More and more music services are opening up all over the world to cater to legal downloads. This could be partly due to the (major!) efforts of the recording industry to curb illegal downloading but it could also be due to more people seeing the benefits of legal downloading. Of course, we cannot discount the possibility of companies trying to gain some benefit (monetary and otherwise) from opening legal paid download services.

In any case, there is another service that’s opening in Europe. Bigwig Hewlett-Packard is joining the fray and is opening up a music service in some European countries. Dubbed the MusicStation, this will be preloaded on some of HP’s personal computers. They will be released in the following countries:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Britain
• Italy
• France
• Germany
• The Netherlands
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland

More from Reuters:

The service has been developed and is managed by British digital music firm Omnifone. HP runs a similar service in United States with RealNetworks’ Rhapsody.

Such new subscription services helped to lift sales of digital music 12 percent last year to $4.2 billion, industry trade body IFPI said last week.

“As the world’s biggest PC vendor, HP has huge opportunity to create a viable competitor to iTunes due to its scale,” said Rob Lewis, chief executive of Omnifone. Apple’s iTunes — with a pay-per-download business model — is the leading digital music distributor.

How much is this going to cost? 10 euros for a month for unlimited access. Not too bad.

Tags: Europe, HP, music service, Paid Service

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Paid Service

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Everyone knows what happened in Haiti recently. The earthquake that hit them ruined the country and has brought so much suffering to the people. Even today as I write this post, countless Haitians are on the streets and still suffering.

The international community has been quick to do what it could to help out but it seems that there can never be enough help doled out. The infrastructure of the capital was torn down by the strong quake and a lot of Haitians are not being reached quick enough. Worse, there is a lack of medicine, water, food, and other basic necessities.

While many have already given what they can, we can still help in other ways. One of these ways is by downloading the music from the recently concluded production Hope For Haiti Now. I don’t know if you got to watch the telethon but I did and it was very touching how it was all put together.

I have to admit, the musical performances were one of the main reasons I watched it and they were all great! The songs were perfect for the theme and the artists gave their best when performing. It really is worth getting that music. Even better, when you buy the album, you will be giving directly to Haiti.

Hope For Haiti Now can be downloaded from Amazon at 0.99 cents per song. You may opt to get music song by song or download the whole album. The latter option will save you a bit of money.

Tags: Amazon, charity, Haiti, MP3, Music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Paid Service

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In the past year, downloading music off of the Internet illegally has continued to be at the forefront of technology-related issues. It is not a bit surprising as songs and albums continue to abound online, and a lot of people will not stop downloading as long as there is something to get. It seems to me that the music execs and government watchdogs have been running around in circles trying to solve this problem.

Jamie Cullum, a jazz-pop sensation from the UK shares the same sentiments. In a recent interview, he admitted to downloading music illegally. He said that he would oftentimes use P2P sharing when he cannot immediately get his hands on an album. He added, though, that he would still buy the album when it came out, or when he found it.

While the idea of illegal downloading doesn’t sit well with me, I understand his point of view. There are times when you just want to listen to the music and release dates and other matters like that make it impossible to do so immediately. That’s when P2P comes in handy. And it’s not like you are taking revenue away from the musicians and the record labels – not if you buy the album anyway, right?

The problem is that not everyone will do this. Many people would probably stop at downloading illegally and not obtain the album legally afterwards. Jamie Cullum thinks that the solution is to come up with services “so sophisticated and so comprehensive that people don’t need to download stuff¬ for free.”

I agree. Now how do we do that?

Tags: illegal downloading, Jamie Cullum, P2P

Categories: Music, Random Thoughts

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…as long as it’s not hers. Talk about double standards, huh? Speech Debelle is the controversial Mercury Prize winner, a rapper who is known for being as cocky as she is talented. Her real name is Corynne Elliot, and she recently walked away with a check worth ₤20,000. In spite of that – or maybe because of it – she encouraged people to download illegal music, as long as it is the work of other artists, and not hers.
She is quoted as saying that “There is a recession. People are angry and don’t have the money to spend on rubbish. They should download music for free when it is rubbish. A lot of music sounds the same all day on the radio. Now people will hear my album and know you can make music that’s different. The sincerity has shone through.”

Big words for a relatively unknown artist, don’t you think? Anyhow, I am writing about it not to support her statement, obviously, but to rant about how an artist can even think of such a thing! I mean, okay, there are some artists who would not mind people downloading their music for free. After all, true blue artists just want to get their work out there, never mind not getting rich. But to actually encourage people to rip off fellow artists?

Yeah, it is true that there is rubbish – even a lot of it – being aired on the radio and being sold in music stores, but that does not mean that you should tell people to do something illegal! Oh well, this one is sure to bite her in her behind.

Tags: artists, illegal downloading, Music, music awards, rap, Speech Debelle

Categories: Music

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Wait – isn’t that all wrong? Isn’t downloading the greener option? After all, when we download music, we cut back on CDs and other material things that put a strain on the environment, right?

