This isn’t for me, but my parents might be into it. It’s a CD carousel that holds up to 150 CDs. It plugs into your PC via USB and plays via iTunes or the jukebox software of your choice. It doesn’t rip them, but instead acts as a jukebox with your PC as the interface. Interesting, but I don’t get it. We’re guessing the RIAA is sending these out as Xmas bonuses this year. And for $130, we’d rather just rip it all to our iPods. → Read More
Usenet appears to be the MPAA’s next target. Not good. The MPAA has told Newzbin, a popular Usenet indexing service and creator of the NZB file format, that it’s hosting copyright-infringing material, material that needs to be removed post-haste. Never mind that NZB files themselves aren’t copyright-infringing (though I doubt the courts would make that distinction), but such is the world we live in. By the looks of it, Newzbin seems to be complying with the MPAA’s demands. It made a statement saying it doesn’t “condone” the posting of copyright-infringing material, and has hinted that it will remove such material and ban offending accounts. A few months ago, the RIAA targeted a prominent Usenet provider, so going after enablers like Newzbin was the next logical step. My advice? Leech off Usenet while you stile can. via TorrentFreak → Read More
Flickr’d You guys watch Revision 3, right? Diggnation, Tekzilla (my personal favorite), Totally Rad, etc. The company was DoS’d last week, and you’ll never guess who was responsible. Can you say MediaDefender, the same company the RIAA and MPAA employs to shut down illegal BitTorrent trackers? According to Rev3′s CEO Jim Louderback, the anti-BitTorrent company had been sending more than 8,000 SYN packets a second to Rev3′s servers, leading to the outage. Meanwhile, MediaDefender said it was only sending one packet every three hours. That’s quite a difference. It gets better! It seems MediaDefender had been up to no good vis-à-vis Rev3 for some time now. First, they [ArtistDirect's CEO and a MediaDefender vice president; MediaDefender is a subsidiary of ArtistDirect] willingly admitted to abusing Revision3’s network, over a period of months, by injecting a broad array of torrents into our tracking server. They were able to do this because we configured the server to track hashes only – to improve performance and stability. That, in turn, opened up a back door which allowed their networking experts to exploit its capabilities for their own personal profit. Louderback goes on: Although I can only guess, here’s what I think really happened. Media Defender was abusing one of Revision3’s servers for their own purposes – quite without our approval. When we closed off their backdoor access, MediaDefender’s servers freaked out, and went into attack mode – much like how a petulant toddler will throw an epic tantrum if you take away an ill-gotten Oreo. This is the part when we all say “boo!” to MediaDefender, and wish Rev3 the best of luck in the future. Speaking of Diggnation, they’re filming a live episode of the show here in New York next week. It’s in Brooklyn (Stuido B on Banker Street), and I imagine lots of the NYC “tech community” will be there. → Read More
As if music copyright laws weren’t mucky enough as they are, the Canadian government is reportedly working with other governments and industry groups, like the dreaded RIAA, to work out a trade agreement for digital downloads, called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Designed to combat counterfeit movies and albums, the law would allow customs officials to check laptops, cellphones, iPods and other digital devices at the borders of member nations for offending files. Depending on how it’s worded, if you were to rip your Cure CD to your iPod, the guards could theoretically seize it and fine you upon entry to the country. This is horrible in every way, and we’re with those who say that governments shouldn’t bow to thugs like the RIAA when it comes to international trade agreements. Welcome to the future, friends! → Read More
Dancing, shall we say, isn’t something I do. Oh sure, after a tremendous amount of booze, I may rock the generic Ibiza one-two step while at one of New York’s “clubs” (such as Mansion, where I’ll be this Saturday supporting up-and-coming DJ and producer Vincent Voltaire), but generally, no bailo. So imagine my trepidation upon being invited to an event, DNCHRD IV, unofficially billed as some sort of “technology-dance fusion” deal. Sounds like oil and water, right? Wouldn’t you know it, I enjoyed myself. That so rarely happens anymore. → Read More
Oops. Someone forgot to tell Hollywood bigwigs that DRM is dead, consumers don’t want it, and it doesn’t really work that well anyway. At a conference in LA this week, a member of the RIAA said that almost all digital distribution schemes they can think of use DRM. The problem with DRM is it locks you into an ecosystem that only works with the DRM your purchasing. And you can’t change your mind, as members of MSN music recently learned. When the record industry figures out a way to capitalize on music without crippling it, it will be profitable again. Also, we’ll buy more music. Also, we won’t feel a grudge about it. → Read More
