Local, national and international touring artists whose performances are slated to stream @ https://facebook.com/michiganirish over the extended weekend include (in alphabetical order) The Alt, An Dro, Blackthorn, Ruth and Max Bloomquist, Bohola, Daimh, Doolin’, Ian Gould, Shane Hennessey, Seamus Kennedy, The Kreelers, One for the Foxes, Peat in the Creel, RUNA, Scythian, Sharon Shannon, Trout Steak Revival, and Uneven Ground. Singer-Songwriter Ashley Davis will host a songwriters circle featuring Dave Curley, Doolin’, Colin Farrell, and Shane Hennessey, while Shannon Lambert-Ryan, RUNA’s lead vocalist, will host a family-friendly presentation on “Baking with Babies.”

The schedule for the virtual festival appears below. Videos may also be posted on the festival’s Facebook page for replay later if you miss or want to see any of the acts again.

Thursday
5-7 pm Sounds Like Ireland Radio Program
8 pm Runa
9 pm Seamus Kennedy
10 pm An Dro

Friday
6 – 9 am Michael Patrick Shiels The Big Show radio show broadcast live from downtown Muskegon
5 pm Ruth and Max Bloomquist
6 pm Ian Gould
6:30 pm Songwriters Circle with Ashley Davis (featuring Colin Farrell and Dave Curley)
7 pm Dave Curley
7:50 pm Five Farms
8 pm Best of Scythian on Dan’s Wedding Day!
9 pm Shane Hennessy
10 pm The Kreellers

Saturday
12 pm Conklin Ceili Band
1 pm Peat in the Creel
1:30 pm Cathy Jo Smith Storyteller – Seanín the Piper
2 pm Kennedy’s Kitchen
2:30 Bob Harke with Kennedy’s Kitchen
3 pm Baking with Babies
4 pm Songwriters Circle with Ashley Davis (featuring Doolan’)
5 pm the Alt
5:30 pm Cathy Jo Smith – Questions about the Irish Wake
6 pm Friel Sisters
7 pm One for the Foxes
8 pm Daimh
9 pm Doolin’
10 pm CrossBow

Sunday
11 am Uneven Ground
11:30 am Deb O’Carroll’s Irish Magic Show
12 pm Runa featuring Eamonn and Cormac de Barra
1 pm Songwriters Circle with Ashely Davis (featuring Shane Hennessy)
2 pm Trout Steak Revival
3 pm Bohola
4 pm Best of Sharon Shannon
5 pm Blackthorn

Extending from 12 noon-7 p.m. EST each day on ConcertWindow.com, The Ladies in the House Online Music Festival will feature female-driven music from two-dozen GoGirlsMusic and or Folk Alliance International members. Ariel Hyatt, founder of CyberPR, will present a 30-minute workshop on social media on Saturday afternoon, while singer-songwriter Tracy Grammer will present one on songwriting on Sunday.

Folks can logon to The Ladies in the House Online Music Festival via www.concertwindow.com. Although the festival is free, participating artists and workshop presenters will be accepting tips and are being encouraged by the festival’s organizers to offer fun tip rewards for generous festivalgoers. While participating artists will be setting up shows on their own channels (direct Concert Window links), all of the showcases and workshops will be tagged #LITHfestival. A complete schedule for the online music festival may be found by searching that hashtag on ConcertWindow.com, as well as at www.facebook.com/events/1650406141656101/. Festival organizers also will be in the chat room throughout the event to direct folks to the next showcase or workshop.

“GoGirlsMusic is thrilled to be partnering with NERFA and ConcertWindow for our second annual online music festival,” said Rorie Kelly, co-executive director of the online community that was launched in 1996 to promote, support and empower independent women musicians from around the world through networking and events. “Recently there has been a lot in the news about music festivals being very male dominated, and we at GoGirls want to turn the tables on that by producing a female-centered music festival,” the New York-based singer-songwriter and fiery acoustic rocker added. “If you’ve never attended an online music festival before, think of it like a pub crawl that you can attend in your pajamas without ever leaving your home. It’s a ton of fun and we can’t wait to beam two full days of female-powered music into your homes!”

GoGirlsMusic.com has previously produced such annual events as the GoGirlsMusicFest and Invasion of the GoGirls during SXSW, and it has hosted showcases at Folk Alliance International conferences that also were streamed around the world.

With geographic boundaries that extend from the northern Virginia suburbs to the eastern Canadian provinces, NERFA is a regional affiliate of Folk Alliance International, a Kansas City, MO-based nonprofit organization that seeks to engage and empower the international folk music community through education, advocacy and performance. NERFA hosts an annual conference in Stamford, Connecticut in November and is increasingly seeking to engage in activities year-round that are beneficial to FAI members in its region and to the “folk” community more broadly speaking.

