Eminem – born Marshall Mathers III – is once again suing Apple for alleged misdemeanors and ‘multi-million dollar’ transgressions. Apple, Mathers claims, has allowed unauthorized downloads of his tracks to users’ iPods.Eminem has attacked Apple in the past, when he was incensed by its ‘unauthorized use of his music’ on a TV commercial. No stranger to controversy and, arguably, to getting free publicity, Eminem and his advisors are obviously getting comfortable with the inside of the court room.
A reader on the p2pnet website expressed his doubt as to the authenticity of what might be considered a ’stunt’: “My guess is it’s another publicity stunt”. Possibly, though the thought of someone in the music industry suing someone who allows downloads of his tracks is not alien to P2P file sharers; admittedly Apple is not usually the one taking the brunt of the action, though.
A related issue, California entertainment lawyer Owen Sloane states, is “how the 60.9 cents the recording label has left after it pays the music publisher should be divided between the recording label and the artist”.
The problem, Sloane goes on to tells us, is how the labels treat the downloads:
“If downloads are treated as licensing agreements, the 60.9 cents would be split equally… But if a download is treated as a sale, which is typical, the artist only gets a royalty, or a much smaller share of the 60.9 cents.”
It’s interesting to see even big companies ‘playing the game’ with their artists when it comes to music downloads – more two faced amoral dealings on their behalf, perhaps.
It’s possible that, if done correctly, using this to lower prices for customers then it could result in more sales overall, netting the labels more cash in the long run. The labels don’t see it this way, however, since all downloads seem to be instantly packed into the ‘bad and evil’ wagon.
Neither side will likely let this go quietly. Keep your eyes peeled!
A new survey – conducted by Entertainment Media Research – concludes that more and more people are getting their music free from P2P file sharing sites.Despite apparent attempts by the ‘big 4′ music cartel sue everyone who utters the words ‘P2P’ or ‘file sharing’ (and even some who don’t, it turns out), more of us are turning to the Internet as our favored source of new listening material. While Apple’s iTunes is seemingly doing well from its customers downloading – and paying for – music from their site, its market share is miniscule: unsubstantiated claims of two billion downloaded tracks since 2003 are utterly dwarfed by the statistic that one billion tracks are shared online every single month.
The vast bulk of downloads, then, are coming from P2P networks and independent music and download sites.
The Entertainment Media Research questioned 1700 people across the UK; its summary of the results was quoted in the UK paper The Telegraph:
“Illegal music downloads have reached an all time high just as the growth of online social networking has shifted the epicenter of the music industry away from the major record labels …”
it continues: “the popularity of social networking websites such as MySpace and BeBo is helping to ‘democratize’ the music industry as more young people discover new music online instead of via the radio or music television”.
Any logical reasoning on the matter will conclude that young people are going to be attracted to free music – especially when the alternative is overpriced, can ignore your privacy rights, and is occasionally difficult to get hold of. It is also clear, though, that the music industry ignored the P2P and file sharing communities for too long: it has now missed the boat and continues its suing crusade not because it thinks it can win, but to punish those who capitalized on the obvious gap in the market. The music industry completely refuses to acknowledge P2P as the distribution vehicle of the twenty first digital century, and this is one of its major mistakes.
An online survey run by p2pnet was answered by 1100 respondents. “Have the RIAA sue ‘em all lawsuits persuaded you to stop sharing?” the survey asked. No, replied an impressive majority of 94.1%. This is the problem that the Big 4 Cartel faces in bring P2P file sharers to ‘justice’ – they’ll have to arrest the whole world for it to work.
Debates over the threat posed by P2P to information security in the USA were rekindled recently. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), offered its opinion on the dangerous new threat posed by P2P and file-sharing programs.
Mark Gorton, founder and chairman of The Lime Group (the company behind Limewire), offered testimony about the role he feels ISPs should play in preventing file sharing from occurring on their networks.
Gorton has publicly discussed the problems of copyright infringement and child pornography (amongst other issues) that are an unfortunate side-effect of P2P file sharing – and indeed problems which he and his company have taken heat for in the past. He goes so far as to suggest that ISPs should be part of an ‘enforcement mechanism’ to prevent such problems on P2P networks.
“The Internet is a technology which allows for many novel behaviors. Unfortunately, some of these new behaviors are detrimental to society. The regulatory framework that surrounds the Internet has not kept pace with technical advancements, and currently, no effective enforcement mechanisms exist to address illegal behavior on P2P networks.”
Passing the buck?
www.zeropaid.com notes in their take on the story:
“Now why Gorton would suggest that ISPs begin engaging in a hopeless and invasive attempt to monitor their customers traffic is beyond me but, I think it smacks of passing the buck and trying to make Limewire look like the innocent one in all of this.”
It will be interesting to see where this all leads. Will Limewire can their hands of any of the trouble they’re in? Will legislation finally catch up with the problems that P2P file sharing presents? With some kind government intervention now a possibility, what does the future hold? Watch this space: it’ll be interesting to find out.
