Official Ares Free Download

Paul McGuinness, the outspoken manager of U2, has come out with a rant on the filesharing debate that makes quite possibly the most sense we have heard for months. Rather than pushing the blame for filesharing onto unsuspecting students and people who enjoy music, McGuinness has put the blame squarely on the music industry and ISPs.

Opponents of the RIAA’s stance on filesharing have long cited that the music industry’s late attempts to deal with the issue have been a major source of the problem. How could the RIAA possibly attempt to stop a juggernaut traveling at 100km/h by scattering a few Lego bricks in its path?

Filesharing is not something that can be sopped with million-dollar fines or rash lawsuits. Of course, McGuinness is not speaking out in favor of filesharing, but he is clearly aware that the people who use filesharing programs are not to blame for the problem and should not be targeted as a result.

“If you were a magazine advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door,” he said.

“That’s no different to an ISP,” he added.

If more people in influential positions started speaking in this way, it could be a revolution.

Proving that the guys at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are, in fact, completely nuts, people who use filesharing programs like Limewire and Ares could be fined $1.5 million for sharing one solitary compilation album. You think we’re kidding?

The theory behind the PRO-IP Act that the RIAA is pushing for is that each track on a compilation album represents an album. Therefore, if $150,000 an album is the going rate to be sued by the RIAA, a compilation album that contains tracks from 10 albums is obviously worth $1.5 million. When did filesharing become so comical?

We can just picture the forthcoming headlines of students being sued for millions of dollars for using filesharing programs. One lawyer called the bill the most “outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US”. We’re with that guy.

Where do we even begin with dissecting this news? The RIAA has become even more of a joke than it was before. Look at this way: remember that one great compilation tape you had as a kid that you made copies of for all your friends? Imagine if you were sued $1.5 million for making those tapes.

Filesharing does not justify million-dollar fines in any way.

There we were reporting about a new filesharing service offering free music downloads — and the whole thing turned out too good to be true. QTrax was supposed to be a totally free, ad-supported filesharing service that would have shaken up the filesharing community.

QTrax was all set to go live on January 28, offering 25 million free music downloads. We were all led to believe that that major record labels were behind the new filesharing service. A major spanner was thrown into the works when the big four record labels cam out and denied any involvement with QTrax.

Each of the major labels has issued a statement denying any form of deal with QTrax. What actually happened was that QTrax did at one time have contracts with the big four when the company was testing a paid-download service. The contracts expired and QTrax never had a deal to go ahead with the ambitious program of offering free music downloads with the filesharing service.

The launch of QTrax has been postponed “for a short time”, whatever that means. Basically, QTrax messed up big time. This was quite possibly the worst possible launch of a filesharing service in history.

What a shame.

Another day another filesharing service to consider. QTrax is a filesharing program with a difference. Offering free music downloads, QTrax has the blessing of major record labels. Through advertising space sold to pay the bills, QTrax gives users legal, free music.

The filesharing service is operating out of New York and launches today, January 26. QTrax was initially launched in the wake of Napster closing down. The original QTrax was shut down in 2002 after fears of legal prosecution loomed.

This new, revamped QTrax allows users to search through filesharing networks and download DRM-restricted songs. This means that copies of the free music downloads cannot be burned to CDs, although they can be used on multiple PCs and digital-music players.

QTrax offers, allegedly, 30 million free music downloads. By March, the songs should be playable on iPods. Users of QTrax can also check out music videos, song reviews and various other features.

The guys behind this filesharing service guarantee that files won’t be dangerous and fake, as you often find on Limewire. This is filesharing for people who don’t want to take risks, but it remains to be seen if QTrax will be able to compete with Limewire. Time for a little testing – we’ll report back on this one soon. Hopefully we’ll get some free music downloads in the meantime.

When we last checked, QTrax was in a beta and unavailable. “Please check back in 24 hours to download the first, free, and legal P2P music application.”

Go see if you can get yourself a copy now.

It seems that everybody is jumping on board with music downloads these days. The latest retail store to get involved is Target, the fifth largest retailer in the US. The store has launched a music-download service, following the footsteps of Wal-Mart.

Not to be outdone by its competitors taking advantage of the popularity of music downloads, Target has gone all out, offering… hold on… one album for download?

Yes, that’s right. Target’s breakthrough music-download store offers one John Legend LP, and it’s a live album at that.

You can buy the music download for $9.99, or else pick up the actual CD in stores for 5 bucks more. Well, they say all great things must start small.

