In the 1980s, songwriter, artist and cultural critic Momus recorded a number of albums for the legendary indie label Creation Records, combining influences as diverse as Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop and Balearic acid-house. These have largely languished in Sony Music's vaults over the past few years, occasionally fetching hefty prices on eBay. Now, Momus has taken the step to commit auto-piracy and release his Creation albums online, for free; over December, he will post MP3s of all six albums to his LiveJournal blog, each with freshly written liner notes. The first one, 1987's The Poison Boyfriend, is here. [more inside]
posted by acb on Dec 9, 2008 - 15 comments

AllofMP3 gets a copyright lawyer to help with their FAQ but with Russia's entry to the WTO apparently at stake and Putin getting involved their future looks a bit perilous.
posted by rongorongo on Nov 29, 2006 - 47 comments

Does copyright extend to the bit encoding sequences used in P2P applications? A case is made for the myriad paths bit encoding can take in the formation of MP3 files, the argument being therefore that said bit encoding sequences used in the formation of MP3 files are exempt from copyright law. Furthermore an application is offered to demonstrate the point. But isn't bit encoding just another 'language' like French, German, Spanish and therefore a copyrightable adjunct to the authors/copyright owners work? (Even if there are myriad dialects.)
posted by Muirwylde on Mar 27, 2006 - 57 comments

If you liked the Kleptones and other posts about mashups, you might have caught "raiding the 20th century" in early 2004. Well, DJ Food has completely updated it for 2005 and now clocks in at a full 59 minutes of monster mashup mix madness. Download the mp3 here and enjoy the eclectic sonic landscape.
posted by mathowie on Oct 19, 2005 - 14 comments

Russian prosecutors have apparently decided not to take any action against Allofmp3.com (previously discussed here) , a Russian website which offers copyrighted mp3's for sale. The Moscow prosecutors reason is that Russian copyright laws only apply to physical media such as CD's tapes etc., not to digital media. If this decision is upeld, will it open the floodgates for others to start openly selling copyrighted material?
posted by bap98189 on Mar 8, 2005 - 25 comments

A small new future. 1999 was the year the RIAA began writing checks the record industry couldn’t cash.
posted by xowie on Sep 23, 2004 - 16 comments

DJ Danger Mouse has been making waves recently with his Grey Album that cross-pollinates the music of The Beatles' classic White Album with the lyrics and delivery of Jay-Z's recent swan song, the Black Album. The results? "One of the more interesting pirate mashups ever done." (Pitchfork). "Most ambitious remix." (Village Voice). "As fun as it is daring." (Boston Globe). "Ultimate remix record." (Rolling Stone). Not surprisingly, EMI is far from amused by the unsanctioned and unapproved project and the limited release will no longer be distributed. So, download it now (or check out these Real Player samples).
posted by boost ventilator on Feb 18, 2004 - 92 comments

Send them back! We're feeling great about ourselves! Because we sent our mp3's BACK!
posted by Espoo2 on Nov 19, 2003 - 12 comments

A prankster turns himself into the RIAA:
JH: Hello. I just downloaded some illegal MP3s and my friend told me that the RAII is going to sue everyone who downloads music. What should I do?
RIAA: Hold on just a sec.
posted by Inkslinger on Sep 15, 2003 - 25 comments

Finally, a Fair Fight with Big Music From a Business Week Online column..."Telecom giant Verizon is battling the industry's bid to make it name a file-sharing subscriber. It's also defending your right to privacy. On July 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made an unprecedented request of Verizon Communications (VZ). The music industry's trade association served the telecom with a subpoena, seeking the identity of a Verizon subscriber who had allegedly illegally traded digital songs by artists including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and "boy band" N'Sync. The RIAA didn't specify why it wanted to know who the user was or what it would do with the information."
posted by fpatrick on Sep 12, 2002 - 22 comments

Dear Mr. Ashcroft: People who download copyrighted music files deserve jail time, and you should start prosecuting them. Signed: Joe Biden, John Conyers, Dianne Feinstein...
posted by xowie on Aug 10, 2002 - 54 comments

