Check Out Athens Pop Fest, Featuring The Music Tapes (First Show Since Y2K) and Roky Erickson!

By Petey V on 07-29-2008

Billboard reports that a merger between Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, first announced in February of 2007, was finally approved by the FCC on Friday.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin (who did something good recently, for the record) positively gushed about the merger, declaring that "the merger is in the public interest and will provide consumers with greater flexibility and choices" and that "it will also spur innovation and advance the development and use of interoperable radios, bringing more flexible programming options to all subscribers." FCC Democrat Jonathan Adelstein, who voted against the decision, remained less convinced of the mystical powers of media consolidation, noting that he hopes the companies "don't become a fat and happy monopoly."

The FCC decision does come with some baggage for the company, in the form of several conditions. The conditions include a three-month "a la carte" offering allowing consumers to purchase only certain channels, a three-year price cap, the devotion of several channels to "public-interest" and minority-based programming, and a combined $19.7 million fine for improperly located terrestrial radio repeaters. The latter particularly was crucial in getting Republican commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate on board with the decision. Tate had initially been wary of permitting a merger between two companies with demonstrably consumer-unfriendly practices.

So the good news about this decision is that satellite radio customers will benefit from the FCC conditions and will be able to subscribe to both services automatically without having to pay new subscription fees. But the bad news is that there is now only one satellite radio company in the U.S. But the good news is that satellite radio is kind of a fringe format anyway. But the bad news is that it's a fringe format controlled entirely by one company. And so on...

By Heidi Vanderslice on 07-28-2008

Libraries are notorious for being slow on the uptake when it comes to teh internetz, but the Library of Congress has done an admirable job of staying on top of its shit. Except, of course, when it isn't allowed to by law.

A new report by THE Librarian of Congress details the obstacle course that is digital archiving of music each year, ever since (dun dun dun) DRM came on the scene. We’re all familiar with it: buy a CD, rip it to your hard drive, get a new computer, try to transfer it, and sorry bro... no dice -- even if you bought the damn thing from the label in the first place. Remember that frustrating feeling? Now, pretend you’re The Librarian, trying to preserve that same record label’s album or song that has been deemed worthy of its spot in the Library of Congress. Yeah, it burns.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act makes it a no-no to circumvent DRM in any way, but the Librarian has that power to appeal every three years and see if the Library’s rights to bypass are granted, along with a whole other mess of exceptions requested, most of them legit. While this temporarily solves the problem, the Library of Congress still has no real power to, uh, do its job.

"Even though the Librarian is empowered to create additional exemptions, he cannot affect the ban on trafficking in circumvention devices," says The Librarian’s report. Guess they caught on to The Librarian’s black market burned CD racket... you know, since everyone’s buying CDs...