Green Party says: sharing is not stealing

I've told you before how much I hate that "piracy is stealing" bullshit we're forced to see everytime we are paying to those guys who are lying to you: for instance when you go to the cinema, you're forced to see a stupid video like this ( http://www.youtube.com/v/l5SmrHNWhak&rel=1 )...



Of course that, being such a lie as this, and for so many time, people started to create their own rebutal clips, like this ( http://www.youtube.com/v/MRVHUbrbEUA&rel=1 )...



But what's cool now is that there's a new video out there, with the slogan "I wouldn't steal", that is a part of a Green Party campain [1]! Let's hope this will have some political attention...



(This post has embeded flash videos, if you don't see them and don't want to click in each one individually, consider seeing the post in the blog and not in your RSS reader)

[1] - http://www.iwouldntsteal.net/

More about AllOfMP3

Keeping up with the AllOfMP3 saga...

A couple of days ago I wrote about AllOfMp3 finally shutting down, but leaving a spin-off behind. The Spin-off, Mp3Sparks, is now also shutted down, but there are still alternatives:

For those using Microsoft Windows, you can still use your AllOfMp3's accounts (and credit) to buy music on the new Russian service AllTunes. I wonder how long will it take to shut them also down. Also, take in account that you'll be able to use your balance from AllOfMP3 in this service, but not to add more money to it (and keep using it): you'll get a "Processing for this site disabled." message.

If you're looking to a an alternative simillar to AllOfMp3, I wrote about MP3 City here: a simmilar service, also legal, but in Ukraine, a country that, while working on their accession negotiations to became members of the WTO, had still no pressure from the RIAA to the WTO to that country to change their laws.

AllOfMP3 - death and rebirth

Exactly one year ago, the British recording industry has been given permission to sue Russian music website allofmp3.com in the High Court, even if AllOfMP3 was a legal site in Russia. In October, USA decided that Russia had to change their laws and shut down AllOfMP3 in order to be a member of the World Trade Organization, in a economic terrorism move. People from AllOfMp3 fought back, yet in October, telling why their service was legal, and explaining that buying from them, even in USA, was legal, by both Russian and American laws. Of course that pressure kept going up, and Russia finaly setted a day for the law change. So, and while the site wasn't shutted down that day, since the 1st of June AllOfMp3 started being an illegal activity under the Russian law. While I covered it and pointed out a simmilar, but still legal, alternative (Ukranian), the best thing came only recently: the guys who had AllOfMp3 have just launched "a new service" (the same but with different prices and different name, even the user database is the same) called MP3 Sparks, that is basicly the same thing, but with a license from NP FAIR instead of ROMS. I'm still trying to contact them and know if this is the only difference, and, if so, why does this difference suffices to make them legal again, since no one seems to have that explained, but they state that they are legal. If I get more news on this I'll keep you updated.

RIAA's members still doing drugs

This is so riddiculous that I'm not even going to analyzise it though: just read for yourself: NBC says that P2P is making the Corn business suffer. WTF? Well, their "concept" is that P2P is one easy way of downloading movies, so people don't go to theatres, so theatres sell less popcorn, so corn farmers sell less corn. Erm... I'm speechless.

The image used is shared with an CC-BY 2.0 license.

RIAA Accused of Extortion and Conspiracy

RIAA Accused of Extortion and Conspiracy in Tampa, Florida, case, UMG v. Del Cid.

Here you'll get the news and links for the news in various sources, commentary and discussion.

AllOfMP3 dead? Long Live MP3 City!

Today, in a couple of hours, the new Russian law that will make AllOfMP3 illegal will be passed and activated. A good description about what is AllOfMP3 and what's the case behind it is here:

AllofMP3.com is a small Russian company which has become the international poster child for attacks on independent music download sites.

By itself, it probably doesn't represent much of a genuine threat to the labels or studios. But if it's allowed to survive and prosper, its existence would certainly encourage other entrepreneurs to adopt the same marketing approach - DRM-free downloads at reasonable prices - which would result in serious competition for the corporate cartels which, until the Net became universally adopted, had been able to control virtually everything ordinary people saw or heard.

Competition is good: it promotes free choice. But neither 'choice' nor 'competition' are words found in cartel lexicons. So a massive, and ongoing, multi-million-dollar campaign has been mounted against AllofMP3.com by the cartels, with the record labels to the fore.

Leading it on behalf of the labels and other vested interests is the US administration, which has brought its full weight down on a handful of people in another country who dare to compete with Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, with the major movie studios and software houses lurking darkly in the background.

In rich irony, only Warner Music can be said to be truly American. And even it's run by Canadian. The other three members of the Big 4 music cartel are EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, based in Britain, France, Japan and Germany, respectively.

In other words, the US government is generously spending money provided by American tax payers to help four foreign companies maintain an iron grip on a market whose openness would benefit American artists as much, if not more, than artist in other countries.

Nor does it appear anyone in either the United States Trade Representative Office, which is behind much of the US-mounted pressure on AllofMP3.com, nor music industry 'trade' organizations, such as the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), have made any effort to talk directly with AllofMP3.com executives to find a way to reach an accord.

But if you want to see how high they go, take a look at this: according to Reuters, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said:

"I have a hard time imagining Russia becoming a member of the WTO and having a Web site like that [AllofMP3.com] up and running that is so clearly a violation of everyone's intellectual property rights"

Of course that what is legal and what is not all depends on the standing legislation, and AllOfMP3 are under Russian laws.

