en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices Last.fm Group Journal: Fuck RIAA http://www.last.fm/group/Fuck+RIAA/journal The Last.fm group journal for Fuck RIAA. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. Spotify pushing labels to lower costs, open up free service to phones - Streaming service seeks to edge into profitability by controlling content costs, growing subscriber base http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2013/02/25/5rd4e3_spotify_pushing_labels_to_lower_costs,_open_up_free_service_to_phones_-_streaming_service_seeks_to_edge_into_profitability_by_controlling_content_costs,_growing_subscriber_base Mon, 25 Feb 2013 21:43:39 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2013/02/25/5rd4e3_spotify_pushing_labels_to_lower_costs,_open_up_free_service_to_phones_-_streaming_service_seeks_to_edge_into_profitability_by_controlling_content_costs,_growing_subscriber_base

Spotify, the Popular Music subscription service, is due to meet in the coming weeks with its major counterparts in the record industry to renew their licensing agreements. The Verge has learned that managers at Spotify are expected to ask for substantial price breaks from the music labels as well as the rights to extend its free pricing tier to mobile devices.

The Stockholm-based Spotify has already started negotiations with Warner Music and will begin talks with Sony and Universal in the coming weeks, according to several music industry sources. (A Spotify spokesperson declined to comment on this story.) These negotiations with music’s "big three" labels will likely go a long way to determining whether Spotify reaches profitability, a crucial threshold as it increasingly competes with Apple and other cash-rich players in the digital music market.

Fans and casual observers might think Spotify has already won the streaming music war because of its large and growing audience. But while Spotify has amassed a following of 5 million paying subscribers and 20 million total users worldwide, its business model is still unproven.

About 70 percent of Spotify’s revenues pays music-licensing fees while another 20 percent covers customer acquisition, these sources said. That leaves 10 percent to pay all of the company’s other costs, including its much praised technology platform. Insiders have told The Verge that this cost structure zeroes out Spotify’s profits.

Any attempts to plead poverty by Spotify are likely to be met with skepticism by the recording industry. For years, music acts have reported receiving far skimpier royalty checks from Spotify than from other music services, such as itunes. Some acts, including Coldplay, Adele, and Taylor Swift, have refused to distribute their songs through Spotify and other subscription services (It's important to note that many of these holdouts are now on the service). Meanwhile, Spotify raised $100 million last year in its latest funding round. If artists bail on Spotify, it doesn’t matter what cuts labels might be willing to accept. Everyone loses.

Record company executives have heard for a decade that they need to cut prices. The Industry doesn’t appear to be willing to give much ground. Internet radio service Pandora is lobbying Congress to lower its statutory rates for Playing Songs. The record companies are spending big to thwart the attempt.

The record companies have plenty of Digital Music alternatives to Spotify. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Sony are all companies with very deep pockets who sell music at razor-thin margins or even at a loss. To these companies, music is just one of the ways that they sex up their other businesses.

Simple rate renegotiation isn’t the only thing on the table. According to sources, Spotify is also trying to convince the labels to extend its ad-supported free tier for mobile devices, offering "more of a taste" than the current 30 day trial. Restricting mobile to paying or pro subscribers limits both the total number of Spotify customers and their overall usage. But it’s a risky bet. Without access to Mobile Music as an incentive, will users continue to convert from ad-supported to paid subscriptions? Or is it users’ inability to see the value of Spotify on mobile that makes them less likely to buy in?

Spotify is still in a good negotiating position. Apple remains the leader in Online Music distribution but overall, sales of Music Downloads have slowed to a trickle. Downloads just aren't making up for The Decline in CD sales. We keep hearing that Apple is going to launch a subscription radio service similar to Pandora, but music industry sources say Apple and the labels are still far apart on licensing. As for Google and the others, their music offerings have yet to ignite much interest.

The broad trends all favor subscription streaming on a wide range of devices, and Spotify is the only subscription service that has generated real scale. The Labels are big fans of the subscription model, which gives them predictable income across their entire catalog. The Major Labels have a vested interest in making sure subscription-based music continues to grow and thrive.

Also in Spotify’s favor: in some markets, the company is close to converting 20 percent of its users of the free service to a paid plan, sources said. If Spotify can parlay its current pole position into more favorable rates, it may be able to retain its lead even as giants like Amazon and Apple come nipping at its heels.

While it’s unclear exactly how far the two sides are willing to bend, It’s inconceivable that The Labels or Spotify would walk away without a deal.

"Everybody in The Industry wants to see Spotify succeed," one industry insider told The Verge. "Nobody in the industry can afford to see them go down the tubes."

Tim Carmody and Ben Popper contributed to this report.By Greg Sandoval

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/19/4006194/spotify-negotiate-cheaper-music-licenses-create-free-mobile-trials]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2013/02/25/5rd4e3_spotify_pushing_labels_to_lower_costs,_open_up_free_service_to_phones_-_streaming_service_seeks_to_edge_into_profitability_by_controlling_content_costs,_growing_subscriber_base#comments Liquid Bear still plays last.fm on Android http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/18/5p66i8_liquid_bear_still_plays_last.fm_on_android Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:22:18 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/18/5p66i8_liquid_bear_still_plays_last.fm_on_android

When last.fm killed its radio stations for most of the world, KLastFM and CoboltFM stopped playing.

But that doesn't mean that last.fm radio for Android is dead, because alternative last.fm player Liquid Bear rocks on.

