‘Chaos’ of China’s Music Industry: According to BBC Chinese pop stars need to find alternative ways to make a living because of the huge numbers of pirated CDs and high numbers of illegal downloading. Let the China music industry be a warning for the U.S. government and lawmakers.

The RIAA Crackdown: The trade organization (The RIAA) who protects artists and labels has announced another batch of 401 letters to offending students at Columbia, Drexel, North Carolina State, Ohio State, University of Maine, University of Southern California, and several others. The RIAA pointed to an anti-piracy emphasis against protocols and applications like Ares, BitTorrent, Gnutella, LimeWire, and Morpheus. Read more at Digital Music News…

Britain threatens legislation over Internet piracy: Britain will impose legislation on Internet service providers (ISPs) by April 2009 if they do not work with the music and film industries to curb illegal downloading. Industry estimates put the number of broadband users in Britain who download files illegally at around 6 million. Do you see folks? we are seeing a turning of the tide against illegal downloaders. The movie industry will not suffer the same fate as the music industry, I guarantee that. The movie industry will help put the pieces back together again and bring organization to the internet that will benefit the music biz. We don’t have to end up like China.

Failed to React: Timbaland-produced single Outta My Head that was written for Ashlee Simpson failed to react at radio. Simpson’s record label rushed to release a new single Lil’ Miss Obsessive that features Tom from
Plain White Ts. To be honest, it’s another highly derivative track and will probably suffer the same fate as the first single.

New Music: Emo act Story of the Year saw commercial success in its major label debut, “Page Avenue”, consisting of the popular singles “Until the Day I Die” and “Anthem of Our Dying Day” that had catchy choruses and connected with the troubled youth. Their second album “In the Wake of Determination” abandoned the well- defined choruses and suffered the sophomore slump. The band is now finished with their third studio album The Black Swan, their first on Epitaph Records and posted a new track titled Wake Up on their myspace. The first single Wake Up has the same intensity as the song that broke the band, ‘Until the Day I Die’.

Arizona indie band Lydia has posted a new track titled Hospital from their new album “Illuminate” that is due in March. The band will be posting new songs periodically through the next several weeks. Lydia connecting to a larger audience is still an unknown but their strong following will allow them to buy some time providing them an opportunity to develop over the next couple of albums if they decide to stick around.

Kings of A&R: We want to hear new music. We want to hear a great song that tells a story followed by a killer hook. Email us a link with your myspace and tell us what song we need to listen to. Don’t send us a long biography because we won’t pay attention. “Let the music do the talking” as Steven Tyler said of Aerosmith. If the songs show signs of greatness, we will take you to the land of OZ. Email tips@kingsofar.com