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.
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EMI Says You Can't Store Your Music Files Online
By 4.22.08
Today, MP3tunes’ CEO Michael Robertson sent out an email to all users of the online music backup and place-shifting service MP3tunes.com, asking them to help publicize EMI’s ridiculous and ignorant lawsuit against the company. EMI believes that consumers aren’t allowed to store their music files online, and that MP3tunes is violating copyright law by providing a backup service. (And we’re not using a euphemism here—it really is a backup/place-shifting service and not a file sharing site in disguise.)
FCC Regulators Sing, Make Fun Of Our Woeful Unpreparedness For DTV Transition
By 12.26.07
Meet The Singing Regulators. Regular FCC employees by day, these mellifluous regulators spend their nights performing humorous sendups inspired by the Commission’s work. Their latest song pokes fun at the FCC‘s utter failure to prepare the nation for the planned February 2009 transition to digital television.
RIAA Told To Provide Breakdown Of Expenses Per Each Downloaded Song
By 11.27.07
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, a Brooklyn judge made a defendant in an RIAA lawsuit very happy when he ordered the RIAA to document the actual expenses incurred per downloaded song.
ComcastMustDie.com Seeks Theme Song
By 11.5.07
ComcastMustDie, a blog about how much Comcast sucks, is looking for someone to make a theme song for an upcoming podcast. They want it to be 90 seconds or less, contain instrumentals, vocals and it would be nice if they contained these suggested lyrics:
You Don’t Own Anything With DRM
By 5.15.06
One problem with DRM in general is that it is an industry concept that takes-as-read the consumerist fallacy that you don’t actually own things you buy, you just license them. Perhaps this is the natural evolution of consumerism now that products like media are, if not less tangible, at least a bit more ethereal. Still, DRM gives all the power to the companies… and companies prove time and time again that they can’t be trusted.
More Free: Free iTunes Blog
By 3.15.06
Like we said earlier today, we absolutely love free. Complaints start when we start paying, when we enter a contract with a company and — time and time again, almost invariably — they forget about our contracts and start lumping us up in with the faceless aggregate. But there’s no lapsed service, no patronizing Customer Service exchanges when things are free — free is consumerist utopia.