Liquid Bear uses a trick to bypass all those silly last.fm restrictions: it uses your last.fm data to make playlists, and then pulls the songs from vk.com (the russian answer to Facebook). This means that you need a last.fm account and a vk.com account, but you can simply make an "empty" vk.com account with a fantasy name to tap into it's music collection.

That's a clever solution that other apps might use as well. CoboltFM and KLastFM could use the vk.com route, or they could play custom last.fm radio stations by pulling the songs from Grooveshark. Grooveshark clients like Dood's Music Streamer and TinyShark could integrate last.fm in a similar way.

Liquid Bear has three main tabs. The left tab is the current playlist, which is built from whatever you select in the right tab. This tab lets you make last.fm-like radio stations based on tags, artists, your own last.fm library or the music libraries of your friends, etc. The central tab shows what's playing now, with album art and playback controls.

Want to see lyrics? You can load 'em from the playback tab (hit the drop-shaped icon) or by long-tapping a song in the playlist.

The playlist is also the place where Liquid Bear shows that it needs some work done. You can't change the order of the songs in the list, the search box shows white text on a light grey background (it may be different on your phone or tablet), deleting songs ahead of the currently playing track pauses playback, and removing songs already played stops the current track and skips to the next. The playback screen shows elapsed time but doesn't show the song duration, even though it could: if you pull the playback slider it shows how much time remains, so Liquid Bear could show that in the empty space next to the forward button.

But these are minor shortcomings for an app that does what other last.fm players can do no more.

Liquid Bear is free, and I couldn't find any ads in it. It's definitely worth a try, so head to the Google Play Store to get a copy.

• Liquid Bearhttp://androidunderground.blogspot.com/2012/12/liquid-bear-still-plays-lastfm-on.html]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/18/5p66i8_liquid_bear_still_plays_last.fm_on_android#comments Last.fm won't sing for Android anymore, Grooveshark app Dood's Music Streamer keeps playing http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/18/5p5il7_last.fm_won%27t_sing_for_android_anymore,_grooveshark_app_dood%27s_music_streamer_keeps_playing Tue, 18 Dec 2012 03:28:43 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/18/5p5il7_last.fm_won%27t_sing_for_android_anymore,_grooveshark_app_dood%27s_music_streamer_keeps_playing

Last.fm is dead

The founders of last.fm left the company a long time ago. CBS, the current owners, try to Milk the worlds most popular Music Service to the last penny. As a result, last.fm Radio Streaming is now only available in less than 5% of the countries On The Planet. Germans, Americans, and British can listen for free on the last.fm website, or For Money in the desktop client. In Canada, australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Brazil you can listen with a paid subscription. The Rest Of The World is not allowed to listen to last.fm, not even if you pay.

There were ways around these Ridiculous geographic restrictions, but no more. Alternative last.fm apps CoboltFM and KLastFM are really dead now. Last.fm, pulled the plug on free streaming for almost everyone, and most of the planet can't stream at all.

Grooveshark rocks on

Are you a last.fm refugee looking for alternatives? Then Grooveshark is for you. It's a global jukebox with More Music than anyone else, and with the right apps it's available worldwide. For Free.

My favourite Grooveshark app is Dood's Music Streamer. You can search music, Play It, Download it, and it can turn your play queue into custom radio stations. It scrobbles everything you play to last.fm too.

Dood's Music Streamer plays custom radio stations based on your play queue. It's not as good as the custom Last.fm Radio stations, because grooveshark only looks at your current play queue whereas Last.fm uses your entire scrobble history to build your personal radio station. But with last.fm being dead and buried, Grooveshark radio in DOOD's Music Streamer is better than nothing.

There are other Android Grooveshark apps, but they don't turn your PLAYLISTS into Radio Stations.

• Dood's Music Streamerhttp://androidunderground.blogspot.com/2012/12/lastfm-wont-sing-for-android-anymore.html]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/18/5p5il7_last.fm_won%27t_sing_for_android_anymore,_grooveshark_app_dood%27s_music_streamer_keeps_playing#comments Last.fm Will Turn Down The Volume On Global Radio Services In January, Take Others Behind Paywall http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/15/5p2zm2_last.fm_will_turn_down_the_volume_on_global_radio_services_in_january,_take_others_behind_paywall Sat, 15 Dec 2012 20:40:18 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/15/5p2zm2_last.fm_will_turn_down_the_volume_on_global_radio_services_in_january,_take_others_behind_paywall

Last.fm, an early mover in the streaming music business, is scaling back some of its operations, and putting others behind a paywall, in a bid to cut costs and make more money out of its existing business, the company has announced.

Come January 15, the streaming radio company, bought by CBS for $280 million in 2007, is going to be putting its Desktop radio service in the UK, U.S. and Germany behind a subscription paywall, as it is already in Canada, australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Brazil. The subscription service currently costs £3 per month in the UK and also lets users stream on Last.fm’s mobile app. The mobile apps, meanwhile, today got a refresh: a new iOS app called “Scrobbler for iOS”, which brings to the iPhone Last.fm’s scrobbling functionality — matching up your listening behavior with your itunes music collection to suggest music interesting to you.

The ad-supported, web-based streaming service, it notes, will continue to Remain Free. At the same time, it will be closing operations in all other countries where it currently offers a Radio Service. The changes were first spotted by TNW.