I love it when people fight back against the RIAA. Their bullying tactics are getting old, and it seems the courts are realizing this. Last week a judge made it clear that making files available for download — seeding a file to a P2P network, for example — is not copyright infringement. There are other stories of people fighting back, and Atlantic vs. Boyer. Boyer’s attorneys are being awesome and countersuing the RIAA for a number of offenses, and it’s a juicy, lovely list. The counter-suit states that the RIAA’s wrongdoings include civil conspiracy (to commit extortion, illegal investigations, and computer fraud), computer fraud and abuse, trespass, deceptive and unfair trade practices, declaratory judgment, and abuse of process. Wow. Sadly, the judge dismissed the countersuit, though that’s surprising. Hopefully Boyer’s attorneys will think of something else to screw the RIAA right where it hurts. → Read More
This is bad for the RIAA, but good for file sharers. Yet another judge today disagreed with the RIAA’s assertion that making copyrighted works available — say, on a P2P network like BitTorrent — is not copyright infringement. This marks the second time the law has sided against the RIAA on this exact same issue. The judgment basically says, “leaving something out for someone to steal does not make them an accessory to theft,” and we agree. Will this stop the RIAA from continuing with its ridiculous lawsuits? No way. Other than counting all of its money that never goes to artists, it has nothing better to do. → Read More
As if you needed any more reason to distrust and dislike the RIAA, BusinessWeek has an article this week detailing one woman’s fight against the cartel and its tactics. Tanya Andersen, a 45-year-old single mother, was sued by the RIAA several years for illegally downloading a couple of songs. Only, you know, she didn’t download a damn thing (she claims). She hired a Seattle lawyer to help her out who then went on to expose the RIAA’s tactics: the screen name linked to her IP address—and we all know how easy it is to spoof an IP address, steal someone else’s Wi-Fi, and so on—was in use by some kid with a MySpace page wherein he described downloading the songs in questions. (Something tells me Andersen doesn’t listen to rap.) The RIAA was all like, “Well, the kid said he didn’t download the music and we believe him.” Inconsistent? Believe the kid but not Andersen? Long story short (seriously, read the whole article, it should take like five minutes), Andersen is now suing the record labels for their scare tactics under conspiracy laws. A fun, quick, Saturday afternoon read. Also, hating the RIAA is sport ’round these parts. → Read More
Get this. It turns out that various parts of the music industry are very, very greedy. I know, I was shocked too! The Music Business Group (the UK’s version of the RIAA, basically) is proposing that music creators and rights owners should be entitled to profits from anything that facilitates you ripping a CD to your computer — anything used for “format shifting,” as it’s being termed. → Read More
The Prez has Beatles songs on his iPod, showing he’s at least connected to the real world in some way. The problem is, iTunes still haven’t sold any Beatles songs, meaning he (or someone else) ripped them from a CD. The RIAA, governors of all things audio, say this is a big no-no, and not fair use. While the RIAA isn’t likely going to sue the Prez it further puts them in a bad light. The RIAA wants to use you like an ATM, and that’s not right. Keep in mind, it’s currently legal to rip songs from CDs you own, despite what the RIAA says, but if the RIAA gets its way in a future court case, the Prez would be breaking the law, and it could bring the inane argument the RIAA makes to the national stage. → Read More
Seven months after the RIAA requested the names of 11 OSU students accused of copyright infringement, the university is finally coughing them up in the face of further legal threats. The courts decided that there was no good reason the uni shouldn’t give the RIAA the names, so while OSU stalled as long as they could, they would now face contempt of court if they don’t follow through. The fun part is that now the RIAA has names, but doesn’t know which of them have hired attorneys, and cannot legally contact an accused person directly if that person has legal representation. It’s all very interesting to law students, but our take-away lesson is this: the RIAA has the money to make practically any organization capitulate given time, so change your name, grow a mustache, and move to Mumbai where you can enjoy your Shakira mp3s in peace. RIAA gets Does’ names after school threatened with contempt [Ars Technica, via Recording Industry vs. the People] → Read More
