Apparently, there is a place called Lufkin, Texas, and it is the 76th largest city in the Lone Star State. In an effort to force themselves into the national consciousness, a Lufkin federal court jury ruled against mega-corporation Clear Channel Communications to the tune of $66 million, doubtlessly scaring every born-again in a 60-mile radius.

Clear Channel, which operates nearly 1,200 radio stations nationwide, has been ordered to fork over the sizable chunk of cash to Grantley Patent Holdings. According to Billboard.biz, Grantley founder Billy Shane Fox (not a porn star) invented and patented multiple systems of "inventory management and revenue projection," from which a Clear Channel tool called Viero borrowed.

This Fox character is supposedly a big deal in the "inventory management, price forecasting and traffic billing systems" world, and while I can’t quite wrap my head around what this all means, it’s always reassuring to see the big guy go down. And while $66,029,750 is about how much Clear Channel tips at Waffle House, a victory is a victory. So, although patent infringement for revenue management technology might not be the most titillating subject in the music business world, it says something that any ruling against a bona fide corporate monster like Clear Channel feels like a tally in the win column for the rest of us.

In the olden days, consumers would frequent establishments that made profits by selling music on various forms of physical media, at a premium. When new, popular albums were released, the "kids" would run to these stores in droves, plunking down money made from part-time jobs (instead of their parents’ wallets, as today’s children do). The more popular an album, the less it cost. The establishments understood that a lower price would attract more consumers when the demand was high.

The unfortunate underbelly of this tactic was the overpricing of music that was not currently in demand. Albums that were perhaps a few years old, containing a level of quality far surpassing the current pablum, cost a small fortune. Often these albums were located in the back of the establishments, covered in dust, and requiring grueling trials of unforeseen sadness to acquire them.

Warner Music Group, a large multinational corporation currently possessing the rights to a buttload of music, have decided to bring this "old-school" selling tactic to the new frontiers of digital delivery. Through a partnership with Digonex, a company that specializes in glossy Powerpoint slides and marketing jargon, Warner intends to "dynamically" "optimize" the pricing of "digital media" in their "online marketplace." In other words, they’re gonna fuck with the prices on iTunes.

From the press release itself: “Digonex’s technology provides us a unique window into one of the key variables that impacts consumer behavior and by employing tools such as these we can continue to refine and improve our digital offerings,” said Larry Mattera, Senior Vice President, Digital Sales & Marketing, WEA Corp, WMG’s U.S. sales and marketing company.

i.e., they will make more money.

Confession time: I am a local news JUNKIE. I love their low-budget advertising campaigns. I love their cheesy news anchor banter. And I especially love to reminisce about hard-hitting, in-depth investigations. One of my personal favorites was a shocking story concerning Red Bull and Jagermeister, and how downing a ton of the shit can be bad for you. But how bad? The consensus of the story was "we don’t really know how bad, but let’s just say pretty bad, because you wouldn’t really think it’d be good for you, would you?"

That’s kind of the verdict of a recent Billboard report on America’s new favorite holiday, Record Store Day. Except the consensus of this story is more along the lines of "we don’t really know how good, but let’s just say pretty good, because you wouldn’t really think it’d be bad, would you?" Evidence points toward Record Store Day charting somewhere around "kick ass" on the "good" scale, but opinions differ. Nielsen SoundScan results for the inaugural Record Store Day, held April, 19, 2008, reveal that sales for indie stores rose 1.6% from the previous year while chain stores’ sales dropped 20.8% from 2007. Sounds good right? Well, album sales dropped 8.1% for the week.

Store owners held varying opinions as to the effectiveness of Record Store Day. In Philadelphia, overall indie record store sales were up 13% from the previous week, and in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area sales were up 12%. Special events such as the Metallica in-store at Mountain View, CA’s Rasputin’s drew 400 people and added significantly to the figures. Statistics varied across the country, with the Boston area reporting a 4% increase in sales and Nashville-based Grimey’s experiencing a 400% increase. At the same time, however, some stores reported no surges in business whatsoever, and some, such as Atlanta’s Criminal Records, reported an 18% decrease from the week before. Indie store managers in some locations were uncertain whether sales were up due to nice weather, amazing Record Store Day tie-ins, or Boston area creeps’ desire to watch Dresden Doll Amanda Collins paint her underwear.

