Please feel free to contribute news links folks! Shmoo (aka "independentmusician") can't find all of the stuff that needs to be here by himself!

Try to avoid "chit-chat" and keep your posts in this thread as brief as possible for ease of use.

No spam!

Folks, your MISSION is to CLICK HERE and listen to all of the tunes nominated for the 2007 DMusic Awards.

(...and, IF you are a member of DMusic, you should VOTE in each category!)

(...you WON'T be disappointed!)

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071004-verdict-is-in.html

It's over. We lose.

money and bullshit trump all.

Hmm. . . "internet trial of the century"
"... overwhelming evidence against Thomas"

Why did it have to be someone with such a weak case???

Checkmate!

I'm with Dreddsnik.

After all these years (over four) since the RIAA began their suing campaign, it comes down to this?
WTF! How lame can this be?
She and her attorney should not have risked a court encounter with such a weak case. So weak, in fact, that I'll predict right here and now leflaw is mistaken about his confidence that the decision will be overturned on appeal.
That's a hope, certainly, (and where there's life, hope springs eternal in the human heart) but it's one likely based more on wishful thinking than stark reality.
(UNLESS he knows something that's not out here in the public domain of news right at the moment.)

Virgin Digital out of Business

DRM-laden music from Virgin is now obsolete and must be
ripped to CD to be saved.

Telecoms want amnesty for lawbreaking.

Regarding the worst news we could have imagined about someone with a weak case going to court to oppose the RIAA:
I'm feeling pessimistic, dour, numb, and shell-shocked.
Maybe I'll wake up and realize it's just been a bad dream.

Here's an episode of the Boondocks that takes a look at "stealing movies" (with mixed messages for the viewer.)

http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c39215651f67011566c8cc950028

Boondocks is produced by Rebel Base in association with Sony Pictures Television and airs on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

Unfortunately, that means the show has ties to big industry interests. Keep that in mind and make of it what you will.

hmm...

MORE copyright relevant stuff this week at Adult Swim:

http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c39215651f670115671ee6ca0076

I wonder about the timing.

Lets look on the bright side...

Robert Chapin: "For the RIAA, Time is Running Out"

>For the recording companies, time is running out. History proves lawsuits might delay the inevitable, but I believe the status quo leads quickly to obsoletion.<

It may not lead to obsoletion "quickly", but we'll be happy when if/when that does come. We've waited a helluva long time already, but, given the circumstances of that Minnesota case, it just might be a little longer.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that TF1, the French broadcaster of the hit TV show 'Heroes' has welcomed the success of its video-on-demand (VOD) offering.

The service allows French internet users to watch episodes of the second season of Heroes just 24 hours after their original US broadcast. With more than 50,000 paid viewings of the first episode in three days, it is by far the most successful VOD product in France. And although these figures still pale in comparison with the estimated 1.5 million illegal downloads per episode for the first season in France, TF1 is confident that it is building a viable alternative to piracy."

Diddy sued over B.I.G. music rights

A former associate of Sean "Diddy" Combs has filed a lawsuit from prison against the hip-hop mogul, claiming Combs owes him more than $19 million for music by the late rapper Notorious B.I.G.

Music biz limps to tepid fourth quarter

Nine months into 2007, CD and total album sales are still dropping -- just not as quickly as they were plummeting when the year began.

Broken record: Some of us still can't get over that lady and her attorney opting for a jury trial based on something less than a position of strength.

A wise sage said, "To thine own self, be honest."
That advice should be basic. I have to wonder if they followed it.

Downloading/sharing copyrighted files w/o authorization is against the law.
If infringement occurred on her computer, and she knew about it, then she and her attorney had no business deciding to face a jury!
That's the bottom line, folks. And by folks, I mean everybody reading this, including lawyers.

Challenge: If you, the reader, think my position is off base, feel free to go ahead and debate me on this issue.
You can start anytime you feel the inclination.

Go to TVBoxSet.com and find a remarkable sales site for box sets of TV shows, including not only surprisingly cheap deals, but offerings not found elsewhere. For example, they have a set with all ten seasons of 'JAG'. The problem is that the production company is only up to season 4 so far. Google "tvboxset" and find every link below the first is to a complaint or news website complaining of the scam. Those who do shop at the site get a product that appears to be a DVD-R recorded off of cable. The really odd thing? They're still in business! A story at the Montreal Gazette about the scam is six weeks old. Now what's in it for the content industry to beat up private citizens with $220,000 judgements or scrambling to get DeCSS sites shut down within hours, while corporate scammers openly sell pirate DVDs for months on end, unopposed?"

