Search Results for: the national

Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are making preparations to one day collect performance fees from Apple and other e-tailers for not just traditional music downloads but for downloads of films and TV shows as well. Those downloads contain music after all. These groups even want compensation for iTunes’ 30-second song samples. In the future, Apple may be required to pay licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI for the downloads of TV shows and films it sells. At a time when many iTunes shoppers are still fuming over Apple’s first-ever increase in song prices, the demands by the American Society of… Read more »

TV stations across the U.S. started cutting their analog signals Friday morning, ending a 60-year run for the technology and likely stranding more than 1 million unprepared homes without TV service. The Federal Communications Commission put 4,000 operators on standby for calls from confused viewers, and set up demonstration centers in several cities. Volunteer groups and local government agencies were helping elderly viewers set up digital converter boxes that keep older TVs functioning. Any set hooked up to cable or a satellite dish is unaffected. “When you’re alone like me, that’s my partner,” Patricia Bruchalski, 82, said about her TV.… Read more »

President Barack Obama’s promises of change are falling short for one core Democratic constituency: gays and lesbians, whose leaders say Obama’s administration is not keeping up with the times. Gay rights campaigners, most of them Democrats who supported Obama in November, have begun to voice their public frustration with Obama’s inaction, small jokes at their community’s expense and deafening silence on what they see as the signal civil rights issue of this era. His campaign promises to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and the military ban on openly gay and lesbian servicemembers have not been fulfilled. And the news,… Read more »

All Time Low has just confirmed a string of dates on the main stage of this summer’s Vans Warped Tour, along with earlier support dates for We the Kings. The band will be touring in support of its forthcoming release, Nothing Personal, in stores July 7.   Having just recently finished a tour with Fall Out Boy, the Maryland foursome will jump on Warped Tour in Oceanport, N.J., and remain on until the the tour concludes in Los Angeles. Prior to these dates, the band will do a short headlining tour with We The Kings and Cartel, hitting several cities… Read more »

At 4:20 p.m. yesterday, while moe. doodled on a series of winding tunes, those close to the stage at the Earth Day on the Mall concert in Washington, DC, got a glimpse of some unusual items being frantically unloaded: a giant pair of hands, a massive orange ring. There was no mistaking it – the Flaming Lips‘ gear had finally arrived, just 25 minutes before they were due to hit the stage in front of the gleaming Capitol. While techs scrambled, Coyne vamped by chatting with fans and amping up Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson’s speech, waving… Read more »

The Flaming Lips will go from spending “Christmas on Mars“ to Earth Day in Washington, D.C. when they perform a free concert at the National Mall Apr. 19th. Additional bands will take the stage in 10 cities nationwide as part of this year’s Earth Day Network & Green Apple Festival Day. Joining the “Soft Bulletin”  band in the Nation’s Capitol will be moe., Los Lobos, DJ Spooky and emcee Chevy Chase. The 10-city festival, which “emphasizes environmental volunteerism in solidarity with the new administration’s ‘call to service,’” is jam band-packed this year, with artists like Galactic playing in Atlanta, Soulive… Read more »

A group that collects royalties for music artists and recording companies has agreed to reduce rates for thousands of commercial radio stations that also play songs over the Internet.   Internet radio station operators had complained that rates originally set by the federal Copyright Royalty Board in 2007 could essentially force them to shut down. The new deal lowers those rates by about 16 percent in 2009 and 2010. The stations will now pay $1.50 for every song heard by 1,000 listeners in 2009, rising to $2.50 per 1,000 listeners in 2015. The agreement between the National Assn. of Broadcasters… Read more »

In 1993, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, the Smashing Pumpkins and Pavement brought AIDS activism into the bedrooms of grunge-obsessed teens on the benefit album ” No Alternative” marrying music to message in a way that registered strongly with Generation X. The project, organized by the Red Hot Organization — an international production company dedicated to fighting AIDs through pop culture — and released by Arista Records sold 292,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan and generated several modern rock radio hits. But the success was a mixed blessing; other major labels went out of their way to… Read more »