"We're losing money as it is," founder Tim Westergren's told The Washington Post. "The moment we think this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we're doing is wasting money," adding, "We're funded by venture capital. They're not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn't feel like its headed towards a solution, we're done."

So where can you get your Pandora-like fix in the future? There's Nutsie, which streams a rough facsimile of your own music library to your phone, but when we tried it a year ago it was Symbian-friendly (albeit buggy) and now it seems to just run on Blackberry devices. If you've got the patience to upload all your music to the fee-based backup service mp3tunes.com, you can access your backed-up library from a PC (as well as several other types of devices) and stream the songs, but only files in mp3 format (no aac streaming for you!). There's always last.fm, a great recommendation service (I like it better than Pandora, actually) which now has the deep pockets of CBS to support it and seems to be working on a subscription model it will introduce sometime in the future. Or finally, SimplifyMedia offers a free application that will let you share your iTunes library across the web to other computers, your iPhone, and up to 30 friends. (NB:the iPhone version of the app costs money.)

"Pandora Could Be First Major Casualty of New Royalty Rates" [Wired]

First, here's the official revised policy that Yahoo announced today, according to the Associated Press:

The company said Wednesday it is offering coupons on request for people to buy songs again through Yahoo's new partner, RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody. Those songs will be in the MP3 format, free of copy protection. Refunds are available for users who "have serious problems with this arrangement," Yahoo said.

John Healey at the Los Angeles Times' blog Bit Player published this additional information, which sounds like a hidden perk of the Yahoo Music Store closing:

Carrie Davis at Yahoo provided these nuggets of detail: if you're looking for a coupon or a refund, contact Yahoo's Customer Care department. There's no need for proof of purchase. The offer expires at the end of the year. By the way, coupons can be redeemed for any track at Rhapsody, not just the ones the customer purchased from Yahoo.

Of course, you'll have to explicitly request the coupons, then take the time to re-download your songs—or download new ones if you didn't like the ones you originally bought (although that's pretty shady, especially if you don't delete the DRM-wrapped ones)—so it's not the smoothest transition to DRM-free music. On the other hand, we're glad to see Yahoo isn't totally abandoning its customers after all.

"Yahoo offers coupons for music that stops working" [Associated Press] (Thanks to Chris!)
"Yahoo rethinks, offers refunds for DRM-wrapped songs" [Bit Player at Los Angeles Times]
(Photo: Getty)

Earlier this month the RIAA voluntarily dismissed the case—then refiled it last week but didn't mention it was the same lawsuit, which means it was assigned to a different judge. Now the RIAA is demanding immediate discovery (which includes depositions and hard drives), which the previous judge had blocked pending a rule on the dismissal motion. We tip our hats to you, RIAA lawyers. You bring every evil-lawyer cliche from TV to life.

"These people are psychos," Beckerman said in an interview.

Also, the case was captioned under the name Does, meaning the RIAA was somehow pretending it didn't know the family's name allegedly behind the IP address in question.

"This case, it's the exact same internet access account," he said. "It’s the very same act of copyright infringement charged. It's no different."

The RIAA did not immediately respond for comment.

Beckerman has penned letters to both judges alerting them to the switcheroo.

"They're trying to force a settlement and frightening people," Beckerman said in the interview. "That's the only point of this."

"Lawyer: RIAA Gets Sleazy in Disputed Downloading Lawsuit" [Wired Threat Level] (Thanks to Chris!)
(Photo: Getty)

Although it won't affect other cases, the RIAA was handed a small smackdown this week when a U.S. district judge rejected their request for a summary judgement, and ruled that putting song files in a shared directory was not enough proof that infringement had occurred.

The judge said that the RIAA "must prove that the songs were actually downloaded," which is not a distinction past judges have made. Whether or not this ruling will cause other judges to look at the RIAA's future claims in a different light remains to be seen, however.

Wake's ruling pretty much contradicts many of the legal arguments the RIAA has presented in those peer-to-peer lawsuits the organization has brought against individual users. However, not that many cases actually make it to court, mainly because defendants often opt for settling for a few thousand dollars instead of shouldering expenses for a jaunt through the civil legal system.

