Here are a few links to music business related news from the last week:

• International News (i.e. English language)

1. US consumer research company Arbitron has a new survey about digital radio usage in the US, which you can download (PDF and presentation).
2. Concerning streaming music services MusicWeek comments on Spotify’s “Play” button.
3. Torrentfreak reports on the Russian government’s announcement to crack down on ISPs that cater illegal file-sharing.
4. Welcome a new US chief copyright judge: Suzanne M. Barnett (via Billboard)
5. The Music Void predicts further consolidation concerning digital music services.
6. Who is the typical SXSW attendee? Billboard has a statistical answer (Clue: It’s a male)
7. This might come in handy when negotiating with aforementioned digital music services, especially if they are yet to go to market: Chuck Russel explains start-up speak. (via virgin.com)

• Cross (language) border news (i.e. available in German and English)

1. Maybe the so called piracy problem of the content industry is showing something unexpected, too: Journalis and author Robert Neuwirth’s essay about the global blackmarket (“Forget China: the $10 trillion global black market is the world’s fastest growing economy – and its future.” has just been published in Germany in influential newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. (Here’s the English language original from Foreign Policy magazine)

• German language news

1. There is a very active debate going on between the various parties involved with what some call “Intellectual Property” in what some call “The Digital Sphere”: Spiegel Online reports on the controversy between newspaper Handelsblatt (publishing 100 statements by artists and others involved with creative production) and the German Pirateparty (answering with 101 counter statements)
2. Also at SPON: The Pirateparty’s roundtable initiative in order to find common ground for a revised copyright.
3. The new twist in  the debate of the recent week’s is the participation of artists, speaking out against the undesired free sharing etc. of their work. In his blog at motor.de RFC 2011 panelist Tim Renner points out some mistakes in some of the positions, as he sees them.
4. German alpha-blogger Johnny Häusler tries to be a voice of reason, claiming thet he neither believes Creative Commons will save the world nor that anybody will be able to stop digital copies. (via Spreeblick)
5. Finally, in his blog, RFC Echo Edition 2012 participant Bruno Kramm from the Pirateparty, himself a musician and labelowner,  counters some arguments from artists’ statements of the recent weeks.
6. While German performance rights organization GEMAis currently in the crossfire due to a new system of fees announced for live and dj-music at music events, their position in the conflict with You Tube has been put into perspective, by a newspaper article in Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
7. Also GEMA seems to have gained some ground in their legal case against file hosting service Rapishare. (via Juve)