After decades of talking and singing about it, the date for the death of music has finally been set — it’s Tuesday. No, not really, but many webcasters including Live365, Launchcast, MTV, RealNetworks and others will pull the plug on their broadcasts that day to protest the looming increase in the royalty rates they pay. It is being billed as a "Day of Silence."

As we have written about before, many webcasters say the new rates are so high they will be forced off the air. The new rates are scheduled to kick on July 15th. Legislation is working its way through Congress that would knock down the new rates, which were levied by SoundExchange.
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A lot of ink is spilled on the declining fortunes of music industry. It seems like every other day a new report shows album sales are down for this period or in that country. In the wake of all the doom and gloom, the always informative Digital Music News posted an interesting report showing the sky isn’t exactly falling everywhere.

The researcher eMarketer is projecting revenues in the North American music industry sector will grow at a rate of 2.8 percent annually between now and 2o11. Revenues will climb from $23.1 billion to $26.5 billion largely on the strength of live concerts and publishing. eMarketer also predicts mobile and digital assets will offset decreases in physical sales. read more

A judge ruled yesterday that music download services (iTunes, AOL and the like) don’t have to pay a public performance royalty to songwriters for music downloads. ASCAP had brought the action. Here’s an interview with a Billboard reporter on the ruling and a deeper analysis at Film Music Magazine. Here’s an excerpt from the Film Music piece that explains what it all means: read more