The question was posed in response to two incendiary articles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times which argued that improvements in compression technology have made sound quality irrelevant. Slate answered by redefining the question:

If you want the mere gist of music; if you like music wafting in the background; if you want to carry around 1,000 songs in your pocket; if you want to hear a beat and a melody while you jog or ride on the subway—and that's often what any of us want (even me)—then MP3s are plenty good enough. Convenience doesn't merely trump quality; it is quality.

But there are some things that only a really good home stereo, playing well-recorded CDs or vinyl LPs, can give you: the texture of an instrument (the woodiness of a bass, the golden brass of a trumpet, the fleshy skin of a bongo); the bouquet of harmonics that waft from an orchestra (the mingling overtones, the echoes off the concert hall's walls); the breath behind a voice; the warm percussiveness of a Steinway grand; the silky sheen of massed violins; the steely whoosh of brushes on a snare; the undistorted clarity of everything sung, blown, strummed, bowed, plucked, and smacked, all at once—in short, the sense that real musicians are playing real instruments in a real space right before you.

In Defense of Audiophiles [Slate]
(AP Photo/Hans Punz)

The entire DG catalog isn't available, but one of their vice presidents says they're continuing to go through it "to mine the archives for the best gems," and that DG is making many out of print albums available:

The out of print albums now available on the DG Web Shop are from all across the wide spectrum of the DG catalog, including everything from one of the best ever Beethoven 5th Symphony interpretations from Carlo Maria Giulini and the LA Philharmonic; to wonderful Josquin Des Prez motet recordings, performed by the Orlando Concert; to Mozart Symphonies by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; to tango albums by the latest generation of Buenos Aires musicians.

RELATED: Deutsche Grammophon Online Store

But even the nifty WiFi feature in Zune is pretty insidious, not to mention hypocritical. To pacify the RIAA, Zune wraps up any wifi shared music in a layer of DRM that only allows the recipient to play the song three times, or for three days, whichever comes first.

Okay, that seems like a fair compromise. But the problem is that Microsoft says that Zune can't distinguish between MP3s you've made yourself that you might want to share freely and MP3s with more limited licenses (read: with the RIAA's gaggle of sue-happy attorneys chomping at the bit behind them).

Which is flat-out balderdash: the Creative Commons license is machine-readable. What this all comes down to is Microsoft only cares about honoring the licensing terms of major corporations, not the independent musician without legal clout. Is this surprising? Not really. But that makes Microsoft's failure to acknowledge its own customer's legal rights and copyrights none the less troubling.

Zune's Big Innovation: Viral DRM [Medialoper]

Why did we use our real name? We don't know, we're stupid and couldn't think of anything better on the spot. The sirens in the background provide a nice touch, don't you think?

We're well aware he'll proly never call back, but we just wanted to give it a shot. Man, our tele-sales skillz are mad rusty. A good thing, that, in some ways.

We have a sneaking suspicion that Fran's vacation is more of a "vacation" brought about by Friday's incident.

Transcript inside.

We suggest Creative Bastard puts a longer space between his looped comments. He says this is but the first, he's going to set the machine up and make a podcast of the best ones "over a fortnight." We can't wait!

"Free Phone!" [Creative Bastard] (Thanks to Wade!)

UPDATE: The file's creator has revealed the phone call was entirely simulated. The technology is real but the recording is a joke.

Senate of the United Mother***** States, indeed. (Thanks to Cameron!)

1) A business is not a private party.
2) The business does not "have a reasonable expectation of privacy." If they're "recording the call for quality assurance purposes," how can they expect the call to be confidential?
3) When people are prosecuted under wiretap law, it's nearly always because of something else. The call was used to expose a murderer, or a political sex scandal. Not that they're late in shipping your copy of Guitar Hero.
4) A company is more likely to sue the call's publisher.
5) A PR meltdown would ensue from a company prosecuting a customer in this manner. And frankly,
6) They have better things to do.

For ultimate safety, the states that do require consent of all parties are listed in this chart.

You can't make a cup of coffee without being liable for a dozen violations. But we encourage the plucky to record and send us their customer service calls. We got your back.

