Sundtempest

Reporting, analysis, and opinions on the latest trends and developments in the music industry.

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The Pirate Bay Goes Legit

In what is quite possibly one of the most unexpected twists one could imagine in the music industry, file-sharing haven The Pirate Bay has been acquired - legitimately! - by a Swedish software company, Global Gaming Factory. GGF offered the equivalent of nearly $8 million for the website and have stated that they plan to turn it into a legal enterprise.

Though the move comes as a shock to TPB’s community (and much of the Internet), the transaction involved no coercion. It turns out that the folks at TPB do believe, more or less, that GGF’s goals are in line with their own.

The obvious challenge is how one can take a website devoted to flagrantly violating copyright law and somehow make it legal, without turning away the entire community. GGF has stated that they will begin to charge users for content, but they will also (somehow) pay users for sharing said content. Advertising revenue and “offering services to telecom operators” will also play a part.

Do you think the new, GGF-owned Pirate Bay will survive?

(Editor’s Note: Preparing for a wedding and moving into a new apartment are more time-consuming than I expected. Still looking for guest writers to help in times like this - just shoot me an email!)

Swedish Software Firm Buys Filesharing Site Pirate Bay [wsj.com]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

New in France: DRM-free, unlimited music via ISP

As sales of recorded music continue to decrease, the concept of point-of-connection-based music subscription services appears more and more attractive to record labels. In Europe, this business model of customers paying an ISP for essentially unlimited downloading in exchange for a small fee has already been implemented through Omnifone.

Now, the internet service provider Virgin Media has partnered with Universal Music to create a similar model in France specifically. The deal will allow Virgin customers to download as much DRM-free music from the Universal catalog as they want. A fee will be associated with this service, though an exact figure has yet to be reported by either party.

In exchange for their catalog, Universal is asking Virgin to cooperate more in piracy-related matters. France itself is already taking measures to protect copyright, so this request isn’t too surprising.

When are we going to see unlimited, point-of-connection subscription services in the U.S.?

(Editor’s Note: Sorry for the gap between new posts; I’ve been busy finishing up my undergraduate degree program. I’m proud to say that I’m now officially a Bachelor of Science in Music Industry!)

Universal Music and Virgin Reach a Download Deal [NY Times]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Lawyer Claims RIAA Suits Were Unconstitutional, Wants Settlement Money Re-Distributed

If you’re going to go after the RIAA, you might as well go all-out; at least, that’s the apparent philosophy of Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, who is not only seeking to argue that file-sharing is fair use, but that the fines exacted from convicted file-sharers are essentially unconstitutional. If all goes according to his plan, the RIAA’s litigation campaign will be deemed unlawful and they will be forced to return the $100 million they’ve collected in settlements.

A pretty extreme strategy, to be sure. Not even Lawrence Lessig, vocal proponent of relaxed intellectual property laws, creative remixing, and mashups, among other things, supports the idea that file-sharing is actually fair use. Still, it’s a legal theory worth discussing, and perhaps it will spur more reasonable amendments to copyright law.

Lawyer: RIAA must pay back all $100M it has collected [Ars Technica]

(thanks to Brad Burr for the tip)

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Napster Practically Gives Away DRM-Free Music

Since its rebirth through Roxio in 2003, Napster has been trying to recapture its original audience of young adults who want lots of convenient music for a low amount of cash. Though it has generally lagged behind iTunes, Amazon and Rhapsody, a new change to its pricing scheme may very well tip the balance and put Napster back in the spotlight.

For only $5 per month, users can gain access to unlimited streaming music for as long as they have a subscription, the lowest cost of any comparable service. However, what’s more notable is that this subscription tier also comes with five free song downloads a month. As Rick Broida pointed out at cnet, that’s basically getting unlimited, free streaming music with your five single song downloads.

As an independent artist myself, I’ve found that Napster is surprisingly lucrative, relatively speaking. iTunes is by far where I sell the most music through third-parties, eclipsing Napster, the third most popular service for my music, by a factor of at least 12. Still, Napster beats out Rhapsody and eMusic by a long shot and just about matches sales on Amazon.

(A fun little side note: after over a year of streamed plays on last.fm, my royalties from that company haven’t even amounted to 25 cents.)

Napster cuts music plan to $5 a month [Associated Press]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Bill Requiring Performance Royalties from Radio Moves Through House

The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has passed the Performing Rights Act, a piece of legislation that would require terrestrial radio stations to pay royalties to performers in broadcasted recordings. A similar royalty exists for satellite and internet radio, but there is of course significant debate over this issue.

While labels and performing artists across the country have reason to be happy, there’s still a long way to go. The bill still needs to pass the full House vote as well as the Senate, not to mention that the version which passed is different than the one originally presented - something that must be addressed in the near future.

Some, like Mike Masnick at Techdirt, have claimed that this bill is merely a “bailout” for the RIAA and artists like Britney Spears. In the face of this rather unsubstantial argument, one would be wise to consider that the United States is one of four governments in the world that does not impose a performance royalty to, you know, pay people for using their work.

The other three countries who are on the same side as us on this issue? North Korea, China and Congo.

