According to a federal judge, MP3 files are legal to sell if the person selling them, bought them. This is after Capitol Records wanted to shut down a used MP3 store which the record company deemed not legal to do.

Record labels have quite a stronghold over music and are very serious about people sharing that music as well as selling the music. Of course, it’s a losing battle with Millions upon Millions of people doing so, but they still try to abuse their power.

Via Arstechnica:

“A one-of-a-kind website enabling the online sale of preowned digital-music files got a major legal boost late Monday when a federal judge refused to shutter it at the request of Capitol Records. ReDigi, which opened in October, says it’s a modern-day, used-record store that provides account holders with a platform to buy and sell used MP3s that were purchased lawfully through iTunes. The platform’s technology does not support other digital files such as those purchased from Amazon or ripped from a CD.”

“Sullivan’s decision means that the case is still headed to trial, where Capitol will attempt to prove its allegations that ReDigi facilitates wanton copyright infringement and is not protected by the first-sale doctrine.”

Very interesting case and we’ll keep an eye on how it progresses. As many would agree, if you bought the music, then you should be able to sell it. Same as if you buy a movie, you can sell it to someone and so on.

Do you believe it should be legal to sell an MP3 if you purchased it?

Used MP3 Music Files Legal To Sell Says Federal Judge is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a move sure to drive more than a few music business mogul running and screaming it seems that the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) has come out and said that they think that legalizing file-sharing might not be such a bad idea.

Now before you go claiming that this must be a bunch of crazy people who don’t know what they are talking about it is important to know that SAC has some pretty big names from the music business as part of the organization.  People like Bryan Adams, Randy Bachman, and Carole Pope along with 1,500 other Canadian musicians all of whom have some pretty strong views on the industry, and opinion that doesn’t seem to coincide with the labels.

SAC believes that consumers should have access to all the music in the world, something that only file-sharing sites provide today. So instead of shutting these sites down the songwriters association wants to legalize file-sharing, while compensating the artists whose works are shared.

“People have always shared music and always will. The music we share defines who we are, and who our friends and peers are. The importance of music in the fabric of our own culture, as well as those around the world, is inextricably bound to the experience of sharing,” SAC writes in a detailed proposal.

via TorrentFreak

There are times when I am really proud of my country.

Oh those wacky Canadians and their wanting to legalize file-sharing is a post from: The Inquisitr

Oh let the laughter ensue raucously on this one folks.

Seriously how ridiculously stupid do you have to be to not only steal music from the very people you are suppose to be representing, and protecting, but then to get caught doing it.

It all started back in 2006 when Dutch performer Melchior Rietveldt was approached by the anti-piracy group BREIN to write a score for an anti-piracy video which he was led to believe would only be shown a a local arts festival.

Well it turns out that his music found its way on a large number of retail DVD’s as the background music for the anti-piracy lead in to the movie. Rietveldt only discovered this because he heard it playing on the Harry Potter DVD he was watching. Now according to some numbers being floated around his music could very well have ended up onto tens of millions of discs.

It was Rietveldt’s financial advisory who informed him that had he been properly paid for the additional use of his work he would have seen a payday of around one million Euros.

Now this is where insult gets added onto injury because when Rietveldt tried to contact the local group responsible for collecting these types of royalties he was ignored. It wasn’t until he was contacted by the local BREIN representative Jochem Gerrits with a proposition. or rather what amounted to a shakedown.

You see Gerrits, who also owns a record label, offered to intercede on Rietveldt’s behalf to get his money if Rietveldt agreed to pay Gerrits 33% of whatever was retrieved. Apparently the reasoning behind this arrangement as Gerrits told Rietveldt’s financial advisor was that without his help Rietveldt wouldn’t see a dime so he deserved a cut for his help.

And the music industry wonders why people don’t trust them further than they can spit in a headwind.

via Geek.com / TorrentFreak 

Anti-piracy group BREIN caught ripping off music is a post from: The Inquisitr

In preparation for the December auction of various items from the 55,000-square-foot rental property in the heart of Los Angeles where Michael Jackson spent his last days, the Julien’s auction house allowed the Today show inside for a tour.