1) Dial using Skype. This is helped by our
2) a Skype-enabled headphone. We use a Logitech 350.
3) Download and install HotRecorder. We upgraded to the pro version ($14.95) because it lets us record for more than 2 minutes at a time. Nothing like getting into a heated conversation and then saying, can you hold on a second? Make sure to start the recording AFTER you make the connection.
4) Edit the audio. We use Adobe Audition, because we're mad hooked up like that. You might try Audacity (Windows) or GarageBand (Mac).
5) Upload via Odeo. Easy to use, and it gives you style options for nifty embeddable players. Just make sure your files are saved at the proper Hz (ratios of 1100), otherwise you end up with Alvin and The Chipmunks effect.

No messing with virtual cables or buggy programs. Nice. You also can forgo the headset and use your computer's built-in audio recording setup. What variations do/would you use?

One way to cancel your cellphone account without incurring a termination fee is to tell them you're moving out of the service area. We told Verizon we were taking up residence at the US Embassy. In Phnom Penh.

Verizon didn't take us at face value. We need to send a copy of our utility bill, or a driver's license with our new address, or a copy of our mortgage, or a letter from our employer. We have 30 days to fax that to 425-603-5366 or mail it to

Verizon Wireless
PO Box 96082
Bellevue, WA 98009

Guess we gotta look for some US embassy letterhead now... (Parts not affecting the outcome of the call have been edited out.)

Transcript inside.

(Verizon machine plays in bg)

CONSUMERIST: This is Ben Popken, calling Verizon wireless, I'm going to try and cancel my account by telling them I'm moving to Cambodia... and therefore avoid (to machine) Will you shutup?! Their $175 termination fee.

VERIZON: Your call may be recorded for quality and training purposes.

CONSUMERIST: You bet your ass.

VERIZON: Please hold while we transfer your call.

(sound of clicks)

CONSUMERIST: Ow...what was that click?

VERIZON ERIC: Um, real quick before I transfer you over, can I get uh, can I get that new address that you're moving to?

CONSUMERIST: Yeah, hold on a sec. Um, alright. Number 27. Street 240. Um, Phnom Penh.

ERIC: How do you spell that?

CONSUMERIST: P-h-n-o-m, P-e-n-h.

ERIC: Ok.

CONSUMERIST: And that's in Cambodia.

ERIC: Oh, ok, that's definitely out of the service area. Just give me a moment and I'll get you transferred on over.

(musical hold)

VERIZON KEVIN: Hi Benjamin?

CONSUMERIST: Yes.

VERIZON KEVIN: Hi, my name is Kevin and I'm in Verizon Wireless customer service. I understand you're moving out of the country.

CONSUMERIST: Yes.

KEVIN: Ok. Sorry to hear that, is this going to be...

CONSUMERIST: No, it's going to be great! You don't have to be sorry.

KEVIN: (chuckles) Well I don't mean sorry that uh, that uh, I don't mean to imply that's a bad thing for you. (chuckle) Uhm...

CONSUMERIST: Yes.

KEVIN: Well let's see now. Is this a permanent move for you or is this temporary?

CONSUMERIST: Permanent.

KEVIN: Ok...and I understand you're moving to Cambodia?

CONSUMERIST: Yup.

KEVIN: Andddd, when will you be leaving the country.

CONSUMERIST: Well, ummmm in a week.

KEVIN: Would you like the service to remain active through, until your departure?

CONSUMERIST: No, I don't really use it anymore so..

KEVIN: Ok, alright, so want make the disconnect as soon as possible. Well actually, since do, because we bill a month in advance, we do disconnect on the last day of your bill cycle. I do see you're not using your phone here. Um but the disconnect will set to happen on the last day of your bill cycle. This will be on August 10th. So you will have usage through that.

KEVIN: The final bill will have residual charges, residual service charges and fees from the service that will apply to you, two or three dollars.

CONSUMERIST: Okay...

KEVIN: It's also going to charge the early termination fee of $175. As long as we have proof of the residency outside of the country within 30 days of that, we will credit that back. Ok.

