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by Teresa Martin

Music is a microcosm for so much that is human. It touches us in ways that are globally, generationally, and culturally overarching - and at the same time is deeply personal. It is singular and social in the same beat. We love it, hate it, hum it, use it, make it, buy it, and let it be the soundtrack of our lives. No wonder each disruptive technology creates a storm around it!

The last few weeks have seen the latest chapters in the current saga unfold. In the news: MySpace, Last.fm, Imeem, Pandora, and of course Apple. Not to mention the four major labels and the role of the smaller indies. And the Copyright Royalty Board.

At stake is who controls the distribution of music, who profits from it, and even what models of ownership and replay will dominate.

First up in the news: the heated debate over potential changes in royalty rates and whether this would kill Internet radio, streaming music services, and online music sales. Players in this include the Copyright Royalty Board the US Congress.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB)'s role is defined by the Code of Federal Regulations, as part of Title 37, patents, trademarks, and copyrights. It lives within the Library of Congress and is a three-judge body. Judges are appointed: James Scott Sledge, Stanley C. Wisniewski and William J. Roberts are the incumbents whose job is to oversee the copyright law's statutory licenses, including something called the mechanical royalty rate. This rate is the default license fee per song paid to a music publisher for the sale of its music and has been the subject of much angst.

The National Publishers Association wanted to raise the rate from the current 9.1 cents a song to 15 cents per song. The Digital Music Association (including folks like Apple and Amazon) warned in dire and sometimes dramatic tones that that sort of hike could end online music sales and were asking for a rate reduction to 4 cents per downloaded song. Last week the judges issues their ruling, which will be in effect for the next five years: CD sales and digital downloads will have the same royalty of the current 9.1cents per song, while ringtones will increase to 24 cents per song. Crise du jour of online download is apparently avoided. Apple iTunes, Amazon, et al continue.

Meanwhile, over in Congress, both House and Senate passed the Webcaster Settlement Act. This is an attempt to get squabbling webcasters and copyright holders to reach a settlement. Again, this is a step toward either "saving" or "destroying" streaming music, depending on your view.

This bill enables webcasters, which includes both web-streaming radio stations and other streaming services and copyright holders to negotiate music streaming rates with SoundExchange as the intermediary. SoundExchange is an agency created to collect and distribute royalty payments and an agreement through this intermediary would supercede the CRB for streaming music. Most importantly, it puts a deadline on this process: the groups must agree by Feb 15 2009 or Congress will intervene.

All which presumably made this the prefect time for MySpace Music to finally debut. MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, was the first significant social networking site and music has always been a central element there. Music, after all, is a bond of social connection! It's one of the ways people identify and affiliate. Independent bands figured that out early on and created mini success stories by building communities and distributing their work and news about their upcoming gigs and all things of fandom there.

The release is also an object lesson in if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. After pissing and moaning about iTunes and digital music in general, EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner not only agreed to participate in MySpace Music - they also became shareholders as part of the deal.

Although there's a hook for downloading, the real focus of MySpace Music is streaming. You listen (& share) within MySpace and you can also listen while you surf elsewhere. Yes, there is advertising. And yes, reportedly the four majors and NewsCorp all share in the revenue. According to MySpace, 17 million users are already streaming music through the site and it says it anticipates that number growing to some to 70 million-plus. Consumption model: advertising based streaming. Consumption fear: the indie bands that made MySpace their home are about to be pushed off the digital cliff.

Streaming + socialization is also the basis for imeem, the self-described "best social music community," which was, until September's MySpace Music roll-out, the leading place for hearing music from both majors and indies. Music is social glue and Imeem has carved out a growing niche that it isn't giving up lightly. Perhaps this is the battle of the featured playlist?

Two other key entrants are Last.fm, owned by CBS, and Pandora. Both let you use various algorithms to find music that matches your taste and streams it to you ... via the web or via both service's popular iPhone apps. Last.fm also chose September to release its newest iPhone app, one more in the spate of music industry news.

Richard Jones, a founder of Last.fm was recently spotted on the interview circuit taking the offensive: "It's all very well having millions of tracks at your disposal on Myspace or Imeem, but what's the use if you can't find what you want?" he sniffed in a recent web interview. "Recommendation and discovery is key in this space now."

Which returns us to the paradox of the music experience. Is it a social one, one that we share with others and where that sharing is as important as the sounds themselves? The MySpace and Imeem experience support this view of music, carving a space at the intersection of talk and listen and letting people self-define by music community.

Or, is it one of individual discovery and personal use? The "recommendation and discovery" experience expressed by Last.fm and Pandora fits this experience, creating a digital ground where you can find stuff you never knew you liked and follow the sounds of music in new and intriguing ways.

And, as the paradigm of content use in general shifts - is the music experience one we "rent" by paying a monthly use fee to access a huge array of music ... or is it one we own by purchasing for a onetime flat fee the songs we love? Is the one where we pay to borrow or one we pay to have and hold? Where does music live, anyway?

As astute readers know, with the advent of my iPhone, I also have convenient access to my music library back and that makes me very happy. I like having the soundtracks of life at my control whenever and wherever I want them.

That's digital.

That's disintermediation.

That's a market in disruption.

So grab the soundtrack of your life or the community of your choice, and listen along for the ride; the last note hasn't been sung yet.

In care you are curious ... links to mentioned services: MySpace Music - http://www.music.myspace.com Imeem - http://www.imeem.com/ Last.fm - http://www.last.fm/ Pandora - http://pandora.com/ Apple iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/ CRB - http://www.loc.gov/crb/