Sony is Dumb

Sony, a large part of the the stupid Recording industry, has decided to shut down Sony, yes, SONY artist Beyonce's OFFICIAL You Tube page. How tone deaf can a corporation be? Hopefully artists like Beyonce and other pop acts will be smart enough in the future to separate themselves from these corporations. How hard, really, would it be for Beyonce to operate without a giant record label? You know, assuming, they didn't trick her into signing over her life to them.

Italy Accidentally Legalizes P2P MP3s

So a new Italian copyright law allows 'degraded' audio files to be shared via p2p for informational purposes. Well, mp3 files are considered 'degraded' since they are "compressed with an algorithm that implies quality loss". What does this mean for us Americans? We have no idea. But it sounds exciting. One step closer to freedom of file sharing. More details over at Slashdot.

File Sharing Site Pirate Bay in Swedish Legal Trouble

The four men that operate the site file-sharing site thepiratebay.org have been charged, in Sweden, with conspiracy to break copyright laws. Luckily, I have never, ever, nerver used this so called piratebay nor do I know anyone else who has. But, according to the BBC the site has between 10 and 15 million users. The plaintiffs in the case are, of course, a handful of salivating, stinking, monsters named Warner, MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI. If convicted the four face up to two years in prison.

QTrax Music Service Not Ready For Close Up

We posted about QTrax recently and it sounded great. A new free and legal peer to peer music sharing service, funded by advertisements. We were even going to be able to put the music on our mp3 players, including iPods in the Spring. QTrax was supposed to have deals with all of the major record labels. There were initial snafus with the website and the availability of the service. The player is now apparently available but no music can be downloaded. It turns out there are actually no deals with any of the major labels, yet. Three of the four labels have said they have been in negotiations. So, according to the Wired story it seems that QTraz was mistating its position, I guess everyone will have to stick to the free but moral peer to peer services for now.

legal - established by or founded upon law or official or accepted rules

moral - refers to what is judged as right, just, or good

New Free and Legal Peer to Peer Music Sharing Application

All major record labels have agreed to allow the company QTrax to provide applications to individuals for free that would allow them to share music legally and free. The service will be free because it will be advertisement supported (which will probably be incredibly annoying). There already have been companies that provide a similar service but QTrax will allow the music to be transferred to mp3 players. iPods are the exception currently, but QTrax claims that music files will be compatible with iPods soon.

The QTrax website is down right now but says it should be up again in 24 hours.

Read the more in-depth Wired article here.

New Police State?

AT&T is considering becoming police of the internet. The company has been in discussions with technology companies as well as the the M.P.A.A. and R.I.A.A. about carrying out digital fingerprinting techniques on the network level. The point would be to sniff out any violations of U.S. Intellectual Property Laws and clamp down on piracy.

Anyone think that if this goes through, we should just shut down the internet? Say, "it's been great, but see ya" to the good ol' information superhighway?

Not to mention, this is a terrible idea for AT&T, as pointed out here:

On the technical side, if I were an AT&T engineer asked to implement this plan, I would resign immediately and look for work at Verizon. AT&T's engineers are already trying to manage the feat of getting trillions of packets around the world at light speed. To begin examining those packets for illegal pictures of Britney Spears would be a nuisance, at best, and a threat to the whole Internet, at worst.

Well, I suppose it is a noble goal to rid the world of illegal Britney pictures.

More about AT&T's nutty idea from the NYTimes here.

Single Mother Must Pay Greedy Corporations $222K

A single mother of two from Minnesota must pay $222K to six lame record companies for her use of Kazaa. The deal breaks down to $9,250 each for 24 songs. The dirt bag record companies are Sony, Arista, Interscope, UMG, Capitol, and Warner Brothers. I am not really sure what this accomplishes other than providing the record companies with the extra funds for a nice little end of the week party catered with a wide variety of sandwiches and wraps, some canned sodas, pasta salad, brownies, powdered cookies, and a nice big cake! Hopefully, the record companies will invite their starving artists down to get a plate full of goodies.

All single mothers beware! Stop all your downloading! No more Bon Jovi and Gwen Stefani!

UPDATE: Here is a link to an article from CNET explaining how and why the RIAA won the $222K judgement.

Buy Radiohead's New Album for 2 Cents

Radiohead's new album In Rainbows will be available for purchase online (not from iTunes) for any amount you want to pay, starting at 2 cents plus a 45 cent* credit card fee.

From the article in PCWorld,

...the decision poses little risk to the band members' personal fortunes. But it could prove to be an interesting case study in how successful a group can be in compelling fans to shun illegal downloads and pay what they think the band deserves.

The album can also be purchased with extra artwork and extra song and some fancy packaging. This is probably not a system that could work for all artists but maybe other highly successful artists will follow suit and give consumers a break and reduce the piracy of their music. At the very least artists could offer their past albums in this manner.

*CORRECTION: the convenience fee for credit cards is $1. The 45 cents mentioned above was supposed to be 45 pence, I think, which would be about $1 with the sad dollar to pound exchange rate. Sorry!

Also, the album will be available on the band's official site on October 10. Find it yourself!

Extortion: The New Anti-Piracy Technique

It seems the Motion Picture Association of America and the Record Industry Association of America are now attempting outright extortion and intimidation. The MPAA has set up a website, GetAmnesty.com, as a tool to scare people into giving them money. The GetAmnesty program finds supposed offenders of copyright laws, threatens them with notices of infringement, and notifies them of ways to quickly clear up the problem by making a tithe to the MPAA. The MPAA realizes that many people may be more willing to simply pay off the MPAA rather than have to enter into the complicated legal system.

Another reason this extortion track has been taken is the poor record the MPAA and other organizations have had against accused offenders. Proving these cases against specific individuals is difficult. It is fairly easy to demonstrate the IP address involved but not the individual.

Here is a little taste of the GetAmnesty method, from Torrentfreak and the GetAmnesty site:

"If you receive a notice that means that we have evidence of you infringing a copyright holder that we represent. Please stop and consider what such a paper trail could do to one’s future. We understand that this notice may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but we sincerely believe that signing our agreement is in your best interest."

See the full story on Torrentfreak. Thanks to Jay for passing this along.