There’s an interesting opinion piece on the Guardian website that is calling a deal between ISPs and major record labels a “suicide note from the music industry”. The deal is that ISPs and record labels will spy on people using filesharing networks for illegal music downloads and then restrict their access to the Internet as a result.
The move is a real threat to user privacy and can only be construed as a bad thing for the UK. ISPs and record labels now have the power to screw with people’s Internet access as and when they feel like it.
They claim that the move will only allow them to tamper with the connection of people violating copyright laws. It’s unclear what sort of an impact this will have on filesharing in the UK, but if your Internet connection suddenly drops off or cuts out, now you know why.
The UK’s biggest-selling artist this year, Duffy, has said that she doesn’t care about filesharing and people getting their music downloads illegally. Obviously being the UK’s biggest-selling artist she doesn’t have to worry too much about making money, but she did say that she thinks kids will buy more records as they get older and have more money. We doubt that.
Surely if pop stars such as Duffy say they don’t care about filesharing then people, kids and adults, are sent out a clear message that filesharing is OK. By extension, this would mean that they probably wouldn’t buy more records as they got older.
While it is always interesting when stars come out in support of filesharing, it’s usually more effective if they can give good reasoning for their support of people sharing free music. Duffy doesn’t appear to have put much thought into her off-the-cuff comments about free music downloads and filesharing.
While the UK government has announced a public consultation on the matter of filesharing, it’s unclear how much impact public opinion will have on the matter. Adding fuel to the fire, the UK government recently announced a target to reduce illegal filesharing by 80% by the year 2011.
This secret target was revealed in a leaked letter written by Business Minister Baroness Vadera.
The number of people illegally filesharing in the UK is estimated at about six or seven million. Key to curbing this trend, as Vadera says, are effective “letter writing, awareness raising and other measures.”
The letter writing refers to the letters Virgin has been sending to subscribers warning them of the perils of filesharing. Whether writing millions of letters would be enough to cut illegal filesharing by 80% remains to be seen.
The government has requested that the UK’s top six ISPs send out 1,000 letters a week to subscribers suspected of surfing for illegal music downloads.
Filesharing in the UK has hit something of a stumbling block, with the government, ISPs and record labels seemingly doing everything in their power to deter UK people from using filesharing services. OiNk was raided and Virgin started sending letters to its subscribers, but now the general public is to be given its say.
The government has set up a public consultation on the issue of filesharing to find out what people think about the matter. Some have been very supportive of the crackdown on filesharing and copyright infringement, while others have been critical of the heavy-handed approach that is edging towards the US system whereby people are sued for using filesharing services.
The UK government basically wants to know what the public thinks about filesharing. Perhaps they should have thrown this one out there a couple of years back. Hot topics include how far ISPs should go in the battle against piracy and whether filesharing traffic should be restricted.
Unfortunately I try and find the easy way to get something done. What I should be looking for is the ’smart way’, not the hard way, and certainly not the shortcut. Signing up for the Carbon Copy Pro marketing system was far from smart or hard.
The thing is I’d seen the success that so many people had enjoyed with the Wealth Masters International business opportunity. I thought I would try and shortcut the who procedure and enjoy the benefits that Carbon Copy Pro offered.
Unfortunately it simply didn’t work as it was advertised. Rather than running on auto-pilot, I ended up learning how to generate leads and calling my own leads. Carbon Copy Pro did provide a little training on how to advertise, but this is not what I signed up for.
Carbon Copy Pro is often mistaken (by people that don’t do enough research, like me) as a business opportunity in its own right. It is also often seen as a shortcut to the successes of Wealth Masters International business opportunity. It is neither, and only true, dogged hard work on the true business opportunity can bring the results we all want. There are no shortcuts and no easy ways out. Work Smart, not hard, and not lazily.
News about Comcast just keeps on popping up. This time, the firm Gilbert Randolph has announced that it has filed a nationwide lawsuit against Comcast for falsely advertising its Internet service. Just when Comcast was looking to get itself back on track, this happens.