Hopefully, Target will soon start adding to its library of music downloads. Let it be known that we aren’t huge John Legend fans.

It seems that you can buy music downloads from everywhere now. Starbucks, Wal-Mart, digital radio. Isn’t technology great?

A list of universities around the US that have been targeted by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for rogue students using P2P filesharing services like Omemo and Limewire has been released.

Top of the league of filesharing bandits is the University of Texas at Austin, which received 50 pre-litigation letters to students. Second on the list of filesharing offenders, believe it or not, is Virginia Tech, which received 36 letters from the RIAA.

This most recent crack down on illegal music downloads leaves no territory safe. Also big hitters in terms of filesharing are Arizona State University (33 letters) and the University of California, Berkeley (26 letters).

Students have a hard time when it comes to filesharing. It seems like a standard student activity, to be online chatting with buddies and downloading music, but alas, the world is not that perfect.

In the case of Virginia Tech, a spokesman said that any students caught out for filesharing must deal with the RIAA by themselves.

It seems like such a simple idea. We all know how popular interactive games like Guitar Hero have been recently. You can’t go round somebody’s house or walk through an arcade without a huge crowd gathered around someone pretending to be Bon Jovi. But what if there was a way to incorporate music downloads into these games? Well, it’s here. There are more ways to download music than just Napster and Limewire.

Offering music downloads was a logical step for music games with the advent of online play and easy access to the Internet. Rock Band, a music game made by MTV Networks, has so far sold more than 2.5 million music downloads to players of the game. You can buy and download songs as you play.

Guitar Player III has followed suit and so far sold more than 5 million music downloads. Not only are people able to play their favorite games, but they can now download songs to play in them. Most of these music downloads are bought by Xbox-360 users.

Gamers have been able to create their own soundtracks for a while now from their own music collections, but with more publishers looking at music downloads to games as a viable revenue stream, the trends looks set to continue.

Cliq might be just about the coolest thing we’ve seen this year so far. Normally when you listen to the radio, you have to keep your ears pricked to find out what you are going to need to type into your filesharing search function before you can download the song. With Cliq, you don’t even need to do that. The music downloads come straight to you!

If you’re listening to Cliq on your phone or DAB radio, you can download songs straight to your digital device. Major record labels are currently getting behind Cliq and the service is looking like it could take off.

It’s revolutionary. There is no radio station where you can listen to music and then download songs on the fly. We predict that there will be a lot of impulse buys.

At least with filesharing, when you download the songs you’re normally fairly sure that you want what you are downloading. With Cliq, you might hear a song, kind of like it, and then learn that it’s by the Backstreet Boys. The shame!

The music-download revolution takes another step.

Club Mosh sounds like a place to go and fight with long-haired rockers, but it’s actually a new website where people can go to listen to free music and download songs. Club Most was created by two Singaporean women who like to dance and listen to music.

The website is a place where music fans can meet bands, listen to their music for free and then download their songs. We like the idea. Club Mosh is currently in Beta. The site will launch with a live simulcast by a number of top Singaporean bands.

As well as music downloads, fans will be able to keep in touch with bands, chat with them and check out tour dates. There will also be lots of music forums.

There is a streaming radio show where you can listen to the current top 10 tunes for free. Their touting Club Mosh as “sort of like Facebook for music”.

Streaming music is free to listen to, but the music downloads will cost money, although not a lot, by the looks of things. Music will be about half the price it would be in stores. The site already has a list of top music downloads. Number one at the time of writing is Ladeda by Allura. We had a listen and it sounded all right.

To get to the music downloads you will need to register and log in. If you’ve ever wanted to check out and download Asian rock and indie music, this would be the place to do it. Lots of fun. Site could do with some better colors though.

Scottsdale man Jeffrey Howell, who is accused by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) of making 2,000 songs available for filesharing via Kazaa, has been going head to head with the RIAA.

Although he has no legal representation, Mr Howell has taken on the RIAA, claiming that he wasn’t filesharing and saying that people should have the right to download songs to their computers. It was initially reported that Mr Howell was being targeted not just for filesharing, but for downloading songs from his CD collection to his hard drive.

Mr Howell has taken the RIAA to issue over the RIAA’s theory that making files available for distribution is infringement of copyright. He might have no attorney, but he does have one supporter: the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief backing up Mr Howell and slating the RIAA. This has got people very excited because it goes directly against the RIAA’s “making available” stance. If Mr Howell achieves anything here, he might well make the future a lot brighter for those who choose to download songs using filesharing services like Limewire or Omemo.

Anything could happen in this case.