We interviewed Jake Daynes, a spokesperson for the Pirate Party of Canada recently and we had some interesting responses to our questions.

ZeroPaid: What is the Pirate Party and how has it grown since the launch?

Jake Daynes: The Pirate Party of Canada is the Canadian counterpart of the international Pirate Party movement, which has gained seats in Sweden and Germany. We are fighting for fair copyright, patent reform, net neutrality, and government transparency. Our goals can be found here.

ZeroPaid: We’ve heard about a Pirate Party distribution platform that is being launched. What is the distribution platform exactly? Has it been officially launched? Are there any partners involved in this project?

Jake Daynes: Right now I don’t want to say much, but I can say that it utilizes a very “pirate-y” distribution method. Right now it has been started up, though we have not made it live, and we have several partners in this, such as Musicians United Against Censorship, Electronica Artist/DJ: Frozen Ice Cube [Author's note: The latest music is currently here due to recent technical issues] , and Fading Ways Music.

ZeroPaid:What sort of artists are you looking for? Is it genre specific or location specific or can anyone around the world with any musical style join in? Is it moderated and if so, how long does it take for something to be posted?

Jake Daynes: No, we are not genre specific, we are looking for anybody and everybody! We do have a slight moderation system, which is mainly me going through every track, just to make sure it isn’t a copyright violation, but it shouldn’t take more than 24 hours to get something posted, once the project is live.

ZeroPaid: For artists, what kind of reach does this platform provide (like, how many people are accessing it)? Do you expect this number of people to grow?

Jake Daynes: This platform is access to a global stage, with Pirate Party support in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Germany, and the US, we have access to millions of people that are all looking for new music to listen to!

ZeroPaid: I’ve noticed on your home page that you have a sufficient number of members, but you seem to have a second bar for people sending in forms. Are you able to officially register as a political party yet or do you have to have that number of forms handed in before that happens?

Jake Daynes: Right now we are asking everybody to send in their forms, as we need to have a minimum of 250 to register with Elections Canada, though those that sign up are still counted as full members, as membership is free!

ZeroPaid: It’s been talked about plenty of times that the Pirate Bay had a major influence on the success of the Swedish Pirate Party. The only big things like that happening around in Canada seem to have been copyright reform legislation which is already on the back burner because of the copyright consultations. Would you say that the Pirate Party’s growth is attributed to a reaction to major copyright related events or is it more of an ongoing growth for the Canadian Pirate Party?

Jake Daynes: Actually, few people know it, but Canada has it’s own Pirate Bay right here in Richmond, B.C.: isoHUNT, which is run by Gary Fung just south of Vancouver. Copyright is a global issue that is affecting everybody, and even though the copyright consultations are putting reform on the back burner as you put it, the PPoC is continuing to grow, with members and chapters all across the country.

ZeroPaid: There have been a number of countries that have Pirate Parties officially registered, but all these countries seem to be in Europe. Is it the goal of the Pirate Party of Canada to be the first non-European country to be an official political party?

Jake Daynes: Yes, currently the PPoC is looking to become the first non-European party to be officially registered.

ZeroPaid: There are rumours that there could, on a remote chance, be an election in the Fall. If that happens, is there a chance that the Pirate Party could be in that election?

Jake Daynes: Sadly no, because of current election legislation, the PPoC would have to have been a registered party 60 days before the writ of an election, though we will continue to push our issues, and hope that the voice of fair copyright is heard by current parties.

ZeroPaid: There are a number of people out there who might suggest that the party doesn’t stand much of a chance with the First Past the Post system along with the established parties. Having said that though, is it the goal for the party to win seats or is it more about sending a message to government that said Canadians are concerned with certain issues in the copyright, privacy and technology related fields of policy making?

Jake Daynes: Yes, it is in fact very difficult for a new party to break into the First Past the Post system, take, for example, the Green Party, garnering 13% of the popular vote last election and still not gaining a seat. Our goal is indeed to gain seats, though one important point is that our message is heard, because lets face it, we as a party prove that Canadians are concerned, and some even passionate about these issues.

