JUS BLUES MUSIC FOUNDATION "CHRISTMAS BLUES GALA"

ATLANTA, GA - Jus` Blues Music Foundation, Inc. inaugural “Christmas Blues Gala,” held Friday, December 5t, Downtown Atlanta, was a huge success!Performances by International recording artist, Prince of the Blues, Lucky Peterson, the 1st Lady of Blues & Soul, Trudy Lynn, The Blues Man Lover, Theodis Easley, The Empress Of The Blues, Ms. Sandra Hall, and The City Heat Band Featuring Darren & Tabitha made it a night to be remembered.

The Board of Directors of the Jus` Blues Music Foundation held its National meeting in Atlanta December 4th, 5th & 6th for the creation of the upcoming 2009 and 2010 initiatives and organization events.

The Blues & Soul music community is excited about the 2009 Jus` Blues Music Awards Week held August 5th thru August 9th in Memphis, Tennessee. Awards categories include Best New Artist, Best Blues & Soul Radio DJ, Best Blues & Soul Song, Best Traditional Blues Artist and many more. The Foundation is also considering Blues & Soul music candidates to be honored at the “Night of the Living Legends” Dinner. Educational seminars’ for artists, writers and management highlight the Technology Conference on August 6th. Information on the event(s) will be forthcoming and posted on the websites - http://www.jusbluesmusicfoundation.org/ and http://www.jusbluesmusic.com/.

Jus` Blues Music Foundation, Inc. encourages your financial and in-kind support to further promote as well as educate young people through the “Jus` Blues In The School” music program designed to share the importance of keeping the tradition of this great American art form alive. Today you can go to our web site to join or make a tax deductible donation at: http://www.jusbluesmusicfoundation.org/

For additional information and media contact:

Charles Mitchell, President
Jus` Blues Music Foundation, Inc.
Post Office Box 44771
Atlanta, Georgia 30336

The New Radio Industry

As I was reading different news sites on the Internet the other day it dawned on me just how powerful Clear Channel and CBS radio stations truly are. Not only are they the largest chain of stations within the United States but they have collectively taken over Internet radio broadcasting worldwide. Let me be a little more precise.

Yahoo’s LAUNCHCAST Radio draws 3 million monthly unique visitors, allowing users to listen to music based on preferred genres and artists. But LAUNCHCAST Radio is limited only to Windows users on Internet Explorer, shutting out a large percentage of the Internet. Now Yahoo will hand over the reins of its webcasting pioneer property LAUNCHCAST Radio to CBS Radio next year, the reason, according to Yahoo Music chief Michael Spiegelman: ROYALTIES

Last year, a panel of federal copyright judges issued a ruling dramatically increasing the royalties paid by webcasters to music companies and songwriters. Yahoo, AOL, Pandora and Real Networks are fighting to reverse it. But unless they can get support from Congress, digital radio providers may be forced to pay annual royalty hikes of nearly 30%.

Beginning in February, CBS Radio will stream the 150 Yahoo Internet radio channels alongside its own combination of the 150 online simulcasts of its AM and FM properties and the over 200 AOL Radio channels the broadcaster took over in June. CBS Radio sales teams will also now handle all ad sales for Yahoo streams. Yahoo will still program the LAUNCHCAST Radio streams. The deal will also put links to CBS major-market news and sports stations streams on appropriate Yahoo pages. The CBS player works with the Firefox and Safari Web browsers giving LAUNCHCAST Radio the ability to reach 90% of the Internet.

Clear Channel has 776 streaming radio stations as of this writing and that includes multiple formats of Alternative, Adult Alternative, Adult Hits, Christian, Classic Hits, Classic Rock, Country, Hip Hop/R&B, Jazz, Latin, News Talk, R&B, Rock, Sports and more. In addition Clear Channel has streaming radio channels in Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. An outdoor advertising arm that offers Billboards, Digital Outdoor Networks, Times Square Spectaculars, Street Furniture, Airport Displays, Mall Displays, Taxi Advertising, Mass Transit Displays and a massive sales infrastructure.

Now there is nothing that will be able to stop either CBS Radio or Clear Channel from streaming their radio stations into every home in the WORLD with broadband access, And since so many commercial stations have reduced or abandoned their unique, local and regional “talk” content in favor of cheaper-to-produce music programming, they will all soon be vulnerable to competition from well staffed U.S. media companies as Internet-delivered radio gains dominance.