The moves are possibly signs of Bigger Issues at the company. Behind The Scenes, we have heard that Last.fm has been in something of a management and organizational flux, as the once-bright upstart has been upstaged in the Streaming Music world by companies like Spotify. Now it seems like CBS is just trying to Figure Out what to do with it.

“ Overpaid for Last.fm years ago and now no longer want to invest in it,” one source told us. “They need to stop moving it around and focus on making it big again.”

From an internal memo that I’ve seen, CBS effectively dissolved its separately-run Interactive Music Group (which included Metrolyrics, Last.fm and some ad sales people) back in August. David Goodman, who had been at the head of it, now has a different role within CBS.

In August, CBS Interactive reorganized its business into four units to improve “Synergy” for better advertising and content sharing: CBS Brands (which contains CBS online properties like CBS.com); Consumer Web Brands (including cnet.com and now Last.fm and other music properties); b2b (including techrepublic and ZDNet); and China. All report to Jim Lanzone, the president of CBSi, via general managers overseeing each division.

And in a sign of the integration and the “moving around” that our source referred to, next week, we have heard, Last.fm’s staff in London will be leaving their digs in shoreditch, where they have been for the last 10 Years, to move to CBSi’s offices in the area of Southwark.

Although CBS also has an extensive radio operation, it doesn’t seem that Last.fm has never really integrated with this division all that well.

Last.fm doesn’t talk in its announcement today; rather it says the main reason for the changes has to do with and Restrictions for the service, and Last.fm looking to monetize better where it can. “We are always looking at ways to , when it can be done so economically,” the company writes in a statement on the site. “And open streaming to a wider audience In The Future.”

Indeed, if the biggest music streaming service of all, Spotify, is still losing money on its streaming service (although the loss is narrowing, it seems) because of licensing fees coupled with Marketing and operational costs, then The Signs are not great for others in the field.

It’s a Far Cry from the Hip streaming service that first emerged back in 2002. Its founders have moved on to catch other fish.

It will be interesting to see what kind of an effect today’s changes have on Last.fm’s business: it’s not clear how many users it had Around The World, even though it would have been paying licensing fees to service them.

At the same time, Last.fm notes that ad-supported, web browser-based listening is the most popular way to listen to the site in the U.S., UK and Germany. It’s likely that this move may just push more people in those markets to that web service rather than compel them to pay to use the desktop Client.

To sweeten the deal for paid radio services using the desktop client, Last.fm is planning to release a new version of its desktop client. Currently in beta, it “remains the best way to scrobble” and use other features, says Last.fm.

last.fm notes that in other countries — it also offers services in Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Turkey and China — Radio Streaming will no longer be an option as of January 15, “even to subscribers,” because of licensing restrictions. “Scrobbling remains free and your listening data, Charts and recommendations will not be affected by this change,” it writes. Other services that will remain for paying subscribers include ad-free browsing on the site, access to Demos, “and other features we’re working hard to add.”

However, although this isn’t a Final Nail In The Coffin for Last.fm, it’s hard to see how many people will want to stay Last.fm customers for data alone. And sure enough, Last.fm is offering these international users the chance to cancel their subscriptions altogether. “We understand if you wish to cancel your subscription,” the site says. “If you have paid for a subscription longer than 30 days up-front, you can request a refund.”By INGRID LUNDEN

http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/last-fm-will-turn-down-the-volume-on-global-radio-services-in-january-take-others-behind-paywall/]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/12/15/5p2zm2_last.fm_will_turn_down_the_volume_on_global_radio_services_in_january,_take_others_behind_paywall#comments Dear RIAA: Pirates Buy More. Full Stop. Deal With It. from the just-wondering dept http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/11/29/5ok2q8_dear_riaa:_pirates_buy_more._full_stop._deal_with_it._from_the_just-wondering_dept Thu, 29 Nov 2012 05:34:56 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/11/29/5ok2q8_dear_riaa:_pirates_buy_more._full_stop._deal_with_it._from_the_just-wondering_dept Just a few days after Joe Karaganis posted his response to the RIAA's favorite researcher, Russ Crupnick of NPD Group, who suggested that Karaganis must be drunk and have little knowledge of statistics to publish a study showing that pirates tend to buy more -- and then revealing his own numbers that showed the exact same thing -- UK regulatory body Ofcom has come out with a study saying the same exact thing again (found via TorrentFreak).

From this, I assume the only logical conclusion is that Ofcom officials are drunk and should have their statistics "licenses" taken away. That, or, it's pretty obvious that people who pirate aren't all just "evil pirates," but also include the industry's best customers, who are apparently being somewhat under-served by the industry. And that's actually supported by other data in the report. When asked what would make people stop infringing, people wanted cheaper legal services and services that had everything they want available to them legally, rather than piecemeal efforts that leave it impossible to get what you want much of the time. It also becomes clear that infringement is not on the margins, but a common activity. 66% of people noted that they had downloaded, streamed or shared infringing content -- with 56% doing so in the last three months -- with 16% admitting to illegal content streaming, downloading or sharing. And of course, the numbers are much bigger for younger people, meaning that those overall percentages are only likely to increase over time. Of course, the amount of sharing varied based on the content, but the idea of getting infringing content this way is clearly quite mainstream.

The study also looked at what they spent on, and, not surprisingly, money spent seems to be shifting to scarce goods -- the things that can't be "pirated." In the music world, that includes merchandise and live, as well as online subscriptions, rather than "buying music."