ZeroPaid: Do you have anything further to add?

Jake Daynes: I, Jake Daynes, would just like to add that if anybody is interested in the Party, my personal email is JakeDaynes@PirateParty.ca, and I would be happy to discuss them with you. If you would like to debate the Party’s views, our forums are very lively.

ZeroPaid: Thank you very much for your time.

Jake Daynes: Thank you Drew

We would like to thank Jake Daynes for taking the time out of his busy schedule to talk to us.

The Pirate Party of Canada was started somewhere between the end of June and July 2nd. It’s been seeking membership since the launch and has grown to roughly 500 members in the span of two months. Pirate Party of Canada’s official website home page.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

You could probably write an entire encyclopedia on all the different aspects of copyright and how Canada should reform its copyright laws. It’s probably why the transcript, in spite of its length, seemed to abruptly end with lots left unsaid as time ran out. While there was the assertion that all of the topics were actually touched on during the round table, in fact, things like the issues surrounding patents, something that tends to be a whole different ballgame at times, was completely absent from the round table. That’s not to say the round table was narrowly focused, it actually did cover a huge wide range of topics. One could probably have three round tables and still not touch on all the subjects around reforming the copyright laws in Canada.

Perhaps one of the issues that might be of interest to Americans was something that was left unsaid – no one was supporting the Jammie Thomas conviction. The commentary surrounding the conviction noted that the million and a half dollar fine was disproportionate, though the fine was actually much closer to 2 million. On a number of occasions, Jared Moya, the other writer for ZeroPaid, noted how while the file-sharing lawsuits were supposedly to educate the public and deter them from file-sharing, the huge fine would likely have the opposite effect where people would question the legitimacy of the fine. This concept most certainly resonated with those that participated in the round table and sparked commentary how a punishment for copyright infringement should fit the crime – and most agree that a $2 Million fine for 24 songs is disproportionate given that one can buy an individual song for $1.

There was also commentary on how stopping file-sharing, short of tearing down the entire internet and rebuilding it from scratch, was not going to happen. There was also commentary on how the entertainment industry needs to work with ISPs to set up a business model where, for example, users pay a flat fee and offer popular files on a server. This would alleviate stress on the networks (though it should be noted that bandwidth consumption has been going down in recent years) and give users what they want.

DRM, TPM’s and other “digital locks” was under the spotlight with a very notable tone that a blanket ban on circumvention was wrongheaded given that it blocks uses that would otherwise be legal. There were only two representatives that supported digital locks, Steven Ellis for the Canadian Film and Television Production Association who argued that it enables geo-fencing and Danielle Parr with the Entertainment Software Association of Canada who said that digital locks enables users to play World of Warcraft and gives consumers choice while in the same breath saying that revenues are up for those that he represents in a country that doesn’t currently ban the act of circumventing digital locks.

Go back to the idea of geo-fencing. What geo-fencing is is basically selling content online only to those that are located within a certain country or in certain countries. Typically, a given system would read what IP address you are connecting to a server an determine what country that IP address originates from. If that IP address is recognized as an address that comes from a country outside of the allowed ranges, the server will prevent that user from doing some things including buying content. This system seems to fail to acknowledge that the internet makes users all over the world be a part of a global village. Blocking people from other countries from, most notably, buying content, is not a sustainable business model. It’s like owning a store in the middle of downtown and you would only sell your products to those who have a permanent Cleveland Giants tattoo right on their bicep. What if you like the Oakland Raiders instead? Tough luck, but you’re not wanted in this store. Geo-fencing online is pretty much the same thing. What if you don’t want a tattoo in the first place (ala anonymous online users not using a proxy in the correct location). Sorry kid, not happening. Most people would question how sustainable that store is in the first place.

Of course, you don’t have to take our word for it. The people behind prominent online music store Beatport.com certainly feels your pain:

We all know how frustrating these restrictions can be. A lot of our employees are DJs from all ends of the spectrum- from basement DJs, to club residents, to DJs who have toured all over the world. Even our CEO Jonas Tempel holds a residency on Saturday nights at Beta, and regularly tours with Bad Boy Bill. And those of us who don’t fall into the DJ category are at the very least, electronic music aficionados. So we all know how frustrating it can be to listen to a track that you absolutely love, only to find out that it’s not available in your territory.

