As you may know, Über and Lyft are spending unprecedented amounts of money to write their own regulations for the City of Austin.  The Austin-American Statesman reports that with a week or so to go before election day on May 7, the Über/Lyft PAC has now spent over $8 million–which includes hiring former Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell […]

Blake Morgan asked me to post his statement on these awesome students at Cal State Chico, the student run SOTA Productions and especially KCSC Radio with big congratulations on their campus #irespectmusic event campaigning for artist pay for radio play!  An uplifting surprise before Blake’s panels at Canadian Music Week next week when he takes […]

You knew it was coming.  Google always finds a way to profit from copyright infringement. Google has found a way to “listen” to the exactly 86,000 form comments the Copyright Office received on its DMCA study of the corrupted “notice and takedown” system at the core of Google’s business model. Now YouTube has announced that […]

Frances (London) “Don’t Worry About Me” Royal Blood (Brighton) “Where Are You Now?” She Drew the Gun (Wirral) “Poem” Grimes (Vancouver) “California” r00ms (Los Angeles) “Bittersweet Company”

In Part 2, here is Blake Morgan’s post SXSW wrap up–if you’re going to Canadian Music Week in Toronto next week, be sure to see Blake’s panels! Chris Castle: We did a panel together with David Lowery at SXSW about the artist rights movement.  What was your assessment of how that went? Blake Morgan: I […]

We’re going to post two interviews with David Lowery and Blake Morgan about their impressions on SXSW from an artist rights advocacy point of view.  This is David’s and Blake’s will follow. Chris Castle:  We did a panel together with Blake Morgan at SXSW about the artist rights movement. What was your assessment of how […]

If you look past the tattoos and leather and just listen to what he’s saying, Nikki Sixx is a very articulate, smart guy.  There may be a little rock patois that creeps in, but Nikki can hold his own with any politician or lobbyist I’ve ever met. And Nikki has discovered the sharing economy–just not the […]

If you’re driver for the monopolist Über ride hailing service, you should be feeling a surge coming on right about now.  Why?  Über made a key decision that affects you:  Über decided to go to court rather than force passengers to go to arbitration as your terms of service require.  Über consulted with you about that, […]

Über’s attempt to enter the Austin market with its dominant ride sharing service is becoming the proverbial cautionary tale for what can happen to an otherwise cool, live and let live city’s way of life when Silicon Valley’s tech bully boys descend on the town.  And decide to spend whatever it takes to get their […]