From Dean Whitbread, Chairman of the UK Podcasters Association, comes this news of negotiations for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty:

“[I]n Geneva this week, so concerted has been the resistance to the much disliked WIPO Broadcast Treaty in its current form, with even the US delegation finding serious fault with it, that at several points today it looked like the entire treaty would be dropped.

“Today, at the last minute, the Chairman decided that so many countries had raised so many different objections, that a diplomatic convention on the Treaty is now to be scheduled in December 2008 – effectively kicking any resolution as far as possible into the long grass and giving time for the restructuring which is clearly necessary if ever consensus is to be reached.

“UKPA members and associates once again lobbied hard for this victory for common sense and podcasting.”

WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, is an agency of the United Nations. Established in 1967, WIPO’s mission is to “promote the protection of IP throughout the world,” that is, responsible for treaties involving copyright, patent, and trademark laws.

Bloggers, podcasters, and other independent media have raised concerns over the proposed provisions of the international boradcast treaty, as it would give broadcasters, cablecasters, and potentially webcasters, broad new 50-year rights to control transmissions over the Internet, irrespective of the copyright status of the transmitted material [per Electronic Frontier Foundation].

Among objectors to the proposed broadcast treaty were over 1500 podcasters who signed an open letter to WIPO, via EFF, which delivered the letter earlier last week to the treaty discussions.

You can read more about the treaty here and here.

The treaty was to have been discussed (and perhaps decided) at a high-level international conference in the fall of this year, but has been postponed indefinitely, until the member states can agree on what the treaty is supposed to cover and actually do. The proposed treaty isn’t exactly dead, but it is off the “front burner.”

Revision3, the San Francisco startup behind the Internet TV shows Diggnation and XLR8RTV, has raised $8 million more from investors.

Revision3 is one of several companies pioneering commercial video podcast networks. Their shows can be viewed online or downloaded for viewing on portable media players such as iPods or devices like the Apple TV.

The company calls itself Revision3 because they think that television is moving into its third stage:

• Revision 1: Cable, adding general interest channels, catering to ‚Äúmost common denominator.‚Äù
• Revision 2: PC-based Internet video, indy films, no business model, no loyalty, no audience
• Revision 3: TV and Internet converge. iPods, Tivo, mobile, broadband enable mass, loyal audience to shift to ondemand, niche content. Advertising follows them.

The company, started by the co-founders of news ranking site Digg, raised $1 million last year.

Media hosting/publishing service provider Podango has announced that a beta version of its P2 Platform is now available.
The P2 platform’s feature set includes publishing tools for audio, video, and blogging, metric monitoring tools, search engine optimization, integrated advertising and the ability to embed the player in other sites. The end-user experience includes easy subscription and rich feedback mechanisms.

New features include:

• yourname.Podango.com – P2 provides podcasters with their own publishing site on Podango.com.
• PodangoPress Plug-in – P2 lets podcasters create their own custom blog-based podcast with all the benefits of Podango, combined with the easy content management of WordPress, the preferred blogging software of successful podcasters.
• Podango APIs – Podango APIs enable a fully functional Podango site experience in the context of their own website, giving web developers the richness of the Podango experience, but with full control over the look and feel of their site.
• Podango Copy & Paste Remote Player – The Podango-branded player will play any selected content (audio or video) from Podango.com in any social network site, wiki, or anywhere you can edit in HTML mode.

Apple’s iTunes Music Store was the third-biggest music retailer in the U.S. in the first quarter, moving ahead of Amazon and Target, according to new research from the NPD Group.

ITunes ranked behind Wal-Mart and Best Buy. NPD tabulated units sold, not revenue. Wal-Mart accounted for 15.8 percent of music units sold during the quarter, Best Buy’s share was 13.8 percent, and¬† iTunes’ share was 9.8 percent. Amazon’s share of music sales was 6.7 percent, slightly ahead of Target’s 6.6 percent.

Digital Sales At iTunes Driving Music Industry Growth

Apple’s rise in the NPD survey reflects a key shift in the music industry towards the digital sale of music.

212.1 million albums have been sold so far this year, down about 16 percent compared to the same period lastyear, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Sales of digital tracks, meanwhile, are up 49 percent over the same period. When digital music, CDs and other formats are combined, overall music sales for the year are up 14 percent over the same time last year.

via PE

Apple has released a video introduction to using the iPhone, below.

Whether or not you’re interested in getting an iPhone, it’s important to be aware of its capabilities. Based on what we’ve seen, this is what cell phones are going to look like in five years, intelligently combining mobile features with music and Internet services.

For the world of podcasting and Internet media, the iPhone promises to be a state-of-the-art portable media player. It will let you take audio and video podcasts with you, and will also support streaming video content from sites like YouTube.

It also positions Apple perfectly to be a key player in the world of mobilecasting, if Apple builds on its lead in podcasting. It’s not a stretch to imagine recording audio or video with an iPhone and wirelessly publishing. While this is already being done to a limited extent, Apple is in a position that it could take mobilecasting mainstream.

Internet television company Veoh has announced the beta launch of VeohTV – a free application that acts as a specialized video browser and DVR (digital video recorder) for discovering, viewing and managing online video.