As many of you may already know, these restrictions have always been around, but were just not as noticeable as they are today. For example, in the past when you went into a record store to buy your music you only had access to what the distributors were allowed to sell. Similarly, the agreements that we have made with our labels can limit the areas where a release may be sold if it is already available by another, more prominent label in those regions. Release dates can vary from label to label as well. Some releases that are available in all territories may not be available everywhere at the same time. In fact, a lot of the limitations that we deal with now are still based on standards that were set by physical distribution. We are working hard to change some of these outdated practices, however, we always try to keep in mind and respect the fact that our labels are trusting us with their most valuable asset.

At the end of the day we are all here for the music, and we would love to see worldwide rights on all tracks. Until that is possible, we feel that keeping a more extensive label catalog brings us one step closer to reaching our goal.

Some might go as far as to say that those who restrict their catalogues to the paying public have absolutely no right to complain about slumping sales.

Overall, it looks like the round table does reflect the overall situation in the open portion of the consultation we reported on earlier. A very small minority of stake holders are beating the drums that support C-60 (Liberals) and C-61 (Conservatives) while the vast majority of Canadians disagree with that approach. Not hard to see just how far left field the government was when they tabled Bill C-61.

See also:

Michael Geist’s notes

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

For some time now, YouTube has had a feature on many videos that let you see videos “in HD”. Of course, this insinuates that the video will feature the highest quality sound you can hope for. The reality is that the quality of the video does depend on the original quality format the uploader has. If the uploader has a low quality video, YouTube isn’t necessarily going to magically turn it into “HD”.

While discussing an EU commissioner wanting to overhaul regulations related to downloading, we noted a British study that suggested that file-sharing is actually going down in popularity. The source that is gaining on the back of file-sharing’s decrease in popularity? Online streaming. Many are, in fact, getting their music from sites like MySpace and YouTube. Long before the release of the study that pointed to an increase in popularity of streaming, we wrote a guide on how to rip music from MySpace. There’s plenty of ways to get music from YouTube as a simple Google search reveals countless online YouTube stream rippers.

This phenomenon of users getting their music from streamed sources has caught the attention of a number of artists. Recently, this included an artist by the name “Deadmau5″ (pronounced ‘Dead mouse’). For the uninitiated, Deadmau5 is a famous House music producer from Canada. If you’re even somewhat into House music (or many forms of electronica for that matter), there’s a very good chance you’ve heard of this artist. In terms of popularity in a given genre, you could consider him the Linkin Park of House music only with significantly less lyrics.

“Quite frankly,” Deadmau5 wrote, “I kinda feel a bit bummed out that i would create something exclusive for my audiences to be “ripped” from some streaming media [site] as is… moreso when the poster of the media would advertise or title it as “HD” or “High Quality” before it’s release date.”

A little bit of background. Many artists such as Deadmau5, during a live show, beatmatches music together so there’s essentially a constant amount of music being played even though several different songs are played during a live show. Often, larger artists play their music long before their release dates to help promote the new song and increase popularity. Of course, similar styles of performing live transcends to radio as well. This is why some electronica music you hear seems to cut in and out at the end or get cut off completely. It’s called a set rip. There’s still that beatmatching and, consequently, that songs beginning (mostly drum kicks) and ending (also mostly drum kicks) are more or less cut off.

“In fact, Nothing makes me vomit in my mouth more than listening to anything short of a 16bit 44.1kHz Wav / Aiff file… perhaps it’s just the audiophile in me… but i am actually witnessing and realizing for the first time in my life something that i have created that has been reduced to some regurgetated re-re-re-re-recording of a set and dubbed “high quality”… quite frankly im a little embarassed.” Deadmau5 continues.

