Some interesting stories, some scary.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/07/2343254/ask-slashdot-who-has-been-sued-by-the-riaa

Now it's the War on Downloads and any other type of IP infringing. I really like the last two paragraphs:

"While we applaud the idea of installing keyloggers on friends’ computers to see if they are undermining the country’s economic recovery, asking America to be on the lookout for terrorists and intellectual-property infringers at the same time ( Read more... )

And it was commissioned by the ??AA and for some reason was never published. Hummm. Makes one wonder.http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/movie-industry-bins-report-proving-pirates-are-great-consumers-

They break down how a band can sell 1 million albums and still owe the record company $500,000. I've read some stuff like this before, it's unbelievable ( Read more... )

Very interesting stuff. This guy, John Barlow, is not only a co-founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, he was also a lyricist for the Grateful Dead. He had some very interesting takes on what the other people on the panel were saying because, unlike them, he personally produced creative entertainment ( Read more... )

The act would have given the governmentMPAA/RIAA power to order American ISPs to block DNS resolution of sites that are infringing content, mainly torrent trackers and download sites. Currently the government has the power to order the Department of Homeland Security to seize the domain names of sites that offend the governmentMPAA/RIAA, which is ( Read more... )

Basically, they've bought extreme access to some lawmakers to get a bill introduced saying that there are illegal disc pressing plants (where music CD's and movie DVD's are made) that are churning out a Sagan or two of illegal pirated material and costing Hollywood a Sagan or three, and this law will allow law enforcement to raid pressing plants ( Read more... )

I can't say it any better than the Wired article puts it:

The Department of Homeland Security has requested that Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, remove an add-on that allows web surfers to access websites whose domain names were seized by the government for copyright infringement, Mozilla’s lawyer said Thursday ( Read more... )

No conflict of interest here, move along ( Read more... )

Lots of music industry stuff!

An accounting analysis of what musicians get paid! (it ain't much, on the order of 2%). It breaks down and "explains why huge megastars like Lyle Lovett have pointed out that he sold 4.6 million records and never made a dime from album sales. It's why the band 30 Seconds to Mars went platinum and sold 2 million ( Read more... )