Don’t want to toot my own horn, but I saw this coming. Last week, Starbucks reported that it will be shifting attention away from its joint venture label, Hear Music, and back to its bread ‘n’ butter... uh, coffee beans. The decision was made due to minuscule gains in the music industry last year coupled with an overall company drop of 21%, from $150.8 million to $108.7 million.

Starbucks says the nosedive is due to decreased customer traffic. Not that Starbucks ever had a well-defined customer base, but its decision to stock Paul McCartney and Hilary McRae probably didn’t do much to attract the younger demographic. Who wants their "Starbucks experience" to signify midlife crisis?

According to Howard Schultz, some Starbucks dude:

"Fiscal 2008 is a transitional year for Starbucks and, while our financial results are clearly being impacted by reduced frequency to our U.S. stores, we believe that as we continue to execute on the initiatives generated by our transformation agenda, we will reinvigorate the Starbucks experience for our customers."

The RIAA is pretty accustomed to winning file-sharing court cases by now, taking down everyone from single mothers to homeless men. But yesterday, the winning streak was broken with a ruling in Arizona that spared Kazaa users Pamela and Jeffrey Howell the wrath of the RIAA.

A federal District Court judge ruled that files found in a shared Kazaa folder could not be considered unlawful distribution of a copyrighted work, and that the owner of the files must give proof of "actual dissemination of copies or phonorecords" to slap the Howells with a punishment. Adding insult to injury, only 12 of the 42 files in question were proved to be infringed at all, since the RIAA can’t prove its investigator downloaded any more than that. Finally, the RIAA would have had to prove that the Howells were responsible for the allegedly stolen music on their computer... just in case some naughty neighborhood kids snuck in and downloaded some Miley Cyrus, I guess. Gotta cover all the bases.

Bummer status, though: this case will only set a precedent in the state of Arizona, since its verdict was a District Court decision. In an official statement, the RIAA referred to the case ruling as "strange" and said that it is "currently considering all options going forward." I guess that’s a departure from its usual post-case ritual of uncorking a bottle of champagne and proclaiming, "YES! MORE MONEY TO MAKE UP FOR OUR EVER-SINKING PROFITS!"

Imagine going to your favorite restaurant for a delicious salad made-to-order by a world famous chef. Imagine the succulent lettuce, the crispy croutons, and the subtly flavorful dressing. Now imagine that the chef is 4AD imprint Beggars Banquet, the lettuce is 4AD, the croutons are imprint Too Pure, and the dressing is people’s jobs.

Never fear! Although this simile may be awkward and forced, and Billboard recently reported that the two awesome imprints won’t be seeing any action "in the near future," the artists and albums previously assigned to Too Pure and Beggars will not be without a home. Instead, 4AD will house the imprint staffers and artists alike, starting with the release of Stereolab’s Chemical Chords album, due August 19. And wonderfully named 4AD A&R dude Ed Horrox will get a little help IMPRINT-STYLE from Too Pure’s Jason White, Beggars’ Roger Trust, and Ms. Jane Abernethy.

In case you didn’t know, Ticketmaster recently acquired ticket scalping site TicketsNow for $256 million, and a lot of people thought it was a bad idea because terrible corporate greed escapades like the intentional scalping of tickets could take place. Well, it would appear that this fear has come true with Radiohead tickets, and as of last week, Ticket News (via At Ease) claims to have a source who is close to the incident.

The particular incident occurred when potential buyers of Radiohead tickets on Ticketmaster were told that tickets were sold out and that they can be redirected to TicketsNow to purchase the tickets at scalped prices. According to Ticket News’ anonymous source, a TicketsNow suit assisted Ticketmaster in selling over a million dollars in Radiohead tickets on TicketsNow, and through scalping the tickets, it allowed TicketsNow to gross more than $250,000 from their ruse.