A WAV file is essentially an uncompressed sound file. When someone encodes it to MP3, the “highs” and “lows” start being lost in an effort to make the file smaller. A good way to demonstrate to yourself what the sound differences are between a high quality and a low quality version of an MP3 is, listened to a song that’s at 320KBps, then compare that to the same song that’s in an MP3 format of 128KBPs. If the differences are seemingly minimal, pay attention to the high hats or cymbals. You may notice that the hats get a little scratchy or distorted as quality is reduced. If you’re listening on, say, a subwoofer system, listen to how heavy the bass is as well.

Admittedly, when it comes to the really high quality stuff, I don’t personally notice the differences. The differences between a 32bit WAV file and a 16bit WAV file is completely inaudible to me. Unfortunately, I don’t own a $50,000 sound system to put my ears to the ultimate test. But if you are wondering, a 16bit WAV file is the quality of a standard CD without any compression (not even to save space as FLAC does without losing any quality). Of course, the difference between 16bit and 32bit isn’t even close to what Deadmau5 is getting at.

“So,” Deadmau5 explains, “situation happens… some guy records the set @ 16 bit 44.1kHz (usually the case) you’ve got my 24 bit version coming out of my DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) then in to someone elses ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) which is only as good as the quality of the ADC.. so already the quality of the music has been compromised, and you havent even gotten it yet.”

“Then, whoever records a direct line from the set then encodes that to 320kpbs MAX or 128 kbps mp3 for media streaming ease. this part is a MAAASSSIIIVEEE degradation of the original signal… and has been mulched to all bloody hell. So…. then what typically happens is yet ANOTHER DAC / ADC conversion…. wheres someone rips the audio from said streaming media outlet only to puke it back onto youtube… which is 128Kbps max in “HD” mode (which is a VERY far cry from HD if you ask me… total abuse of terminology there) shoulda [just] called it ABBDBNR….”A Bit Better Definition But Not Really”. fun times! so… to break it down… lets take a quick look again…”

“Production / Final Master
↓
degraded to 24 bits for live use
↓
degraded to 16 bits for commerical release / distribution
↓
degraded to 16 bits (less accurately) when recorded off a live feed from mixer via DAC / ADC
↓
degraded to 128kbps / 320kbps when published for streaming media outlets
↓
degraded to 128kbps / 320kbps when ripped from streaming media outlet
↓
degraded to 64kbps / 128kbps
=
a very crappy 6th generation copy that magically gets called “HIGH QUALITY VERSION!!!111ONE!!” on youtube…. you figure it out.”

Transcoding has been a problem in the file-sharing community for years, long before the streaming revolution. The situation then was typically someone finding a 128kbps MP3, then re-encoding it into a 320kbps mp3, either thinking that they have a higher quality version of the song or trying to dupe others into believing it’s higher quality. That was typically going along the lines of, “producer quality, degraded to 16bit-like quality for CD, ripped and encoded into a low quality MP3, uncompressed and encoded again to 320kbps”. That’s a 4th generation version, not even a 6th generation version as described by Deadmau5.

Additionally, thanks to standards in streaming and YouTube, the quality is forced to be of a certain level of (lower) quality, so the amount of quality lost is even greater because you lose more quality in each step and that quality doesn’t come back once it’s lost once.

Deadmau5 concludes, “I just think it’s time for us listeners to listen smarter, to educate eachother a little more, give the audiable world out there a bit of a quality control attitude, LISTEN UP folks… our hearing is really a fucking complicated and beautiful thing!!! Why not use it well? It’s like owning the most amazing sportscar and not a drop of gasoline on the planet…. Sometimes when i stick my ears out there, im really starting to fear that even the terminologic use of the words “high quality” is slowing substandardizing itself into an inaudiable heap of nonsense. If my message reaches at least one person, and benefits them in any way, i will die a happy mouse.”

There’s many ways to look at this from an artist standpoint. A positive way to spin the stream ripping activities is to say that if you buy the music, the quality is much greater. Consider it an extra incentive for music fans to legally pay for music for example. We’re not necessarily talking about users who are higher up on the file-sharing food chain here most of the time. Chances are, the users who are listening to ripped streaming music aren’t members of 6 different private sites as the quality difference is monumental between streamed music and, say, FLAC – though people higher up in the file-sharing food-chain are much more encouraged to buy what they like anyway.

