Design Federation

Paul McGuinness, manager of rock band U2 one of the richest bands on earth, has made a speech during the MIDEM music conference, urging to start a total war against piracy. McGuinness said “It is time for artists to stand up against shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way they have been treated in the digital age”. McGuinness named a lot of defendants: he blamed record labels for “lack of foresight”, scientists, who “create marvelous devices but don’t think of themselves as makers of burglary kits”, and goverment who “created a thieves’ charter by agreeing that ISPs should not be responsible for what passes along their pipes”.
Finally, McGuinness has called on Internet service providers to immediately introduce disconnection policies to end illegal music downloads.

Scientists as creators of burglary kits, total war on piracy, and ISPs creating a theives charter, first Tom Cruise, now this raving fool. What next? Send everyone who has downloaded a song to Guantanamo?

http://www.riaaradar.com

Many members and visitors will doubtless have seen the wildly inaccurate statement today by AEG that Prince is not suing his fans and referring to the Prince Fans United sites as phoney etc

read it all here http://www.princefansunited.com/

Was radioheads idea a massive success or a disaster?

According to this report “2 out of 5 Downloaders Willing to Pay an Average of $6 for “In Rainbows” Album” but strangely enough “The results of the study are based on data obtained from comScore’s worldwide database of 2 million people who have provided comScore with explicit permission to monitor their online behavior. “

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Apparently, Radiohead yesterday released their album online for those that preordered, with up to 1/3 of people paying nothing and getting the album. Well, funnily enough, I paid quite a decent amount and never got the download link. I have already emailed them and Im sure they will sort it out, but it raises the question, If one was to download the album somewhere else, even though they had paid for it, would that constitute piracy? Or if someone downloaded the album and they hadnt paid a cent for it, would that be piracy, when you can quite easily go to their website and download it for free. How about if you gave it to your friends after you had paid for it, would that be piracy when again, its free off their website.

Food for thought.

It was only the other day when american corporations declared war on individuals. Now it seems australia wants to copy our sister america, and throw people in the big house for downloading music (article here). “We would hope that the ISPs and the record companies could come up with an alternative solution,” said MIPI general manager Sabiene Heindl.  Well if Radiohead can come up with a decent solution, how come people earning hundreds of zillions of dollars cant? Look, lets be honest, artists who work hard deserve to be paid out the frame like donahue (ice-t), but we all know half these executives dont have a creative bone in their bodies so why should they be getting paid all the big money? Michael Franti encourages people to go to his shows/concerts and record them and share them, and he seems to do ok.

 People will always pay for good music, its just how much do these big companies want that is the problem. 

Hot on the heels of Radioheads brilliant move to allow customers to pay what they want for their new album, The land of the Free home of the brave has become not so free for Jammie Thomas a 30-year-old environmental coordinator with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians. Seems they “cant” find bin laden, but they can find a women who copies a few songs, and then fine her 10 years wages. That will teach those pesky pirates a lesson, You want to copy some songs to your ipod, well not anymore, or you are going to jail. Then again, it really shouldnt be any suprise should it? I mean corporations are there to make money for their shareholders, not to worry about people like us.

“Duluth resident Jammie Thomas has been found guilty by a jury in US District Court of having downloaded and shared 24 specific unauthorized music files and was ordered to pay the recording industry $220,000 USD.

The case, which only lasted a day, had tons of testimony from corporate representatives including unbelievable testimony by a Sony BMG rep that said that all ripping of music from retail CDs, even for personal use, is theft. Imagine that, getting the music from your own paid for CDs, and you are a thief. ”

source betanews