CONSUMERIST: What's the address that you need to receive documentation?

KEVIN: I'll, I'll get that here in one sec. Did Eric tell you what documentation is required, what is valid documentation?

CONSUMERIST: Yup.

KEVIN: Ok. Is there any more family or friends who want to take over your service and avoid an activation fee if they're not already Verizon Wireless members?

CONSUMERIST: No.

KEVIN: Setting up the disconnect for you right now...That's a big move, leaving the country like that.

CONSUMERIST: Yeah.

KEVIN: Work taking you out of the country?

CONSUMERIST: Yup. I'm gonna go work at the embassy over there.

KEVIN: Wow, that's exciting.

CONSUMERIST: Yeah.

KEVIN: Have you worked at an embassy before?

CONSUMERIST: Not exactly, this is my first full on embathy, embassy position.

KEVIN: Have you ever been to Cambodia?

CONSUMERIST: No.

KEVIN: So this will be a whole new adventure for you.

CONSUMERIST: Yup. I'm looking forward to it.

KEVIN: Alright, getting all set up for the disconnect and...

CONSUMERIST: (grunts)

KEVIN: Here you go, you can mail your documentation to either Verizon Wireless PO Box 96082, and that's in Bellevue, Washington. B-e-l-l-e-v-u-e, 98009, or you can send a fax to area code 425, 603-5366 and... just remember that again, let's see here, looking at the account, proper documentation mumble, driver's license for the area that you will be living with your address on it, a utility statement, or a letter from your employer stating the address where you will be working, that will probably be the easiest for you to obtain before you head over there, and that needs to be within 30 days after the disconnect which is August 10th.

CONSUMERIST: Ok.

KEVIN: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

CONSUMERIST: Um, I mean, 'm pretty busy here this last week and I don't happen to get that document, and I'm adjusting over there, I mean (laughs) do you guys just not believe me that I'm moving there? Like, why, Why do I have to provide documentation to that effect?

KEVIN: Because of that. If If if uh, we didn't have documentation stating that fact, then that would definitely get out to the public and well jeez all you have to do is tell them you're living another country and they'll disconnect and waive the fee for you. The fees are there for a purpose and there are conditions that allow for those fees to be waived but we need supporting documentation for that. I do understand that it's a busy time for you but we have to have our documentation. If we didn't require it of you, then we couldn't require it of everyone else.

CONSUMERIST: I see.

KEVIN: Ok.

CONSUMERIST: Alright, well, um, I'll try and get that letter for you guys and say a-rivah-dirchee.

KEVIN: Alright well good luck to you over there in the embassy, I thank you for choosing Verizon Wireless and being a valued customer. You have a great day now.

CONSUMERIST: Thanks, you too.

KEVIN: Is there anything else I can assist you with today, Benjamin?

CONSUMERIST: Mmm, unless you're going to cancel my account and waive the termination fee.

KEVIN: I don't I don't have a way of doing that.

CONSUMERIST: You don't?

KEVIN: I don't. You have a great day now.

KEVIN: Benjamin?

(click.)

On Mark's website, he hosts a Men's Guide to Escort Services and The Shy Girl's Guide to Becoming a Whore, which he classily refers to as a "woman's guide to surviving the Bush Economy." On some of these pages, he has a Paypal link, asking people to donate to help support the site.

But Paypal doesn't like hookers. So when they discovered that his site was primarily used to advise both men and women on how to engage in prostitution safely, they shut down his account. They also froze a transfer that he had made the day previously, claiming that they could hold on to his money for up to six months for no particular reason.

Now Mark's out for blood. And we can't really say we blame him. Regardless of what you think of prostitution, he is not using Paypal to conduct business that is illegal. Paypal, in short, has taken the hardline on a moral position and have decided to hold on to Mark's $400 bucks for six months to teach him a lesson, or as they claim, "to cover potential complaints." Right.

Yes, it's all well within the terms of their EULA, for whatever that's worth. But when all it takes is one uptight Paypal employee pulling her panties over her head in moral outrage to completely freeze your assets, isn't it time to trust your money to someone else?

