Phoenix have posted a detailed blog on their Tumblr explaining that they support and even encourage the “fair use” of samples of their music. In a 188-word essay written in dramatic, finely-serifed capital letters, the group first explained that they were upset to learn that a lecture by Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig had been excised…

Producers behind Rick Ross’ upcoming release talk about their contributions to the album. A new XXL feature finds some of the producers behind Rick Ross’ recent Mastermind release detailing the making of the album. Producers featured in the story include Mike WiLL Made-It, Bink!, Scott Storch, and more. Ross’ Mastermind, which is his sixth studio…

After uploading a stash of great interview outtakes from their recent feature-length documentary earlier today, the team at Red Bull Music Academy have shared an impossibly huge cache of audio collected over seven editions of their annual music-making jamboree….

Drake has parted ways with his PR firm in the wake of his Rolling Stone cover debacle. ID-PR had been handling Drake’s publicity for the past year and worked on the campaigns for his third album Nothing Was the Same and “Would You Like a Tour?” According to Billboard, ID initiated the split soon after…

Liberation Music has “amicably resolved” its copyright dispute with Professor Lawrence Lessig, with the Australian independent label admitting it was wrong to hit the academic with a “take-down” notice. The label will also pay compensation and there’s a pledge that an error of this kind would never happen again. As previously reported, the Creative Commons…

Here’s the video stream for the 8-hour marathon version of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, interpreted for modular synthesizer by William Corgan (of The Smashing Pumpkins). It’s from a live improvised performance at at Madame ZuZu?s Teahouse (Chicago). Corgan describes the event as ‘an ambient/musical interpretation of Hermann Hesse?s Siddhartha; built by modular synthesis, on the fly.’ [Synthtopia]

This week joined the talk show landscape and chose to serve as the leader of the house 8G Band. Before he became a star in the comedy world through Saturday Night Live and Portlandia, Armisen was a drummer in the Chicago indie rock scene and a member of the group . Though Armisen looks like…

Livia Tortella is the former co-president of Warner Bros. Records and founder of Black Box Media, a music branding, strategy and marketing agency. For far too long, music’s relationship with the Oscars has been a one-way street. You can’t argue the importance of an Oscar to an artist’s career, whether it’s conferring mainstream respectability to…

It came as no surprise yesterday when Avid Technology received a notification letter from NASDAQ that the company would be delisted and trading of its stock would be suspended. For many of us in the creative end of the entertainment business who have watched the company try to battle through its troubles during the last…

Next Sunday, Arcade Fire and Owen Pallett have a shot at the Best Original Score Oscar for the music they created for Spike Jonze’s Her. Here’s a new behind-the-scenes video shot during the creation of the score, which finds Arcade Fire and Pallett working alongside clips from the film….