The Future (or Lack Thereof) for Bands -- Are You In a Band? (Zzzzzzzz)
By Michelle A. -- When doing a music presentation at a public school, I asked a group of fifth graders to write down their five favorite musicians or BANDS. One of the kids wrote "Pandora" on his list. ... It's become fairly standard for people to digest music without knowing, or more significantly, caring who created it.

Even Media Moguls Often Underestimate How Dynamic Markets Can Be
By Adam Thierer -- Back in 2003, when he was still president and chief operating officer of Viacom, Mel Karmazin said with reference to Microsoft, AOL-Time Warner, and Comcast: "I can't imagine being a competitor with any of these guys." ... just six years after Karmazin spoke those words ...

BEIJING: Something Borrowed…
By Loretta Chao —Baidu Inc., owner of the most popular Web site in China, isn't known for ground-breaking innovation. But (it) is an example of how many Chinese technology companies manage to outfox foreign competitors by tailoring existing technologies to China's growing and fast-changing market.

TOKYO:  Japan Set To Extend Posthumous Copyright
By Rob Schwartz -- Recently elected Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has vowed to extend posthumous copyright protection on compositions from 50 to 70 years. Speaking at a party celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of JASRAC, the Japanese composers and authors' society, the prime minister threw his support behind the plan which has long been sought by JASRAC, other rights holders societies and music industry bodies in Japan.

Composers and Lyricists Make Pitch to Join Teamsters
By Richard Verrier --  In the heavily unionized film and TV industries, composers and lyricists are an anomaly in Hollywood. Along with production assistants, theirs are among the few remaining crafts not covered by a union contract. Although conductors and orchestra musicians are covered by the American Federation of Musicians, composers and lyricists for television and movies are not represented by the AFM or anyone else. A group of them is determined to change that and is hooking up with an unlikely ally: the Teamsters.

Nielsen: Facebook Now The No. 3 Video Site
By Chris Albrecht  -- Looks like the sleeping online video giant that is Facebook may finally have awoken. According to Nielsen's latest VideoCensus numbers, Facebook jumped to No. 3 behind established video powerhouses YouTube and Hulu in terms of total streams. That's up from No. 10 just last month.

Imeem — Another Music Streaming Story Ends in Tears?
By Kim-Mai Cutler  -- If I were Spotify, I'd be paying close attention right now. Imeem, which was one of the first music startups to work out streaming deals with all four major record labels, is going to MySpace for a bargain basement price of $1 million in cash...

Lala Lets You Sample Whole Music Tracks Before Buying
By Sarah Rae Trover -- Online music site lala allows you to listen to song after song and album after album for free. The catch? You can only listen to them once, unless you pick up a web album or MP3 version for cheap.

Radio: Ando Could Be the New Arbitron
By Jerry Del Colliano -- Like Arbitron, which has a monopoly on radio ratings, Ando Media has a monopoly on streaming metrics. ... Take a look at the Ando package.

UK: New Internet Radio Player to Allow Song Search
By Ben Cardew -- The BBC is to launch an internet radio player that will allow users to stream more than 400 stations, including commercial channels, as well as search for individual songs.

Press Play
By Jared Dionne -- Paul Canetti, lead singer of Love and Logic, said he picked his band members off the Internet. And now, a year later, the group returns to cyberspace to sell its music. By surfing through Facebook, Canetti  found bassist Dan Haller, cellist Annie Kim and drummer Derron Walker.

UK: Ofcom Talks to Spook Firm on Filesharing Snoop Plan
By Chris Williams -- Ofcom has held talks with ISPs over a monitoring system that would peer inside filesharing traffic to determine the level of copyright infringement, in preparation for new laws designed to protect the music, film and software industries.

Guvera, a Place for Advertisers to Give Away Music
By Jon Healey -- After SpiralFrog's collapse and Qtrax's repeated misfires, I'm skeptical about any online music service that says it will give away advertiser-supported downloads. But Guvera, an Australian start-up launched by former advertising executive Claes Loberg, is different enough to make me think it might actually work.

U.S.' $7.2-Billion Broadband Stimulus Program Risks Waste and Fraud, GAO Says
By Scott J. Wilson -- Federal programs to bring broadband Internet service to areas without it lack basic information and adequate safeguards to ensure that the money isn't wasted, a new government report said.

Facebook And Twitter's Corporate Problem
By Charlotte Dunlap -- Social networking has crept into the enterprise with little oversight. If the multibillion-dollar e-mail security industry has been built to prevent information from seeping out through personal communication, how is social networking in the workplace still going unchecked?

Adding a Fee to the Shazam App Invites a Look at Competing Tools
By Bob Tedeschi -- Back when iPhones were novel, Shazam was the favorite way for newbies to show their friends what the device could do. Just hold it up to a speaker and Shazam identifies the song. How cool is that? And it's free! Not anymore.   [Also, check out ClickOnRadio, a Shazam killer app not mentioned in this article. Very cool.]

Celemony's Melodyne Makes Easy Work of ‘Hard Day's Night'
By Eliot Van Buskirk -- When Celemony posted a demonstration last summer its lead developer Peter Neubäcker dissecting chords and rebuilding them as he pleased, we called it a major breakthrough. After testing the software, we stand by that assertion.

[No other PRO in the world offers this opportunity to its members]
ASCAP Distributes $2.7 Million In ASCAPlus Cash Awards
Approximately $2.7 million in cash awards for 2009 - 2010 has been made to writer members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) by the Society's ASCAPlus Awards Panels. The purpose of these special awards is to reward writers whose works have a unique prestige value for which adequate compensation would not otherwise be received, and to compensate those writers whose works are performed substantially in media not surveyed by ASCAP.

Is This Music Web Site For Real?
By Omar L. Gallaga -- Think you've heard of them all? As part of NPR Music's retrospective on the decade, we challenge you to test your online music-business knowledge with our quiz. It features a mix of past and present digital music services and some fakes we concocted (although they may be already in development -- who knows?).

[What better reason is there for newspapers to go all digital?]
Lost Man Drives Nine Hours to Get Newspaper
Reuters – An elderly man who went out to fetch a morning newspaper ended up driving nearly 400 miles after getting lost and taking a wrong turn onto a major Australian highway...