The trade body that represents digital music retailers has come out and said that record labels should abandon DRM restrictions on music downloads. DRM causes confusion and uncertainty among consumers, said the report.

ERA Digital came up with a plan to address the matter of digital music download sales, including the idea of commercial filesharing as opposed to forcing ISPs to rat out their own clients.

The British government has consistently warned ISPs that if they cannot come up with a means of dealing with filesharing, then the government will force legislation upon them.

ERA Digital thinks that rather than working against changes in music, record labels should work with the flow and attempt to exploit the systems that are already in place. At the moment, record labels are haphazardly lashing out at anyone within reach in the never-ending battle against filesharing.

Sometimes admitting to oneself that ‘out there’ concepts like the Law of Attraction – the idea that each thought has its own resonant frequency and that by harnessing this vibration we can influence tangible and intangible things around us – are real is a difficult process. This is where movies like The Awakening come in.

The Awakening DVD movie describes that moment – an epiphany, if you like – when we realize that we really can change things just by thinking in a positive way. This moment of clarity is our own personal awakening.

In an earlier movie the Secret, the subject of which is similar to that in the Awakening, we were told that the secret (which is the Law of Attraction) is that “we are all equally as powerful and worthy as anyone else.” This is a very powerful idea and one of which can be used to improve your life in so many ways, why not experience your own Awakening?

Great news for pretty much everyone in Europe. The European Parliament has dismissed a move by the entertainment industry to make filesharing illegal. Copyright abusers will also live to fight another day, as a move to ban them from the Internet was rejected.

It was a close call though, with 314 MEPs voting to scrap the ideas compared with 297 anti-filesharing MEPs on the rampage.

The news is said to be proof that MEPs want to take the interests of rights holders and consumers and find a balance between the two. What this means is that anti-filesharig methods like cutting off Internet connections will not be enforced in Europe – yet.

This should go some way to stopping France implementing such a policy against filesharing. The big four record labels called the move ill-though out and will continue to wage their war against illegal music downloads.

The three-strikes rule will have to wait a little while longer.

Mobile music downloads may seem like the next big thing, but according to a recent survey, most people don’t really care about mobile MP3 downloads.

The Jupiter research study found that disinterest and unnecessary hurdles have led to people being less than excited about mobile music downloads. Of 1800 people surveyed, 66% said that there was nothing phone carriers could do to make them want to download music to their cellphones.

Just 28% said they were interested in ringtone downloads and only 14% said they wanted to download music to their phones. This obviously won’t stop phone carriers and record labels from pushing ahead with the sale of mobile music downloads, but it makes for interesting reading to think that people might not care.

The price of mobile downloads was cited as the main reason for shunning the technology. Other problems included how difficult it is to download music to a phone.

A home based business is the answer to many peoples’ problems; setting your own hours and being your own boss can help with many of life’s problems. So when Matt and Stacy’s home based business needed employees they decided to employ them on this basis: all staff work from home and are part time. While this kind of setup requires close monitoring and strong communication, the Williams think that their happy staff and more motivated and harder working than would otherwise be the case.

While a home based business may not be to everyone’s tastes – you need to be highly motivated and strong enough to resist the many distractions that will no doubt present themselves – it can be a wonderful chance to spend more time at home and with family. This togetherness is what has pleased Matt and Stacy most about their home based business: “We’ve discovered that, in a lot of ways, we’re very ‘yin/yang’ — where one of us is weak, the other is strong. So we balance each other out well.”

Apple is finally venturing into Europe with its enigmatic iPhone apps that can be downloaded gadget wizardry. It is also getting ready to launch its new iPod nano to download on an unsuspecting public, if pictures recently posted on the web are anything to go by.

And maybe they are, because Apple’s legal team quickly got on their collective iPhone music downloads and the images were just as swiftly taken away. So twin surprises for Europe and the US; it seems that Apple want to give its loyal customers everywhere something to be very happy about.

It will be interesting to see how Apple approaches the fairly advanced European telephony market. It cannot afford to price the iPhone downloads too high because of fierce competition – too low and it would create an awkward situation for US buyers. The strong Euro and Pound will complicate matters. Apparently carriers have been chosen and Apple will work with these as it did in the US. Interesting times.

The world’s biggest online retailer of indie music, and the second-largest online retailer behind only iTunes, has announced that sales have surpassed the 200 million mark.

eMusic established its current subscription model in 2003. These 200 million music downloads were sold in the US and the EU. eMusic sells up to about seven million legal music downloads a month.

“Fiery Crash” by Andrew Bird was the 200-millionth music download on eMusic. We have no idea who Andrew Bird is.

eMusic continues to do a good job of satisfying its customers and is one of the more reputable download services out there. The company has sold 100 million music downloads since December 2006 — and the numbers look set to keep on increasing. Indie labels are given a place to sell their music and reach a massive audience that they would other find more difficult to reach.

Social networking website imeem recently bought Snocap Inc, a firm that digitally tracks content and was founded by Napster guru Shawn Fanning.

No reports about how much imeem paid for Snocap have been revealed. Snocap pioneered a system of digital fingerprinting, which provides technology to find unauthorized music that has been uploaded to any website that utilizes the service.

MySpace, which recently launched an all-new service for music downloads, among other things, already uses the service to allow its users to legally sell music downloads through MySpace web pages.

The Snocap technology that powers MySpace’s digital tracking will continue to be run be imeem. This news shouldn’t have any real impact on music downloads on the consumer side as it is really just a business deal.

Snocap was founded in 2002 and has been used by MySpace since 2006. In 2007, imeem annouced a partnership with Snocap.

A proposed Internet tax put forward by Sacramento, California Assemblyman Charles Calderon would cover music downloads from the likes of iTunes and other music-download websites, as well as pornography downloads, a report has revealed.

The move would raise the price of downloads from iTunes to help cover the state government’s $8 billion shortfall. Apparently we should all be taxed for music downloads, videos and and so on.

As expected, users of iTunes and other download sites are strongly against the idea, citing that the $0.99 iTunes charges now is already enough. With filesharing being outlawed, it makes little sense for the government to go out of its way to turn people away from legitimate sources of legal music downloads.

The tax wouldn’t directly affect music downloads, but rather, it would update a 75-year-old law that allows sales-tax collections on tangible personal property, which at the moment doesn’t include music downloads.

Music downloads on iTunes would shoot up to about $1.08.

Taking the whole family on vacation can often be an expensive business; with hotels and resorts charging on a by-person basis the cost can often rack up pretty quickly. This is where membership opportunities like Global Resorts Network really come into their own. For a one time upfront membership fee members get a choice of resorts, timeshares and other vacation spots around the world for which they pay a heavily discounted fee. What is more is that the cost to the member is based on the overall cost of the accommodation, so the room, resort or timeshare can accommodate your entire family at no additional cost.

Global Resorts Network – part of the Gold Crown Resorts group – buys up excess inventory from vacation spots around the world. The group’s buying power and the fact that it buys these spots wholesale mean that they come with significant discounts. It is these that discounts that are passed onto the Global Resorts Network members.

Interestingly the Global Resorts Network memberships are sold by members to members. Those involved in the home business opportunity side of things act as independent distributors for the product, earning up to $1000 for each membership sold. Not only can you get a great vacation but you can earn money while you’re doing it!