EDIT: Well, apparently, this is a couple years old. We admit we didn't check the date... on the other hand, no less than three separate tipsters emailed us about this over the weekend, so we hope we can be excused for thinking it's current. It must be doing the rounds.

PayPal Sucks - Closed my Account - Keeping my Money [Marc Perkel Rantz] (Thanks, Nick!)

This right is granted specifically by Federal statute 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2511(2)(d).

Now, if the call center is in your state, you will have to notify them, but only if you're in one of these states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania Washington.

Mostly, calls to companies are interstate. You can secretly record to your heart's delight.

All is not lost if the call is intrastate and they refuse to continue until you stop recording. Ask them what they have to hide. Ask, "What are your crimes?" Alternate between those two questions. Send us the recording.

So, for Jeff, who told T-mobile that he was recording and they wanted to hang up, the answer is simple. Next time, just don't tell them.

"Napster is willing to pay you money, and all you have to do is keep your site lookin' pretty. Napster...provides sites like yours with streaming flash-based links to their library. Super-easy!... You get 5% for downloads and $10 dollars for each subscription. Give us an email or call and say, "my site wants a sugar daddy", we'll hook you up."

Barf.

Brian was only one stop on Nadine's fun train, similar pitches went out to other blogs, including one by marketing professional, John Scalzi. He promptly dissected the letter and publicly spread its guts, including the President of Guerilla PR, Michael Leifer. Turns out Nadine made an unauthorized "cool kid" remix of the company's pitch letter designed for comedy blogs. After spotting her craftwork in the stockades, Leifer fired her.

Starting to see a trend among companies when blogs expose their bad behavior: Apologize, declare the employee rogue, fire their ass, and say it will never happen again.

Full copy of the offending email, after the jump...

—-—-—-—-— Forwarded Message: —-—-—-—-—
From: "Nadine Dunn"
To: [redacted}@kotaku.com
Subject: Napster Loves Ya!
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:18:05 +0000

Hello Brian

Napster is willing to pay you money, and all you have to do is keep your site lookin' pretty. Napster has taken their catalog of over 2 million songs and comedy routines and acquired the rights to provide sites like yours with streaming flash-based links to their library.

These cool links will add to your content and enable users to have a No-cost interactive audio experience.

Super-easy! Your users can cut and paste these audio links into their blogs, MySpace pages, etc. and you collect money. You get 5% for downloads and $10 dollars for each subscription. If you'd like to see an example of what it will look like on your site , checkout www.gumpop.com

Give us an email or call and say, "my site wants a sugar daddy", we'll hook you up.

Best,
Nadine

Nadine Dunn
guerilla PR, Inc.
212-[redacted]
nadine@guerillapr.com
www.guerillapr.com

• If the husband calls up and you see the wife's name is on the account, say the wife needs to call. When the wife calls, says the husband needs to call. Keep juggling untill the give up or both call in at the same time.
• If the customer asks, "Are you going to bill me for this?" Say no and the customer hangs up, thinking they canceled. See, the retainer himself isn not going to bill him, AOL is.
• Use rebuttal after rebuttal until the customer gets confused and thinks his account is cancelled.

Listen to the interview in full below.

Transcript after the jump...

MUSIC IN

CONSUMERIST: America Online gave him trips to Mexico and thousands of dollars in bonuses. He was in the elite, an expert at getting people to not cancel AOL. But he didn't there by being Mr. Nice Guy. Consumerist.com interviews a former AOL retainer.

MUSIC UP

CONSUMERIST: What would be some examples of some of the tricks you had up your sleeve?

RETAINER: "Are you gonna get billed for this?" Well, I'm not gonna bill you.

CONSUMERIST: Heh.

RETAINER: Well, I'm not. America Online is.

CONSUMERIST: Right...

RETAINER: A lot of these tricks I came up with myself, and showed others, and my boss would ask me, "Hey, can you please show these other people here how to do that?" Member calls up and says they want to cancel, and the wife's name is on the account, the husband's calling, so "Oh, you need to have your wife call." The wife calls and, "Ohp. Your husband needs to call."

CONSUMERIST: Hmm.