VeohTV is designed to combine the breadth of the Internet with the simplicity of traditional TV. It featues a smart recommendation engine to help viewers can discover more of what they want to watch. VeohTV supports open Internet standards, so it has access to virtually all of the content on the Internet.

“Unlike Joost, which is a closed system with content from a limited number of sources, VeohTV supports open Internet standards, and has access to virtually all of the video content on the Internet, on demand.” said Dmitry Shapiro, CEO of Veoh Networks. “We asked Veoh.com users what they really want in their online video experience and VeohTV is the culmination of that feedback. We believe that it will be the dominant standard for online video consumption moving forward.”

You can register for an invitation to download the free software application at www.veoh.tv.

RodeoUP is a free video sharing site that’s like YouTube for cowboys.

It’s the official video community of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. But you don’t have to be a cowboy to enjoy the site.

Anybody can rate videos, embed them in their blogs or just enjoy watching what happens when you put a cowboy on nearly a ton of angry bull:

Thousands of U.S. commercial webcasters plan to go silent Tuesday, June 26, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that could threaten the viability of stations that broadcast mainstream music.

Earlier in the year, the United States Copyright Royalty Board announced new royalty rates for webcasting traditionally licensed music, to be effective from 2006 to 2010. The rates are substantially higher than before, and could force many webcasters to either go off the air or to take whatever deals they can get from the mainstream music industry.

“The arbitrary and drastic rate increases set by the Copyright Royalty Board on March 2nd threaten the very livelihood of thousands of webcasters and their millions of listeners throughout the country,” said Jake Ward, a spokesperson for the SaveNetRadio Coalition. “On Tuesday, thousands of webcasters will call on their millions of listeners to join the fight to save Internet radio and contact their Congressional representatives to ask for their support of the Internet Radio Equality Act.”

Many webcasters are planning to shut off access to their streams entirely, while other webcasters plan to replace their music streams with long periods of silence (or static or ocean sounds or similar) interspersed with occasional brief public service announcements on the subject.

Maybe Mainstream Net Radio Deserves To Die

But while SaveNetRadio calls itself a grass-roots coalition, it counts as its members a long string of big media companies – companies like Yahoo!, Live365, Rhapsody and MTV. They’re really not trying to save Net radio, they’re trying to get the government to legislate favorable business conditions so that they can profitably run mainstream Internet radio services.

In other words, they’re trying to make Internet radio safe for Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and Celine Dion.

It’s too bad that these netcasters are getting their profits siphoned off by the music industry. But when you make a deal with the devil, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get a devil’s deal.

By making themselves dependent on RIAA major label music, these stations have created businesses that need government protection to survive. They’re also helping to support the mainstream music industry that often seems like it’s happier suing music fans than paying musicians.

They are part of the problem with today’s music industry.

There are hundreds of thousands of musicians that would like to share their music with you, but they don’t get played on traditional radio or on mainstream Internet radio. The reason these musicians don’t get played isn’t that they don’t make great music – many of them do. They don’t get played because the music industry doesn’t think it can make money off of them.

There’s an amazing wealth of Creative Commons licensed music which is licensed to permit webcasting. Not all of it is licensed to allow commercial use, but much of it is. There’s public domain music. There’s music that artists release specifically to get played on net radio.

Podcasters have been pioneering the idea of making free music shows available over the Internet for years now, and they’ve found that there’s plenty of good free music to go around. Check out our feature 31 Days of Free Music for a taste of the variety of free music podcasts that are available.

The fact is, mainstream netcasters want the government to enforce the status quo in the music industry, so they can keep promoting RIAA artists and feeding a cut of the profits to the big labels. The status quo means that what you hear is what the major labels can make the most money from.

Next Tuesday, if netcasters like Yahoo! and MTV want to go silent to protest the deal they are getting from the music industry, let them. Take it as an opportunity to listen to one of the thousands of great free music podcasts, and decide for yourself if it’s time for mainstream Internet radio to die.

Iconic punk rocker/new wave singer/songwriter Elvis Costello has introduced a podcast that offers fans a candid look at the first ten years of his career.

The Elvis Costello Podcast will be a ten-part weekly series running through August. The podcast is tied in with a new best of CD release.

Costello shares stories with producer Joseph Vella highlighting everything from his start in music and changing his name, to forming the Attractions and writing his first album, My Aim Is True. The interviews are accompanied by music samples from his first ten years as well by some of his musical inspirations.

You can subscribe to the Elvis Costello podcast by adding this feed URL to your podcast software:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/elviscostello

imeem today announced the launch of ad-supported music service that offers revenue share to artists when their music is streamed.

The service launches with three million tracks, including music from imeem’s record label partners Nettwerk, Beggars Group, Matador Records, Om Records, and XL Recordings, artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Barenaked Ladies, Public Enemy, M.I.A., Thom Yorke, Sarah McLachlan, Belle & Sebastian, and Thievery Corporation, and distributors including IODA, The Orchard, IRIS, INgrooves and Redeye Distribution.

Entry is open to any artist or content owner who would like to join, and there is no cost to music fans.

“We are excited to be a part of imeem’s ad-supported interactive music service,” said Brent Muhle, general manager, Nettwerk Music Group. “imeem allows Nettwerk to bring its artist and their music to a great community of people and music fans and now provides musicians a new source of revenue.”