My good pal (and CM contributor) Mark Desloges called me last night (Sunday) pretty stoked on a new service he’d used for the first time the night before. The service is called eTix Now, is based out of Edmonton, and is being embraced by a lot of venues and promoters out here on the coast.

The service allows concertgoers to buy tickets which are essentially just QR codes which can be scanned at the door by any mobile device. Bought tickets for your friends? You can send them the code digitally without having to worry about the hand-off. Lost your code? If you have your ID and e-mail address, the person at the door can verify your purchase.

Check www.etixnow.com for more info.

Both yesterday and today, representatives for SOCAN appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada to represent the interests of its members in three copyright cases related to the use of music on the Internet by large telecommunications and broadcasting corporations – Rogers, Bell, Telus, Apple, and Shaw among them.

The organization feels these businesses are profiting (significantly) from the use of copyright-protected music online without properly compensating its creators.

You can get more on the story, plus information on an organization of which you NEED TO BE A PART if you’re recording and performing music in Canada, at www.socan.ca.

The folks at NXNE have presented their own Year-end list dubbed the “Top 60 Tip Sheet, featuring music, images, and more from some of the festivals favourite 60 Canadian artist from the 2011 festival lineup. Originallycreated for radio programmers, the list includes some beauties like the UNBELIEVABLE Braids (pictured), Shad, C’Mon (RIP), and more. Check it out RIGHT HERE.

Need more to make it worth your while? The festival is selling festival wristbands for only $40 throughout December. That’s over 600 bands on 50 stages for 40 bucks. C’mon, indeed…