RETAINER: As long as you can get them to not cancel the account, you get a small bonus.

CONSUMERIST: Mmhm. I received an email from another person, he's claiming people having anxiety attacks, people...

RETAINER: Yeah. When I first got into the saves department, had a little bit of anxiety myself, and went to the doctor and complained about not being able to sleep, and having problem, trouble eating. He told me it was because of the anxiety of the job. And he gave me some medicine to help take that edge off. And it helped, but I had to take medicine to actually, make it through those, probably first three or four months there until I got acclimated to the environment.

CONSUMERIST: Mhmm.

RETAINER: So yes, the stress is quite a lot. People have anxiety attacks, people have been taken away in ambulances from the call center.

CONSUMERIST: In the manual we uploaded, there's been talk about this crazy program called, "Merlin."

RETAINER: It's just an interface allowing them to look at the accounts and change things in accounts. What you really want to look at is the Retention Buddy. That's the software that was written specifically for the saves department. And had rebuttals, and questions, and basically, how to handle just about any situation from any member that called in. Like, oh, we have great Parental Controls that you can use that will help... keep your daughter from these things. And if they said no to that, they would with a second rebuttal and a third and you used as many as you could until the person got ticked off or you confused 'em enough till where they thought the account was cancelled.

MUSIC UP

CONSUMERIST: What eventually made you decide to leave?

RETAINER: They started really cutting back on the money. My calls were listened to quite a bit and one call got listened to and I didn't do a couple of things and they took $2500 from me.

CONSUMERIST: For one call?

RETAINER: For one call being off. I just didn't feel good about what I was doing anymore. The job I have now, it's high pressure, I have a lot of responsibility, but it's nowhere near the stressful levels that it was at AOL.

CONSUMERIST: Probably don't need a prescription to get through your day.

RETAINER: Nope, not at all, no more of that.

CONSUMERIST: Right...right.

CONSUMERIST: Our anonymous interviewee told us that he was not only not surprised at John's behavior during Vincent's phone call, it was typical, and certainly not the worst an AOL rep could muster. Join Consumerist.com next time when we speak with another retainer... who paints a graphic portrait of life inside an Oklahoma call center, and how far they went to deal with the pressures.

OK: There were people selling on the floor! You could get meth, you could get pot...

CONSUMERIST: All that and more, on Consumerist.com, your number one source for the disco party over AOL's grave.

MUSIC OUT

Related:

• AOL Retention Manual Revealed
• NYT Notes AOL Manual Upload, Questions Raised
• AOL Updates Retention "Offer Matrix"
• AOL Internal Memos, After Vinny's Call

You won't believe what he says about Vincent's call. Even if you do, you gotta love the maniacal laughter.

UPDATE: Mp3 fixed so you can hear both of us.

The T-Mobile operator is adamant about how since David didn't call the same day, T-Mobile owes him jack. Also, since David didn't read the Terms and Conditions, T-Mobile owes him jack. Eventually, Rudy breaks down in the face of David's unrelenting logic and offers up a free one-day pass (as cash refunds are "impossible") but it's really rare and "most other people won't do it..."

You can hem and haw all you want, but the brass tacks is that David paid money for a service he never received.

"T-Mobile: 'No hotspot? Sorry, no refund either'" [Zdent] (Thanks to David!)

Buy some here. Buy some here. Buy some here. Buy some here.

It's almost as good as this inane Pennysaver commercial that enthralls the listener through hypnotism.

The power of repetition. We're filled with an uncontrollable urge to go find some pennies right now.

[The Byrd House Review] (Thanks to Karl Hungus!)

Small World Podcast interviewed us about The Consumerist in general. Check it out here.

G4 was kinda funny because they wanted us to say that viral marketing is bad, but we don't really believe that.

The problem, more often, is people decide they want to create a viral ad, instead of trying to make something cool. If you're all, oh, it's going to be viral, so there will be no cost to distribute it! There's gotta be 80's clothes! And chicks, and some weird sex thing! That's not gonna work. Pretending to not hire mommies to talk about your diapers is not good either. But have pink goo cover a girl and turn her into a giant shimmering sequin? Sign us up.