The report also suggests that, when you take into account price elasticity of both downloads and subscription services, the industry appears to be overpricing both significantly, and they could probably make a lot more money with significantly lower prices, making it up (and then some) based on volume:





Note that, in both cases, if prices went much lower than they are today, even those who currently pirate everything would be much more likely to pay. They have similar tables for other types of content, showing the same basic thing as well. The elasticity on ebooks is really quite impressive, actually:

All of this paints the same basic picture that plenty of us have been arguing for over a decade: treating "pirates" like criminals is a mistake. They're often either the best customers or the potential best customers if they were better served by The Industry, which often means offering things more conveniently and at a lower price. But the industry still resists this notion and wants to continue to demonize all infringement and any service that helps infringement. What a Wasted Effort.by Mike Masnick

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121126/00590921141/dear-riaa-pirates-buy-more-full-stop-deal-with-it.shtml]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/11/29/5ok2q8_dear_riaa:_pirates_buy_more._full_stop._deal_with_it._from_the_just-wondering_dept#comments File-Sharers Buy 30% More Music Than Non-P2P Peers http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/10/16/5n2mip_file-sharers_buy_30%25_more_music_than_non-p2p_peers Tue, 16 Oct 2012 01:52:42 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/10/16/5n2mip_file-sharers_buy_30%25_more_music_than_non-p2p_peers One of the most comprehensive studies into media sharing and consumption habits in the United States and Germany reveals that file-sharers buy 30% more music than their non-sharing counterparts. The result confirms that file-sharers are actually the music industry’s best customers. In addition, the research reveals that contrary to popular belief, offline “copying” is far more prevalent than online music piracy.



The major music labels have a clear stance on online piracy, as the following quote from the RIAA illustrates.

“While downloading one song may not feel that serious of a crime, the accumulative impact of millions of songs downloaded illegally – and without any compensation to all the people who helped to create that song and bring it to fans – is devastating.”

This “devastation” translates into billions of dollars of lost revenue over the past decade, the RIAA claims. The more music people pirate, the less they buy is the underlying reasoning. Intuitively this might make sense, but looking at hard data a different pattern emerges.

Today the American Assembly, a non-partisan public policy forum affiliated with Columbia University, published a teaser of its forthcoming Copy Culture Survey. The study is based on thousands of telephone interviews conducted in the United States and Germany and provides a unique insight into the sharing habits in the two countries.

The preview zooms in on the digital music collections of people. Not just how much music people have on their computers, but also how they acquired these files.

As one would predict, it shows that those who are self-confessed P2P file sharers have larger music collections compared to those who aren’t. However, the data also shows that these file-sharers buy more music legally than their non-sharing peers.

30 percent more in the US.

“US P2P users have larger collections than non-P2P users (roughly 37% more). And predictably, most of the difference comes from higher levels of ‘downloading for free’ and ‘copying from friends/family’,” American Assembly’s Joe Karaganis writes.

“But some of it also comes from significantly higher legal purchases of digital music than their non-P2P using peers–around 30% higher among US P2P users. Our data is quite clear on this point and lines up with numerous other studies: The biggest music pirates are also the biggest spenders on recorded music.”


P2P users vs. non-P2P

The graph above shows that in Germany the results are even more pronounced. P2P users there buy nearly three times more digital music than their non-P2P using peers. However, the number of P2P file-sharers in the German sample is too low to be statistically reliable so these results should be interpreted with reservations.

While the survey is unique in its scope, this result of does not stand in isolation.

In the past we have documented studies that show how the majority of artists sell more music thanks to piracy, and that people who download more also buy more physical CDs. Yet another study found that pirates are 10 times more likely to buy music than those who don’t.

A likely explanation for these results is that true music enthusiasts simply want to consume, sample and discover as much new music as they possibly can, and the most straightforward and convenient way to do this is through file-sharing networks. For this group file-sharing is mostly complementary.

In any case, P2P file-sharers are not all cheapskates, quite the contrary.

In addition, the research also point out that while P2P file-sharing is a common way for people to acquire files, offline substitutes for digital music sales are bigger. Ripping CDs and sharing files with friends account for a higher percentage of people’s music collection than P2P file-sharing across all age groups.

This confirms earlier findings from a leaked RIAA report.

More interesting findings on the digital music collections of people in the US and Germany are available on the American Assembly blog.By Ernesto

http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-30-more-music-than-non-p2p-peers-121015/]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/10/16/5n2mip_file-sharers_buy_30%25_more_music_than_non-p2p_peers#comments Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Pandora Pays Artists Millions in Royalties, Not Profitable http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/10/11/5mw4l2_why_we_can%E2%80%99t_have_nice_things:_pandora_pays_artists_millions_in_royalties,_not_profitable Thu, 11 Oct 2012 05:15:33 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/10/11/5mw4l2_why_we_can%E2%80%99t_have_nice_things:_pandora_pays_artists_millions_in_royalties,_not_profitable

Internet radio, for all the complaints that it receives, is not a field that sees a great amount of participation. Due to the fees imposed by the RIAA, Internet Radio has never really been a cost-effective business strategy for most. Webcasting has essentially been abandoned by the likes of Yahoo! and MSN, even though they built a large audience for their respective services. Pandora is probably the most well-known Internet radio company and is still struggling to turn a profit. Part of this is because they pay millions in Royalties.

