p2pnet - rss feed: p2pnet 2006 roundup
p2pnet.net News:- Everyone is doing a year in round-up. We post far too many stories for just one wrap, so here’s p2pnet’s Mega Roundup for January, 2006. We’ll be doing similar month-by-month summaries throughout the year, each appearing at the beginning of the month.
Meanwhile, all the best, everyone, for 2007 which will, we hope, be the year for all those people who’ve reverted from ‘consumer,’ with all that derogatory names implies, to ‘customer,’ someone with free choice and the power to exercise it.
It’s time to finally and clearly demonstrate to the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG; and, the Big 6 Hollywood studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, that they depend on us, and not the other way around.
JANUARY, 2006
The new year sees the Sam Bulte ‘conflict on interest’ scandal bloom in glorious colour, only to fade to black. It boils down to, Who was she representing —– the people who elected her or the enteraiment cartels? Bulte, a Liberal and heritage minister wannabe, was dubbed Hollywood’s representative in Canada, and with excellent reason. She was ear-marked by the movie and music cartels to be their MP in the new parliament. But thanks largely to the Net and bloggers, Canadians clearly showed they didn’t want another vested interest candidate in Ottawa and she was kicked out.
The Who guitarist Pete Townshend says headphones can be dangerous - really dangerous - and he blogs that they, not live sound, “do the most damage.”
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) has become The Corporate Way to Control Consumers, and Google says it has its very own home-made Google DRM.
GNU Project and Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman throws in his support for Patti Santangelo. She’s the lone New York mother of five who was, and still is, defying Big 4 Organized Music cartel members, in their attempt to terrorize her into accepting extortion on the part of their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). January also sees the Patti Santangelo Fight Goliath campaign get properly underway. Supported by p2pnet readers, Patti takes on the multi-billion-dollar Big 4 labels by herself, declaring she’ll drag them into court so they can try to explain to a jury of Patti’s peers, and record industry customers, why it’s OK for them to sue innocent people, including young children, in their venal pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.
“Clearly the perception out there is that we shouldn’t be doing too much of that copy protection stuff.” So says Howard Stringer, the man who runs the Sony half of Sony BMG. During a YukYuk session with actor Tom Hanks, he describes the continuing spyware debacle as a mere controvery. In fact, it’s an unmitigated PR catastrophe ringing down the halls of the corporate music industry, amplified by the fact Sony BMG and the other four members of the Organized Music cartel are also being examined by New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer for price fixing and bribery.
The Big 4 Organized Music cartel claims its efforts to sue music lovers away from the p2p file sharing networks and towards corporate sites they supply and support, are working. The mainstream media faithfully echo the assertions as though they come from credible and reliable sources. And BigChampagne statistics do indeed show the numbers of people using the p2p networks in the US and around the world are changing significantly. But they’re going up, not down.
A member of the RIAA’s legal team may have erred seriously in its ongoing efforts to use the American legal system to victimize Britanny Chan, a Michigan schoolgirl.
US representative Christopher H. Smith, chairman of a House subcommittee on human rights, reveals plans to hold hearings on reports that US Internet companies, including Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft, aid efforts by the government of China to suppress free speech.
More than 70% of American music recorded before 1965 isn’t legally available in the US, says University of California Santa Barbara archivist Sam Brylawski. But, “Some music lovers continue to take matters into their own hands by sharing MP3 downloads of forgotten LPs and 45s across the Internet, and on Web sites devoted exclusively to old music,” says an NPR report.
The entertainment cartels tout the Analog Hole as something through which millions of people around the world - their erstwhile customers - will rob them blind, only given half a chance. Every man, woman and child with a computer and online account is, after all, a potential thief, say the music and movie cartels.
The Free Software Foundation makes the first discussion draft of the forthcoming General Public License version 3 public. Anyone can copy and distribute verbatim copies, but changing it isn’t allowed.