P2P Downloads of video currently accounts for around 10% of file sharing, Eric Garland, CEO of web tracking firm Big Champagne, tells us in Investors.com. “More than 9 million people log on to a P2P network worldwide each day, and that grows each year despite intense efforts by the entertainment industry to shut down the ones that operate illegally” he continues. Garland’s interview continues, telling readers how difficult it will be to stop P2P networks and file sharing websites that are growing in size and use daily.
The Investors.com take on the situation is interesting: entertainment industries will not be able to halt the continued success of online file sharing, and in fact they shouldn’t try. Effort should instead be concentrated on trying to monetise the trend - “it’s just a new method of distribution” says Stan Rogow.
The number of sites distributing legal music and movies is but a drop in the ocean compared to those assisting and distributing unlicensed material. Sites and networks are claiming that since there is nothing to download or install at their web properties, there is nothing illegal about the sites. The sites provide the facilities whereby people can organise and share their data, but what they do with it is their business. “We provide links, nothing is wrong with that” claims Britain’s TV Links. TV Kalendar, a Canadian based operation, offers information on downloadable torrents, and allow users to quickly determine which TV episodes they need to download - again there is nothing in there to download, and users are quite on their own in obtaining the videos.
Maybe it’s a gray area, but one thing is clear: the entertainment industry is going to have its work cut out in silencing these type of sites; working with the P2P community may well be more profitable than trying to fight against them.
Mininova announces that it has achieved its second billionth torrent - that’s almost 7 torrents per person in the US. Even more impressive is the timescale in which the second million has been achieved: less than five months has elapsed since Mininova announced it’s first billionth torrent.
In a coy understatement, Mininova’s blog says: “this is very good news”.
It continues: “It means our site is growing exponentially: the amount of total downloads roughly doubles every half year. And more downloads means more exposure, so more content available on our website. … Of course this is not the end, if the growth keeps continuing we might be able to reach the 4 billion mark by the end of this year! Watch out, Apple iTunes …”.
The Mininova post also includes a breakdown breakdown numbers of downloads per category of content. This makes interesting reading: TV Shows take the number one spot at 40%, with music downloads only being half as popular, taking up 21%, and movies being a close third nearly 18% of the share. The table is reproduced below:
•TV Shows - 40.11%
•Music - 21.21%
•Movies - 17.89%
•Games - 6.59%
•Software - 5.61%
•Anime - 3.61%
•Books - 3.04%
•Pictures - 0.53%
This milestone announcement adds weight to the fact that the popularity in P2P file sharing - fuelled by sharing of Torrents by resources such as Mininova - is showing no signs of slowing. Whether the growth will eventually reach its critical mass and slow or stop remains to be seen, but with more and more households getting access to computers and the Internet (and there is plenty more growth potential in developing countries), it is unlikely to fizzle out any time soon.
Steve Jobs masterstroke of making the premium corporate product open to the masses through iTunes, has created ripples even with his most bitter critics, including P2Pnet.
Apple, in a deal with EMI came to an understanding that Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Vivendi Universal (France) follow Apple wherever it goes, where possible.
This is going to prove to be a great leap ahead that is guaranteed to reflect on the status of corporate music downloads and may prove to be just what the corporate online music scene needed.
This will enable all the major labels to use Apple. With this move, eventually, all other corporate back supported services can supply songs unfettered by the DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control, and by doing this, will be able to compete with the numerous independent sites and services.
The best part is Steve Jobs has even come up with a way to monetize from DRM’s vanishing act. The plan is for all the labels to stop pressurizing people to buy their downloads and cutting down on the their wholesale prices, allowing online retailers like Apple to charge reasonable prices.
While iTunes fans may be willing to pay a dollar for each download, this fraction of people clearly steer away from the industry standard, as most other music lovers will never ever pay that much for each download. Unfortunately, quality does not come into play here. Why would they want to pay higher when a huge new supply of original, non-formulaic music is making its appearance online.
June 26th boasted the launch of a Day of Silence imposed by internet radio broadcasters as a protest against the increase in royalty rates. Strengthening their numbers, a number of fervent supporters (including entertainment lawyer, Fred Wilhelms) have been working towards exposing the fraudulent side of the corporate music industry and its supporters.
Richard Ades, yet another over-paid spokesman for SoundExchange i.e. master spinner of un-truths, has countered the opposition with a free lesson in Imaginary Arithmetic. Retorting to the Internet Radio Day of Silence,Mr. Ades was quoted by Technology Daily as saying, “The bill on the hill would not only vacate CBR decision but would cut rates by 75 percent from what the old rate was. That’s their idea of fairness to artists? That’s an insult.” What’s really an insult is that even after spending $1 billion in administrative fees, SoundExchange can’t afford to hire an accountant (or an 8th-grade Math student) who could help them get their statistics right. Or maybe they’re just going with the “all humans are sheep” theory and hoping no one notices. Bad luck! The percentage-of-revenue royalty rate called for in H.R. 2060 is 7.5%. If Mr. Ades is correct about that being a 75% cut from the old rate, the old rate would have to be 30% (a seventy-five percent reduction from a 30% rate results in a 7.5% rate). But there’s a slight problem here: the old rate was never 30%. It was 10.9%.