It’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine the logic behind the outrageous royalty fees for Internet radio. First of all, the rates are far higher for Internet Radio than traditional radio. That’s how, according to Tim Westergren of Pandora, artists like Drake and Lil Wayne have managed to close in on nearly $3 million a year in fees from the service. That’s the figure from Pandora alone.

For those two artists, Pandora shells out close to $6 million a year. Other artists earn upward of $1 million, like Coldplay and Adele, while more obscure folks like Donnie McClurkin are still set to make over $100,000. That’s a lot of money going out for what’s actually a relatively small selection of music.

What organizations like the RIAA don’t seem to grasp just yet is the fact that this is clearly a desired service. If they bleed it dry, companies like Pandora will fold and then there’ll be no revenue coming in at all from this tangent. It’s not like this is some mine that’s collapsing; we don’t need to grab as much as we can and get out while the getting’s good. It’s a Symbiotic relationship where one Symbiont is functioning more like a Parasite.

(Pandora via Techdirt)by Rollin Bishop

http://www.geekosystem.com/pandora-ridiculous-royalties/]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/10/11/5mw4l2_why_we_can%E2%80%99t_have_nice_things:_pandora_pays_artists_millions_in_royalties,_not_profitable#comments $222,000 Music Piracy Fine Not Unconstitutional, Court Rules http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/09/12/5lspfw_$222,000_music_piracy_fine_not_unconstitutional,_court_rules Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:14:58 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/09/12/5lspfw_$222,000_music_piracy_fine_not_unconstitutional,_court_rules The most recent step in the never-ending Thomas-Rasset music piracy case occurred today with the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruling in favor of the RIAA. In its ruling the court decided that the outcome of the first trial in 2007 was indeed correct, and that Thomas-Rasset owes $222,000 to the major music labels.



The RIAA vs. Thomas-Rasset has been a long and tortuous case, with three trials over the last five years. After finally progressing to the appeals stage, the US Court of Appeals for The 8th Circuit has now ruled in favor of The RIAA and its member companies.

The court decided that the initial damages award was not unconstitutional, and has reinstated it.

The case was first brought to trial in 2007, where an award of $222,000 was made by the jury. The judge then admitted to an error in the jury instructions before offering a second trial. At this second trial in June 2009 the jury awarded the music industry $90,000 per song, to a total of $1.92 million.

Thomas-Rasset then appealed again, saying the damages were excessive. The judge reduced the damages to $54,000 ($2,250 per song) before offering a third trial, exclusively to deal with the issue of damages. This court only dealt with the damages and awarded The Music Industry $1.5 million in 2010, before the judge again reduced it to $54,000.

Now the appeals court has stepped in and reinstated the 2007 verdict.

“On the question of damages, we conclude that a statutory damages award of $9,250 for each of the twenty-four infringed songs, for a total of $222,000, does not contravene the Due Process Clause. The district court erred in reducing the third jury’s verdict to $2,250 per work, for a total of $54,000, on the ground that this amount was the maximum permitted by the Constitution.”
There is some amazing reasoning in the ruling, including the assertion that Congress was well aware of online copyright infringement back in 1999.

“Congress no doubt was aware of the serious problem posed by online copyright infringement, and the ‘numberless opportunities for committing the offense,’ when it last revisited the Copyright Act in 1999. To provide a deterrent against such infringement, Congress amended § 504(c) to increase the minimum per-work award from $500 to $750, the maximum per-work award from $20,000 to $30,000, and the maximum per-work award for willful infringement from $100,000 to $150,000.”
The fact that Thomas-Rasset was a regular user who made no special effort to distribute or advertise the availability of the files in her shared folder means she was about as passive as it was possible to be, but the court saw things differently. In the ruling Thomas-Rasset’s actions are described as “an aggravated case of willful infringement.”

Despite the setback Thomas’s lawyers have made it clear that they intend to continue appealing, to the U.S. Supreme Court if need be, although they’ve made no announcement yet in response to the current ruling.

The saga of the file-sharing case that will not die continues on, and looks likely to do so for some time yet (as will the Tenenbaum case). One thing’s for certain, neither will be concluded any time soon.By Ben Jones

http://torrentfreak.com/222000-music-piracy-fine-not-unconstitutional-court-rules-120911/]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/09/12/5lspfw_$222,000_music_piracy_fine_not_unconstitutional,_court_rules#comments Musicians on file-sharing, record industry as Monsanto http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/09/09/5lp5an_musicians_on_file-sharing,_record_industry_as_monsanto Sun, 9 Sep 2012 16:44:53 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/09/09/5lp5an_musicians_on_file-sharing,_record_industry_as_monsanto

On TechDirt, Mike Masnick rounds up three thoughtful and thought-provoking statements from musicians about the way that their careers can be helped by piracy, and the how the response to downloading is bad for art and society. I was especially impressed with this op-ed from Doomtree Collective's Dessa, who makes a connection between the music industry's attempt to control music duplication and MonSanto's iron-fisted demand that its seeds be bought anew every season:

Peddling a product that consumers can duplicate for free is a tricky business. With affordable consumer technology, you can now copy a song a hundred times, with no degradation in the sound quality—and most people seem to immediately recognize why that’s gonna make it harder to get paid for songs. But my first experiences with lossless, duplicable technology didn’t have anything to do with my career as a rapper. My first encounter wasn’t with a torrent site. Or a bootlegged disc. It was a tomato.

