— BayTSP, which tracks file sharing and sends infringement notices to ISPs, has a list of top sources of recorded infringement. BitTorrent tops the list and eDonkey is second. Ares, a decentralized P2P network, is a very distant third. Spain tops the list of recorded infringement by country, followed by Italy, France and the U.S. Note that those rankings are not per-capita infringement but total infringements recorded per country. (TorrentFreak)
— Nashville’s mayor has created a 46-member Music Business Council in a partnership with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. The council will advise the mayor’s office on issues such as the construction of a downtown amphitheater, increasing music business relocations and the creation of a multi-genre music festival. Nashville already has a non-country festival, the Next Big Nashville, which will be held in October this year. (Music Row)
— Matt Rosoff from Digital Noise, who spends his days analyzing Microsoft, thinks it is the wrong company to acquire Seeqpod. “I think Microsoft should be looking at Grooveshark. It’s delivered almost flawless results in my tests, the interface offers a lot of interesting features such as album cover art and on-the-fly playlists, and so far it hasn’t been targeted by the labels for copyright infringement, although I don’t know enough about law to say if it’s on solid legal ground or not.” (Digital Noise)
— The Library of Congress has posted MP3s of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemption hearings on May 6 and 7. (Copyright.gov)
— On May 29, Orange customers in Britain will be able to subscribe to Nokia’s Comes With Music through the 5800 XpressMusic handset. (Orange will be the only UK network to offer the 5800 model.) The participation of more carriers is a necessary step in increasing the footprint of Comes With Music. Reports have indicated a less-than-stellar rollout in the U.K. thus far, but the service has been available only through pay-as-you-go plans. (Music Ally)
— Radio listening in the U.K. increased to an all-time high in Q1 2009, according to data released by the Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd. Over 20% of radio listening is on a digital platform (up from 17.8% in Q1 2008). (mi2n)
— Google’s failure in radio advertising is discussed in the Wall Street Jorunal. “A look at what went wrong shows that Google misjudged the capacity of its technology to work beyond the Web, and underestimated the human side of the business. Radio stations refused to turn over airtime to a computer algorithm that set prices far lower than their own rates. Big advertisers steered clear.” (Wall Street Journal)
— Read the transcript of last week’s Warner Music Group fiscal Q2 earnings call. (Seeking Alpha)