What is even more incredible is that the new smartphones have applications that will allow direct access to Internet radio streams on your cellphone. Fly Cast is now offering two new free services that give broadcasters and webcasters “Smartphone” applications branded exclusively for their stations or networks. Fly Cast Direct Link, is a smartphone application, branded for and linking to a single station stream. Custom Cast, is designed for broadcasters that offer more than one streaming channel, or multi-channel webcasters. It’s a branded Fly Cast channel guide, downloadable to smartphones like the Apple iPhone, with listen links for the multiple listening options from a single broadcaster or webcaster.

Apple iPhone

HTC Touch Pro for Verizon

Sprint Touch Pro

Sony Ericsson Xperia

AT&T Tilt

LG Incite

Samsung Omnia

BlackBerry Storm

Are ALL smartphones and there are hundreds of mid priced “knockoffs” and smaller company created smartphones around the world.

Now is the time to create your niche market. Anything that you have a passion for, someone else wants to know about it in DETAIL. Developing a unique, professional sounding webcast with regularity will give you the product you need to shop. Buyers will include radio stations, networks, ad agencies (they are always looking for a new way to capture an audience), mobile cellphone companies, other webcasters and direct to the public. The more advanced people should look at taking the exact radio station model now available and direct broadcast to the Internet. The companies that own their own studio, writers, technical people, ancillary rights, and product and develop their audience via the Internet will be the most lucrative.

A final thought – Smartphones broadcast streaming video also.

The NEW Music Specialist

In March of 1994 I went online with my first website. Even though my business was devoted to the music industry I choose ASHA, the name of my youngest daughter, as my URL.

My first website was created to be a place for the world to learn about the music I appreciated so much. R&B acts, jazz and blues acts were some of the first people I wanted to have represented. Timmy Thomas, M.R. William T, Jeff Majors and Dick Gregory ALL had their first web presence at the MUSIC SPECIALIST.

This first website was the number seven listing under music at Yahoo.com, made when the creators of Yahoo were still in their college dorms developing the concept.

In 1995 Music Specialist World Wide Web site rated “Top 5% of all sites on the Internet” by Point Survey.

2008 has seen the launch of the newest version of the MUSIC SPECIALIST.

The new version was created to be a place for the world to learn about the music I appreciate so much. As I grow older and hear more music I find I am growing my site into a resource for the world community. Education is the hammer and truth is the nail, young minds will be the board to build upon.

Visit the NEW MUSIC SPECIALIST today.

A NEW CHANGE FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY IN WASHINGTON

There’s a new sheriff in America named Barack Obama, who has a powerful deputy in Joe Biden. Most people in the entertainment industry don’t remember that Joe Biden sits on the highly influential Senate Judiciary Committee, through which all intellectual property-related bills pass, and he's the founder/co-chair of the Anti-Piracy Caucus, his election could help influence how the entertainment industry promotes its interests in Washington.

In 2002 Joe Biden wrote "To borrow a phrase, a mind is a terrible thing to steal, but that is precisely what criminals do when they pirate the products of American innovators and artists. When they reproduce the work of musicians, actors, writers and directors, they not only steal thousands of U.S. jobs and billions of dollars in profits, they steal the product of American imagination and creativity." This was the same year that he became the first member of Congress to hold a full committee hearing on piracy issues, which drew criticism for not including Internet companies, and recommended that the Department Of Justice get involved in prosecuting users of P2P file-sharing systems trading pirated content.

In 2007, Biden sponsored the RIAA-backed Perform Act, which sought to limit devices from recording and saving individual songs streamed from satellite and Internet radio services. And in April he proposed spending $1 billion to help federal and local law enforcement implement technology to monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity, such as child pornography, that could also be used to target music files. Biden's most current past proposals to consolidate federal efforts to combat copyright infringement under a new "Copyright Czar" cabinet position found new life in the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, which was signed into law earlier this month. Provisions to have the Department of Justice prosecute pirates were not included in the final version making it a bit toothless.

President Obama sees another side of this subject, he supports Net Neutrality laws, which would make it harder for access providers to block P2P networks, and he has talked about updating copyright law. His choice for chief technology officer may be Lawrence Lessig. Mr. Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.

As you know I am an advocate for Net Neutrality and I believe that the future of the entertainment industry is partly based on Internet communications. I look forward to the CHANGE.