Seeds, quite obviously, are the mechanism of plant duplication. You drop a sunflower seed in wet dirt and, bang, you get a brand new one. Essentially, you just 'burned’ a sunflower. The seeds of this new plant can then be harvested and planted to create an infinite, almost lossless supply of flowers and seeds.
Three Artists On Piracy: Sharing, Disruption And Turning Filesharers Into Your Street Team

(Image: Monsanto DSC03058, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from home_of_chaos's photostream)By Cory Doctorow

http://boingboing.net/2012/09/08/musicians-on-file-sharing-rec.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/09/09/5lp5an_musicians_on_file-sharing,_record_industry_as_monsanto#comments Private justice: How Hollywood money put a Brit behind bars - Industry-funded prosecution leads to 4-year sentence for SurfTheChannel owner. http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/08/19/5kwblf_private_justice:_how_hollywood_money_put_a_brit_behind_bars_-_industry-funded_prosecution_leads_to_4-year_sentence_for_surfthechannel_owner. Sun, 19 Aug 2012 18:40:00 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/08/19/5kwblf_private_justice:_how_hollywood_money_put_a_brit_behind_bars_-_industry-funded_prosecution_leads_to_4-year_sentence_for_surfthechannel_owner.
Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock
Anton Vickerman, 38-year old owner of the once popular link site surfthechannel.com (STC), was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday by a British judge. But the prosecutors sitting across the courtroom from him didn't work for The Crown—they were lawyers for the movie studio trade group Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

FACT, not public officials in the UK, was the driving force behind Vickerman's prosecution. Indeed, FACT effectively took on the role of a private law enforcement agency. Private investigators hired by FACT first identified Vickerman as the administrator of STC and built the case against him. His assets were frozen at FACT's request by a government agency—which was itself funded by FACT. And when the UK's public prosecutors decided not to press charges against Vickerman at all, FACT initiated a criminal prosecution on its own dime.

This is a new development for anti-piracy efforts. Organizations like the MPAA, RIAA, ifpa, and FACT have long lobbied law enforcement officials to prosecute "rogue sites" and have provided them with information and logistical support to do so. But public prosecutors generally have the final say on who will be indicted. In the Vickerman case, the public prosecutors concluded that there wasn't enough evidence to merit prosecution. FACT disagreed and invoked what one lawyer told us is an "archaic right" for a private organization to bring criminal prosecutions against other private parties.

Vickerman posted a lengthy testimonial to his site after he was convicted. In it, he describes FACT as a lawless conspiracy to shut down his site for the benefit of competing video sites, and he portrays Judge Evans as an "Imbecile" who didn't understand the legal issues in the case. While many of the accusations seem overwrought, Vickerman did include a cache of documents that came out during his trial. From them we can paint a clear picture of just how far one private party was allowed to go in its bid for justice.

FACT confirmed the authenticity of the court documents for us but declined to get into the specifics of Vickerman's account—arguing that his conviction by a jury of his peers speaks for itself.

Getting their man



Surfthechannel.com grew rapidly—so rapidly that it soon came to the attention of Hollywood. The site hosted no videos, but its meticulously organized collection of links made it popular with those seeking infringing content. And plenty of people were interested. At the site's peak in mid-2009, STC attracted hundreds of thousands of users per day, earning Vickerman up to £50,000 ($78,500) per month in advertising revenue.

FACT wanted to shutter the site, but first it had to find out who was running the thing. Vickerman had kept a low profile, registering the domain through an anonymizing service and purchasing server space offshore. Undeterred, FACT hired an investigator named Pascal Hetzscholdt to pose as a potential investor who lured Vickerman to a London hotel on July 10, 2008. While the two ate lunch, a surveillance team recorded the encounter from a nearby table. Investigators working for FACT then tracked Vickerman back to his home 250 miles north of London in gateshead.

The contents of that lunch discussion are disputed. Vickerman insists that he "did not discuss anything whatsoever about movies, illegality, or other such matters." Hetzscholdt has a different recollection. In a report filed after the meeting, he stated that Vickerman discussed plans to "experiment with using the BitTorrent network as the infrastructure to offer popular current films through STC." The whole thing was recorded, so the truth should have been a simple matter to verify—but FACT says that no audio of the meeting exists, making it impossible to check Hetzscholdt's story. Vickerman suspects foul play.

"I am firmly of the belief that such an audio recording did exist but that it was 'disappeared' by FACT Ltd due to it containing nothing controversial," he wrote.


Enlarge / Form seeking authorization under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to conduct "directed surveillance" of Vickerman during the London hotel meeting. Contrary to FACT's claims, Vickerman was not in the business of selling counterfeit DVDs.
FACT soon discovered that the home Vickerman shared with his wife was for sale. So, two days after the London meeting, another FACT agent posed as a potential buyer in order to access the residence. The agent covertly recorded the home walk-through and filed a detailed report on the operation.

Meanwhile, FACT was busy collecting other information about Vickerman. The group asked the satellite provider BSkyB for information about the couple's satellite TV subscription, for instance. An investigator tailed Vickerman's wife Kelly on a day's errands. The Guardian reports that "other private eyes had already obtained detailed information about his bank accounts, cars, and telephone records." FACT was nothing if not thorough.

On August 18, 2008, Northumbria police raided the Vickermans' home. Vickerman says that FACT agents participated in the raid and that they were "clearly directing the police." A FACT spokesman declined to comment to us on this allegation, but court documents do indicate that FACT was heavily involved in planning the raid. FACT, for instance, hired the forensic investigator used in the case.