So, in theory, Mr. Ades was off by a mere 275%. That’s not so bad. We can give him props for defeating John Simpson at the math game, who’s proclamations about Internet Radio having $500 million in advertising revenue were only about a 1000% off. It’s an improvement that lands a SoundExchange spokesman in nearly the same time-zone as reality. But, even with this progress, we’re about 100% tired of SoundExchange’s utter disdain for both the truth and public opinion and their disregard for the artist’s whose cause they claim to be championing.
Today’s lesson: If SoundExchange had been the organization behind the SAT back when I gave it, I’m pretty sure I could’ve landed a perfect score on the math section.
Recent updates (courtesy of p2pnet) on the DRM-free music war raging between Steve Jobs and the record-company giants reveal that Mr. Jobs is turning a blind eye towards the fact that Apple seems to have been caught operating an obviously two-faced strategy. Promoting themselves as anti-DRM on one front, and collecting user data in the new $1.30 iTunes downloads on the other can’t have been a wise decision in any way.
While iTunes users can’t do anything about the price increase, they can counter the infringement of their privacy by turning over to a new open source application that’s been built by our talented friends in France.
Dubbed Privatunes, the application was developed by the creators of Ratiatum and the innovative Matoumba news reader. The application allows iTunes users to clean their tracks, erasing the AppleID (email address) and username.
Guillaume Champeau, runner of Ratiatum claims, “We believe anyone who buys DRM-free songs online should be free to do whatever they’re legally entitled to do, including [selling it or letting] their close family or friends copy it, with no fear and no one spying over their shoulder.”
“There’s no reason to attach the name and email address of the buyer on whatever is being sold. Selling is the act of transferring a property from the owner to the buyer, and [there] should be no limit or restriction whatsoever.”
The developer further exclaims, “It’s what differentiates the so-called selling of a DRM-ed song (which is nothing other than long term rental) and the selling of a DRM-free song. It’s a question of privacy, it’s a question of seller-customer trust, [and] it’s a question of customers’ rights.”
We agree.
If you’re interested in getting a free copy of Privatunes, click here. The source code is just around the corner, and it’ll also be available on p2pnet soon.
In an effort to censor freedom of speech online, Russia’s very own Deputy Prosecutor General has announced that he wants Big Brother reinstated to help him in his quest against extremism. Well, at least that’s the gist of it.
According to a report by an online Russian Daily, Kommersant, Ivan Sydoruk has claimed that “Legal control over the Internet [is necessary] to step efforts to fight with extremism.”
With such a decision at stake, there has been a much expected public backlash to this latest development. The story reports that while human rights activists have opted for the view that state control over the internet, “will create persecuted cyber-dissidents,” and have urged authorities “not to encroach upon the Internet freedom,” IT specialists have settled with a line of argument which claims that online censorship is pretty much impossible.
In a police conference in the city of Rostov-on-Don yesterday, Mr. Sydoruk opined, “The Internet is often a place for circulating extremist leaning information” further declaring, “We need to work out an effective system to control the data released on the net.” As the debate continues to display its volatility, Nikolay Partushey, in another statement calling for stricter control over the internet said, “There are currently 5,000 web-sites run by extremist organizations and movements.”
Kommersant’s story further states that “State Duma Legislature Committee Chairman Pavel Krasheninnikov came up with a bill last year to sentence Internet extremists to five years in prison. The amendments, however, were not adopted.”
Russia seems a little torn on the issue at this very moment in time. What do you think?
Freedom of Speech or Fighting Internet Extremism? That is the question.
The RIAA have chosen Linux as their operating system, it’s ironic because Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) are renowned for being a totally anti-independent organization. They detest anything that involves competition or openness yet have moved to Linux, the world’s most used open source operating system!
The RIAA attempted to move their website to 2.2.3 Red Hat last week (www.riaa.com) but the move did not run too well and the site was down for over 5 hours.
I find it quite funny that when you click on the homepage it says “Welcome to RIAA”, this is the American copyright police, you’d swear you were entering France or something “Welcome to France” or “Welcome to England”, but oh no!
The RIAA are also moving their DNS to Mindshift Technologies in an unscheduled Endeavour, they are moving from smaller company (Tomorrow’s Solutions Today) whom they had been with for a number of years. A number of domains apart from the .com domain though have failed to be moved over to Mindshift, so it seems a few problems have been occurring over at the RIAA at the moment.
In all fairness to TST they have been doing a pretty swell job over the past number of years, the RIAA website has to be one the most attacked websites on the net, repulsed by many for obvious reasons!
It still leaves us with one question however, why are they moving from a company that had done such a good job? Probably because the sue frenzy RIAA found a problem with the provider however it would be much funnier if the hosting provider was kicking the RIAA’s butt onto the lawn for a change!
