Record Industry

Whitney Houston did not have to sing a note Thursday night to spark a rousing ovation from a crowd of celebrities and record-industry heavyweights.

Few industries inspire more enmity than the record business. It's been tainted since the birth of rock, with transgressions that include payola, greed, a reactionary aversion to technology and a plantation mentality toward its bread and butter -- the recording artists. Thanks to the Internet and the MP3 revolution, karmic justice has finally been served: The record industry has toppled like a house of cards. To many, its collapse is less a crisis than a beautiful sunset.

The master of war stands glaring into the lens. His head is shaved, and the concrete floor around him is buried under thick mounds of dirt. The setting is meant to approximate a battlefield and the content of death and duty heard on "Indestructible," a song performed with the usual rhythmic intensity by the band Disturbed and its brooding bald singer, David Draiman. His face is barely 18 inches from the camera on a massive soundstage in Downey, and dangling from beneath his lower lip is a pair of stainless-steel labret piercings that curve like small tusks to the contours of his chin.

Millionaire Steve Bing is getting into the music business. Looking to expand the holdings of his Shangri-La Entertainment -- the feature film production company behind Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones documentary "Shine a Light," among other projects -- Bing has recruited one of the music industry's heavy hitters, Jeff Ayeroff, to guide his new Santa Monica-based boutique record label, Shangri-La Music, to success.

Much of the most-prized music these days is housed in big rooms, whether it's the massive Staples Center or its still-large baby brother Nokia Theatre, but there was a time in the late '60s and early '70s when the best music was frequently showcased in small rooms -- the rootsy Ash Grove on Melrose, the honky-tonkish Palomino on Lankershim and, above all, the folk-oriented Troubadour on Santa Monica.

A coalition of recording artists, music companies and industry groups said Thursday that it would push for compensation of performers whose music is played on the radio. The MusicFirst Coalition, which counts recording artists Don Henley, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera and Wyclef Jean among its members, intends to lobby Congress for new laws requiring the payments by broadcasters. The group said U.S.

IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE a consumer-goods company refusing to sell the most popular version of its product, but that's just what the world's largest record companies have been doing. While consumers and independent artists made the MP3 format the lingua franca of the Digital Age, the major music labels offered downloadable songs only in formats that were scrambled to deter copying. At least until this year.

IN between helping her three children with their homework and trying out a new chicken casserole recipe she hopes will pass muster with the trio, Teresa LaBarbera Whites sets up studio time for Britney Spears, approves a final version of a Christmas tune recorded by Nick Lachey, arranges travel for former 'N Syncer JC Chasez while signing off on his latest song mix and negotiates with lawyers about multiple deals.

A coalition of major recording companies Friday sued the operators of LimeWire for alleged copyright infringement, claiming that the firm encourages users of the popular online file-sharing software to trade music without permission, an industry organization said.

Deb Whittington, a 41-year-old high school science teacher from Effingham, S.C., and a devoted Garth Brooks fan, had to go to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s website to preorder the country singer's new CD and DVD boxed set. And when she wanted another "Garth Brooks: The Limited Series" -- just in case anything ever happened to her first set, Whittington said -- she had to go to her local Wal-Mart store to get it.