Ah. Just when we thought that the world’s most famous filesharing advocate, Jammie Thomas (who also has the world’s weirdest name), was a bout to get a retrial, her hopes have been scuppered. The motion for a new trial for Jammie Thomas has been thrown out on the basis that current laws grant copyright owners the exclusive rights to make material available.
What this means is that Jammie Thomas, who made a number of songs available over filesharing net Kazaa, did not have the right to do so. There was a lot of speculation whether Jammie Thomas would get a retrial after the enormous amount of publicity her particular case has received.
Jammie Thomas, who even has her own Wikipedia page, hit the filesharing headlines last October when she was ordered to pay $222,000 after sharing a bunch of Green Day and Aerosmith songs. The single mother hasn’t had a lot of luck and she doesn’t have very good taste in music.
We recently brought you news that Vigrin Media is teaming up with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) to send out letters to people who use filesharing services. The letters will “educate” people about legal ways to get legal music downloads.
Any doubters that Virgin would actually do this have now been silenced after the first batch of letters was sent out to Virgin subscribers warning them of the evils of filesharing. Virgin is the first ISP in the UK to take such action, although criminal charges will not be brought against people who receive the letters — yet.
Virgin has also vowed that it won’t be disconnecting any of its customers if they use filesharing services. This whole thing is really just a PR stunt for Virgin — and a damn good one it is, too.
Part of the letter Virgin is sending out reads as follows:
We understand you may be concerned about this, and you might be unsure how it happened. One possible answer is that other people in your household have used your computer and/or internet connection, and they might have shared these files with others by using unauthorised ‘peer-to-peer/P2P’ filesharing networks like ‘BitTorrent’ or ‘Limewire’
It seems that bands and artists all over the world are into free music downloads. This news comes from Thailand, where Bangkok-based indie artist Bear-Garden has come up with the novel idea of releasing each of the 11 tracks from her new album as a free music download, one track per month, from January until November this year.
This is proof, as if it were needed, that the impact Radiohead have had on world music is being felt everywhere. Artists are continually turning to the Internet and free music downloads to get their music out to fans.
Coldplay did it recently when they released their new single as a free music download.
Perhaps one area of puzzlement in Bear-Garden’s case is that once a particular month is over, the respective track is no long available for download, meaning that if you miss a month, then you miss a track from the album. Find out more about the artists and download the latest track over at the Panda Records website.
Coldplay have been making all the right headlines recently after they released the first single from their new album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, as a free music download. The track caused a stir and was enormous success, leading to presales of the album, which is released tomorrow, reaching record levels on iTunes.
There were two million free music downloads of the single “Violet Hill”, and HMV has said that it is ordering near record numbers of CDs to put on shelves for the big launch.
The real test for the album will be whether it can sustain this level of interest after the hype of free music downloads and snazzy marketing campaigns dies out. Industry experts are skeptical about how long the buzz will be around this new album, but we suspect that the cynics will be proved wrong in this case.
There probably aren’t many bands who could launch an album in this way, but for established industry artists, free music downloads can lead to increased sales.
Coinciding with the BPI teaming up with Virgin Media to educate people about how to get legal music downloads, the music industry in Great Britain is allegedly voicing its concern that its negotiations with ISPS with regards to filesharing are being hampered by government plans to delay its consultation in anticipation of legislation in the new year.
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Andy Burnham spoke at the PPL AGM recently and made some references to several factors facing the music industry, including copyright infringement and filesharing. He also spoke of the sequencing of the ongoing ISP consultation, which caused a number of people to prick their ears.
It’s unclear exactly what implications these comments have, but it has a few people in a stir with regards to filesharing.
Filesharing hit the headlines in Great Britain recently after Virgin and BPI accounted that letters will be sent to people who use filesharing services to download copyrighted material. The letters will contain links to legal sites for music downloads.
More news about filesharing from the UK this week. Virgin Media has announced that it is teaming up with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) to “educate” the general public about ways to get legal music downloads. Part of this education, of course, includes warning people off the evils of filesharing.
The two companies will work together by sending letters to Virgin subscribers who are suspected of using filesharing services to download copyrighted material. The BPI will, apparently, provide Virgin with details of the ISP’s customers who are suspected of downloading illegal material through filesharing services.
The BPI will also give Virgin dates, times and location, although personal information will not be shared.
Virgin’s letters will contain links to legit sites for music downloads. Virgin says that more than six and a half million users’ Internet accounts are being used to access filesharing websites. No legal action will taken against filesharing violators.
The iPhone 3G has been causing a major stir. The new iPhone, however, will not give users access to 3G music downloads. Music from iTunes will only be able to be loaded onto an iPhone 3G via Wi-Fi connection or directly from a PC.
Apple is reportedly in talks with a number of major record labels about bringing 3G music downloads to the iPhone, but none of these talks have resulted in anything definite — yet. It looks as though there is still hope for 3G music downloads to appear on the iPhone 3G, but users will have to wait a while before they can get their hands on them.
The main stumbling point is that record labels are of the belief that 3G music downloads should cost more than regular Internet downloads. This isn’t devastating news, but it is one less feature that the iPhone 3G should have.
Strangely this week, there is some more news about QTrax. We’ve lost track of whether this new filesharing service has the backing of the big four record labels or not. In this latest news, the Telegraph has reported that QTrax will offer totally free legal music downloads.
We already knew this, but the big question has always been which labels the music will come from. The idea behind QTrax is that people register and download music, with revenue being generated by ads. The concept is so simple that we have been assuming from the offset that it will fail.
If it is a success, it could change how people use filesharing programs to get free music downloads. EMI has now joined the fray and offered up its back cat.
The only catch with QTrax is that users must visit the website every month or so to continue using downloaded tracks. Of course, the songs will likely be DRM-protected.
It was reported recently that filesharing company Rhever has been calling for the entire filesharing industry to evolve. Well, part of that evolution might have happened now as Rhever recently unveiled its new premium filesharing service.
Rhever’s filesharing service is “totally legal”, putting it in direct opposition with other services, such as Limewire and Ares, which are also legal but are often used for illegal means.
The new Rhever service is being touted as something of a filesharing revolution, though we’ll reserve judgment on that for the time being. Rhever claims that its filesharing services gives users high-speed access to 25 million files.
Members of Rhever will receive 15GB of space a month. At the moment, you can sign up for a free trial.
Features include comments, ratings and previews. We’re not really sure what all the fuss is about. It all sounds like PR talk at the moment. If anyone has had any experiences with Rhever, feel free to share them.
British people are as big fans of free music downloads as the rest of the world. However, the Brits have been lucky up to now because, while filesharing has received a lot of attention, there have not been any arrests or lawsuits related to filesharing and free music downloads. All that changed this week when six Britons were arrested for downloading music prior to its official release.
This marks the first instances of their kind in the UK. The six people used the now dead filesharing service OiNK. The six were arrested and then, strangely, released without charge.
While some reports have been stating that the six were arrested for downloading free music, it looks more likely that they were collared for uploading music. Free music download website OiNK has already shut down after its servers were located and wiped.
As of yet, further information about this yet has yet to be released. We’ll bring you more as we hear it.