Take a tour of his inner sanctum, previously off limits to everyone, including his kids and security. As for the auction, Inquisitr reported it here as well.

Take a Tour of the Rented Mansion Where Michael Jackson Died (Video) is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you listen to the garbage spewed forth by industry trade groups like the MPAA and the RIAA you would think that the music and movie industry is on the verge of collapse because of those nasty dirty pirates who spend their days, and nights, stealing other peoples work.

So it is interesting, and refreshing, to here people like Mike Lang, CEO of Miramax, and Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos suggest that piracy isn’t really that much of an issue, especially if you give people an easy to buy and watch, or listen to, their digital content.

Max Lang suggested in a recent keynote speech at the MIPCOM conference that people really don’t want to be pirates as long as they can easily get what they want. For Miramax piracy has never been that big of an issue but more of making sure the customer can get their content without jumping through hoops. As well Lang disputed that the main problem for the music industry was piracy but rather the rise of digital monopolies.

Another problem, related to the pricing issue, is the emergence of digital monopolies such as the one Apple has in the digital music business. This threatens the music industry more than piracy, Miramax’s CEO suggested.

“Apple is the strongest company in the music industry because there was not enough competition, and still to this day there is not enough competition. As an industry it can’t then influence, packaging, merchandising – all the things that are vital,” Lang said.

via TorrentFreak

As Ted Sarandos said in his keynote – “when consumers tell you what they want, give it to them. Figure out a way to give it to them because if you don’t they’ll figure out a way to get it.

Got to admit that it was interesting hearing this kind of talk from some industry big-wigs. Too bad the rest of the industry doesn’t clue in.

Miramax CEO says piracy isn’t as much a danger as digital monopolies is a post from: The Inquisitr

When it comes to the music business and technology there is no other organization more moronic or totally out of touch with how the business that they are trying to protect like a mad bulldog is changing under their feet than the RIAA.

This is the trade organization for the music business that has no problem suing single mothers trying to eek out a living or grandmothers who probably wouldn’t have the clue of what a torrent is or even who Lady Gaga is. One of the more famous lawsuits that they have been involved in started back in 2007 and saw them sue Jammie Thomas-Rasset for supposedly sharing 24 songs on KaZaA and win a judgement against her of $1.5 million.

After several appeals Thomas-Rasset managed to have one judge see some semblance of sanity, even though she still lost, and said the original award was unconstitutional and reduced it down to $54,000. Well needless to say the RIAA wasn’t happy about this and have filed an appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis.

Now the RIAA is appealing the case in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, saying that the court’s failure to classify Thomas-Rasset’s actions as a “distribution” under 106(3) of the Copyright Act wouldn’t deter her (and others, presumably) from repeating her actions and violating the Copyright Act again. The RIAA is hoping to vacate the jury’s verdict based on the interpretation of “distribution,” which would result in a third trial.

via Ars Technica

I’m sorry but this is just getting to be stupid and one can only hope that whatever judge, or judges, this comes up in front of sees this as nothing more than the vindictive action by the RIAA.

Now on the opposite side of the legal coin; and one that could have big repercussions throughout the music and online world, is the decision handed down by a Federal judge in New York that has found that cloud-based music lockers are for the most part, legal.

Of course music companies have long maintained, and argued previously, that music lockers are nothing more than companies profiting from encouraging users to violate copyright laws. As well one of their more ridiculous arguments was that playing music from these cloud-based music lockers constituted a “public performance” and as a result require a special license.

Well Judge William H. Pauley said in his ruling in the case of the music industry against MP3tunes, the cloud-based music locker founded by the perpetual thorn in the side of the music business Michael Robertson, that “MP3tunes did not promote infringement”, a cornerstone of the music businesses claim against MP3tunes.

While part of the ruling didn’t go entirely in Robertson’s favor the important part here is the decision about the legality of cloud-based music lockers.