Did you hear Michael Greene's speech at the Grammys? At first it seemed like it was going to be just yet another recording industry weasel with an obligatory goatee congratulating himself on stage. But it quickly turned into a lesson on the harms of the illegal Internet downloads. "This illegal file-sharing and ripping of music files is pervasive, out of control and oh so criminal. Many of the nominees here tonight, especially the new, less-established artists, are in immediate danger of being marginalized out of our business. Ripping is stealing their livelihood one digital file at a time, leaving their musical dreams haplessly snared in this World Wide Web of theft and indifference," says Greene. Was this appeal-cum-address effective or appropriate? Were you more sympathetic to the RIAA or artists afterwards?
posted by emptyage on Feb 27, 2002 - 78 comments

Copy protection for CDs does not have future says Philips. Philips spokesperson Klaus Petri, speaking to Reuters, says its company counts on the fact that the refusal of consumers will convince the music industry to step back from copy-protected CD's. Petri said that Philips could sue the manufacturers of CD's with copy protection (as managers of the world-wide CD patents), because they would not correspond to the standards. "those are silver disks with music on them, but which do not resemble CD's". [via Neowin.net]
posted by riffola on Jan 9, 2002 - 16 comments

The War Against MP3? Hilary Rosen, everyone's favourite defender of record company hegemony, outlines her new strategy ("Help me help you.") in an email leaked to FuckedCompany. Interestingly, it's aimed at beating the dastardly hackers at their own game, with tactics such as "Spoofing and/or interdiction methods for existing peer to peers". Signs of desparation on the part of the RIAA, or should people be making the most of the second-generation Napster clones while they have a chance?
posted by holgate on Oct 3, 2001 - 34 comments

Anti-rip CD system bypassed. heh. nice try, boyos. i've never understood how people can believe something digitized can possibly be protected in such a manner as to be foolproof. what one process can scramble, another can undo. [via /.]
posted by fuzzygeek on Aug 1, 2001 - 5 comments

Ok... let me get this straight. copyright.net has turned loose a tapeworm, called CopyrightAgent, that crawls around on your computer without your permission, looking for copyrighted MP3 files. If it find them, it reports back your IP address, and they have Napster block you, if you're a Napster user. Otherwise, they contact your ISP, and have *them* block you under the DMCA.

And the first I heard about this was a Knight-Ridder wire story in my local paper?? Why the hell hasn't the Internet reacted by burning these people's offices (or uplink :-) to the ground?
posted by baylink on Mar 3, 2001 - 20 comments

Napster takes first steps in trying to appease the RIAA, and specifically BMG. To me this approach is the stupidest thing Napster could have done. Who would want to pay a membership fee to use Napster if one can't even burn the files onto a cd?
posted by JFunk2800 on Feb 21, 2001 - 1 comment

IBM, with the latest attempt to put the genie back in the bottle. Their fatal flaw is betting on a post-napster world, though I bet their EMMS technology gets cracked before that ever happens.
posted by mathowie on Jan 22, 2001 - 11 comments

Sony's left hand disagrees with its right hand. Sony Electronics just announced a player at CES in Vegas which will play MP3's off of a CD in addition to playing normal audio CDs. Sony Music, on the other hand, is part of the SDMI initiative which is trying to stamp out MP3's. "They were pissed." (Via GeekPress)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 7, 2001 - 10 comments

Well now if I'd known this I never would've signed up with them last summer. My three months are up anyway. Bad move, emusic.
posted by aflakete on Nov 22, 2000 - 8 comments

Do Leahy and Hatch actually read their email? Odds are you might get read by one of their assistants, but still I recommend you send a message in your own words as opposed to what mp3.com recommends. Whether you want changes to copyright legislation or not, let your voice be heard. It's just a click away. Also, MP3 Goes To Washington contains some enlightening and thought-provoking material.
posted by ZachsMind on Jul 14, 2000 - 3 comments

Love unloads This is one of the more comprehensive and insightful takes on the RIAA vs. Napster vs. Record Companies that I've heard. It's long and rambling, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
posted by y6y6y6 on Jun 14, 2000 - 35 comments

''They're absolutely lying. There's no question that they're lying,'' Ummmm... Yeah...
posted by da5id on May 17, 2000 - 29 comments

Download an Mp3... ...and goto jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Of course, you can always DoS attack the Motion Pictures Association of America's website, (which was down as I was writing this.) but that would most likely only land you in even deeper water than downloading the Mp3.
posted by da5id on Apr 17, 2000 - 5 comments