeing the paydays they imagined.

They’ve been railing against peer-to-peer for some time now, and more recently have put the squeeze on webcasters via royalty hikes, but it looks like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has added a new foe to its ever-expanding list: social networkers.

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.