----------

Its astonishing that REAL large-scale "pirates" like TvBoxSet get away with barely a glance from groups like the RIAA/MPAA, but p2p users are targets.

Jammie's going to appeal! Yeah!

Minnesota woman to appeal $220,000 RIAA award

The fun never stops.

It's no surprise I'm pessimistic about her chances.

Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) announces he is free of the record labels now. His output from here on out is his, to release as he sees fit. I guess that's another nine inch nail in the music cartel's coffin.

http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/49998583

Warning: his previous albums are of course still RIAA poison. Buy them used if you must or stay away entirely. I don't even like NIN, but I applaud the move nevertheless. I guess this is no surprise after last month in Australia he urged fans to steal his latest album, due to the fact that the record company refused to sell it at a reasonable price. See:

http://adzukipod.blogspot.com/2007/09/nine-inch-nails-day-world-went-away-oh.html

File Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints! It's happening at Brown. And Hah-vahd University.

from the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/education/10students.html?ref=business

good article; well worth the reading

http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca/Radiohead++In+Rainbows/Music/Reviews/ContentPostingReviews.aspx?isfa=1&newsitemid=50107d81-7055-4738-84f3-76ea092890a3&feedname=MusicReviews&show=False&number=5&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc

I think the most interesting thing about this article is the following:

According to pre-orders, the average fan is paying the average retail price — a social and economic phenomenon no doubt exclusive to a band of Radiohead's caliber. Could you imagine if a Britney or even a Maroon 5 attempted the same stunt

Dissatisfaction with Windows Vista seems to be swelling with the Dutch Consumers' Union (Consumentenbond) asking Microsoft to supply unhappy Vista users with a free copy of Windows XP. Not surprisingly, Microsoft refused. This prompted Consumentenbond to advise consumers to ask for XP, rather than Vista, when buying a new computer."

EA denys DRM problems with Sims 2

Fan responses are cold.

A number of people reported what appeared to be flying mechanical insects, larger than dragonflies, over an antiwar rally in Washington DC last month.

Spooky?

Fox News hires Carly Fiorina

demon to work for devil

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2007/10/13/keen.interview.cnn?iref=videosearch

An interview with Andrew Keen, author of 'The Cult of the Amateur,' who says in his opening statement: "The way we're using these publishing tools on the Internet is undermining credible information and high quality entertainment... my argument is that to have a viable media, reliable information, high quality entertainment, it needs to be created by professionals, and it needs to be mediated by professional gatekeepers - editors, fact checkers, publishers."

And later goes on to say "Firstly I think that people have to understand that free culture is generally bad culture... free media is bad media..."

translation: I love being controlled by big corporations, and being spoon-fed information without questioning it at all. Long live the bloated media machine!

Honda is launching a promotional campaign that will tie its Civic model to dozens of songs and music videos being released during the fourth quarter by Sony

...so, be sure to NOT buy a Civic this year.

Andrew Keen is a prick.

Rhapsody and TiVo digital deal.

Andrew Keen is a SHILL for the enemy.

That "interview" with Andrew Keen by CNN (a corporation owned by Time Warner) was pure propaganda kool-aid BS direct from the true enemy of our culture!

MAKE NO MISTAKE!

(Thanks for the link Motomasa!)

Mr. Keen's interview can be watched free on the CNN website. It is therefore, by his own reasoning, virtually worthless.

As a personal aside, the fact that Snowball the cockatoo dancing on YouTube is more entertaining than most of the sitcoms (made by "professionals"!) playing on network TV is proof enough that his conclusions are askew.

I was also thinking - it's interesting how he dismisses YouTube, but there are programs on TV that take advantage of similar videos all over the world. But I suppose Keen would argue that "America's Funniest Home Videos" makes the videos funny by adding the looney-tunes sound fx, and filtering through "professional gatekeepers" - suddenly the worthless material of YouTube is "high-quality entertainment."

If he really thinks all these BS reality-TV shows are "high-quality entertainment" he really does have a problem.

"Mr. Keen's interview can be watched free on the CNN website. It is therefore, by his own reasoning, virtually worthless."

[i]Does that f**Kwad even deserve the title of "Mr." ...?

I am SO pissed off at the tone and attitude (and the subliminal underlying "deep meaning" ) of his diatribe...

Gah...
---------------------------

Aw, fuggit.

I shouldn't expect no LESS from an evil company (Time-Warner)

There is NOT a channel that ANY of us are able to watch on the BOOB tube that isn't DIRECTLY tied to the enemy.

