Rapidshare, one of the largest file hosters in the world, is currently under heavy fire in Germany. The Gema, which administers the copyrights of more than 60,000 members as well as those of over 1 million rights owners from all corners of the world managed to get a court ruling in their favor. The court ruled that the hoster could be held responsible for copyright violations committed by users who upload copyrighted material to Rapidshare servers. The court furthermore ruled that Rapidshare had to implement filters that would prevent further copyright violations.
DRM Free Music Search
I found this interesting article at DRM Alternatives and would like to share it. DRM Free Music Search is a service that searches 19 music sites that offer – only – DRM free music. Some sites sell the music while others provide it for free to their visitors. The search uses Ajax to display the search results. Just enter a search term and watch how the results appear below the search box. Every result displays the title, the artist, the name of the album, the music site that hosts the file and the possible price of the file or album.
Save internet radio!
Today i discovered a independent online radio station which has owners that see radio as an art form and not a platform to turn out a endless stream of advertisement and mediocre music.At the moment they pay around 10-12% of their income in royalties for the music they play, which seems very reasonable to me.But the “US Copyright Board” has made a decision about online radio which will mean the end of Radio Paradise and many other online radio stations.
This new regulation means the stations have to pay not 10-12% but as much as 125% of their income in royalties.
So if they don’t have some huge advertisers behind them (which will lead to a music station with a lot of advertisement, thus leading to the opposite they want to the station to be) they will not be able to continue their work and passion.
If you want to read more about this issue visit Save our internet radio which is made by the owners of Radio Paradise and is a good source for more information.
RIAA Boycott
I’m sick and tired. Sick and tired of the RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, their methods, their pressure against their customers, their inability to cope with a new situation, their stubbornness and their greed. Instead of listening to their customers and possible customers they cling to their old ways of distribution and show an unbelievable ineffectiveness to cope with new technologies and ways of spreading music.
Discover more than 2000 free albums at Jamendo
Jamendo is a music service that tries a different distribution model for music albums. Instead of paying money to download and listen to music you download the music for free and pay or donate money later directly to the artist who created the music. You may either donate money using paypal or visit the artists website to purchase music directly to support them even further and receive CDs that are send to your location.
Riaa is sueing Allofmp3
Ding Ding Ding, welcome the the next round in this amazing fight. In the right corner we have the underdog, a Russian mp3 website that offers what customers apparently want: MP3 files without DRM, variable bitrate at low costs. Did I mention that this is a perfectly legal company under Russian law ? In the opposite corner the RIAA, a institution living in the past, trying to hold of progress by sueing its customers and denying them what they really want.
Fox says that linking to sites that host illegal tv shows is illegal
Fox, the big media company, is apparently forcing a website owner to shutdown his website for linking to tv shows at sites like youtube and dailymotion claiming that linking to those shows would be illegal. This question never made it to court before it seems – here we have it again. A big company with money enough to pay a dozen lawyers is suing a website owner who probably can’t afford to even higher one lawyer.