The record companies claimed that services like these duplicate files in ways that violate copyrights, that they don’t do enough to stop repeat infringers, and that playing back songs from a locker constitute a “public performance,” which would require a license for the material. The judge rejected all these claims, finding that MP3tunes is protected as a service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The plaintiffs also argued that works recorded prior to 1972 were not protected by the DMCA, but the judge overturned this charge as well.

The record companies alleged that MP3tunes was responsible for 33,000 copyright violations, but Judge Pauley’s ruling reduced that number by 99% to only 350 works. The violations are specific, involving MP3Tunes’ technical failure to distinguish authorized copies of some songs, given away during “viral” marketing campaigns, and unauthorized copies that were still protected. The ruling found that these arrangements “contributed to the unauthorized use of EMI’s copyrighted works,” though MP3tunes founder/CEO and main defendant Michael Robertson says MP3tunes is “prepared to continue battling for the last 1%” of works cited in the case.

via ReadWriteWeb

Two tales of the music landscape, one cool and the other moronic is a post from: The Inquisitr

At least four concert goers at the Indiana State Fair are dead after the stage where the band Sugarland was suppose to perform this past Saturday collapsed.

The winds were reportedly between 60 to 70 miles per hour; and it is only because the band manager decided to hold everyone back in the underground pit of the stage after hearing about the severe weather warning that the country duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush, along with the band members, weren’t among the reported 40 injured people.

Immediately following the stage collapse the band stagehands and techs jumped into the area of the collapse and helped rescue the injured.

Four concert attendees are reported to have died and another 40 taken to area hospitals. “It was a perfect blue sunny day until this, it’s just heartbreaking,” says the source, who adds that watching the video footage later was “surreal.”

A Sugarland staffer referred to the band’s tweet following the collapse, which read: “We are praying for our fans, and the people of Indianapolis. We hope you’ll join us. They need your strength.”

via Hollywood Reporter

State police have said that the fair will be closed on Sunday but re-open Monday.

Here is a video capturing the disaster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdpzTOTo_UI&w=550

image courtesy of Hollywood Reporter

Sugarland concert stage at Indiana State Fair collapses killing 4 [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s not very often that you hear of Walmart getting out of a business segment but that is exactly what is happening when it comes to the MP3 music download business.

Walmart was one of the first big brand companies to follow Apple into the business of MP3 track downloads after iTunes launched back in 2003. Unfortunately though, it never gained traction the same way that iTunes did and while they haven’t publicly stated why they are getting out of that business they have said that as of August 29th the service would no longer be available.

Some are suggesting that part of the reason for its failure was its choice in formats for the music tracks.

Much of Walmart’s failure has been blamed on its choice of formats. Making the presumption that endorsing Microsoft’s choice of format would lead it to success, it opted for Windows Media Audio and found itself locked out of Apple’s iPod, guaranteeing a lack of mainstream adoption. The choice of a Microsoft alliance compounded the troubles further when Microsoft launched the Zune and its companion Zune Marketplace, leaving Walmart to compete against its own partner.

via electronista

Walmart cries Uncle and gets out of the MP3 download business is a post from: The Inquisitr

When it comes to demonizing no-one holds a candle to the record labels and their constant assertion that pirates are the worst scum on the planet and they are costing the industry boatloads of money.

This attitude has been laughed at for some time by anyone who really understands how our new media distribution system works but you have to admit that when someone of former Google CIO and EMI executive Douglas C Merrill stature says that this whole pirate thing is crap you might want to listen.

At a recent keynote speech in Sydney, Australia, Merrill had some rather interesting things to say about pirates and the music industry.

At EMI he took up the impressive position of Chief Operating Officer of New Music and President of Digital Business, despite admitting this week that he knew the music industry was “collapsing”.

“The RIAA said it isn’t that we are making bad music, but the ‘dirty file sharing guys’ are the problem,” he said during his speech as quoted by ComputerWorld.

“Going to sue customers for file sharing is like trying to sell soap by throwing dirt on your customers.”

But those “dirty file-sharing guys” had an even dirtier secret. During his stint at EMI, Merrill profiled the behavior of LimeWire users and discovered something rather interesting. Those same file-sharing “thieves” were also iTunes’ biggest spenders.

via TorrentFreak

It was this kind of talk, which Merrill expressed publicly while at EMI that ended up getting him tossed from the company.