-----------------------------\

Thankfully we have the INTERNET (for a while)

Appeal.

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/10/copyright

"The industry has refused to divulge how much it loses per download,......."

Because it's near zero?
What about the money the industry MAKES because someone hears a free sample and decides to buy the CD?

Jammie is appealing. But only the amount.

BOOO!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071015-appeal-in-riaa-case-to-focus-on-unconstitutionally-excessive-punishment.html

Jammie's decision to push for a jury trial had a bad odor to it from the start (NOT a strong case, to go along with not a strong lawyer). As been said previously, this whole thing did NOT work to an advantage for the common people.
It's a win for the cartel in at least two respects.
One of them is that it could lead to discouragement for others to ask for a jury trial, EVEN IN INSTANCES WHERE THEIR CASE WOULD BE STRONGER THAN JAMMIE'S (which means a considerable number of them, b.t.w.)

The whole thing REEKS!

She had no logical business going to a trial jury. (I'm saying that on the ASSUMPTION that she intended to try to win in the first place.)
Was it a possible set-up as some have surmised? We'll likely never know whether it was or not; I'll keep my mind open on that issue.
But the bottom line is that the RIAA came out of this pivotal case with a big win in their pocket. I'm almost inclined to refer to it as a type of precedent (in the sense of it working as a kind of discouragement for others). Disagree with me if you wish about that, but please give a reason.

After the verdict was rendered, leflaw had mentioned he expected an appeal for a possible overturning of the decision. I respectfully disagree.

Another piece of victory for the RIAA is the notion that availability constitutes infringement -- this was a major part of the decision, in my opinion. And if Jammie's side is not challenging anything on appeal but the amount of the fine), well, then, there you go!

The cartel is clever: arranging for pre-trial settlements in instances where a strong case could hurt them in front of a jury, and then, like Jammie's situation likely shows, salivating at the prospect of this type of easy case that was handed to them on a platter, tailor-made for the kind of case they relished to go to a jury trial for the first time.
(Again, just my considered opinion. If you disagree, kindly offer a reason; that's all I ask.)

Icing on the cake for the RIAA: PR value. Note that Pres. Bush had made mention of this case as a victory demonstrating how intellectual property rights need to be upheld.
For the man on the street, a likely simplistic reaction is that somebody who was file sharing lost in court.
That's a deterrent.

All of what I've written about the outcome of this case (in my posts) holds more weight than the prospect of people feeling sorry for someone who was found guilty of file-sharing and had to pay a humongous fine.

Pessimistic viewpoints? No, realistic.

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13676

I have nothing really to say

Wow....this is a sad day

Clarification: by "deterrent", I meant this outcome could tend to deter those sued by the RIAA from seeking a trial by jury, even if they have a better case than Jammie).

Very bad outcome. I cannot help but wonder HOW the decision was made to take her weak case to a jury. And, further, why the attorney didn't pursue some of the things he could have.
And then, even after they lost, why he doesn't appeal on the basis of several key points (including, but not limited to, what the RIAA told the judge and how the judge instructed the jury). . . not just file for reduction of the fine.

GAHHHH-H-H-H-H-H-H-H!!!
[exasperated moan . . . mutter, mutter]

Bill Evans ("thumbtack") dead???

CRAP!
What a rotten day!!

(I think I'll go somewhere and groan myself to sleep.)

Back to the news . . .
Is net neutrality in danger?

Comcast Blocks Some Filesharing Traffic

Oct 19, 3:58 PM (ET)
By PETER SVENSSON

NEW YORK (AP) - Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.

The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.
..........................................................

If they would just filter out the RIAA music passing around the internets, that would be a feather in our cap, no?

Yes, if only they would do that ...

it should make the RIAA happy, no?

(We're quite sure it would make our side happy.)

IFPI Domain Dispute Likely to Go To Court

"Ars Technica has a follow-up on the ifpi.com domain takeover by The Pirate Bay. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, ifpi.org, is quite unhappy that the .com is now a link to the (still not live) International Federation of Pirates Interests. The ifpi.com domain has been free as soon as March of this year, according to WebArchive. Nevertheless, the "real" IFPI wants to take it to the WIPO under the accusation of cybersquatting."

Provider of Free Public Domain Music Shuts Down

The International Music Score Library Project has provided access to copies of many musical scores that are in the public domain. It has just been shut down due to a cease-and-desist letter sent to the site operator by a European Union music publisher (Universal Edition). A majority of the scores recently available at IMSLP were in the public domain worldwide. Other scores were not in the public domain in the United States or the EU (where copyright extends for 70 years after the composer's death), but were legal in Canada (where the site is hosted) and many other countries. The site's maintainers clearly labeled the copyright status of such scores and warned users to follow their respective country's copyright law. Apparently this wasn't enough for Universal Edition, who found it necessary to protect the interests of their (long-dead) composers and shut down a site that has proved useful to many students, professors, and other musicians worldwide."

