So what is this three-strikes rule all about? The UK government is pushing for a law which will give those who download illegally two warnings before they reap the consequences of their activities; the consequences being restriction of broadband service.
Naturally, this move has met a lot of resistance. Even musicians could not agree on a single stand. However, recent developments in that sector point to everyone giving their support to the government’s proposal. The Guardian has the story:
The music industry moved last night to heal a rift over illegal filesharing as artists including Lily Allen, George Michael and Sandie Shaw voted to support a “three-strikes” rule that would see online pirates have their broadband connections constrained.
After a three-hour meeting in London, the Featured Artists Coalition, which emerged as a breakaway lobby group in the summer, backed the government’s proposed introduction of “technical measures” to combat the rising tide of copyright theft. If they ignore two warning letters, persistent illegal filesharers should have their broadband connections throttled “to a level which would render filesharing of media files impractical while leaving basic email and web access”, according to a statement after the meeting.
I know I’ll probably make myself the target of hatred, but the proposal looks fair enough to me. After all, people get two warnings before they get “punished.” And as for the punishment, it is not even total termination, plus, it could be only temporary.
What do you think about this proposal?
Photo courtesy of The Guardian
Tags: File Sharing, illegal downloading, news, UK music industry
Categories: Downloading Legally
…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
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
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
You probably have heard about it by now. You might even have friends who have downloaded the video – if you have not already. Erin Andrew ring a bell?
ESPN reporter Erin Andrew is a familiar sight to many sports enthusiasts. And I am pretty sure that there is more than one guy out there who has had not so clean thoughts about her. After all, she is really attractive, isn’t she?
Anyway, a video of her had surfaced on the Internet. Yeah, a video of her walking around in a hotel room. In her birthday clothes. Naked. Nude.
Naturally, this video quickly spread, and people from all over the world have been downloading it. So why would I say don’t download it?
Lisa Bloom, legal analyst for CBS News says that downloading the video is actually illegal. Bloom says that “it’s like buying or selling stolen property. If you know you are buying something that was stolen… you could be liable criminally and civilly.”
One reason is that the video was taken without the consent of Erin Andrew, just as it was spread without her consent. In fact, the video was apparently taken through a peephole, which is in itself a crime.
While you might not be sued, arrested, or anything like that for downloading the video, you just never know what might happen. More so, you might get a different kind of surprise – like a Trojan or some other malware that can bring you more trouble than it’s worth.
Categories: Videos
Many P2P users are still reeling from what happened to The Pirate Bay earlier this month. While I am sure that there are still a lot of sites from which you can download free content, albeit illegally, the shutdown of Pirate Bay is a major, world-rocking event. In any case, here is something that might just jar you our of your stupor.
Kazaa is back! Remember that old file sharing system that was so popular in the 90s? It made your computer slow down to a crawl at times. You got tons of viruses from the files you downloaded. But hey, you were enjoying free and unlimited content. That is, until they were shut down for copyright violations. You’re lucky to have escaped the law – unlike that woman who was fined millions for downloading off Kazaa.
So now the service is back, and guess what? Kazaa has gone legit as well! While once Kazaa was number 1 in the black book of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, it is now labeled as a legitimate music service.
The service, which is subscription based, offers more than 1 million songs from various recording labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI. Set to launch this week, the new Kazaa requires $20 for a month’s worth of unlimited downloads. The songs will be in Windows Media format, with DRM for up to five computers or devices.
The business model looks sound enough. The question is whether or not Kazaa will be able to compete with the other existing services.
Categories: Downloading Legally
Can you believe it? The Pirates are crossing over to the other side – the legitimate side. I am sure that you heard all that ruckus about Pirate Bay in the first half of this year. Every downloader in the whole world must have had their eyes glued to their computers following the developments on the Pirate Bay issue.
Now, it seems that the pressure has gotten to the company. The pirates have been caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, and are going to be bought by Global Gaming Factory X, for a hefty sum of $7.7 million. The Swedish company has announced its intention to turn the iconic web site around and make it a legitimate business.
So what’s going to happen with the “new” Pirate Bay? Are people still going to be able to download content through it? The new owners say that they will still be delivering the same service. There will be one crucial difference, however: the owners of the copyrighted material will get paid.
We know what this means – downloading will NOT be free anymore. In other words, the pirates are going to be driven out of the picture. For sure, the 20 million or so users of the “old” Pirate Bay are not happy about the turn of events. However, I think that this is the harbinger of things to come. Perhaps in the near future, we might be more accepting towards legal (and maybe not always totally free) downloads.
How do you feel about the “new” Pirate Bay?
Categories: Downloading Legally, Site News
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