Mininova celebrates its first birthday and tells p2pnet it’s here to stay. “Running a torrent site might be considered by some to be an occupation fraught with risk,” we say, asking, “What makes you do it?” Mininova’s Niek, Erik, Jos, Matthijs and Rob reply, “because we believe in the future of p2p file sharing technology and we want to provide a extensive and easy to use torrent directory for users.
The Dick Cheney / George W. Bush administration says it wants Google to reveal material held in its databases. And it’s using the tired Kiddie Porn ploy, much favoured by Hollywood and its political henchmen as they force through entertainment cartel friendly legislation, to try to get it.
Would you trust the Walt Disney company to educate your child? That’s the plan under Walt Disney’s latest money earning broadband venture which targets toddlers as part of its “age-banded strategy”.
More than 30 students at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst want i2hub to pay the $3,750 the RIAA is trying to extort from each of them to ’settle’ claims that they traded copyrighted files online, says the university’s Student Legal Services Office.
What’s the Number One item on RIAA/ MPAA p2p scalp-hunter Bay TSP’s mentioned-in-the-press list? It’s Number One with a Pirated Bullet, says BAY TSP.
French plans to legalise online music file-sharing are an “aberration,” says EMI boss Eric Nicoli, urging the country to re-think its policies.
Chinese hackers attack Britain’s parliament using the Microsoft WMF exploit. MessageLabs says targeted e-mails were sent to various individuals within government departments in an attempt to take control of their computers and, “The attack definitely came from China - we know that because we log the IP addresses,” says MessageLabs’ Mark Toshack.
‘This Film is Not Yet Rated’ is a documentary investigation into the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) film ratings system and its “profound effect on American culture,” said its director, Kirby Dick, last December. He then accuses the MPAA of making an illegal bootleg copy.
“Some of the top executives in the music industry have answered your questions about digital music,” says the BBC. But it’s a seriously unbalanced and wholly one-sided farce which fails to include anyone from the real world of online music - only heavily and obviously vested corporate interests.
The Consumer Council of Norway (CCN) wants the country’s Consumer Ombudsman to investigate alleged Apple iTunes violations of Norway’s Marketing Control Act. “When you purchase music from iTunes they give themselves the right to single-handedly change your rights at any given later date,” says the council’s Torgeir Waterhouse, quoted on Forbrukkerådet. CCN says considers iTunes terms to be part of an “ongoing development” which undermines user rights.
The hand-cranked laptop designed to allow under-privileged children in under-developed countries to communicate with the world and each other says it’s to receive UN backing.
In a new triumph, Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) dragoons a 13-year-old Wisconsin child into publicly apologizing for downloading four movies. And were that not bad enough, the boy also has stand up and “warn” seventh- and eight-grade students at his school, “not to swap movies and music illegally”.
Do No Evil Google upgrades its help entry on censorship to read, “It is Google’s policy not to censor search results. However, in response to local laws, regulations, or policies, we may do so.” Previously, “Google does not censor results for any search term,” it had declared, adding, “We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results.”
A disabled 42-tear-old Oregon mother lives alone with her eight-year-old daughter. The two exist on government disability payments but EMI, Warner Music, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG accuse the woman, Tanya Andersen, of downloading and sharing music online but she says the accusation is entirely false and, like Patti Santangelo, demands a jury trial to prove it. In addition, she launches a counter suit against the Big 4’s RIAA under the RICO Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.
And finally …………….. At long last, someone on the corporate side of the music industry gets it. “Suing the fan is like shooting yourself in the foot.” Actually, it’s more like shooting yourself in the head. But the Big 4 are under the delusion they can sue their customers them instead of woo them. Terry McBride runs Nettwerk Music Group, a label and management company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and, like p2pnet, which is also in BC, he decides to help an American Big 4 victim. But where p2pnet readers donate cash to help Patti Santangelo get legal representation, McBride has pledged to cover the full costs of the Greubel family in Texas.
Stay tuned for next month’s roundup.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
Forbes - Free Music–Next Year?, December 27, 2006
SpiralFrog - SpiralFrog ‘free’ downloads, August 30, 2006
Qtrax - New corporate p2p effort, June 6, 2006
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