Blogging is the most prevalent manifestation of the social phenomenon on the internet to date and it keeps on growing each and everyday. Being ever so popular, it has become the next step for unscrupulous malware makers who aim to get at the most computers, mobile devices and just about anything connected to the internet as a means of spreading their handiwork. Many people still fail to recognize the true value of intrusion prevention systems till they get their credit card information stolen and used for fraudulent purchases and more. We hear sad stories of such incidents everyday which could have been avoided with simple and even free software embedded within the many operating systems being used to access the internet. Firewalls, anti-viruses and other software have the ability to protect your privacy when you connect to the internet. Researchers have established that the longest time a computer connected to the internet has is fifteen minutes before malware gets in and wreaks havoc within. People should recognize the gravity of the situation that the internet is a public place and that any information contained within a computer connected to it is fair game left unprotected. There are a lot of free/shareware versions of intrusion protection software out on the net, and it only takes a few minutes to install so why wait. Your privacy is you, and you are always a target on the dangerous realm of the internet.

Tags: Anti-Virus, blogging, Firewalls, Intrusion Prevention, Malware

Categories: Downloading Legally, Resources

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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!

Tags: fair use

Categories: Music, Site News

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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?

Tags: cassettes, downloading, vinyl

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Random Thoughts

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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 some time ago. 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?

Tags: downloading, environment, Music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Random Thoughts

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One of the things that many consumers dislike about the music companies nowadays is that they try to put too many restrictions on us. First, they wanted to dictate where we could get our music – they did not want downloading to happen. Then they wanted to dictate the price that we would pay for the music we love – you bet they dislike the word free when it applies to any of their music. Now they want to tell us where we can play our music as well.

On one hand it seems fair. The digital rights management or DRM is intended to prevent making copies of the songs for illegal distribution. Everybody understands that.

On the other hand, some DRM prevents the user from playing their music on certain music players. You won’t be able to make a copy of a track to play on another music player. Some won’t let you make a disc of the songs you already paid for. That restriction is what bothers most people.

If you buy a CD from a store, you would have no problems making a copy on your computer or transferring it to your music player. The problem only occurs on the downloaded tracks. Does there not seem to be something wrong here?

So what can be done to break the chains and put freedom (and proper security) where it should be?

Technorati Tags: music, download, DRM, digital rights management, songs, tracks, burn, copy, music player

Tags: DRM

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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Sometime the music that is already popular can become boring. You hear it over and over again on all the radio stations. You hear it almost anywhere you go. You periodically want something new and fresh.

A good site to go for fresh interesting music is freeplaymusic.com. They have a very extensive library of songs that are well catalogued. You can find music in any genre you like. You can even find whole albums there.

The music is available for preview or download. It is available in mp3 and Apple’s MPEG4 AAC format. You can play this music anywhere. In fact Nokia gets tunes from them so if you use a 3300 or 6600 series model you are assured that you can listen to your favorites from your phone.

This is a really good site to go if you are looking for new music to use for your very own productions. Instead of having a song composed specially for your opus, you can search their library and check if they have a score that meets your needs. It can save you a lot of time and some money.

Downloading the music from freeplay.com is free of charge as long as you will keep the music for your personal use. If on the other hand you find their music so good that you want to share it, whether it is thru your blog, podcast, shareware, or for any presentation, you will need to get a signed license agreement and pay the licensing fee. You can easily access the information on the licensing from their site.

Technorati Tags: music, tv, themes, ringtones, license, compositions, free

Tags: free, Free-music, Music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Resources, Ringtones

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Who would have thought that National Geographic would be interested in making music available online? National Geographic has been known for showing documentaries on the different aspects of science, culture and others. There are TV programs, the website and even printed materials but music — this is something very interesting indeed. There would be free tracks as well as for sale ones.

What is the goal behind this? As said by National Geographic, the aim of the world music section of NG is to encourage others to be more concerned about the planet. The goal is pretty good as people would get exposed to different kinds of music. You would be able to listen to music from different places like Africa, Peru and Brazil. Find out what the music scene is like in those countries.

The nice thing about this site is that each page containing information on the artists and their music is concise and direct to the point. You could also check out the list of artists featured on the site, also the countries, albums and genres. On the sidebars are, of course, links to the other features of National Geographic which includes the schedule of programs on the National Geographic Channel, the editor’s picks and online shops.

