Congradulations to Eric Probola who won an 8GB iPod Nano for his participation in the most recent Campus Progress Reader's Survey. A big thank you to everyone who participated in the survey and offered their insight - with your input, we can make CampusProgress.org an even better place.

Keep your eye out in the future for more contests and surveys with great prizes. 

Green Owl Records is trying to do business in an environmentally conscious way - even if it means driving halfway across the country in a bus fueled by vegetable oil.

This year, SXSW went green... or tried to, anyway.

Festival organizers partnered with Green Mountain Energy and Ecology Action of Austin to cut down on carbon emissions where it could.  All waste generated from outdoor events at the festival was to be recycled. Generators and production trucks all ran on biodiesel. Of course, not all emissions could be cut out. So for the remaining parts, SXSW purchased carbon offset credits to make up the difference. 

And all of that is well and good for a festival hosting over one thousand bands (and the 1000 vans, cars, and tour busses that those bands bring, not to mention countless others driven by the fans attending the festival). But they're not doing all they can, according to Carbon Crusaders.

"They are purchasing renewable energy credits to offset the conference’s emissions – now standard for any conference wanting to brand itself as “sustainable”. They are also however, consuming the equivalent of acres and acres of trees in useless promotional materials - the life blood of sponsorship commerce that drives these events."

 So while the festival may have paid close attention to their own waste, they clearly didn't extend the favor on to the hundreds (if not thousands) of sponsors. The convention center down here is littered with piles of promotional material, some piles literally three feet high. A quick scan of the flyers, magazines, stickers, and postcards yielded very few that identified the use of post-consumer waste.

If SXSW is so serious about making their festival sustainable, they should encourage -if not force - their sponsors to do the same. Companies are vying for access to the music fans who perenially descend into Austin for these ten fateful days in March, and a little bit of prodding in the name of the environment wouldn't hurt anybody.

Amid the sea of noisy rock and indie pop, the music at SXSW took a decidedly more serious note on Thursday night when an A-list set of musicians gathered to celebrate the release of album filled with songs inspired by the film "Body of War."

The movie follows the life of Iraq war veteran Tomas Young, who was paralyzed from the waist down in his first week of duty in Iraq. It is an incredibly moving film; and the soundtrack is no less impactful. Thursday's performers included Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave), Ben Harper, Billy Bragg, Mason Jennings, and Serj Tankian (System of a Down).

The crowd reached a fever pitch at the end of the set, when Tom Morello sang an often-censored verse from the Woody Guthrie song "This Land is Your Land" (audio slightly distorted on video):

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office, I saw my people
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering
If this land's  still made for you and me

 

This week, Campus Progress will be traveling down to Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest music festival - and we'll be live blogging everything!

Well OK, not everything. With over 1,000 bands in attendance and five whole days of music, films, and events, there's a lot to see.

We'll be talking with Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, creators of the film Body of War. We'll discuss net neutrality with Franz Nicolay from The Hold Steady. We'll talk to Green Owl Records about ways that the music business is reducing its carbon footprint.

And of course, we will feature coverage on the best up-and-coming new bands making their mark at the festival.

Coverage begins Wednesday, March 12th. Headed to the festival? Let us know so we can stop by and say hello. 

The internet bubble may have popped, but that doesn't mean that the digital arena is any less useful as a tool to mobilize - and profit from - young people. However, it seems that the over-35 crowd has forgotten that. In a recent PBS Frontline special, "Growing Up Online," they made an interesting comparison: that "It's been said that the internet represents the greatest generation gap since the advent of rock n' roll." Unsurprisingly, they're probably right. [Digital Music News]

The virtual society in which young people now grow up -- upwards of 90 percent of American teens are online, according to Frontline -- is largely a smoke-and-mirrors environment, largely unknown to parents and teachers. Even as a 21 year old, it is difficult for me to imagine growing up in an environment where the social web is a primary form of communication at such a young age.

But parents and teachers aren't the only ones in the dark. In the general population, the internet accounts for 20% of media consumption; and in the increasingly digital young demographic, that number is unquestionably (and exponentially) higher. Among recent college graduates, 70% to 80% of media is consumed via the internet. Yet according to the most recent data from the 2008 election push, an abysmal 3.5% of political advertising budgets will be spent online.

So while this coveted demographic spends its time glued to the computer screen, politicians (and their consultants) will continue to wait for the digital marketplace to "prove itself," unwilling to utilize the internet as the persuasion tool that it is. 

Sounds like a generation gap to me.

Could the increase in litigation by the RIAA be a last-ditch attempt to save their failing organization? They lost public legitimacy when they sued their customers, and now, there are rumblings that they may be losing the support of the very companies that they represent.

Increasingly under fire for their aggressive legal action against file traders, the RIAA recently served 396 pre-litigation letters to college students around the country. Like a drive-through lawsuit machine, the letters offer the students two options: fight their case in court for the full amount the RIAA determines that they “owe,” or simply send a check for a lesser amount, the latter choice designed to limit legal costs on both sides. [Digital Music News]

Curiously, the RIAA’s announcement of the latest pre-litigation letters comes on the heels of a critical memo from music giant (and RIAA customer) EMI that questions the effectiveness of the RIAA’s tactics, and considers the possibility of removing their support from the organization. [p2p blog]

EMI’s position is understandable. The RIAA was given the power to stop file sharing, and the incomplete, floundering solution that they engineered turned their core customer base against them.

With little resources, the majority of litigated students forego their legal options and mail a check off and save themselves the time, investment, and hassle of taking the powerful RIAA to court. The result? Thousands of college students scorned by the music business.

Is it possible that EMI now realizes that suing college students is destroying their business from the inside out? It is too bad that it took them 26,000 lawsuits to figure it out, and their about-face is far too late.