New York - For the past year, Jim Griffin has advised Warner Music Group on digital distribution and licensing models with the goal of bringing an end to the litigation that has put a wedge between the major labels and their customers and replacing it with a regular flow of income for right holders. The project known as Choruss, which is being incubated at Warner and is planned to be rolled out as a non-profit with Griffin at the helm, proposes to build a small music-royalty fee into university tuition payments received from students, and, if successful, could be expanded to make ISPs the collector of the fees. For those of you who were not able to attend DMW's Digital Music Forum East this past week, here is a complete transcript of his interesting keynote presentation:

The South By Southwest (SxSW) conferences and festival begin March 13 in Austin, Texas, and will go on until March 22. DMW is happy to once again bring you the hottest list of buzz bands, courtesy of music publicist Fiona Bloom (after the break). If you can't attend, make sure to check out some of these bands and other news from SxSW on the official SxSW YouTube channel. Enjoy!