Month: August 2005

Guardian: Music file sharing to be offered legally

Online music fans will for the first time be able to legally share tracks by big names such as Oasis, Beyonce, David Bowie and Elvis Presley after the artists’ record label signed a ground-breaking deal with a new internet service provider.

In what some see as signalling a dramatic shift in the way consumers buy music, the provider, Playlouder, has licensed acts from SonyBMG, the world’s second largest record label, and is confident that the other two big record labels, Universal and EMI, will follow suit…

Because there will be no restrictions on the format in which the traded music is encoded, users will be free to transfer songs to any type of digital music player, including the market leading Apple iPod, or burn them to CD…

Because all Playlouder subscribers will share tracks over its own network Mr Hitchman said that the company could track the files and, through digital fingerprinting technology, make sure that record companies were remunerated accordingly from money set aside from Playlouder’s revenues each month.

I find this newspaper report to be very weird if it is entirely accurate. I cannot see how this service can function in the way it is intended if users truly are allowed to trade files in any format without restrictions. If true then a typical music track could be digitised and formatted in many different formats at various different bitrates and shared over the network, yet through digital fingerprinting the service is able to ascertain what music track it is and pass on appropriate payment to the copyright owners.

Such a file could even be concealed through a steganographic type application to resemble some other file such as a movie file of a home video that has no licensing problems as the user is freely allowed to share what they themselves have created.

Furthermore record corporations seem to be heavily in favour of DRM technologies in order to add restrictions to prevent piracy their willingness to license their music to Playlouder without the DRM technologies would seem to me to be counterproductive to their aims. Any non-DRM file that is legally shared using this service can in the future be illegally shared in the way that current legally downloaded files from services such as iTunes cannot.

But then again they may have read Chris Anderson’s fascinating piece on the economics of “piracy” and whether a little piracy can actually allow for more net revenues to vendors. Via BoingBoing and Waxy.

Tags: copyright, music

BBC News: Pope warns against ‘DIY’ religion

Pope Benedict XVI has warned of the dangers of secularism and of “do it yourself” religion, as his visit to his native Germany draws to a close.

It has been true for many years that more people visit one of the various DIY superstores that flourish in this country on a Sunday than visit church. Finally it seems that the Catholic church has decided to attack their opponents in the battle for the Sabbath. Down with the false gods of flat-pack furniture, water features and neutral shades of paint, do not get drawn into this false religion of DIY.

Tags: religion

Recreation of the music video for Fatboy Slim’s Weapon Of Choice starring Christopher Walken using stick figures.

Tags: music, video

It has come to the attention of many people that the books 1984 has been erroneously misshelved under fiction in literally hundreds of bookstores across the world. The Ministry of Reshelving aims to reshelf said item under it’s correct classification of current affairs, not only that but they intend to do it gratis and without bothering the storeowners who clearly have more important things to be doing.

I think that this is a noble cause that I shall sign up to.

Tags: books

Documents relating to the investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by officers of the Metropolitan Police have been leaked and dispute the story of events we had previously been led to believe. It is claimed that Mr de Menezes:

was never properly identified because a police officer was relieving himself at the very moment he was leaving his home;

· was unaware he was being followed;

· was not wearing a heavy padded jacket or belt as reports at the time suggested;

· never ran from the police;

· and did not jump the ticket barrier.

I wrote earlier that there must have been a clear breakdown in communication for him to have been misidentified as a terrorist suspect and this seems to have been the case. In addition the shoot-to-kill policy may have been misinterpreted by the officers on the ground as this clearly was not a case of requiring a last resort measure if he had been restrained prior to being shot.

It is perhaps due to this apparent gross mishandling of the situation that the Metropolitan Police did nothing to correct the misinformation that was widely reported following this tragic incident. The Guardian reports that the Police are under pressure over Menezes leak.

Tags: police, errorism

Congratulations to Ricky Ponting for a truly admirable performance if even if did rob England of what could have been a good victory in the Third Test match.

Very frustrating to be only one wicket from victory but I suppose the Aussies must have felt the same after the second test ending only a few runs from victory themselves, although they were lucky to get that close in the first place.

So all square and all to play for in the final two matches. The Ashes really is turning out to be all that I had hoped.

Tags: sport

Last night Channel 4 screened the Dispatches documentary Why Bomb London? which sought to uncover the events and decisions that led unto the attacks. Had we brought the bombings on ourselves?

Through investigating the divisions within the British Muslim community, reporter Deborah Davies asks whether the British government – or Britain’s Muslim establishment – fully understand them. While prominent leaders are meeting with Tony Blair, younger Muslims are watching violent Islamist videos on the internet and listening to veteran Jihadists from Afghanistan and Iraq on recruiting drives. While their elders voice fears of a backlash after the London bombs, many youngsters are being drawn into a pattern of extremism which includes violence, expeditions to foreign wars and even, potentially, suicide.

The programme shows how, during the 1990s, the British government allowed known terrorists and extremists to settle in London and build up an underground network, despite the warnings from, and much to the alarm of, governments overseas.

It is to be broadcast again on Friday 12 August at 4.10am

Tags: politics, terrorism

My god did I underestimate the batting prowess of the Australian bowlers. What was a healthy margin of over 100 runs for England to bowl out the last couple of players was soon whittled down by Warne and Lee until bizarrely Warne trod on his own wicket and then Lee and Kasprowicz.

But England maintained the pressure right to the knife edge conclusion that saw Harmison bowl a delivery that Kasprowicz edged into the diving hands of Geraint Jones to give England a thrilling victory.

Probably the best match of cricket that I can recall ever seeing, I’m still buzzing from the exhilaration.

Tags: sport

Thanks to the awesome efforts of Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff England look set for a brilliant victory over the Aussies to level the cricket series.

Scoring 68 in the first innings and taking 3 for 52 and then a wonderful second innings score of 73 (including a six that damn near went out of the ground) and then taking another 3 wickets so far Flintoff is a sure thing for man of the match.

Damn great match all round with outstanding performances by players of both teams, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of Warne’s dismissal of Strauss in the future a truly bloody unplayable ball.

Warne could still save the match but it would require a superhuman effort as they still trail by over 100 runs and the other tail-enders really aren’t capable of much more than staying in.

Tags: sport