This Week In News

Photo by flickr user glsarah

Yahoo! to stop supporting Yahoo! Music after September 30
Starting Oct. 1, customers won't be able to revive frozen tracks or move working ones onto new hard drives or computers, because Yahoo! won't be providing any more keys to the songs' DRM wrappers. Without the keys, the music is stuck. If a user's computer goes on the fritz, say good-bye to Yahoo's music. This situation epitomizes the problem we laid out in our last post about the Library of Congress.
Chris Gaither, LA Times

Mobile Net Radio Opens New Ad Opportunities
With the iPhone's Internet radio applications comes added opportunities for advertisers, says Steve Rubel in an AdAge column. He envisions advertisers targeting users based on music tastes or through GPS-based location, in that way delivering "locally relevant" ads to consumers. "This maybe one of the most promising mobile ad formats and is a space to watch," he states. Additionally, iPhone Internet radio may "disrupt" traditional radio because it transforms the one-way delivery of radio into a two-way interaction—not only matching the in-car listening and music discovery aspects of radio, but adding a degree of personalization.
Paul Maloney, Advertising Age

Universal Says It Can Ignore Fair Use In DMCA Takedowns
The question is whether or not filing a takedown notice on content that is used in a way consistent with "fair use" is a misuse or not. Universal Music's claim is that it is not reasonable for the copyright holder to take fair use into consideration before sending a takedown notice. At a first pass, it sounds like the judge agrees. . . the judge and Universal Music may be correct under the existing law. There isn't anything in the law that says the copyright holder needs to take into account the user's defenses. It just says they need to be the legitimate copyright holder (which Universal Music is).
Mike Masnick, Techdirt

MySpace Music to launch in September
MySpace Music will launch in September, according to Chris DeWolfe, the social network's CEO. MySpace announced in April that it planned to launch a music service that would offer songs from three out of the top four recording companies (EMI has yet to join). MySpace said then that the music site, which will offer free streaming music, unprotected MP3 downloads, ringtones, and merchandise, would roll out over a span of three to four months.
Greg Sandoval, Cnet News

Favtape Creates Mixtapes from Your Pandora and Last.fm Accounts
Favtape is another new mixtape creation site, but its standout feature is its automation process, which creates a mixtape based off songs you’ve listened to on Pandora, or those you’ve favorited on Last.fm. Provide Favtape with your Pandora URL or your Last.fm username, and a mixtape will automatically be created for you with a unique URL that can be accessed anytime.
Kristen Nicole, Mashable