While DCC's Russell McOrmond (DCC is Digital Copyright Canada, Canada's RIAA) says that

While AllOfMP3.com may be perfectly legal for Russian customers, it is not legal for them to sell to foreign customers. Copyright and licensing need to be analysed domestically, and you can't say that what is legal in Russia allows you to do something in Canada or the USA

Any lawyer will tell you that that's not true: AllOfMP3 is legal on Russia, and their license lets them sell worldwide (according to their exportation laws). The only way you can make illegal for Canadian or American people to buy stuff from AllOfMP3 is for those countries to actively forbid those transactions. In that case, their citizens are forbidden to buy from AllOfMP3, but still AllOfMP3 have the right to sell their music to Americans or Canadians.

Anyway, nothing of that really matters, since Russia will change their laws today, to ilegalize AllOfMP3.

I thought of changing this blog's layout to a black theme for a day, or talking about sweet, nice and cool alternative online stores, like Amie Street. But that wouldn't really be an article that would piss RIAA off, if they were to read this, right?

So, I've searched and came out with a better music service to talk about: MP3 City. First of all, MP3 City sells mp3 files, no .wmv's and such. The files are all DRM-free, and untagged. Like in AllOfMP3, here you can find lot's of kinds of music, from underground stuff until major label's artists. Damn, you can already buy there Marilyn Manson's "Eat Me, Drink Me", an album that is only to be released in four days, or Paul McCartney's "Memory Almost Full", also to be released next week. And you know what? $1.76 is the price for Marilyn Manson's album, $2.08 for Paul McCartney's. No, I'm not talking about one track, I talking about the whole album, in DRM-free MP3 files encoded at 320kbps.

As cool as AllOfMP3, right? Cooler in fact, since MP3 City is also legal with Author's distribution rights granted by State Enterprise "Ukrainian Agency on Copyright and Related Rights" (UACRR), and, as far as I know, Ukrain isn't (still) being pressed to change their laws.

Eat this, suckers!

The wealth of the music industry

For those out there (including RIAA) that are allways whining about how much CD sails are falling, and how piracy are leaving them starving, here are some numbers:

In North America, the music business will total $26.5 billion in 2011, growing at an average annual rate of 2.8% from $23.1 billion in 2006. Recorded music revenues will remain flat as declining CD sales cancel out the sharp gains in digital sales. Music publishing and live music will grow.

In one dramatic example, live tours were once used as marketing vehicles to promote recordings, but today that model is being flipped on its head as increasing numbers of top-tier and mid-level acts earn more income from concerts than from CD sales.

Read the complete article here.

Apple on DRM, and reactions it caused

By now almost everyone knows that Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, wrote two days ago an article about DRM on iTunes Music Store, in reaction to the the latest events in Europe, where several countries are telling Apple to ditch DRM or else they're going to be sued.

So, Jobs told us his/Apple's public position about the use of DRM in iTunes, telling that there are three paths for the future:

1. Let everything as it is now (keep DRM, bad)
   
2. License Apple's DRM technology (keep DRM, bad)
3. Stop selling songs with DRM (ditch DRM, good)

Using his words, Apple would embrace DRM-free music "in a heartbeat" if "the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM.", or so they say.

Well, they also say that

"Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."

In other words, they're trying to escape from the lawsuits that are comming, by telling Europe to force the big four to do a nice deal with Apple... instead of forcing Apple to do their job.

Cool, heh?

Of course that this action already had some results:

Senior advisor Torgeir Waterhouse of the Norwegian Consumer Council did the best thing possible, and gave Jobs the reply he deserved:

"Our concern is of course that it's Apple and [the] iTunes Music Store [that] should be addressing the issue of record companies and DRM themselves if it needs to be addressed - and as we've stated earlier it's iTunes Music Store that's providing a service to the consumers and therefore has the responsibility to offer up a consumer friendly product."

and

"no matter what agreements [the] iTunes Music Store [has] entered into, they're still the company that's selling music to the consumers and are responsible for offering the consumer a fair deal according to Norwegian law."

On the other hand, RIAA refuses a DRM-free world, telling that "option 2" (open Apple's DRM technology) should be the choice, ant that

"We have no doubt that a technology company as sophisticated and smart as Apple could work with the music community to make that happen"

, but this is the option that Jobs himself dismissed...

As I've told you before, EMI is really slowly experimenting music sells without DRM. Inquired about it, Jeanne Meyer, an EMI spokeswomen, said:

"The feedback from fans (has) been very enthusiastic,"

and that

"I think the labels will release selected back-catalog stuff, to see what happens"

Stuff

With the lack of time, here's a big bunch of random stuff you might be interested of:

• So, my new album is finaly out, you can buy it here for only 5€.
• Timbaland has been ripping off other musicians.
• The world smallest PC just shows that there's too much free time in some hands.
• And this is a great piece of hardware, too bad that it is so expensive, and that they have no external version of it. Plus, I doubt that they have linux drivers for it.
• I have to read this article with more time, but it's basicly showing history repeating itself - talking about RIAA,
• And that happens when privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy.
• Deviated Sister T.V. new album is out now.
• Finaly, work to package Second Life to Debian has started.
  

Have a nice reading...