In perhaps the most bizarre news to make music headlines for weeks, it was announced recently that iPods, cellphones and computer could soon be scanned at airports for illegal music downloads. Say what?!

The new measures are being considered by G8 governments, apparently. The discussion comes from a desire to stamp out piracy.

The big question is whether people who have illegal music downloads will be caught out at airports and, more to the point, what punishment they might face in such a scenario.

This news comes at the same time as the Euro Parliament is calling on ISPs to be held liable for Internet users who download copyrighted material.

They are really stepping up the pressure on illegal music downloads in Europe. There are no more details on exactly how this airport law would work, but it’s certainly not an idea that you could ever imagine being effectively enforced. After all, you have to think that most iPods have at least one pirated song on them.

Another new filesharing service under the spotlight this week. This time we’re taking a look at fileai.com, a new filesharing service that allows users to share files that are too big to transfer by email. Heard that before? Of course you have. These website are 10 a penny, so what makes fileai any different?

Well, there is no limit on the size of the files you can share and all uploaded files are encrypted for security. You upload content and then leave your browser open for other people to connect and download through the wonders of filesharing technology.

It’s all pretty standard, but actually, no files are stored on a server, so you can only transfer files when two parties are both online at the same time. We honestly can’t see any point in changing to this new filesharing service, but then again, we can’t see any reason not to check it out.

The filesharing website QuebecTorrent.com was shut down recently in the latest of a series of filesharing shutdowns around the world. The lockdown Quebec-based filesharing service is generally being viewed as a victory for the music and movie industries.

This news has a number of other filesharing websites worried that they could be next. Sebastien Brûlotte, the guy behind QuebecTorrent.com, said that while he will respect the ruling, he is concerned about the outdated approach to dealing with filesharing websites.

And so the ongoing debate between the music and movie industries and the filesharing communities rolls on. QuebecTorrent.com will no longer be allowed to facilitate the downloading of copyrighted music and films. It’s always sad to see another filesharing soldier go down, but there are so many more out there that from a consumer point of view, it doesn’t make all that much difference.

iPhone accessories do more for iPhone users than just ‘pimp up’ their gadget. A decent selection of iPhone accessories can really turn your iPhone into something much more useful. And let’s face it: the iPhone is pretty darn useful in its own right.

First on the list of useful iPhone accessories has to the Bose iPhone headset. The crystal clear quality of the music you get whilst listening to your favorite music surpasses anything any iPod can deliver. These are top notch iPhone accessories for owners who simply want the best.

Apple have been clever about the way they offer the iPhone accessories to gadget-hungry owners. As with anything that Apple does, the marketing has been thought out pretty carefully. An iPhone cover — one of the iPhone accessories that simply everyone will want to buy — comes as an optional extra. If you want to keep that screen in pristine condition then you’ll need one of these babies.

Some iPhone accessories are offered by Apple themselves while still more are offered by a whole host of independent designers and retailers. This huge variety is great news for users and for Apple: the iPhone’s value increases with every useful iPhone add on that appears on the market.

There’s an interesting article by Lucas Gonze this week that questions whether ad-supported music websites can survive. The basic premise is that streaming-audio music services such as iMeem can’t stay afloat given record labels current pricing demands.

The major record labels apparently demand one cent every time a song is played. To break even, the streaming-audio websites need to sell one ad for one penny per song played — something that is near impossible for any music website.

So that leaves a gaping hole where money is concerned and streaming-audio websites cannot even cover their bases and will certainly struggle to make a profit. A more feasible fee is one tenth of what major record labels are demanding, a fee that labels call unreasonable.

It seems as if streaming-audio websites have some way to go before they can be deemed as having successful business models and it doesn’t look as if record labels are going to give any slack.

The machinations of the RIAA continue. I love following this stuff; it’s better than any fiction novel that I’ve read recently. Stories of Grandmothers and toddlers getting charged by the RIAA and its minions simply defies belief. Yet there it is, in black and white on my computer screen. OfficialAres.com is my favorite site for this kind of news: it always has its finger on the pulse and the writers don’t take themselves (or their subject matter) too seriously. It often seems like they’re as surprised as I am by the stories they find themselves writing about.

OfficialAres is without doubt the best place to read if you’re going to download Ares, and that goes for those of us that have been in the game for a while as well as those looking to download Ares for the first time.

The reviews on the site are going to be of particular interest to anyone looking to download Ares as they are impartial and honest. If you’re going to put a version of Ares on your computer then my advice is to come here for first. This should be your first and last port of call if you intend to download Ares.

Definitely a site worth visiting.

Students are taking the filesharing bull by the horns, no doubt fed up with being sued by the RIAA for using filesharing networks to download free music.

Matt Earp and Andrew McDiarmid from the UC Berkeley School of Information have written their master’s thesis on filesharing, investigating how a monthly fee could work for a legal filesharing service.

The students have developed a model for how such a filesharing service would work. Amazing that it took students to really put forward some ideas that would solve the filesharing standoff with the RIAA.

The premises of the thesis are that 64% of students would be willing to use a paid filesharing service and that 75% of people who have used filesharing services would consider a paid service. Why didn’t the RIAA use these stats to come up with something?

It will be interesting to see what happens next, but legal filesharing is a hot topic at the moment.

Recently I decided that I was fed up to the back teeth with working for my boss. He took liberties at my expense and I decided, eventually, that working so that he could reap the benefits simply wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. This was a job that I didn’t enjoy anymore with a long commute and, frankly, unfavourable terms. I made the decision of my life, jumped ship, and here I am. I started my own home based business and I haven’t looked back.

A great help for me in checking for a home business review was CitizenCorps.com. This is a great website that had a fantastic home business review section that really was relevant to me and what I wanted to do. It doesn’t just deal in the home business review and generally there’s a lot of really useful stuff on the site.

I’m really glad I put my initial efforts into research; finding a decent home business review meant that a lot of my initial decision making was easier and a whole lot more productive. There’s a lot of work to be done and time to be invested when you embark on a home based business and leaving finding the right business for you to chance is most definitely not in your best interests!

Limewire, one of the most popular services for free music downloads, has launched the latest section of its Limewire store, Live at Lime, which will give users access to live-music recordings by various indie artists.

The sets have been recorded exclusively for the Limewire store and are being produced as EPs that users can then download. The EPs are being sold to inspire sales of full releases. Some of the bands include Sloan, Tigers and Monkeys, and The Morning Benders. No, we hadn’t heard of them either.

Limewire should be commended for bringing new music to the table. It seems as if this music is more the favourite bands of the guys at Limewire than anything else, but that’s fine by us, so long as there is more music available.

These Limewire sessions are kind of like Peel sessions for the Internet (John Peel, remember him?). Interesting stuff from the Limewire camp as always.

Ares users have been reporting the return of the problems getting Ares connecting to the network. The problem is in the servers used for the initial connection to the Ares network, making it difficult for users to connect the first time they start Ares.

Once Ares starts and connects to its network, it has a list of ‘reliable’ IP addresses and keeps them for the next time you fire Ares up, so it’s really just the initial connection that is a problem.

Ares Vista has solved the problem with an advanced technique for pushing an updated list of host servers out to users to connect to, so is not dependent on the initial list of cnodes like the older versions such as Ares Galaxy are.

It might be a hassle changing over but the 15 minutes it takes to download and install the new version of Ares vista will save you much frustration.