The IFPI (basically the worldwide RIAA) must have been riding high when it got Denmark’s Tele2 ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay. However, according to the Pirate Bay blog, traffic is up about 12 percent in Denmark thanks to all the media hoopla surrounding the Tele2 fiasco. From the blog, So what has happened in Denmark now the past days? Actually, the number of visits from Denmark has increased by 12% thanks to Ifpi. Our site http://thejesperbay.org is growing more because of the media attention than people actually coming to learn how to bypass the filter – our guess is that alot of the users on the site now run OpenDNS instead of the censoring DNS at Tele2.dk. We also started tracking some stats before and after the block. There’s no noticable difference between the number of users from Tele2.dk before and after. Let this be a lesson to the IFPI and the RIAA. Deftly quiet and nearly invisible ninjas work much better than law-talking guys in suits. Pirate Bay to IFPI: Danish ban has led to even more traffic [Ars Technica] → Read More
[photopress:peaceeee.jpg,full,center] Despite what U2′s manager original story titlesaid the other day, the RIAA doesn’t want ISPs to have to sniff your Internet connection for pirated content. It doesn’t want the government telling ISPs what to do, in other words. That said, the RIAA has no problem with what AT&T wants to do, to voluntarily filter your Internet connection in the name of piracy prevention. The RIAA would rather use the DMCA to bankrupt you all. RIAA chief: We don’t see a need for mandatory ISP filtering [Ars Technica] → Read More
[photopress:qtraxqs.jpg,full,center] There’s some controversy regarding the music industry’s latest band aid, Qtrax, which is touted as the world’s first free and legal P2P service. The idea is you’ll put up with a limited number of ads on the Qtrax Web site and that you’ll tolerate the software “phoning home,” giving the company information like play counts. The music download service is set to launch at midnight tonight (which is weird because its Web site said the same thing last night around 10pm—maybe they’ll keep that “available at midnight” button on there forever) and supposedly has all sorts of record label support. Supposedly. The first article I read about the service, from the UK Times, said that Qtrax had the full support of EMI, Universal and Warner. Yet articles have popped up since then refuting that claim. Warner says it has nothing to do with Qtrax. Same thing with EMI and Universal. Makes you wonder just how viable Qtrax is after all. → Read More
[photopress:ispsnext.jpg,full,center] It’s been how many years since the RIAA started suing individuals for illegally downloading music? Given that that particular tactic hasn’t convinced people to stop downloading, the industry is turning its attention to ISPs. The IFPI released its 2008 Digital Music report today and in it blamed ISPs for being complacent in their role in piracy. (Never mind that AT&T is looking to filter Internet connections.) The report tries to guilt-trip the ISPs by saying, “You know, these pirates are clogging up your network…” Same old nonsense, just with a new song and dance. Music Biz Pushes Piracy Blame To ISPs; Digital Sales Up 40 Percent [paidContent] → Read More
It was too cold to go outside just about everywhere in the country this weekend, so it appears that some enterprising Reddit users took the time to find a slow SQL query on the RIAA’s website and posted a link with the title “This links runs a slooow SQL query on the RIAA’s server. Don’t click it; that would be wrong.” → Read More
Use BitTorrent to, cough, illegally download music, movies, games and whatnot? If you do, you might want to watch this video, which explains how tracking agencies (the companies the **AA hire to track your downloads, often leading to a letter from your ISP saying you’ve been caught) do what they do. It’s fairly informative and will tide you over until the MacWorld three ring circus begins in a couple of hours. I do use PeerGuardian (well, SafePeer, to be exact) when I use Azureus, mainly for the illusion that I’m being protected. Who knows if it actually does anything. Video: How People Are Tracked Using BitTorrent [TorrentFreak] → Read More
[photopress:nonauxdrm.jpg,full,center] Sony BMG is dropping DRM. That makes it the last major record label to (at least partially) do so. The details of Sony BMG’s scheme aren’t finalized just yet, but it’s expected to begin with a promotion (teaming up with Pepsi) during the Super Bowl, beginning on February 3. Pepsi will give away some 1 billion songs during the promotion, some of which will be Justin Timberlake ones. (Timberlake is signed to Jive, which is owned by Sony BMG.) These songs will be DRM-free. And then the world will explode. Why, all of a sudden, is Sony BMG dropping DRM, especially when Sony itself has such a sterling record with copy protection? One reason could be the Amazon store. The label could want to wrest control of the digital download market from Apple and cooperate with a company, Amazon, that is more likely to play nice. (Where “play nice” means bending to its will as it relates to price and other variables.) It’s too easy and too early to say this will be a win for consumers because if it ends up giving Sony BMG carte blanche to sell songs for whatever prices it wants—I doubt Amazon will fight it too much given that it simply wants a piece of the digital music pie—we all could pay sky high prices for music again. For now, though, if it actually happens, kudos to Sony BMG. What matters now is what it does from here on out. Sony BMG Plans to Drop D [BusinessWeek] → Read More
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