MyWerx adds partners, preps for 2.0

MyWerx, the Nashville startup focused on helping artists document, protect and defend their copyrights using MyWerx's service as software suite, has added key partners, and will be looking at a capital raise, probably in 2011. Tim Smith (at left) tells it.

MyWerx founder 'Innovator of the Year'

MyWerx, the copyright-management solutions company founded and led by CEO Tim Smith (left), must be doing something important: Smith has just been named 'Innovator of the Year' by Nashville Technology Council. Here's the full NTC listing of honorees. Before founding MyWerx two years ago, Smith was, among other roles, CIO of Simplex, the local diabetics supply company; director, business systems, LBMC; SVP at Copyright Management, and more.

Web Radio royalty breakthrough

SoundExchange, a nonprofit that collects royalties for recording copyright owners from digital radio services, and three smaller webcasters -- radioIO, Digitally Imported and AccuRadio -- reached a "Pureplay" agreement on royalty revenue-sharing that could help keep them and bigger players like Pandora Media alive. RAIN reports. RAIN's coverage in March described a Pureplay alternative now in force that Webcasters said would drive many programmers out of business.

Steal this Music

VU's release today: "...First-year students in the 'Stealing in Music City' seminar at Vanderbilt University must devise a workable system for distributing music that delivers content for a reasonable price and allows songwriters, artists and other stakeholders to get paid. “We are challenging the students to re-invent the music industry for a fair model of music distribution to compensate artists, consumers and labels,” said Holling Smith-Borne, director of the music library at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music..." On Nov. 12, also, Gov. Phil Bredesen signed into law a copyright-protection bill intended to discourage illegal downloading and sharing of content.