• Several interested major publishing companies will be checking out
  Fair to Midland (recently signed to Serjical Strike/Universal and recording with David Bottrill) at their Whiskey show on Tuesday December 12 at 9:30 Mgmt: Tom Sarig/Frank Hill; Legal: Ben McLane.
• Warner Music Embraces the Future
  Apple’s iTunes won’t have a monopoly forever. As handset makers and telephone carriers step up to the plate, “Our distribution won’t be as focused on a single customer in two to three years as it is today,” Bronfman said.”We had basically been releasing content on the same platform for 25 years,” he added, “and we have to pick up the pace of technological innovation.”
• Check out the band called the Vacancies that is signed to Joan Jett’s label Blackheart Records. Joan Jett and Kenny Laguna produced their new CD, A Beat Missing or a Silence Added. For more information email Kimberly Korn.
• Check out alternative act Lemon Sun who hails from Los Angeles. They have a residency in December at the Echo (Echo Park). For more information contact Larry Little or 323.422.7000. Listen to the trackÂ
  The Answer.
• Olivia Newton-John is suing record label Universal Music Group, claiming she is owed more than $1 million in royalties from sales of the soundtrack from her hit movie ‘Grease.

When I heard these tracks Deep Dark Secrets, Bad Day, and At Ease from unsigned Jenny Dalton it immediately freed my mind. This is what I miss, but it’s still out there; just need to search for it. I didn’t realize she has a solid developing story in France and Australia and its building in Minneapolis. Jenny sternly claims that her lyrics are real and stem from her subconcious. Many of her lyrics are about her boyfriend who is a soldier in Iraq. It deals with the pain and the suspense of not knowing what is going to happen on a given day. For more information email glossyshoebox@gmail.com or 651-334-1864.

Last Month, Universal accused MySpace of infringing its copyrights by allowing its customers to post music videos from artists such as Jay-Z on the site without permission. CEO Doug Morris called Myspace Copyright Infringers. These were the words that kicked off the war and the landmark battle.

This is a big one because this could shape the broader commercial relationship between traditional media companies and a new generation of internet start-ups that rely on them for content.

Both parties believe that the DMCA (the Digital Millenium Act) is on their side. The DMCA was written before social networking sites even existed. This will be a tough one because this battle is philosophical and debeatable. It’s a grey area.

There’s a lot of grey area here,� said Lee Bromberg, a partner at Bromberg & Sunstein, a Boston-based law firm that specialises in intellectual property

Kraig Baker, a partner at Davis, Wright, Tremaine: “It’s part of the continuing struggle between content owners and developers of technology,� he said. “People are trying to find out where the line is.�

“I think there’s a tension between the law as written, and the law as intended,� Mr Liebenson said. “The DMCA was enacted in a very different era.�

Regardless, this is just one of many lawsuits that will plague the future. Lawsuits are typical in these type of technological transitions. Labels will continue to do whatever they can to protect their empire even through the murky results.

Sirius Satellite Radio said on Monday that retail sales since the Thanksgiving weekend have been less than it expected and it now sees 5.9 million to 6.1 million subscribers by year’s end.

“This year’s retail sales results since the Thanksgiving weekend have not been at the pace we had anticipated,” Sirius Chief Executive Mel Karmazin said in a statement.

Bottom Line: will people pay for radio?

• Check out this week music releases here.
• Digital sales increasing rapidly.
  “I certainly think that more than half of music revenues will be digital in a relatively short period of time,” Warner Music chairman and chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. said during a conference call. “I don’t know whether that’s three years or five years, but it’s coming and it’s coming rapidly.”
• Sirius not solely reliant on Stern (King of All Media)
  “How are we reliant (on Stern)?” Karmazin said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York. “I don’t think we’re reliant in any shape or form. We have 135 channels.”
• Dallas based alternative rock band Kessler have signed to the Your Music America (YMA) label (distributed by ADA); Legal rep: Ben McLane; Mgmt: Albert Smith.
• BBC ‘damaging music industry’- UK
  A stinging attack on the music industry was launched, with the BBC accused of contributing to the mass manufacture of boy and girl bands. Think-tank the Economic Research Council, blames record companies for failing to break UK acts in the highly-prized US market. It says many of the music industry’s problems over recent years, which have seen sliding sales, have been “entirely self inflicted”.