Another way one can look at this is the tried, tested and true ‘free advertising’ culture. More people are listening to your music – even if it’s low quality. That means the number of potential customers goes up – or a larger fan base more likely to go to the shows where there’s high quality music being played anyway – countless people see that touring is a huge income earner for artists to begin with.

So has the transcoding problem worsened thanks to streaming? No doubt. The bigger question is, is it at the detriment of artists and listeners?

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

While we are not really sure what all of the commissioners intentions are, apparently some of those intentions are to change the regulations on how European citizens access digital content.

“It will therefore be my key priority to work… on a simple, consumer friendly legal framework for accessing digital content in Europe’s single market, while ensuring at the same time fair remuneration of creators,” she told a seminar on Thursday (July 9).

More from Billboard:

“Internet piracy appears to become more and more sexy, in particular for the digital natives,” she said, quoting a survey that showed that 60% of people aged 16-24 downloaded audiovisual contented in the past months without paying.

“Growing Internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should a wake-up call for policy makers,” she told the seminar, organized by the Lisbon Council thinktank.

It’s an extremely curious thing to say that “internet piracy” is “growing” considering a recent survey mentioned in The Guardian pointed out the exact opposite:

The survey of 1,000 fans also shows that many14 to 18 year olds are now streaming music regularly online using services such as YouTube and Spotify.

At the same time less than a third of teenagers are now illegally downloading music, the survey suggests. In January this year 26% of 14 to 18 year olds admitted filesharing at least once a month compared with 42% in December 2007.

The research revealed that many teenagers (65%) are streaming music regularly, with more 14 to 18 year olds (31%) listening to streamed music on their computer every day compared with music fans overall (18%).

The picture may be more complex than a simple shift from filesharing to streaming, with people sharing music in new ways such as via bluetooth technology, on blogs, and through copying, also known as ripping content from friends’ MP3 devices.

Still, this wouldn’t be the first time there’s been movement in the European Union to make amends between big record companies and average music fans. A Green Party MEP said that the best way to go about the business of file-sharing is to legalize file-sharing and just issuing a flat rate on ISPs.

Access has been quite a problem for a long time. Many ISPs in Europe have been trying to make groundbreaking deals with record labels so they can sell music as well, but such deals seem to have been few and far between. Meanwhile, the copyright industry has been pressuring ISPs to simply punish music fans for copyright infringement through three-strikes legislation. Realistically speaking, how many major record label backed authorized digital stores have started up compared to the number of BitTorrent sites starting up?

No doubt we’ll hear much more of what is actually being planned as time goes on, but it seems that file-sharing related issues is going to be, once again, on the agenda.

[Hat Tip: Open Rights Group - 1 and 2]

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Geoff Taylor, the head of the BPI recently suggested that he also regrets the industry not moving faster to sell music albums on the internet.

Still, he maintains that the websites since then still damaging the industry. There’s also the comment that suggests that he still believes that one download means one lost sale; though he didn’t say that specifically, only to say that there’s less money for music because of unauthorized downloading. Of course, he makes no mention of an earlier finding that points out how games and movies are more likely to be blamed for less money if there is a monetary loss in the market. Naturally, there isn’t a mention of how the industry plans on competing against such competing markets as a consequence.

Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group praised the fact that Taylor has realized this, but points out that there’s still a heavy push to get users disconnected in Britain as well. So really, this copyright war between the industry and it’s consumers is far from over. Back in April, one British minister shot down the three-strikes proposals calling them too draconian.

Who knows though? Maybe eventually the top music industry labels will eventually figure out how to tackle the internet and how it’s had such an effect on music. It just might take a while at this rate though.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

The report is currently being highlighted on the BBC. the study was published by PRS for Music, an industry body.

What may be something some would find interesting is the fact that the study suggested that there was little evidence to support the idea that file-sharing helped unsigned and new bands find an audience, but at the end of the article, the study did find that people who downloaded music online for free were more likely to get music that they would not otherwise have listened to while on an authorized music store, this was not the case. A hint toward something? Perhaps.

