The blogosphere is all abuzz about the possible lawsuit of Universal Music Group against YouTube. Granted, it was bound to happen at some point, with the multitude of copyrighted material up there - but I would hazard a guess that the standard train of thought for someone watching a video of someone in their basement singing along to a new song, would be more along the lines of Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants, who notes “does anyone think that a video of someone lip synching to a song (recorded with poor quality) is something I want instead of a CD or an iTunes download?” than “Oh, well, next time I want to hear this song, I’ll just bookmark this YouTube page and listen to it.” Too much trouble.

Granted, if ripping YouTube videos becomes easier (like this) then I could see some challenges.However, I’m not sure the average YouTube user would want to go to all the trouble (would they?)

Jaffe Juice (via Clickz) talks about a recent effort over at Bolt that resulted in the creation of “Consumer Generated Music” in which members voted on every aspect of the song’s creation. The song will be distributed, at first, via social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

This is a great example of consumer generated content, but its not the first time (ok, maybe for a consumer generated song). I’ve heard tell of podcasters, fiction writers and website creators using collaborative methods (i.e., wikis, blogs, etc) to create content.  Granted, its not the large-scale that the Bolt song is, but it just shows that collaborative creation is happening in big and small ways.

More on the music front - Tower Records kicks off Digital Download service (Engadget)

A peek at understanding Second Life’s potential (Neville Hobson)

The Washington Post has a great article today about how digital playlists and downloads - such as those at iTunes - are helping revitalize older songs/artists.  Its an interesting read - and one that discusses a trend I noticed when I downloaded about 30 songs on iTunes from CDs lost years ago, and then proceeded to download all the other albums that each of the artists have made since then.

Boing Boing annouced that MOG - a new social network revolving around music is launching tomorrow - but the beta version is already up. Looking at the beta version, it seems to be somewhat similiar to other music-based Social Networking type sites - like LastFM and Pandora (thought more similiar to the former than the latter). Like LastFM, MOG has a plugin that keeps track of the music you listen to on your computer, and allows for profiles, etc. Current users seem to be an eclectic assortment of music listeners that swing toward the indie end of the spectrum, with some higher profile users thrown in the mix (like Mike Watt and Michelle Shocked).

One of the biggest kerfuffles in podcasting right now is about the lack of podcasting support in Windows Media Player 11. Some (like Geek News Central) were pretty scathing regarding the lack of podcast support after a year of iTunes support - saying that “their inaction will slow the growth of podcasting in a big way.” Others (like notably Robert Scoble) think that the lack of podcasting will slow WMP 11’s growth instead.

I have to agree with Scoble. I think that Microsoft may see WMP users who learn about - and want to listen to - podcasting switching to a player that does support podcasts. During my time off last week, I introduced someone to podcasting who has only ever used Windows Media Player - and was suprised to learn WMP doesn’t support podcasting. Their choice was to either not listen to podcasts, or to switch to iTunes in order to download podcasts (or use both until it gets to be too cumbersome).

Movie Mashup Artists get commisioned for trailers (Wired)

Napster kicks up its free music service (Fast Company)

Microsoft patents TV Watching + IM? (Gizmodo)

Skpye hits a deal with the music biz (CNET)

The Rise of the Video Blog (Rolling Stone via I Want Media)