On August 12, Texas singer-songwriter Michelle Mayfield wrote a now-famous open letter to her fans: A Letter to My Fans; Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 Dear Fans and Friends, First of all, I want to thank all of you for your continued support of me and my music. I have …

Keith Bernstein provides a primer on copyright symbology (I think I just made that word up): The C Note © is the copyright designation for a published item of music and is shown as a circled “c”, followed by the year of copyright and name of the publisher. The P …

Joanne Jacobs has a great new site design, URL, and a hilarious post on a misguided attempt by a Guardian writer to understand country music and the “American mind”: Umm . . . He can hear all that — obesity, hat, mustache, ponytail — on his car radio? Those Brits …

The sainted KPIG reutrns to the cyberwaves: Praise the lard: fans of hammy puns and progressive music outside the Santa Cruz metro area can rejoice, as KPIG has returned to the Internet airwaves. The tiny station–which, through its pioneering use of the Internet, reached an audience far beyond its signal …

One of our own Blogcritics, Dave Weinberger on “Blowing Copyright“: I realized what I actually believe. (Took me long enough.) “Look,” I said, “I know my argument isn’t coherent. I can’t defend the things I’m saying. But, I haven’t really said what matters to me. I’m not looking for free …

All of the Internet is breathing more easily after a judge dismissed BT’s claim to have a patent on hyperlinks: U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon awarded Prodigy its motion for summary judgment to have the case dismissed, saying that no jury could find that Prodigy infringes BT’s patent. The ruling …

Fred von Lohmann on possible solution to P2P copyright infringement issue: Here’s the only grand solution for P2P that I can imagine (other than compulsory licensing) — copyright owners grant blanket licenses to end-users thru P2P vendors. Like this: Copyright owner appoints any and all P2P vendors as “licensing agents”, …

Edward Cone discusses blogger Tara Sue Grubb, who is running against Rep. Howard Coble as being in the pocket of the entertainment industry: One person who opposes the digital vigilante bill is Tara Sue Grubb, the Libertarian candidate opposing Coble in the November election (there is no Democratic candidate). A …

Liquid Audio has cash but hardly any business; some investors want the cash back: Liquid Audio, a Redwood City digital distribution company, had only $150,000 in revenue but managed to lose $5.6 million last quarter. Its main asset: A pile of cash. Its stock price Friday was $2.40. Liquid Audio …

Per Technology Review, new software that may solve webcasting documentation issues: For webcasters, making sure that musicians receive royalties when their songs are played over the Internet is a tedious, paperwork-intensive business. Now Websound of Brattleboro, VT, is touting software that automatically sifts through Web server logs to distinguish songs …