“We’ve partnered with festivals, venues and presenting organizations in the U.S. and Canada in recent years in hosting showcases and workshops,” said Michael Kornfeld, president of NERFA’s board of directors. “This online music festival is a natural extension of those efforts, as well as a way to embrace technology, provide a new platform for artists to expand their audiences, and expose people to a lot of talented musicians in the comfort of their own homes.” He expressed thanks to Cheryl Prashker, his predecessor as NERFA’s board president; Jessica Wrubel, NERFA’s board secretary; and Rorie Kelly and Delia Stanley, GoGirlsMusic’s co-executive director, for their efforts in helping to organize the online event.

“Concert Window has been a wonderful way for us to connect more deeply and really support each other’s music,” said Kelly, noting that GoGirls is an international community. “We love what they do and have been advocating for our members to use Concert Window since it first started up,” she continued. “For me personally, as a regional musician, it has really allowed me to expand my reach and perform for fans and friends around the globe who would otherwise not get to see me.”

Dan Gurney, Concert Window’s CEO, engaged in a Q & A session with GoGirls members during a weekly #ggchat on Twitter early last year. The chat was the brainchild of GoGirls founder Madalyn Sklar, a music business coach and consultant and noted social media maven. “We also interviewed him for our blog and got him to share his thoughts on how musicians could make the best use of the medium [that interview can be found at http://bit.ly/1ZJgWsa],” said Kelly.

Extending from 1-9 p.m. ET/12-8 p.m. CT/11 a.m.-7 p.m. MT/10 a.m.-6 p.m. PT/5 p.m.- on ConcertWindow.com, the online festival will feature female-driven music from 12 GoGirls members: Delia Stanley, Meghan Cary, Dan and Faith Senie, Emma Back, Karen Marrrolli, Lisa and Lori Brigantino, Celestial Blue Music, Christine Sweeney, Laura Zucker, Queen Esther, Olivia Frances Schwartz and Rorie Kelly.

“Think of it like an online pub crawl that you don’t have to leave your home for,” says Kelly, a Long Island, New York-based singer-songwriter and fiery acoustic rocker who recently took the helm of the diverse community of musicians as co-executive director with Stanley, also an indie artist. “All shows are free, but supporting the performers through tipping is definitely encouraged.” A complete music schedule for the online festival, along with information about the artists, may be found at www.facebook.com/events/859122214198229/ or by searching the hashtag #gogirlsmusic on ConcertWindow.com. Here’s a direct link:

“ConcertWindow has been a wonderful way for us to connect more deeply and really support each other’s music,” said Kelly, noting that GoGirls is an international community. “We love what they do and have been advocating for our members to use ConcertWindow since it first started up,” she continued. “For me personally, as a regional musician, it has really allowed me to expand my reach and perform for fans and friends around the globe who would otherwise not get to see me.”

Dan Gurney, ConcertWindow’s CEO, recently engaged in a Q & A session with GoGirls members during a weekly #ggchat on Twitter. The chat was the brainchild of GoGirls founder Madalyn Sklar, a music business coach and consultant and noted social media influencer/social media maven. “We also interviewed him for our blog and got him to share his thoughts on how musicians could make the best use of the medium [that interview can be found at http://bit.ly/1ZJgWsa],” said Kelly. She noted that while chatting with him, they learned that ConcertWindow had already hosted a few online music festivals. “We loved the idea and boom… the first GoGirls Online Music Festival was born.”

GoGirlsMusic.com boasts that it is the oldest and largest online community for indie women musicians. The online music festival is by no means the first festival in which GoGirls has been engaged, nor is it the first time that the organization has made use of the Internet to share the music of indie women-artists and female –fronted bands. GoGirls has previously produced such annual events as the GoGirlsMusicFest and Invasion of the GoGirls during SXSW, and it has hosted showcases at Folk Alliance International conferences that were also streamed around the world.

“It’s an exciting time at GoGirlsMusic,” said Sklar. “In our 20 year history we came, we saw, and we rocked the pants off the music industry. We plan to continue this legacy for many years to come with great events like our online music festival.”

Acting on a legal challenge brought by Comcast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, on April 6, overturned a 2008 FCC order finding that the cable giant had illegally and deliberately slowed its customers’ access to a file-sharing service known as BitTorrent. The three-member panel of judges unanimously ruled that the FCC does not have regulatory authority over how Internet service providers (ISPs) manage their networks. As the Future of Music Coalition, an active advocate of net neutrality through its Rock the Net campaign since 2007, points out on its website, Comcast’s “network management” practices initially drew attention when an a reporter for The Associated Press sought to distribute a digital copy of the King James Bible (which is very much in the public domain) via BitTorrent., a popular peer-to-peer file sharing protocol, that admittedly also can be used in the unauthorized transfer of copyrighted material.

