British Record Labels have carried out their threat to sue people who have illegally shared music over the internet, by starting legal action against 28 alleged offenders.
The action has been taken by the British Phonographic Institute (BPI), the record labels' trade association. It is the first step in the industry's "rolling programme of legal action" against the 15% of file sharers whose music it claims constitutes 75% of the illegal music available to download on the internet.
The lawsuits will tackle those who illegally provide large volumes of copyrighted music, video and software for downloading at any time.
(Extract from Computer Act!ve Magazine.)
...and so it begins. I wonder how long it'll be before the humble MP3 bloggers start getting penalised? Of course we're only providing small doses for 'evaluation purposes' usually for a limited period, and in some cases simply making 'lost' music available again, but I can't help wondering how long it'll be before the suits turn their attention to us. Watch you backs, brethren....
On a more positive note, I sometimes get e-mails from people wondering about how to get into MP3 blogging/creating/editing. There's free software available to download called Audacity, which you might like to try. I've had a play around with it and got some good results. I used it to clean-up those Peel tapes I posted yesterday and create the fade-outs. If you've got a half-decent soundcard and a line-in on your PC, then a program like this is all you need to get going if you want to digitize some of those old vinyl and tape treasures.
Not much else on the agenda today, I'm afraid. My batteries need recharging. Some new stuff in the links bar, though. And for anyone who's been missing some fresh writing from Blissblog, check out Simon's DFA article at The Village Voice. Note James Murphy's 'Can - Future Days' T-shirt - very topical subject over at Dissensus right now. I also noticed Simon couldn't resist taking a quick verbal swipe at "glitchy laptop musicians". Harsh! Add all those nasty comments I've been reading at Dissensus about Warp, Jimmy Edgar etc and I'm feeling a bit 'down-in-the-dumps'. Maybe I'm turning into the post-rave equivalent of the 'jazz-bore'? Am I championing Warp for what they were, rather than what they are now? Have they really lost the plot since Rob Mitchell died? Is it all about chasing the £££ now? I've never really thought about it before. I don't slavishly consume everything they release, and never have. I don't like all of it. But the stuff I do like, I usually love instinctively. I need to work this all out in my head...
