Is there a more incestuous and self-congratulatory scene anywhere outside the fashion business? What a strange world it is, the world of “digital rights” activism. Campaigners pause only to pat each other on the back. Last week, anti-copyright campaigners Public Knowledge revealed their annual award winners. The group’s president Gigi B Sohn proudly announced the … Read more
Rejoice! “Three strikes and you’re out” is dead in the UK. Music file sharers will no longer face the threat of seeing the household broadband connection severed. The plague that is currently endemic in France won’t be jumping the English Channel.
Strangely, some people want to keep it alive. Stranger still – this includes the “digital rights” lobby.
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke says the band won’t be repeating the band’s digital deal which allowed users to download a version of its most recent album for free. “I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again,” he said, describing it as a “one-off response to … Read more
Nokia faces a crippling financial bill for its strategy of bundling free music with handsets, which will give users unlimited song downloads with Nokia phones.
The world’s biggest label, Universal Music, joined the “Comes With Music” initiative at launch last December, and Sony BMG joined last week. The Register has learned that Nokia must pay the wholesale per-unit rate for downloads over a certain ceiling – believed to be 35 songs per user per month.
Billy Bragg interviewed. With audio, it’s all here.
“one last fag, then bop, bop, bop”
– Wolfie Smith
London School of Economics I saw one of the most disturbing of all. If you thought people don’t behave in real life like they do online, think again. Here were all the most unpleasant aspects of online behaviour – ignorance, rudeness, groupthink, and a general sneering moral superiority – but made flesh. By the end, it had degenerated into farce. So what was it all about?
The event was billed as “Music, fans and online copyright”, and hosted in co-operation with the British Berkman clone, the Oxford Internet Institute.
Music and copyright are subjects that everyone has a stake in. But the speakers had been hand-picked by a fanatical anti-copyright Jacobin, Ian Brown. Brown drew from a narrow, ideologically homogenous group of friends. That didn’t make for an enlightening debate, but it made for a good lynching party – and the afternoon would culminate in a ritual lynching, with Mr John Kennedy of IFPI lined up for the noose.
With a selection like this, unpleasantness was guaranteed.
“They’re coming to take me away – ha haa!” – Napoleon XIV The Patient A student, Robert Soave writing in The Michigan, the student paper at the University of Michigan. Clinical Symptoms The patient is fearful: “The idea that information can be owned is quite terrifying” He also fears a loss of identity. Once something … Read more
Science Fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin has given the anti-copyright fanatics at the Boing Boing weblog a quick refresher in authors’ rights. The blog posted a short piece by Le Guin, erroneously slapping a Creative Commons license on it. “This is incorrect,” wrote her representative. “Ms. Le Guin has not placed this work under … Read more
Ironically-named P2P user Jammie Thomas, who was fined $220,000 for copyright infringement in a case brought by the RIAA last week, wants to appeal the Minnesota jury’s verdict. The lady is certainly unlucky. But is she ill-advised by her attorney Brian Toder – or is she just incredibly stupid? You decide: Jammie Thomas had used … Read more
Last week, the ailing sound recording industry in America found someone even dumber to pick on. Kazaa user Jammie Thomas had got on the internet, and was doing just what the adverts and mass media say you should do once you’re there – fill your boots with free stuff.
This is a case that should make everyone involved feel ashamed of themselves – with no exceptions. But I’m amazed by the howls of outrage.
Without this free stuff, the internet would be worth very little: it’s simply an extension of the telephone network with added pictures, and would otherwise be priced accordingly, as a low-cost or free addition to your phone bill. Everyone knows that pictures of cats falling down stairs, or even feature-light web-based office suites aren’t really money spinners. Google and BT can’t say so explicitly, but most people are only here for the free music or porn. The rest are here for online games. The stuff about getting broadband “to help with the kids’ homework” is sanctimonious crap.