The case alleges that Robert Topolski tried to use a filesharing service and found that Comcast blocked his access, which goes against Comcast’s claim of offering “unfettered access”.
It’s alleged that Comcast kept its users from accessing filesharing services when it explicitly said it would not. People are apparently still very upset with Comcast. This whole case is a bit nuts. Why don’t these people just ask for refunds? What great justice are they going to achieve?
The issue here seems to be that people are going after compensation, or, more to the point, trying to make Comcast look bad. We’re not siding with Comcast, but we’ve seen enough of these headlines for the time being. From what we can tell, Comcast has changed its service and now grants full access to filesharing networks. What more do people want? Heads on plates?
If you want iPhone musicdownloads then, traditionally, you’d have choices. You can either pay through the nose for individual downloads from a service like iTunes, or you can grab your iPhone music from torrents and other music services.
But there is another way: subscription based iPhone music download services over a convenient middle ground. You don’t pay by track so you are not going to pay the earth for downloading 100 albums. Also you’re not forced to use torrents if you don’t want. A happy middle ground? Perhaps yes.
But these services, as with any others, need to be carefully selected before you commit any of your hard earned cash to them. Things to check include the library of iPhone music that is available, the download speeds (the best catalogue in the world is useless if it takes over a week to download one album), the customer care and after-sales support, and a safe download environment.
The best way to check the deal that you’re going to get is to get a free trial of the service that you’re looking it. If the service doesn’t provide a free trial then consider moving on unless you’ve got very good reason to make you believe that the service will deliver.
I recently decided to change the version of Ares that I was using (Ares Galaxy) to something a little more, well, useful. Ares Galaxy has been a wonderful servant over the years but it is just at the end of the road. Some of the newcomers are looking really good (Ares Vista seems to solve a lot of problems that Ares Galaxy have complained about for quite some time). Others don’t look so good. I wanted a free Ares download. Given these criteria, what should I do?
Well, research should always be first. Fortunately those awfully decent chaps and chapettes at OfficialAres.com have done most of my research for me. They’ve compares and contrasted most of the ‘big name’ versions of Ares and set out each of the pros and cons related to them. Choosing a free Ares download can be a difficult task at the best of times, but with versions like ‘Ares Destiny’ out there (difficult to use and full of spyware), it’s vitally important to make the right choice.
So what did I choose for my free Ares download in the end? I went with Ares Ultimate, the right choice of power and flexibility, I think. I’m really pleased with my decision (finally) to go for another free Ares download.
A Malaysian site offering music downloads is closing its doors after poor sales have exposed the business model as a failure. TM Net’s Bluehyppo music-download service has an announcement up at the moment outlining that the service has suspended its operations.
The word going around is that the service has only been selling about 40 music downloads a month since its launch in September 2006. That’s nowhere near enough to justify keeping the music-download service going.
Apparently, to be viable, a website offering music downloads needs to shift about 50,000 music downloads a month, leaving Bluehyppo about 50,000 short.
With music downloads still booming, its puzzling why a service with the back of TM Net, a subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia Bhd, can’t make a go of such a service. Maybe Malaysians just aren’t into legal music downloads like the rest of the world.
Bluehyppo offered tracks by international artists, but that wasn’t enough to inspire people to buy any music downloads. A shame.
T-Mobile’s Sidekick has been causing something of a stir in the UK. The new version of the mobile device, the T-Mobile Sidekick 2008, is in the pipeline with features including, among others, Bluetooth functionality for filesharing.
Filesharing and mobile technology haven’t exactly gone hand in hand, but it looks as if T-Mobile is stepping the game up. With or without filesharing functionality, the Sidekick 2008 is an amazing piece of kit, with a 2 megapixel camera, 2.6-inch screen and a bunch of other features.
The Sidekick looks kind of like a Blackberry, with a slide-up screen. With all the hype surrounding the iPhone 3G, which also has filesharing capabilities, is this really the best time to make an announcement about a new mobile device? The T-Mobile Sidekick 2008 is cool and all, but it ain’t no iPhone.
Still no word on how much the T-Mobile Sidekick 2008 will be on the market for when it does eventually come out.