The music industry is really trying to crack down hard on illegal downloading. Many things have been tried but there really does not seem to be a conclusive solution on the horizon yet. Virgin Media is now stepping in and is going to try its hand at it. The Daily Record has the story:
VIRGIN Media and Universal Music are to launch an unlimited legal download subscription service.
As part of the deal, Virgin have vowed to aggressively police usage to stop the MP3 tracks turning up on file-sharing networks.
The service, which will start later this year, will allow music lovers to stream and download as many music tracks as they want from the entire Universal Music catalogue in return for a monthly fee.
Subscribers will be able to download music to keep permanently and store on any MP3-compatible device.
The Virgin Media broadband service will allow one subscription per household.
I think that this just might work. After all, the biggest reason for downloading illegally is that people do not have to pay for the material that they are acquiring. We know that this is virtually impossible unless artists start giving away their work without charging for it. The closest thing that we can get then, is to have a paid service for a relatively low price for UNLIMITED downloads. Makes perfect sense.
More good news, artists such as U2, The Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse, Duffy, and Elton John who are signed by Universal Music will be included in the roster. Currently, Virgin is still negotiating with other labels.
Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Paid Service
No freakin’ way! Microsoft is offering a FREE download service for its latest security software? YES, you read that right. Early this week, we should be able to download the beta version of the latest to come out of the Microsoft development labs.
Dubbed the Microsoft Security Essentials package, the software is being touted by Microsoft as the complete computer security system. It is an anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-everything bad program all in one. The way it is supposed to work, it should detect, find, and then get rid of anything suspicious on your computer.
Backers of the product say that even the newest threats can be dealt with easily and quickly by Microsoft Security Essentials. It does so by immediately checking with online servers if it finds something that is even remotely suspicious, even if it does not fall under any known threat. Before the program is allowed to continue, it has to be cleared first. What about certain legit programs that might trigger the system? Designers say that it has a list of trusted sources, and will overlook activity by these.
Microsoft Security Essentials will be available for FREE download but will not be bundled with Windows 7, as this might start another spate of anti-trust issues. While we will only have the beta this week, the full version should be out by fall. At least we will have a couple of months to test the beta version and see if it actually works and if it’s better than what we are using now.
Categories: Downloading Legally, Freeware, Software
You’ve all heard the news by now. Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old woman from Brainerd, Minnesota was found guilty of downloading music illegally on peer to peer networks. The court fined her a crazy amount of $80,000 per song she downloaded. Summing that all up, her total fine is a ginormous $1.9m! I don’t think that anyone (unless you’re Bill Gates) will have that kind of money, do you?
Thomas-Rasset holds the distinction of being the only person charged with file-sharing issues to go to court. There have been others who have been charged, of course, but most of them settled before the case could be heard. In Thomas-Rasset’s case, she was tried in 2007 and fined a lower amount. Following the result of that initial trial, the defendant wrote a brief that was able to persuade the judge to hold a re-trial. The point was something about the jury not being given the right instructions. Unfortunately for the defendant, the second trial ended worse than the first one; much worse; about a million times worse.
Obviously, there is something not quite right here. She may have been guilty of downloading songs illegally, but is (almost) $2m the right amount that she should pay? Heck, each of the songs she downloaded probably costs about a dollar on iTunes!
Perhaps the jury is trying to make a point here. After all, it was not the judge nor the music industry that requested for the amount. It was all in the jury’s hands. Maybe Thomas-Rasset pissed them off.
Categories: Music, Site News