The truth record companies don’t want to hear – pirates are biggest iTunes customers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Earlier today the news about the death of singer Amy Winehouse spread through the web like wildfire, helped along with a massive outpouring on Twitter.

While her death has been listed as unexplained it was announced that her autopsy will be taking place tomorrow but suspicion, due to her well documented addiction problems, is that she probably died from a drug overdose.

With her death though Winehouse joined a group of other musicians in a rather strange club called the 27 Club, or as it is also known as – the Forever 27 Club.

The entry requirement to this group is pretty simple – the musician needed to have died while they were 27 years old.

Apparently this is a club with some pretty illustrious members:

• Brian Jones – Rolling Stones founder – drowned
• Jimi Hendricks – asphyxiation from vomiting due to a combination of sleeping pills and wine
• Janis Joplin – heroin overdose
• Jim Morrison – The Doors – heart failure
• Kurt Cobain – Nirvana – suicide

Those are just the more famous names in the group but so far there are apparently a total of 46 members, including Amy Winehouse.

The BBC news video about her death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKdcgPkgLns

Her disastrous concert in Belgrade

Amy Winehouse’s death gains her membership in the strange 27 Club is a post from: The Inquisitr

Portal 2 is supposed to be a pretty popular game but I’ve never really gotten into playing the game but that didn’t stop me from being first in line to download the free soundtrack to the game.

Titled: Songs to Test By Volume 1 contains 23 tracks that total out to around 73 minutes of music and even if you are a fan of the game the soundtrack will appeal to fans of electronic music, like myself.

The soundtrack is available for free at the official Portal 2 site along with a bunch of ringtones formatted for Android and iPhone device.

via 1UP.com

The Portal 2 soundtrack is yours for free is a post from: The Inquisitr

Have you found modern pop tunes to have an uncomfortable bent toward the self-centered and narcissistic that you don’t recall from your youth?

You might just be getting old. Researchers have found the music of today is, for instance, more focused on terms like “I” and “me” than “we” and “us.” The trend has been steadily increasing since the 1980s, and psychologists Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia and Jean Twenge of San Diego State University have examined the phenomenon using several decades worth of stats from the Narcissism Personality Inventory. The test uses queries like ”I try not to be a show-off” and “I will usually show off if I get the chance” to determine a subject’s self centeredness. Campbell and Twenge found the rise in narcissism, particularly in “young people.”

Little reflects how youth describes itself better than music, and Livescience points to the research of University of Kentucky psychologist Nathan DeWall, who studied song lyric content between 1980 and 2007 on the Billboard Hot 100:

DeWall and his colleagues analyzed the lyrics of songs on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart from 1980 to 2007. They found a statistically significant trend toward narcissism in the music, with the words “I” and “me” gradually replacing “we” and “us.” Recent examples of narcissism in popular songs include Justin Timberlake’s 2006 proclamation, “I’m bringing sexy back,” and Beyoncé’s 2005 line, “It’s blazin’, you watch me in amazement.”

DeWall also discovered a shift away from what was termed “happiness and contentment” and toward “hostility and anger”- a psychological trait linked with narcissism. Twenge elaborated:

“In the early ’80s lyrics, love was easy and positive, and about two people,” Twenge told the New York Times. “The recent songs are about what the individual wants, and how she or he has been disappointed or wronged.”

Do you find today’s youth to be more self-focused and less altruistic? Have you noticed the change in musical content?

Pop music content suggests narcissism is rising is a post from: The Inquisitr

There has been a lot of talk recently about a possible move by Google into the music arena, or rather the talk has been ramping up, but Amazon’s recent launch of a music storage locker service may have thrown a monkey wrench in the discussions between Google and the music labels.

According to Peter Kafka at Media Memo the negotiations between the labels and Google are “broken” with Google possibly reconsidering their plans.