Modified Performance Rights Act Passes in the House [MediaBuyerPlanner]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 1:28 am and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

France to Punish Pirates With Internet Cutoff

The French National Assembly today passed legislation that sets up a “three strikes” system for those who pirate movies and music online. First time offenders will receive a warning via email. If they continue illicit downloading (or perhaps uploading - the original article doesn’t specify) they’ll get another warning through snail mail. After a third and final infraction, their internet access will be shut down for a year.

The technical details of this bill were not immediately clear, such as whether offenders’ home internet would be shut down or whether they would be somehow ‘blacklisted’ by multiple ISPs and access points. However, compared to the fines in the United States, this is a much more reasonable punishment that is in line with what the RIAA has promised to do in the future.

What do you think? Is it tough enough, too harsh, or not much of a deterrent?

France adopts tough internet bill [Straits Times]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

U.K. Government Sets Up Rehearsal Spaces for Musicians

In a powerful show of support for the arts, the government of the United Kingdom is putting forth £500,000 ($755,550 U.S.) to open public rehearsal spaces for bands. Ten of these “fully-equipped” spaces will be set up by the end of 2009, placed strategically in various locations across the U.K.: Liverpool, Norfolk, Bristol, Hastings and Manchester, to name a few. The first space has already opened in the Knotty Ash Youth Center where the Beatles played in 1962.

The program is being co-developed by Feargal Sharkey, a former member of punk rock band The Undertones, with the goal of improving the culture for youths in otherwise “deprived” areas.

In an era where nearly all forms of music revenue (even live performance) are falling, should government funding of music be something to consider as a solution?

Government funds music rehearsals

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Ticketmaster Sued Over Price-Gouging Scheme

There might be a lot of debate in the music industry over issues like piracy and intellectual property, but one thing everyone can agree on is how much they dislike Ticketmaster. So, if you’ve ever dealt with them, you’ll be happy to know that two women from New Jersey are taking the reviled ticket monopoly to court.

This time, it’s the same issue that came up earlier this year. Ticketmaster has a subsidiary, TicketsNow, which essentially deals in legal scalping of tickets. Sounds OK, free market and all, right? Not when Ticketmaster decides to ‘accidentally’ dump all of their standard price event tickets into TicketsNow, which of course results in jacked-up prices.

It’s bad enough that Ticketmaster tends to make exclusive agreements with venues and nickel-and-dime concertgoers with fees, but this kind of stuff is outrageous. It’s also another reason why nobody should be looking forward to the upcoming merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Let’s hope the two women taking on this corporation see some justice served.

N.J. Music Fans Sue Ticketmaster over Pricing [USA Today]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

RIAA and Suburban Family Reach $7,000 Settlement in Music Piracy Suit

Despite the RIAA’s promise to stop suing people, the organization admitted that their outstanding lawsuits would continue. One such lawsuit, against a suburban family from White Plains, NY, has been settled for $7,000 after a four year nightmare in court.

The RIAA initially brought suit against the mother of the family, Patricia Santangelo, who was a bit confused about the whole thing since she lacked the requisite knowledge to actually do the things she was being accused of.

However, thanks to generous donations from the general public and a fighting spirit, she got the RIAA to drop the case… only to have them refile against her children, now 16 and 20 years old. Keep in mind this means that at the time where the piracy took place, they would have been 12 and 16. Both children denied doing anything wrong, but one of them, Michelle, supposedly admitted to piracy in a deposition; the other, Robert, was “implicated” by a family friend.

After four years of harassing two kids and their mother in court, what did the RIAA have to say about all this? From the source article;

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Santangelos,” Cara Duckworth, spokeswoman for the RIAA, said in an e-mailed statement. Asked how much had been spent to win the $7,000 settlement, and whether it was a victory, she said, “We don’t break out costs per case, and it’s not a question of it being ‘worth it’ or a ‘victory.’”

Wait, what?

“…and it’s not a question of it being ‘worth it’ or a ‘victory.’”

I actually can’t think of anything witty or scathing to say in response to this statement. It speaks for itself.

Suburban NYC family settles music piracy suit [Associated Press]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 11:47 am and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Potential Conflict of Interest Discovered in the Pirate Bay Trial

Courtroom drama! Legal intrigue! Hot issues! It’s not Law & Order, it’s the continuing saga of the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden. Calls for a mistrial have been flying after it surfaced that the judge in the trial may have had a conflict of interests. Tomas Norström, who presided over the case, was found to be a member of two “pro-copyright” groups, the Swedish Association of Copyright and the Swedish Association for Industrial Legal Protection.

Those on the side of The Pirate Bay claim that the judge’s membership in these groups constitutes a serious conflict of interest, calling his sentencing into question. Norström contended that the Swedish Copyright Association “only promotes knowledge about copyright” and that he is a member “so he can follow related debate and development.” Monique Wadsted, one of the lawyers prosecuting the case, added that all jurists in Stockholm are members of that association.

It remains to be seen whether these new facts will result in a mistrial or whether they will impact the appeals process. Eric Bylander, a professor of law in Gothenburg, Sweden, believes it was “inappropriate” for Norström to take the case, but also that a mistrial would probably not be granted (though it would be a “close call”).

Pirate Bay Judge Exposed as Member of Pro-Copyright Groups [wired]

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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