• Doug Morris: The people who write music deserve to be paid for their compositions. The also should have some say about how their compositions are altered. I think that people are very lax about the respect that people should have for other people’s works. I hate…to see these groups work for two years, making an album spend enormous amounts of money, putting their creative juices into something that’s $9.99 in Best Buy and people would rather have it for free. For me, being a music person it’s very hard to watch that. (Read the full Reuters interview with Universal Chief Doug Morris)
• Radio exec gets Sirius again about XM merger
  Surius CEO Mel Karmazin has talked about a possible merger before, noting it could eliminate a lot of duplicate operating costs – not to mention, skeptics say, a lot of programming choice. Here is what to expect if a merger did occur:
  it would shrink music choices, since it would presumably not carry duplicate channels. Since XM and Sirius have different approaches in areas like oldies and popular standards, this could wipe out the sounds that enticed some people to subscribe in the first place. (Biz/Money)
• Russia agrees to shut down Allofmp3.com
  Russia has agreed to shut down Allofmp3.com and other music sites based in that country that the U.S. government says are offering downloads illegally. “AllofMP3 doesn’t expect the Russian government to take any action against the company since it operates within the current law,” said Rory Davenport, an Allofmp3.com spokesman. “The company is fully committed to its business.”

 Russia is known not to act out on its claims.

• Australia: Digital Sales are not filling the void of the loss of physical CD sales. (via Coolfer/The Age)
  “Digital ain’t filling the void,” says one industry veteran who did not want to be named. “While iTunes has made inroads there are still vast illegal markets.”

Sony BMG’s director of digital services, Gavin Parry, was one of the few industry executives to talk publicly this week.

“It has been pretty erratic,” he says of physical sales this year. “Some months have been down 10 per cent and other have been down 30 per cent. Globally there are some indications that digital isn’t replacing the void but for Sony BMG, it is. We are up. If people are sitting back waiting for iTunes to fix it, they’re in strife.”