Google’s negotiations with the big music labels are “broken,” says a source familiar with the search giant’s thinking: “There’s definitely a problem with the Google music conversations.”  Another industry source says Google’s top executives are reconsidering their music plans altogether. “They’ve gone backwards,” I’m told.

That may be news to some corners of the music industry. Google had representatives in New York last week to talk to the labels, and several label executives I’ve spoken to in recent days told me that they believed their negotiations were progressing smoothly and that they felt confident they would strike deals with Google soon.

But others contended that Google has changed its terms in the past few weeks and that has held up negotiations.

One has to wonder if this is one of the reasons why Amazon’s launch of their music locker happened when it did because the response by the music industry to Amazon’s service hasn’t been the most positive.

Talks between Google and the music labels apparently stalled is a post from: The Inquisitr

According to this super scientific study, Coldplay and Gaga fans are one of the more chaste, while Nirvana ones will pretty much bone everything that moves. (This is not a humor graph, people. Real science.)

I think the question that really needs to be asked is if anyone would actually bang someone with Coldplay on their iPod.

[via]

[GRAPH] Willingness to put out vs. musical tastes is a post from: The Inquisitr

The animation is incredible.

The music is gorgeous.

And any steampunk fan will love the video for the steampunk influence in the video.

End of the day, this is a beautiful music video that hit all my soft spots today and hopefully it will do the same for you.

EYE OF THE STORM | Lovett from Lovett on Vimeo.

via Geeks are Sexy

An absolutely awesome steampunk themed music video [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Activision has announced it will immediately cease development of Guitar Hero games, effectively killing the iconic franchise after five years and more than a dozen titles. Activision’s decision comes after poor sales of the most recent title in the series, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

I was a keen early player of the Guitar Hero games, and while later titles became stale, there was no doubt how fun the series was in the beginning. Playing with a friend on a second guitar with some drink handy was as good as multiplayer gaming got in 2005. The franchise also had a real cultural impact – you don’t get an entire episode of South Park dedicated to your game unless you’ve made a lot of people sit up and take notice.

So, is this the end for games involving waggling little plastic guitars at your TV screen? Not necessarily. There is still EA’s Rock Band franchise, although Rock Band 3 also suffered poor sales when released last October, and is probably on thin ice right now.

The harsh reality is that consumers tired of bulky plastic instruments once the new wave of sleek motion controllers (Nintendo’s Wii Remote, followed by PlayStation Move and Microsoft Kinect) started taking over living rooms.

Incidentally, Activision also announced it was ending the DJ Hero series. I never did play either of the DJ Hero games, though I did hear the second game was fun as hell, so I may keep an eye open for a cheap copy.

As for you, Guitar Hero, I salute you, dear friend. Bye, bye, its been a sweet love!

*plays outro to Freebird at volume 11*

[Via 1UP]

Guitar Hero game franchise killed off for good is a post from: The Inquisitr

Who knew that the folks at NASA were so cool. I mean you gotta admit the idea of taking some of the really high resolution images of Mars’ surface, taken by NASA’s HiRISE orbiter, combine them with some really cool music to create a beautiful video.

via io9

NASA gets all cool with a music video of Martian sand dunes is a post from: The Inquisitr

There has never been any doubt that when you walk into a store and plonk down your money, then walk out with your purchase you can do anything you want with it. You don’t have to ask the store where you bought the item. You don’t have to ask the company that manufactured the item, and you don’t have to ask permission from the person who might have created the item in the first place.

This is because all physical goods fall under what is commonly referred to as first-rights doctrine which means you buy it and you can do what you want with it.

As much as we might want to believe that this applies to everything we buy the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t and especially so with it comes to electronic goods like e-books, software, videos, or music.

This is something that I have mentioned many time before but it is sometimes hard to convince people that this is indeed the case. You don’t own the goods – you ‘own’ a bunch of legalese that can change at any time.

Ed Bott over at ZDNet’s Microsoft Report has an excellent post that breaks down and looks at the legalities of iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic when it comes to your rights when you buy music from their services.

