Official Ares Free Download

p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- “Warner’s Choruss school licensing scheme is being touted by its main engineer, Jim Griffin (left) as, at the least, a partial answer to the bitter and brutal anti-P2P, anti-music-lover, anti-file sharing actions launched by Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music, American, but run by Canadian Edgar Bronfman jr (right), against their own customers,” said p2pnet this summer.

The idea is students will pay Warner $5 a month for unlimited music downloads and already, “Tens of thousands of students have signed up to pay for a legal P2P music program in US universities, set to start later this year in experimental form,” said Andrew Orlowski in The Register, describing Choruss as, “the incubator hatched by Jim Griffin – a long-time advocate of licensing P2P sharing on networks”.

Tens of thousands, eh?

That was back in June and yet strangely, neither Warner nor Griffin have followed up with what must be a substantial list of universities which’ve committed their students to using Choruss. And there’s been little, or no,  mention of it in the on- or offline media.

Now, “At least one university system on the East Coast is safe from Warner Music’s  bait-and-switch music licensing scheme,” says someone who’s familiar with negotiations, but prefers to remain anonymous.

“Despite Griffin’s repeated accusations of factual inaccuracies in reports on the ill-intentioned ’service’ posted both on p2pnet and by Mike Masnick on TechDirt, Griffin failed to provide any substantial information to refute the claims,” says the source, continuing »»»

Given the collapse of this deal it is safe to say that at least some of the previously-stated concerns are true.

Choruss was an attempt by Griffin and the Big Music gang to get universities around the country to pay a monthly tax to keep the lawyers away, a cost that would be passed along to students.

Essentially, Griffin wanted to take the “voluntary” out of the EFF’s “Voluntary Collective Licensing” proposal, forcing all students to pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to their favorite tunes. The money would be distributed amongst the rights-holders, with left-overs trickling down to the pockets of the biggest-name artists.

Yet as more details emerged in closed-door discussions, it became apparent that Griffin and company planned on stripping away any semblance of “licensing.”

Students paying the (mandatory) fee could download songs most likely from “pre-approved” sources, and only from the Warner Music label.

They could not upload these songs to filesharing networks, blogs, or use the songs in any way other than on their personal headphones.

What’s more, the “deal” would be conductedas “covenant not to sue,” with Choruss partners promising not to sue students for downloading so long as the protection money was paid – a promise with about as much weight as the RIAA’s decision to stop lawsuits against individuals last year.

Of course, nearly every filesharing case against university students has revolved around students uploading material, not downloading it, so music-loving students buying into Choruss would be as much at risk as they were before.

On top of all that, suggested methods for tracking the popularity of downloaded songs seemed like dangerous invasions of privacy.

From installing AudibleMagic “fingerprinting” boxes on school networks to software clients telling Choruss which songs were played when, universities and students trying to “get legit,” could be getting a lot more than they bargained for.

At least one state has made the right decision in rejecting Griffin’s sneaky plan to trick universities into using student money to buy into yet another one-way deal that does nothing for students or artists, serving only to line his and other industry executive’s pockets with cash in exchange for, well, nothing.

“Fortunately for the gang of four,” says the source, “the failure of these deals will do little to impact the gravy train: they simply have to phone their employees in the US Congress whenever they want to ratchet up income (See: Performance Rights Tax),” adding:

“At the very least, one can hope that more universities around thecountry will follow this lead and support their dedicated students by saying “no thanks” when Griffin comes a-calling.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

p2pnet - ‘Tens of thousands’ sign up for Choruss, June 12, 2009
The Register – ‘Tens of thousands’ of US students sign up for legal P2P, June 10, 2009

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