I Own My Music

A European parliamentary committee this week gave the thumbs up for a set of laws that could lead to some Internet users being cut off from the Web for using filesharing networks to get free music downloads.

The laws have raised concerns that ISPs will soon be in bed with record labels in an attempt to control how people access the Internet. The big fear in Europe is that a three-strikes-and-your-out law will be implemented to target people using filesharing services.

Such a law would mean that ISPs would cut off from the Internet filesharing users caught out for a third violation of copyright laws.

The laws must be voted on by European Parliament before they can be enforced.

The three-strikes law has been making filesharing headlines for some time now, but it’s never been clear if such a rule could ever be enforced by law because of the pressure it would put on ISPs. Could that all be about to change?

Filesharing was the cause of a major security breach that led to the personal details of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer being exposed recently.

Names, birth dates and social security numbers of 2,000 Wagner Resource Group clients, including Breyer, were exposed over the filesharing network of Limewire. For almost six month, the security breach went unnoticed.

It was, amazingly, a Washington Post reader who discovered the breach while using the filesharing service Limewire. Limewire gives users access to other people’s files. Believe it or not, 40% to 60% of all security breaches are the result of employees using filesharing services and leaving files vulnerable to exposure.

The risk of filesharing attacks poses a real risk for companies around the world, as company secrets can be leaked over the Internet. This isn’t the first of such filesharing cases and it will no doubt not be the last. It’s dumbfounding that large firms don’t have measures in place to prevent such things from happening.

While filesharing news mostly focuses on music and movies, one area that is often overlooked is videogames. Videogames often appear on filesharing networks for free downloads. You can get everything from old Dreamcast games to the latest Nintendo DS roms through filesharing and BitTorrent.

The latest videogame news is that four people who shared the game Dream Pinball 3D on a filesharing website have been ordered to pay fines of £2,750 each.

Not only that, but the legal team for the people behind the game have said that they are going after 1,000 more people who shared the game over filesharing networks. If you have a copy of the game, you’d better watch your back.

The four are accused of violating copyright laws. The game itself sells for £16. It’s not even that good of a game, so those filesharing four must really be kicking themselves for this whole debacle.

Guns n Roses’ long-awaited new album has been 14 years in the making. We aren’t all that excited about the album because we can’t remember who Guns n Roses are. Ha! The youth of today. Anyway, the surprise of their new album has been somewhat spoiled after tracks were leaked onto filesharing networks before the official release date.

The nine tracks first appeared on little-known rock website www.antiquiet.com. They then made its way onto filesharing networks and onto peoples’ computers and iPods.

The album reportedly cost the ridiculous sum of $13 million to produce. Must have been a lot of hairspray.

After 14 years of making an album, it’s no surprise that it ended up being leaked before it was due for release. If there are any Guns n Roses fans left, they will likely have got the album through filesharing networks first before they buy the CD, so it’s unlikely that sales will be affected too much.

Foxy singer Joss Stone is the latest celeb to come out and say that she supports filesharing. Joss Stones allegedly said that piracy is brilliant.

In a bit of a twist, Joss Stone said that she loves music, but she hates the whole music industry. Don’t we all! When asked after a show what she thinks about people who download her music, she said, “I think it’s great,” which raised a few eyebrows.

Joss Stone went on to say that music should be shared and it should be free. So filesharing is a good thing.

She may come under flack for saying that people should buy music, burn it, share it on filesharing networks and so on. It’s rare for a singer in her position to come out and speak so openly about this subject.

Record labels have brainwashed artists into thinking that filesharing and priacy is bad, she added.

After hearing these comments, we went and downloaded Joss Stone’s latest album using Limewire. Thanks Joss!

Miles Doughty, the frontman of Slightly Stoopid, a band we’ve never heard of, has gone on record and said that filesharing is good because it gives people who would not have otherwise heard your music a chance to listen to it.

This is in line with many bands and artists who have sung the praises of filesharing for making music available to the masses in a way that was, until recently, virtually impossible.

Filesharing is said to give artists direct access to fans and would-be fans while putting record labels in the precarious position of not really having any point. Miles Doughty has praised filesharing for the exposure it has given his band, although that exposure wasn’t enough to make it to our iPods. Or perhaps it was, given this news report. The mind boggles.

Anyway, Miles Doughty says that filesharing increases a band’s ability to tour and play live shows, giving a band the opportunity to do what it’s supposed to: play music.

Despite music pundits insisting that CD sales are dead and that filesharing is the only way people are getting their music, Lil Wayne’s new album Tha Carter III has sold by the bucketload since its release on June 10.

CD sales in the US have dipped by about 11% in the past year, thanks to filesharing and other ways of getting music, but that didn’t stop Lil Wayne shifting 423,000 units in a few days.

Predicted figures for the album put CD sales at anything up to and above one million. So people are still buying CDs and filesharing has yet to kill the music industry. Interesting.

Lil Wayne’s new album is more popular than the likes of Mariah Carey and Usher. This kind of reception to a hit album is rare and is perhaps something that the music biz can learn from. Despite Lil Wayne’s new album finding its way onto filesharing networks before its release, sales of Tha Carter III appear to have not been affected at all.

Rogers Cable, Canada’s largest ISP, recently held a press conference to dispel a few myths about how it shapes its bandwidth with regards to people using filesharing networks.

A spokesperson from Rogers said that the ISP does not block filesharing traffic. Rather, it controls the traffic when it is uploading data. Apparently, many people are unaware that when they download material through filesharing networks, they are also uploading data.

Rogers limits the rate at which users can upload material. The idea behind this is that filesharing users then do not then overwhelm all other Internet traffic. Apparently, expanding the network would not solve the problem, so limits must be installed.

Filesharing traffic is designed to overwhelm other traffic. With filesharing traffic expected to triple by the year 2012, ISPs such as Rogers will have their work cut out for them to control the traffic.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently gave a demo of its new method for hunting down people suspected of downloading copyrighted material through filesharing services and other such means. This new method specifically targets students who have been using filesharing services to share music they shouldn’t have been.

The infamous Media Sentry, the RIAA’s partner in tackling filesharing, uses similar software to that which Internet users have access to for downloading music and movies. Media Sentry first scans filesharing networks for copyrighted material.

Media Sentry then matches the files with records of known pirated songs. If files are matched then Media Sentry will try and match the user’s IP address with that of college campuses. If a match is found there then the files are carefully scrutinized before a letter is sent to the campus. It’s a remarkably simple process, but it is catching out hundreds of students across America. It’s strange, however, that the method specifically targets college campuses.

There was no mention of what action the RIAA takes against people whose IPs are not on college campuses.

Canadian people who use filesharing services could soon be in for a shock, with new legislation that could see Canadians fined $500 for each song they share through filesharing networks.

Canadians could soon be being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars, if the legislation passes. $500 per track is a hefty fine for anyone, especially given the number of song that people usually share over filesharing networks.

As well as attacking filesharing, the legislation would also outlaw unlocking cellphones and copying music from protected CDs to MP3 players. Protected CDs? Anyone?

This comes as the latest move around the world in the ever-changing battle against copyright infringement, which record labels seem unable to win. There has been some speculation that these new measures could usher in a period similar to that in the US, where people are being sued left, right and center for copyright infringement.