As a matter of fact, this is what Jonathan G. Koomey, Christopher L. Weber, and H. Scott Matthews shared in a study they released just last week. Their conclusion was this:

“…despite the increased energy and emissions associated with Internet data flows, purchasing music digitally reduces the energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with delivering music to customers by between 40 and 80 percent from the best-case physical CD delivery, depending on whether a customer then burns the files to CD or not. This reduction is due to the elimination of CDs, CD packaging, and the physical delivery of CDs to the household. Based on our assumptions, online delivery is clearly superior from an energy and CO2 perspective when compared to traditional CD distribution.”

And just like that, we have proven the title of this post to be incorrect. Or have we, really?

The authors were quick to point out that this entire scenario is not always applicable. They made assumptions; assumptions that are not always true. We have to take into consideration other factors such as end-user behavior (yes that’s us!).

What if you walk to the music store to buy CDs instead of driving? What if you had to buy blank CDs or DVDs to burn your downloaded files? What if you printed CD/DVD covers to print your downloaded album art? Taking these factors into consideration, you might not be helping the environment all that much if you downloaded music rather than bought them at the store.

Bottom line: you have to consider ALL players of the game before you go around declaring that by downloading, you are helping the earth. Oh, and there is that issue of where and how you download you content. That’s another story altogether, isn’t it?

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Random Thoughts

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This thought had not occurred to me before I read Ken Gallinger’s column answering a question from a reader. The question is basically the same as the title of this blog post. The reader says that he has a collection of tapes (who doesn’t?) and that he does not have the means to convert them to mp3 at the moment. Does this justify him downloading the songs off of the Internet? I assume that when he wrote downloading, he meant peer-to-peer, free, and illegal downloading.

So it is justifiable in a case like this?

According to Gallinger, the question is not of legality but of ethics. He writes:

What follows is a comment on the ethics of what you propose to do – not the legality. Canadian copyright laws are under review and the legality of particular P2P (peer-to-peer) operations depends on whom you talk to. Read Michael Geist’s article at thestar.com/ sciencetech/article/647038.

But, ethically, after much debate with people who know more about this than me, I’m prepared to render a verdict on your case.
So there’s nothing wrong (ethically, not technically) with P2P per se, unless it’s used for a nefarious activity. And you can’t steal what you already own.

It would be less controversial to buy the software, plug the old turntable into your computer and do the digital conversion yourself. But if you can’t, my opinion is that it’s okay to use P2P, so long as you just download songs you already own and don’t pass on the copies to anyone else.

I totally understand his “verdict,” and I do agree that it would be much less controversial and much less of a hassle to find some means to convert the tapes and LPs. What do you think?

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Random Thoughts

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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

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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

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The news is that Sony is working on something for the PSP; not an upgrade, mind you, but a download service that will be unique to the hand held multimedia console. While the PSN Store has been accessible through the PSP (if you use remote play) for quite some time, there has not really been a unique service for it. If Sony’s plan pushes through, we just might have a treasure trove in our hands.

However, it is not all positive news as of yet. Since this is basically boils down to a rumor still, we do not know the particulars of the service. One thing that many people are concerned about is how Sony will deal with the Digital Rights Management issue.

DRM has been a longstanding bone of contention between download services and users. While more and more people are becoming open to the idea of paid download services, the use of DRM still grates on one’s nerves. What is the point of paying for a download when you cannot transfer it from one medium to another even if you own all of the gadgets you use to play them?

Another point of concern is how much Sony will be pricing its content. We already know that Sony has a propensity for pricing their products and downloadable content at a slightly higher level than other download services. If this remains the same with the new download service, it might not really fly.

I guess we will just have to wait and see. For now, we can just imagine and hope that things will be for the better.

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, other digital players

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Peer to peer downloading is BIG. We all know that. Music companies know that. Video companies know that as well. Yet is the activity really criminal? It is really worth pursuing a p2p downloader in court?

This is what is happening today, and the case of Joel Tenenbaum, the 25-year-old American facing charges from Sony BMG and other, is a perfect example. Tenenbaum is being charged with illegal downloading due to his activities over p2p networks. The plaintiffs allege that Tenenbaum has been downloading music illegally.

Some bright minds have taken Tenenbaum’s side and have gone as far as to defend him. One of these is Charles Nesson, a professor at the esteemed Harvard University. According to Nesson, downloading falls under fair use. Out-law has the story:

“Fairness borders copyright infringement,” said Nesson in his submission. Proving that the defendant infringed entails proving that his copying was not fair … the issue of the fairness of the defendant’s use is integral to the decision the jury must make as to whether the defendant’s actions were infringements.”

He said that that 1976 law laid out four factors which will determine whether a fair use exemption applies. These are: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

He is making sense there, isn’t he? And I am sure many downloaders are loving it!

Categories: Music, Site News

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