Sex Pistols fans snub downloads

vinyl's not dead

Star pianist skeptical of pop tactics

Chinese pianist Li Yundi says he's skeptical of treating classical musicians as pop idols — but conceded mainstream marketing tactics may help promote classical music to a broader audience.

Travis admit stealing music from Oasis

Travis have admitted taking the chords from Oasis's "Wonderwall" to use in their 1999 single "Writing To Reach You."

AT&T to deliver Napster songs directly to phones

Broadband Regulation Needed to Improve Access

Competition may not fix problems with broadband speed and cost in the U.S., because of the high cost of entry into the market, the leader of a technology think tank said Friday

Zero-Day Vulnerability Threatens RealPlayer Users

For those using Microsoft Internet Explorer, visiting a malicious Web page could result in a compromised computer.

Regarding: "BROADBAND REGULATION NEEDED . . .

"Some speakers complained that U.S. residents get lower speeds for higher prices than many residents of Europe and the Far East."


Yes, that should deserves to be a significant issue until consumers get some relief. For example, Comcast charges its customers around $53 per month in states with relatively low costs of living just for internet access even near metropolitan areas! Granted, those are suburban places where DSL isn't yet available, but still . . . that's unnecessarily expensive.
It's a principle that corporations, especially those who have little competition, charge as much as they feel they can get away with and still hold on to enough customers.
I mean, the only thing people can do about reacting to Comcast in the above example is to resort to dial-up. But it's tempting, at only around $12 a month for some dial-up companies.
Too much disparity between high-speed internet access and the alternative.

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1007awsi/

Editorial in Stereophile describes an unwitting blind listening test between 24 bit hi-rez digital, CD Audio quality, 320kpbs MP3, and the more pedestrian 192kbps. Conclusion? As the bit depth and bitrate dropped, the soundstage and sweetness of the music collapsed. MP3 sounds like crap:

"Okay, this was getting silly. Why hadn't I noticed that coarse quality in the upper midrange before? And the strings are just shrill and grainy. This really is a poor recording."

We need high-resolution audio, not MP3 schmutz.

good post!

I mean, it's nothing short of amazing how many clueless schmutzes there ARE among the fabric of our music-listening society.

Free Music Now! Lala.com's Plan to Give Songs Away Could Upend the Industry

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-11/ff_lala

I don't know whether this is good or bad. At least you can sample the whole album before buying. What's bad is that lala.com will feed the cartel by paying them to stream the album cuts -- to the tune of $160 million in the first two years, according to the article. Seems excessive to me. Still, I've traded a few CDs on lala.com, and I like the service, for the most part. You can't get what you want when you want it that way, but you can pick up some of what you want some of the time, and get rid of discs you don't want.

If lala.com is giving the RIAA labels money, (instead of direct to the artists) then I will NOT ever be using it.

So, stick your fingers in your ears and say "lalalalala"

The RIAA will make no money from trading CDs on lala.com. It is the equivalent of a cheap used CD store, but you have to trade in a CD to get a CD. The turnaround costs $1.75. How will they make money? Probably little or nothing on trading, I believe. If they make anything, it is on volume, volume, volume.

Regarding the Stereophile article...

It really is amazing what is considered acceptable to the general listening audience. There truly is little to no "high fidelity" any more - everyone is happy listening to artifact-filled mp3 audio. It amazes me because for me, even MD was pretty awful (data is compressed 5:1 - about the same as a 320kbps MP3). Good for general recording, but nothing that really required fidelity.

I know from many artists' perspectives, it makes them wonder what all the work of putting together a nice clean recording and mix is if it's going to be crunched down to 128kbps? And then people listen to those tracks with EC-3's!

The problem is that people will opt for convenience over quality every time. It's convenient to compress the tracks so the listening device can hold more of them, and the decrease in audio fidelity is considered a fair tradeoff. Of course, most people's overly-colourful home systems make everything "pleasant" so they don't notice... (and most of them don't care)

Most of them don't care because they aren't really listening anyway. Music is background for something else.

Italy to pass a law restricting bloggers?

There are forces here in the US who would like to do the same.

Project Gutenberg to host all it legally can of the IMSLP's catalog.