In an e-mail sent a week prior to the raid, FACT's Colin Tansley outlined a plan for FACT's investigators to take down STC and replace it with a seizure notice. Vickerman says this plan failed because FACT believed, inaccurately, that the STC servers were located inside Vickerman's house. (The servers were actually located in Sweden, beyond the reach of FACT and the Northumbria police.) When we asked, FACT again refused to comment on Vickerman's allegations.

During the search, Vickerman and his wife were both arrested. Vickerman told both police and FACT investigators that the STC site was, in his view, legal; it acted "as a search engine" and was exempt from liability, he said.

The Vickermans were soon released on bail, but the other shoe was about to drop. Their cash was about to be seized.


Enlarge / Work order requesting forensic investigator to take down STC site and replace it with a FACT logo.
Asset freeze

Two weeks later, on September 1, investigator Alan Connolly from the Bedfordshire Trading Standards Financial Investigations Unit showed up at the Vickermans' home. He knocked on the front door and presented them with an "asset restraint order," which the unit had taken out at FACT's request. Vickerman claims that he and his wife were then barred from accessing any of their funds, aside from £125 per week, per person, to cover living expenses. As a result of the order, Vickerman says that he "started to default on my bills and rapidly started spiraling into severe financial problems."

The Bedfordshire Trading Standards Financial Investigations Unit (BTSFIU) has a grandiose name but a strange history—and it's hardly the impartial agent of government justice its name might suggest. A statement on the agency's website explains that, in 2007, the "Bedfordshire Trading Standards Service was approached" by FACT and "offered a unique sponsorship opportunity" to create the Financial Investigation Unit. With FACT's generous support, the BTSFIU was soon able to focus on conducting piracy-related property confiscations.

Indeed, so deep is the partnership that, on the form used to request an asset confiscation, the agency states that "priority will be given to those referrals that involve cinematic piracy." Vickerman says he filed a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed that "BTSFIU had made 23 similar restraint order applications in 2008, all on behalf of FACT."

In a Tuesday interview, FACT spokesman Eddy Leviten brushed off any suggestion that the financial ties between FACT and the BTSFIU created a conflict of interest, however.

"The banking industry in the UK funds the check and credit bureau in the Metropolitan Police," he told us. "It's something that happens in the UK where private industry can fund specific units within law enforcement to take on a specific role. Those units still have to withstand the same scrutiny" as any other law enforcement agency. We e-mailed two BTSFIU agents seeking comment on the relationship but never got a response.

Unable to spend his own funds on legal representation, Vickerman borrowed money from his father to hire an attorney who challenged the asset freeze. According to Vickerman, "It turns out it is unlawful for BTS to act outside of Bedforshire County," so the asset freeze was cancelled about a month after it had been put into place.

And the news got even better for Vickerman. It soon emerged that the government had no interest in charging him with a crime. Indeed, the government wasn't even convinced he had committed one.


Enlarge / The instructions of the BTSFIU asset confiscation form notes that priority is given to piracy cases.
"I cannot advise any prosecution"

Vickerman was referred to Crown Prosecution service (CPS), the arm of the UK government responsible for criminal prosecutions. CPS chose not to prosecute him, explaining its decision in a letter dated December 12, 2008.

"I understand that the investigation into the suspects was prompted by FACT and in effect this is an enquiry that has been undertaken almost entirely by FACT although with the assistance of the Northumbria Police," the letter explained. The CPS prosecutor then continued:

I understand from [Northumbria Detective Constable] Watkin that there have been no other successful prosecutions that he is aware of where we could point to this type of website being classified as amounting to "making available... by electronic transmission," the legal standard needed to find Vickerman guilty of copyright infringement. At present it appears uncertain if in fact what the suspect has done does infringe this particular legislation. Certainly on the evidence thus far provided it is impossible for me to determine if this is the case and therefore I cannot advise any prosecution on the evidence presented.
CPS also pointed to additional problems with prosecuting STC. "It is obvious that this suspect does not put copyrighted material on the Internet itself," said the letter. "His 'crime' is to make it easier for others to find what is already there. This begs the rather obvious question of why he is being pursued rather than those who actually breach the copyright by displaying the material."

The agency also wondered whether there are "civil law remedies available perhaps including an injunction to close offending websites down," and if those remedies existed, why they weren't being pursued. (Such civil process has been used in the US to shut down napster, Grokster, Limewire, and many others, though such cases have been less successful in the UK.) CPS also noted that "such well established sites as YouTube occasionally fall foul of copyright and that they are not prosecuted in the manner suggested here."

The letter concluded that "the evidence provided is too vague to establish what actual offences are alleged and thus I cannot advise any charge at this stage."

It sounded like the end of the case, and in most cases would have been—but FACT badly wanted Vickerman in jail and was willing to do the work itself if necessary.

Going It Alone

In The United States, public prosecutors generally have the power to decide when criminal prosecution is appropriate. Eleanor Lackman, a copyright attorney at the New York firm of Cowan DeBaets, Abrahams, and Sheppard, told Ars that "criminal liability generally is only prosecuted by government entities" such as the Department of Justice. A private party can request a copyright prosecution—as in the Megaupload case—but the final decision rests with the government.


Enlarge / Vickerman outside the courthouse with an unidentified companion. The Daily Mail
United Kingdom law differs. There, private parties can initiate criminal prosecutions if they're willing to cover the costs out of their own pockets. FACT was, and so it bypassed CPS and brought criminal charges against Vickerman directly. "It is now our intention to run a private prosecution," FACT's Colin Tansley wrote in an e-mail to his colleagues on December 12, 2008.