The study also noted that the major record labels should concentrate more on creating business models around marketing music through file-sharing – something they have, thus far, refused to do. This is because file-sharing closely mirrors legitimate music stores. Given that there is so much music available today, users do not have time to scan through and pick music they like and tend to stick to what they know through incumbent marketing techniques like radio and TV. All this, of course, according to this “study”.

The article makes no mention of sites like SoundClick, Magnatune or Jamendo – sites that help users find content not promoted through the multi-million dollar methods pushed by the major record labels. It’s unclear from the article how the study was conducted. Was it monitoring just BitTorrent or all file-sharing apps? Plenty of questions about a wide topic with few details.

So, why has this organization released such a study at all? A little research has revealed that PRS for Music has recently posted a news release talking about a new online subscription fee system:

Following extensive consultation with the music industry, PRS for Music is pleased to announce the release of its new Online Music Licences, which will replace the Joint Online Licence fully by the end of June 2009.

The licences are being released in two stages – the first stage, available from today, covers the rates charged for download and subscription services.

The second stage covers streaming services and will be released shortly following further consultation by PRS for Music and its digital licensees.

Maybe it’s just one of their services they offer? Check out their About page:

PRS for Music is home to the world’s best music writers, composers and publishers. Formed as The MCPS-PRS Alliance in 1997 with the PRS for Music brand adopted in 2009, the organisation brings together two royalty collection societies; MCPS and PRS. We exist to collect and pay royalties to our members when their music is exploited in one of a number of ways – when it is recorded onto any format and distributed to the public, performed or played in public, broadcast or made publicly available online.

PRS for Music is one of the world’s most efficient combined rights collecting operations. Offering its members more money, more often, at less cost and its customers the most efficient means by which they can use music.

So, why are there these obscure and cryptic claims about file-sharing? It makes much more sense when one discovers what the company is selling in the first place. Effectively, the BBC seems to have published a thinly veiled marketing tactic by the company. That fact doesn’t seem to have quite made it onto the final publication of the article in question.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

This may very well become the most ironic stories of 2009 in the copyright debate. The CBC is reporting that French governing party as led by president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sued by an independent band for copyright infringement.

The president and his administration has been well known for trying to ratchet up copyright laws not only in France, but throughout Europe as well. He has pressured and passed the first “three strikes” law that gets a user disconnected based on three formal copyright complaints. Arguably, the three strikes provision was born in France and has since spread throughout the world due to the major copyright industry trying to get other countries to adopt the laws. In fact, the French administration pressured the European union to adopt the three strikes policy, but the provision has since run into several roadblocks including representatives from Sweden who argued that people are dependent on the internet for cultural exchange.

The French president now seems to be hoping that the issue of copyright infringement would go away. He admitted to using the artists song multiple times for a political campaign which goes beyond the scope of an obtained license. So the administration offered to settle the case for a symbolic 1 Euro. The band rejected the offer calling it insulting.

This is, by far, not the first time a proponent to the so-called anti-piracy movement has been under the gun of copyright violations. Last year, Sony BMG France was sued for software piracy and had some of their assets on a property seized by mandated bailiffs. In 2007, BASCAP, an anti-piracy organization, recieved a cease and desist letter for, again, software piracy. Finally, in 2006, the MPAA was accused of pirating the film ‘This Film is Not Yet Rated’

It’s unclear how the this particular copyright infringement case will end, but many who are familiar with the copyright debate and how the three strikes provisions came about will no doubt be laughing at this latest fiasco.

A report today on Exclaim Magazine says that the Canadian Copyright Board has raised the levy on CDs up 40 percent. That means that the levy will be bumped up from 21 cents to 29 cents and that the price of a spindle of 100 CDs will cost an additional $8. DVDs won’t be affected by the change.

Michael Geist said in the article that the bump in the levy doesn’t make any sense since many people burn music from legitimate sources like iTunes and paid for music albums. Also, many people back things up on DVDs now, probably because DVDs store more as another reason that doesn’t seem to be mentioned in the article.