The FCC’s net neutrality principles state that “consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice; that they are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice; that they are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.” These statements of principle and current FCC rulemaking efforts to codify net neutrality principles that would prevent the targeting of lawful applications by ISPs for anti-competitive or other reasons are now in limbo, as is the regulatory agency’s ability to realize its goal of bringing quality, affordable broadband services to underserved communities.

The Future of Music Coalition (FMC), a national nonprofit education, research and advocacy organization engaged in issues at the intersection of music, technology, policy and law, champions policies that help artists reach potential audiences without the bottlenecks and gatekeepers so common to the original music industry. Founded in 2000 to help keep musicians apprised of the changing musical landscape and provide them with a voice in the issues that affect their livelihoods, it remains committed to what it calls “net neutrality rules guaranteeing that all users – including independent musicians and labels – can compete on a level technological playing field with the biggest companies.” The coalition’s support of net neutrality reflects what it calls “an ongoing commitment to a legitimate digital music marketplace where artists have access and fans can find the music they want.” According to the coalition, “Musicians, particularly those of the independent or niche variety, have benefited tremendously from the openness of the Internet.” Indeed, the Internet has made it possible for many artists to reach people, build fan bases and sell their music without huge financial investment or the backing of major labels.

FMC is concerned that Comcast and other cable and telecommunications companies’ desire to charge Web content providers a fee for faster loading of their sites would relegate to the slow lane those who couldn’t afford to – or didn’t want to – pay a “toll,” and would make it harder for independent artists to compete in a legitimate digital marketplace. The consolidation of radio offers striking parallels, pointing to the inherent dangers of concentrated control on the vitality and diversity of musical and other offerings on the Internet.

The coalition also is a charter member of the larger SaveTheInternet.com Coalition launched by Free Press, a media reform organization. The latter coalition views the Internet as “a crucial engine for economic growth, civic engagement and free speech” and Net Neutrality as the First Amendment of the Internet – ensuring that it remains open to new ideas, innovation and voices. The coalition is calling upon Congress to save the Internet through passage of meaningful and enforceable net neutrality protections and urging the FCC to reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” so that it can keep the Internet open and free of corporate gatekeepers.

“Every type of media other than the printed page will soon be delivered by a broadband or Internet connection,” asserts Josh Silver, executive director and co-founder of FreePress.net. Speaking last week with Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, a daily radio and TV news program that airs on more than 800 stations, he said “That means these wonky sort of arcane rules that are being played out at the Federal Communications Commission and in the court ruling, these will shape the media for generations…” Maintaining that the number of choices and independent voices is at stake, Silver urges people to get engaged and take action by visiting savetheinternet.com and adding their voices.

Although the report doesn’t break any new ground, it serves as a concise and well-researched primer on the effects of online technology on the music industry over the past decade and how the industry’s reactions to it have helped shape its current state and future prospects at a time when musicians can now promote and sell their recordings directly to fans over the Internet.

Citing findings by file-sharing research firm Big Champagne, the report notes that as of last June, more than 200 million computers had at least one peer-to-peer application installed, with only 13 percent of music consumers acknowledging that they pay for downloads, and iTunes continuing to dominate that market.

Although the unauthorized downloading of music files constitutes copyright infringement and prompted the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to engage in a multi-year legal battle against individual file sharers, the report notes that such litigation proved largely ineffective. More than that, it contributed to a negative perception of the recording industry as one that sues its customers and is out-of-step with current digital technology. The report also reveals the apparent disconnect between artists and the industry, noting that although most artists surveyed by Pew Internet for its “Artists, Musicians and the Internet” report in 2004 thought unauthorized file-sharing was wrong, few believed that the industry was in peril because of it. Indeed, according to that report, more artists were inclined to view the Internet as a valuable tool to help enhance and further their careers than to focus on how new technologies made it more difficult to protect their creative work from piracy or unlawful use.

“The State of Music Online” report concludes: “As more and more internet users acquire smart phones and high-speed wireless connectivity improves, music consumers get ever closer to the “celestial jukebox” dream of any song at any time that started during the days of Napster. For now, quality and reliability are still an issue, but the march of technology will quickly stomp out that minor hurdle. Ultimately, whether you’re storing a library of music files on your home computer or streaming songs through your iPhone, it all becomes the same: instant access to the music you want.”

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life.