Currently, the National Association of Ticket Brokers wants answers from both Ticketmaster and TicketsNow, but for now no further information is available on the ploy to acquire as much cash as they can on Radiohead tickets. If these companies are left unchecked, you may see a lot more scalping scams in the near future.

You knew this already. CD sales are going down, while digital music and vinyl sales are going up. Just last week, the RIAA released a PDF file that includes the total 2007 shipment statistics, which not only confirms these specific trends, but includes other interesting ones.

First, here’s the physical chart:

You’ll notice that vinyl LP and EP shipments went up 36.6% compared to last year. Fetishists want their fidelity, and since a lot of vinyl now come with free digital downloads, it makes complete sense. Meanwhile, SACDs (Super Audio CD) lowered a total of 73% compared to 2006, showing how the bells and whistles added onto the CD format — which itself lowered 17.5% compared to last year — have done nothing but confuse consumers.

Interestingly, vinyl singles went down 58.5%, while CD singles went up 51.5%. Perhaps it’s due to the trend of some DJs converting to digital turntables coupled with the bargain bin recycling mentality of 12-inch buyers? Actually, with such an unfocused market, there could be many reasons for this (marketing, availability, etc.). But there’s no doubt that the emphasis of the so-called vinyl resurgence is on full-length albums.

Now, here’s the digital chart:

It’s clear that everything on this chart indicates a rise in digital music, except of course on the subscription end (which has still yet to see real mainstream acceptance/marketing). The percentage changes aren’t as pronounced as it was from 2005-2006, but with digital music already accounting for 23% of RIAA’s total revenue, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next year. Contrary to the physical chart, digital music is still ruled by single tracks, not albums.

Since these statistics are only for RIAA music, it’d be especially worthwhile to see figures for independent music. I’m guessing the rise in vinyl and digital would be equally, if not more, dramatic.

Somewhere in Atlanta there’s a dumpster filled with $20 million worth of shredded CDs and DVDs, destroyed by RIAA, MPAA, and Atlanta Police officials last week in what was the largest destruction of seized property in recent U.S. history.

Destroyed at the Atlanta Police Department Headquarters, the illicit property seized in a series of raids was estimated to have a market worth of $20 million, though it’s impossible to imagine anyone paying market value for an advanced rip of Nas’ Nigger packaged in a Ziploc® baggy with a grayscale inkjet printout of the cover. But you just never know.

"Individuals selling cds for cheap on the street corner are not just small-time peddlers — they are fronts for larger criminal organizations that steal music by the millions of cds," stated Brad Buckles, Executive VP of the RIAA’s Anti-Piracy League. "These groups are also often involved in other illegal activity such as narcotics and weapons trade [and] threaten the health and safety of Atlanta’s neighborhoods." And by saying so, Buckles effectively overstepped boundaries by assuming far more than he’s paid to assume.

Fulton County Sheriff Myron Freemon, District Attorney Paul Howard Jr., and U.S. Director of MPAA Anti-Piracy Operations Kevin Suh (all in attendance for this monumental day of justice) couldn’t have agreed more.

Defense for the unprecedented destruction of perfectly good material also included the high costs of piracy to the U.S. economy. Reportedly, global music piracy has (dubiously) cost the U.S. economy $12.5 billion in lost revenue, 71,000 jobs, and $2 billion in wages to U.S. workers, at an estimated $1.6 billion annually. The worldwide motion picture industry purportedly lost $18.2 billion in 2005 alone as a result of piracy, attributing $7 billion in loses to internet piracy and $11 billion to hard-good piracy, such as bootlegging and illegal copying.

"We want to encourage consumers to purchase DVDs from legitimate retailers and from legal download sites to ensure they are buying genuine high quality copies of the movies they love and to help protect one of America’s greatest exports," said Suh. So, the best way to "encourage consumers" was a massive police seizure and destruction event? Boy, I’m encouraged already.

Doug The Wizard of Lobbying:

The RIAA magicked $2.8 million last year on Capitol Hill in hopes of maintaining their greedy status quo and destroying muggle file-sharers like you.