The article rightly notes that various collectives have been lobbying to put a levy on iPods and removeable storage devices, but were unsuccessful.

One might wonder, though, has the economy been more of a scape goat than anything else as an excuse to do things that would otherwise spark controversy? Take, for instance, the increase in royalty rates on textbooks back in 2006. There wasn’t even a hint of an impending economic storm (unless you’ve been following Robert Schiff from the very beginning) and yet they pushed for increasing the royalty rates. Perhaps it’s thoughts like this that make the decision that much more confusing in the first place though. There’s no word on whether or not it’s a good idea to just stimulate the economy by encouraging consumer spending on entertainment products in the first place.

It’s been a multi-year battle between the recording industry and Britain, but today, consumer rights advocates was dealt with a major blow. The report comes from Music Week which says that culture secretary Andy Burnham announced during a UK music conference that he is going to support extending copyright term from 50 years to 70 years.

From the report:

Burnham’s announcement was immediately praised by BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor. He says, “Copyright is the lifeblood of our creative economy and we are delighted that the government is recognizing this by supporting an extension of copyright term for British musicians and labels. Copyright stimulates investment in musical talent and encourages innovation. Thousands of recording artists, hundreds of music companies and all British music fans will benefit from fairer copyright term”.

British Consumer Rights Advocates at Online Rights Group translated the announcement to “Screw the evidence, says Burnham, let’s extend copyright term anyway”

They further point the finger to the copyright lobby groups with the following, “the U-turn can probably be more accurately ascribed to the intense lobbying activities of record labels and collecting societies – the bodies likely to see the most benefit from extending term – ever since Gordon Brown accepted Gowers’ recommendations in full.”

The Gowers report was released back in 2006 and explained that, through careful study and weighing all the outcomes, the major copyright industry would only receive a scarce benefit from extending the copyright term while it severely hurt everyone else involved.

We here at ZeroPaid followed the British copyright term extension carefully. Early on this year, a petition to stop copyright term extension in Europe received a huge amount of support from concerned citizens. Shortly afterwards, a British MP objected to the copyright term extension bill which would increase the term of copyright to 70 years. It was a move that was hugely popular by consumer rights activists. A few months later, a top British legal adviser agreed that extending the copyright term would be a bad idea, another victory for consumers. Still, the Open Rights Group called on as many people as possible to keep up the pressure to stop the copyright term extension movement.

In spite of the incredible effort all year, it seems that the British Minister wants to rely on what many call “voodoo economics” instead of the facts behind the case and back the copyright term extension movement. Still, the war is far from over. The Open Rights Group says, “If it turns out the UK Government are unwilling to reject the Directive [to extend the copyright term], then it will be up to the European Parliament to see sense and vote it out when they come to consider it (likely next February). Which means it’s all the more important to write to your MEP if you object to the proposal to extend copyright term.”

[Hat tip: BoingBoing]

Here’s the scenario: you have a hard drive full of MP3s you don’t really listen to anymore. The standard response would be to just delete the files. What about the value locked up in those particular digital bits? What about the idea of just selling those old dusty MP3s? If that sounds like an wacky idea, then you might consider the person behind Bopaboo crazy.

Bopaboo is a website designed for people to sell their MP3 files online. A sale is made, the website takes a percentage. Not only is this person not running with the idea with the website, but is also proposing the idea to members of the Recording Industry Association of America.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed to the recent report on CNET which confirms that this story isn’t straight from the pages of The Onion.

The legality of the website, according to the report, hinges on the first-sale doctrine which permits people to re-sell their old used albums when they don’t want it anymore. The problem is that an MP3 is digital and if one wants to sell it, the seller isn’t losing anything.

While Fred von Lohmann of the EFF seems to be intrigued over the idea of an online used music store, it seems that the business model is also raising some sceptical opinions from others.

The article suggests that the owner of the website has a tough sell. Another interesting way to look at it might be that if the owner decides to run with the website, it’s practically begging to be sued by the RIAA. Still, the concept of re-selling MP3’s might be better left in the walled gardens of iTunes where DRM is used if it were to fly at all.