Litigation dragged on for years. Vickerman charges that FACT withheld key documents from him, including the CPS letter recommending against prosecution, that he says would have bolstered his case. Indeed, he became so concerned with FACT's conduct that he actually petitioned government prosecutors to take over the prosecution. The request was rejected.

"In July 2010, the stress and strain of the nightmare we have endured for nearly two years finally breaks our marriage," Vickerman wrote. "Myself and my wife separate. FACT Ltd's decision to charge my wife as well, despite them knowing she has no involvement in STC, has bore them fruit." But to FACT, and even to the judge in the case, the problems and the prosecution were of Vickerman's making.

"You didn't bother to check with the copyright owners"

The trial finally commenced in May 2012. Vickerman was optimistic because he thought he had a key precedent on his side. In its 2008 letter, CPS noted that "FACT are currently involved in a prosecution of others involved in a similar website known as tvlinks." By the time the STC case reached trial in 2012, another judge had ruled that TV-Links had not infringed copyright.
But a jury found Vickerman guilty of "conspiracy to defraud" (rather than of facilitating copyright infringement) and the judge pronounced sentence. In his Tuesday remarks, Judge Evans made a curious reference to the TV-Links case, saying that Vickerman "pressed on, knowing that TV-Links had been taken down following the intervention of FACT on the basis that what it had been doing was unlawful."

Of course, the courts, not FACT, determine what is and isn't unlawful—and the courts had ultimately found that TV-Links had not violated the law. Judge Evans seems to have believed that FACT's simple accusation of unlawful conduct should have been sufficient basis for Vickerman to shut down his website.

"Your arrest and the interviews that followed did not act as any kind of warning about the criminal activity in which you were engaged or as any sort of barrier to the continued operation of STC," Judge Evans said. "With an arrogance of a kind that you displayed repeatedly during your evidence at the trial you carried on as before and indeed only shut down STC days before this trial began in May."

In March 2009, Judge Evans said, STC had two million links, of which "in excess of 5,500 links" were to infringing movies. "You insisted that you couldn't know if it was infringing copyright, that the studios might have granted right holder licences to the films of which you had no knowledge," Judge Evans said. "That was certainly true and bound to be true if you didn't bother to check with the copyright owners and check you most certainly didn't."

Vickerman places blame for his conviction squarely at the feet of Judge Evans. "We were about to enter a parallel universe in which there were two prosecutors, FACT Ltd and Judge Evans," Vickerman wrote in his Tuesday statement. It was a universe "in which the Judge had no grasp of the Internet or copyright law and in which evidence that would never have normally made it up the courtroom steps due to its dodginess was readily accepted as factual here.... I was surprised to find that I was more upset about the way FACT Ltd had won rather than the actual fact that they had won."

But Evans was having none of it. "You demonstrate a complete absence of remorse," he told Vickerman. "In the trial, you levelled criticism of virtually everyone involved in this investigation. You would not countenance, and it’s evident from your demeanor now that you still do not countenance, the idea that you were doing anything wrong. I’m bound to say that in all the years I’ve worked in this court I have never encountered arrogance of the kind that you displayed during the trial... The vast majority of the material made available through that website infringed copyright."

The privatization of justice


Enlarge / In 2008, FACT compiled a lengthy dossier on Anton and Kelly Vickerman.
Ars sought comment from David Cook, a solicitor who successfully represented defendants connected to two other websites: OiNK and FileSoup. Those cases were formally handled by CPS rather than private groups, but even so Cook regarded the degree of industry involvement as "an abuse of the Court process as a result of the involvement of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) at all stages of the investigation and subsequent prosecution."

Those cases, he said, were "brought by the CPS, with the trade bodies malevolently lurking in the shadows but with their fingerprints all over the evidence." In the STC case, by contrast, the industry dispensed with the "lurking" and drove the case itself from start to finish. Cook describes the right of private parties to initiate criminal prosecutions as "archaic."

He argues that the ability of private companies to bring criminal charges opens the door to abuses. For example, Cook questions whether it is right for the "police to be able to use the powers that are specifically bestowed to them to seize a person’s property, only to then decide not to do anything themselves and simply pass the material to an 'interested third party'" like FACT. (Cook concedes that this transfer of evidence was ruled legal by a UK appeals court.)

FACT's Leviten disagreed. He told us there's a "rich historical precedent" for private parties bringing criminal prosecutions. He compared FACT to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which brings criminal animal welfare cases. Private criminal prosecutions, he said, are "part of the democratic system in the UK."

But Cook worries that the "enormous financial resources and clout" of organizations like FACT, and the lack of public oversight of their activities, could deprive defendants of a fair trial.

"There is no doubt that copyright holders deserve the full protection of the law," he told me. "But I still think that the manner in which they conduct these prosecutions is offensive."

Correction: This article originally stated that David Cook represented the operator of OiNK. He represented a defendant connected to the Oink case, but not the site's operator.by Timothy B. Lee

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/private-justice-how-hollywood-money-put-a-brit-behind-bars/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews]]> http://www.last.fm/user/Milkshake8/journal/2012/08/19/5kwblf_private_justice:_how_hollywood_money_put_a_brit_behind_bars_-_industry-funded_prosecution_leads_to_4-year_sentence_for_surfthechannel_owner.#comments