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What Else? Japan, Kenny's Castaways, BET, PRQ, Parlophone, Jack White...

Newly-passed legislation in Japan will impose hefty penalties on anyone found downloading illegal content. That includes the possibility of two-year prison sentences, or fines reaching two million yen ($25,700).  The response is certainly more heavy-handed than other countries, but it remains to be seen if the law will slow rampant internet piracy in Japan.  PaidContent notes that half-year music sales in Japan were up by 33 percent from last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ), while mobile music sales rose 63 percent and subscription services gained 102 percent.    

An historic rock n' roll venue in New York City, Kenny's Castaways, is now closing.  The club was a key site for Bruce Springsteen in the early days, and has hosted a range of acts including the Fugees, Patti Smith, and Yoko Ono.  Co-owner Maria Kenny said rents have more than doubled in the last five years; Willie Nile and the Smithereens played the final show on Monday night.

After abruptly ending his first concert at Radio City Music Hall on Saturday, Jack White followed up with a bombastic set.  NBC described it as "a giant fist of anguish pounding the audience into submission," with songs like "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" performed at super-fast punk tempos.  White has remained aloofly silent about what caused him to walk off stage on Saturday, a decision that nearly sparked small-scale rioting.

Mega-mergers are great and all, but what about the artists?  Looks like a number of Parlophone-signed musicians are unhappy with the prospects of going to the nearest bidder, and threatening to withhold releases.  "Artists are the only people currently being left out of the conversation, which is unfortunate," Blur drummer Dave Rowntree told the Independent.  "If the staff at the label are unhappy with the new arrangements they are free to leave, but the artists are not."

Rick Ross and Young Jeezy, labelmates on Def Jam Records, were involved in a huge brawl at the BET Awards on September 29th.  The Wrestlemania smackdown involve entire entourages and shots were reportedly fired; Hiphopdx has the video footage.  While the brawl was occurring, the taping of the awards was stopped and the venue was put on lockdown.  

Heard of Mixcloud? It's an app that streams DJ mixes, radio shows and podcasts, from a wide spectrum of recognized sources such as Fatboy Slim, WIRED, and NPR's Radiolab.  Through its integration with Facebook, Mixcloud users have now shared mixes more than 23 million times, according to the company. 

Legendary producer/composer Brian Eno has partnered with musician Peter Chilvers to create Scape, an iPad exclusive app that generates ambient songs based on specific preferences set and customized by the users.  Songs can then be shared with other Scape iPad users.  This is not the first time Eno and Chilvers have teamed up to create a music-making tool: the team also created Bloom for iOS, as well as two other soundscape-generators, Air and Trope.  Scape is available for $5.99 from the App Store.  Check out the official video for more info.

Authorities have now raided the facilities of Swedish hosting service PRQ, according to details tipped by Torrentfreak. PRQ, started by Pirate Bay cofounders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, hosts a number of file-sharing sites.

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