Needless to say, the RIAA wants to shut them down, but have been powerless to do so: they are located in Russia and apparently comply with all local copyright laws. The RIAA is so pissed off that they've managed to lobby to make a provision for Russia joining the WTO the complete destruction of AllofMp3.com.

In response to the strong arm tactics, AllofMp3.com has broken their silence and issued a press release, explaining their business model and why they feel that they are a completely legal source of music. They argue that they pay royalties to artists through Russian organizations for collective management of rights.

So is it legal? Possibly, but legal in crime-saturated Russia, which is a nebulous definition of legality from any perspective. It's probably a moot point: AllofMp3.com warns that their business is going to change due to the change of Russian copyright law in September 2006. So if you can stomach any moral qualms, the next few months are the time to pay for music by the bound while basking in the nebulosity of quasi-copyright legality.

AllofMP3.com breaks silence. [Slyck.com]

Over at This Is Broken, we saw this screenshot illustrating how Gateway tries to sucker your mailing address out of you for the price of 500 free music downloads.

Why would Gateway need your mailing address for a download service? Why, to sell it to junk mailers for a penny, of course! A reminder that free stuff always gets subsidized at your expense.

Promotions Gateway Web Ad [This is Broken]

As an example: we like Apple. We like iTunes. We think, overall, Apple is just the sort of shot-in-the-arm that the music industry needs. And Apple is a pretty trustworthy company. But that didn't stop them from silently degrading the rights iTunes customers have over their ability to copy the songs they purchased to other machines or hard copies (we remember this very clearly, but we're having a hard time Googling it up, not really quite certain of the germane search terms. Anyone got a reference citation for this?).

Anyway, Reuters has an interesting look up at the murky concept of ownership in the digital age, highlighting the dangers of letting a company licensing you thousands of dollars worth of media but not allowing you to directly control it as property. What happens when you want to switch away from iTunes? You have to buy all your songs somewhere else, on a different DRM format. What if you want to backup your iPod? It's not easy... they are designed to make the process as difficult as possible. There's nothing here that anti-DRM folks don't already know, but it's an interesting primer on the issues surrounding what companies are trying to tell you what your rights are compared to the rights consumers have enjoyed when making purchases for centuries.

Although we really do believe music, like soylent green, is "the peoples," please rest assured the image is posted with our pointed tongues gorily transfixed through our cheeks.

Do you own songs bought online? Well, sort of [Reuters]

In the end, one Apple rep suggested to him that, "back and forth bad blood between the companies that precluded cross support."

Further proof that after 30 years as a cult brand, Apple has quickly come to the point where it unilaterally creates its own reality, at consumer's expense.

Read more: "Trust is down in Real Networks" [Digital Influence Mapping Project]

Anyway, as you might expect, the RIAA numbers aren't quite as bleak as they sound. The Long Tail blog has a look up at the figures, pointing out that since more sales were made this year through digital distribution than ever before, 2005 was likely more profitable for the Record Industry than 2004. They point to Warner Music Group as proof.

Of course, everyone already knew their numbers are bullshit — the RIAA has a very transparent agenda here. They want to appear to be an industry teetering on the brink of extinction, so the Government will pass measures to protect their completely obsolete business model. It's hard to feel sorry for bullies like this, especially when a business model that fully understood the possibilities and advantages of file sharing would probably net them record earnings within a couple years.

Music Industry: Is digital making up the difference? [Long Tail]

1. Go to this link.
2. Fill in the survey etc.
3. Check your email for the code
4. Go into the iTunes Store and click on the Redeem link
5. Login and enjoy your credit.

Note : If you are placed anywhere outside the U.S. then you will have to trick iTunes into believeing you're not. Check out how in this video.

This can be done multiple times using different email addresses. Here's a geeky technique for quickly generating multiple gmail accounts.

Not that we advocate any of this. It's provided here purely for academic purposes.

[via FluxionTech]

Related:

• Now Canada Is Selling Sony Over Rootkits
• Sony Settles Root Kit Class Action (Part The Second)
• Sony Settles Root Kit Class Action (Part The First)