This is a wonderful project from National Geographic. Hopefully, many people will enjoy the entire experience of being able to listen to one minute samples of the songs just to have a glimpse of what music people are into and are creating all over the world. All this is just one mouse click away from you.

Tags: legal downloading, Music, National Geographic

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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There is nothing like a book to keep you entertained, no matter where you are and no matter the time. Thanks to the creation of ebooks you at least no longer need to lug around pocket books. You can now enjoy your favorites and get hold of new books easily online.

A good place to get some ebooks is Fictionwise. They have the works of quite a number of the best writers on the planet, including quite a few Hugo Award winners. It was wonderful to see the works of some of my favorite authors available. It was particularly thrilling to get hold of some books immediately that have been unavailable in our local bookstores for years.

Star Trek fans will enjoy the fact that some of their favorites are currently on sale. There are classics like Moby Dick and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Of course there are also more current bestsellers such as Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code.

Navigating the site is also so easy. You can choose to look for books by genre, by title or by author. The home page will show you all ongoing promos such as discounts, and buy 1 take 1 specials. There are even some free ebooks though currently not a lot.

The ebooks are available in various formats including audiobooks, Secure Adobe Rader, Secure Mobi pocket, Secure msreader and Secure palm reader. There are also a few books that are available in multi format. The webmasters of this site made it really for you to filter out the books according to the format that works for your particular device. With just one click you will see only the books that work with your specific reader, just like that.

As for me, I’m now about to begin reading the ebook Tall Stones by Moyra Caldecott that I found there. Hope you find treasure of your own too.

Technorati Tags: donload, ebooks, adobe reader, palm reader, multi reader, tall stones, Dan Brown, Angels and Demons, Da Vinci Code

Tags: books, Legal Download Sites, Legal-Downloads

Categories: Downloading Legally

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Downloading music has changed the landscape of the music and film industry. The RIAA and various production and recording companies claim that billions in revenue have been lost. Partly this is due to the lower CD sales. They refuse to believe that maybe their products isn’t as popular as they hope. They insist that the blame is on the illegal downloaders. They may be partly right.

The beauty of downloading is that an artist’s music will never truly disappear. The artist may not achieve the level of fame they desire (they only have 3 houses, 6 cars, a yacht and some “bling-bling”) but thanks to the internet, their music will be available for a very long time long after they have stopped performing. Isn’t that the true dream of most artists – to become part of history; maybe become a legend?

The music and film industry don’t get it yet. People are wise enough to know that you only buy the products you want to collect, the items that are truly valuable. That means that people will always buy the CD’s and DVD’s as long as the music is great and the films are worth watching. They will willingly pay to download a film or track or album legally in order to have a great copy of it. What the industry giants need to do is make the costs reasonable so that there is no point in pirating anymore.

At least Apple got it off to a good start when they made tracks downloadable at $0.99. Now if only Microsoft and any other players who will come in will just help to make the price even more reasonable, we just might be done with piracy altogether.

Tags: download, film, legal download, Music, Piracy, Video

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music, Videos

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Who says you have to wait for big labels to release great music? There is no need for you to go clubbing just to hear great dance music. The digital revolution has brought easy access to music that you can use to become the host with the coolest music anytime you throw a party.

One place that you want to keep an eye on is audiojelly.com. It was founded in 2004 by singer/songwriters/producers Ricky Simmonds and Stephen Jones. This duo is the mover behind many artists such as Lustral, The Space Brothers, Chakra, The Realm, Oxygen, Kaleidoscope and Ascension. They’ve released over 50 singles with both major labels and independent ones – including Virgin, Ministry of Sound, Sony, Manifesto and Warner (just to name a few). They have 13 songs that have made it to the UK top 40 and their songs have sold over 14 million units all over the world.

With that kind of background, you can imagine the kind of music available on audiojelly.com. They make sure that they have some of the best music in Dance, Techno, Trance and Hip Hop. There are hundreds of labels distributing their music through audiojelly but it isn’t the least bit hard to find their music. You can simply sample the latest releases or search for them by artist, label or genre. Better yet, check out the featured tunes.

Registration is not a requirement unless you want to purchase the music. For those just browsing, you can listen to clips without signing up.

Technorati Tags: music, download, techno, hip hop, trance, dance, top 40

Tags: Music

Categories: Downloading Legally, Music

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