The Canadian provider of free public domain music recently caved to legal threats from an Austrian sheet music seller. On the Book People mailing list, Project Gutenberg's founder Michael Hart wrote: 'Project Gutenberg has volunteered to keep as much of the IMSL Project online as is legally possible, including a few of the items that were demanded to be withdrawn, as well as, when legal, to provide a backup of the entire site, for when the legalities have finally been worked out.

FTC to look into P2P networks because of the threat to national security they impose.

Instructing workers not to put classified documents in their shared folder deemed too logical...

Fox anchors spread fears of al Qaeda link to California fires

http://www.truthnews.us/?p=462

The following video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast on October 23, 2007.
http://www.rawprint.com/media/2007/0...m_0710024b.flv

"If this doesn't PROVE TO YOU THAT FOX NEWS IS CONTROLLED AND MANUFACTURES NEWS THEN YOU ARE HOPELESSLY LOST IN LA LA LAND, THESE LIES TRYING TO EVEN SUGGEST AL-BULLSHIT-DUH HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE CA FIRES IS THE SAME EXACT PROPAGANDA YOU STUPID SHEEP BELIEVED FOR THE LAST 6 YEARS FROM FOX AND OTHER MSM ABOUT THE GOVT 9/11 COMMISSION EXPLANATION ABOUT 9/11!

9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB"
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?s=f7da013c1eadb78aba729e7ffecee925&t=5235883

Friends don't let friends buy Vista.

"Radiohead's Web-Only Album May Have Gone Platinum"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,305159,00.html

"Friends don't let friends buy Vista."

Agreed.

A search for "how to bypass Comcast" on google.com yields 34,000 results.

http://www.techliberation.com/archives/042949.php

"One question that has been repeatedly raised in regards the the Comcast-BitTorrent affair is why wasn’t Comcast more open about what it was doing? Comcast’s response — supported by Richard Bennett in our recent podcast — is that more transparency would make it too easy to bypass the system."

Oh, yeah, it's gonna get bypassed; you can just sense the groundswell of the impetus to expect that.
And then, well, it's the cat's turn again.

"Let's Go Crazy" Baby story back in the news again at ABC News.

Mom is suing Universal for YouTube vid removal.

Electronic Consumers Association (ECA) has picked its first legal fight since vowing to step up lobbying efforts.

The organization is going head-to-head with the Electronic Software Association (ESA), a long-time backer of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), by coming out in favor of H.R. 1201 (also known as the Fair Use Act of 2007).

Internet Tax held off for 7 more years.

(*whew*)

...but not made permanent yet.

Internet growing too fast? Crisis approaching?

Bands find video games a ticket to fame

Defective By Design wants you to tell Netflix NO DRM!!!

Judge Holds RIAA Evidence Insufficient in Rochester, NY, default judgment case, Atlantic v. Dangler; No ID; No details...No Judgment

...and other news from Ray Beckerman's blog.

Master guitar-maker Arcangel Fernandez has stopped taking orders. He's getting old and has a backlog of orders large enough to last him the rest of his life.

China song-writers decry "unhealthy" pop tunes

A group of conservative Chinese songwriters has denounced the emergence of "vulgar" pop music on the Internet which they say is poisoning youth with weird lyrics and lustful themes.

Seagate pays out over gigabyte definition

Seagate Technology, the world's largest hard-drive maker, is offering customers a five percent refund on drives bought during the last six years following a lawsuit over the definition of a "gigabyte". As an alternative, customers can choose to receive free backup software.

Democratic Lawmaker Pushing Immunity Is Newly Flush With Telco Cash

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) is reportedly steering the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee to give retroactive immunity to telecoms that helped the government secretly spy on Americans.

---------
Best government money can buy!

Most Americans are either foolish or uncaring about preserving what's left of our representative government. Otherwise, there would have already been a grass-roots demand for an end to lobbying contributions which influence the laws that govern us.

Oh no! Now even the British army has been enslaved by the RIAA!

Woodstock museum opens despite blocked government funding.

McCain was "tied up" during the original festival, but says it was a significant cultural event.

Put on your tin-foil hat!

10 ways to avoid Big Brother.

Low tide in October for album sales

For labels and music retailers, the Billboard 200 brings a scarier sight than any ghost, goblin or witch you might encounter on Halloween: a No. 1 album in October with a sales week of less than 100,000 copies.

Listen to a few of Frank's words... (other than just the "titties and beer" part LOL)

(listen">http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/frank+zappa/video/x1ssxd_frank-zappa-titties-and-beer_music">(listen !)

"WHEEE!"

(Said the snail on the turtle's back.)