If you buy a digital album from an online service such as the iTunes store, Amazon MP3, or eMusic, you have no legal right to lend that album to a friend, as you could if you had purchased a CD. If you decide after a few listens that you hate the album, well, tough. You can’t resell it. You can’t even legally give it away.

When it comes to software things become even more convoluted. Over at WinExtra I wrote a post about this back in November of 2009 where I talked about this:

The problem is that those EULAs are sneaky and on more than one occasion they have been found to contain more than one type of gotcha. With the exception of a rare breed of computer users who do indeed examine each and every EULA of every piece of software they install most of us just click on I Agree and carry on our merry way. It is only later we find out that maybe we should have read that EULA after all.

In this case however, unlike with things like music, books or movies, this post was about a piece of software you can download that will scan those nasty EULA that we never read. The point was, like Ed’s, that we are very quickly becoming a world were owning something is becoming a figment of our imagination.

If you don’t think so take a moment and read Ed’s post and as he says at the end:

The moral of the story? If you really want to own your music, forget about downloading and buy a CD. You might even save some money compared to a digital download.

Never has caveat emptor meant more.

So, You think you own that software, book, or movie you downloaded eh. Think again. is a post from: The Inquisitr

If there is one constant in our online world it is the whining and moaning from old media, and to a growing extent new media, about how they are losing money because consumers don’t want to pay the same price for electronic versions of goods as they do for the actual in-hand physical version.

In fact there is a post currently on Fast Company titled Internet Users Still Cheap, Spend Only $1 to $10 on Digital Content, and while it might be a great pageview grabbing headline I find it rather insulting. In the post Austin Carr writes:

The digital marketplace is the likely savior of most industries. That is, if consumers are willing to spend money on the web. Do we expect too much for free online?

Sorry but it’s not just a matter of wanting everything for free, even though that is still a driving factor, but rather, I believe, that the consumer understands a very fundamental difference between online electronic versions of physical goods and the goods themselves – it’s availability.

You see when you walk into a store to buy a product you can see that there are only so many of copies of the item that is available. Whether it be a movie DVD, a game, a book or any item that is inherently available in electronic form, the price of a physical version is based on the cost of actually manufacturing those physical copies and making them available.

Yet when you go to buy that online in its pure electronic form those incurred costs change, and change radically. The consumer almost instinctively gets this and that is something that content producers continually try to ignore. The reality is that online electronic goods shouldn’t cost the same, or in some cases more than their brick and mortar equivalents.

Online consumers aren’t cheap. If they were businesses like Amazon or even the many t-shirt businesses would be able to stay in business. The consumer is smart enough to know that a physical product, whether it be a t-shirt, or a book, or even a physical copy of a movie or music album, has a cost to produce and are more than willing to pay those prices.

So when a consumer turns around and says that they don’t want to pay physical goods prices for the electronic versions they aren’t being cheap and to suggest otherwise is insulting their intelligence. They are however more than willing to pay what they consider to be a fair price as long as you make it easy for them.

Being smart online consumers doesn’t mean being cheap is a post from: The Inquisitr

“Yeah, thanks, but I’ll use my time to play a real instrument.”

The above jerkish statement has been jerkishly written on the Internet by jerks since the first Guitar Hero became big. Now, the circle is complete, and said jerks can jerk off: the sublime Rock Band 3 will be getting a real six-string guitar next March, courtesy of Fender.

This Squier Stratocaster guitar has been specifically built for Rock Band 3, and can be used to play the game, or plugged into an amp and played as a standalone guitar. It’s set to make rock gods of us all on on March 1, 2011, and will run you $280. That may seem a lot in the world of fake plastic trees guitars, but it’s competitive in the world of real electric guitars!

When combined with Rock Band 3‘s Pro Mode, this is capable of teaching you to play an actual guitar … not that playing with a fakey in your living room isn’t epic fun as well! Preorders open January 1. In the meantime, here’s a vid:

Note: Important, this. You’ll also need Mad Catz’s $40 MIDI PRO-Adapter to use the Squier with Rock Band 3. Just so you know.

[Via press release]

Fender reveals release date, price for Rock Band 3′s real guitar is a post from: The Inquisitr