Matt Howden and Tony Wakeford

A big victory for Big Music: A federal court has ruled in favor of the music labels in their fight against LimeWire, one of the most prominent file-sharing services on the Web.

You can read all of U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood’s ruling at the bottom of the post. But the short version is that Wood, using the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision as a guide, found that LimeWire is indeed guilty of copyright violations. In her words:

LimeWire… (1) is aware that LimeWire’s users commit a substantial amount of copyright infringement; (2) markets LimeWire to users predisposed to committing infringement; (3) ensures that LimeWire enables infringement and assists users committing infringement; (4) relies on the fact that LimeWire enables infringement for the success of its business; and (5) has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement.

LimeWire is unusual among post-Napster, post-Grokster file-sharing operations in that it operates out in the open, in the U.S. The company, based in New York City and owned by investor Mark Gorton, actually sells a smattering of music itself with the blessing of some of the smaller music labels. But while the company has been engaged in a long back-and-forth with the big guys, it has never reached a settlement.

Meanwhile, almost all of the music available on the service (93 percent, according to a study used in the lawsuit) and even more of the stuff actually downloaded (98.8 percent, via the same study) is protected by copyright and should not have been there. Court documents state that LimeWire generated revenue of $20 million in 2006.

LimeWire does tell its users they shouldn’t steal music. This is the warning you get when you try to do so:

But that’s not enough, Wood ruled. And certainly not when the service was going out of its way to court users searching Google (GOOG) for free tunes. From her ruling:

LimeWire conducted a marketing campaign through Google AdWords, whereby Google users who entered certain search queries, such as “replacement napster,” “napster mp3,” “napster download,” “kazaa morpheus,” “mp3 free download,” and dozens of other phrases containing the words “napster,” “kazaa,” or “morpheus,” would see an advertisement leading them to the LimeWire website.

The next step in the case is a June 1 conference. Here’s LimeWire CEO George Searle’s statement, which doesn’t include a vow to appeal the ruling:

LimeWire strongly opposes the Court’s recent decision. LimeWire remains committed to developing innovative products and services for the end-user and to working with the entire music industry, including the major labels, to achieve this mission. We look forward to our June 1 meeting with Judge Wood.

And here’s the end-zone dance from Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the music industry’s lobbying group:

This definitive ruling is an extraordinary victory for the entire creative community. The court made clear that LimeWire was liable for inducing widespread copyright theft.

LimeWire is one of the largest remaining commercial peer-to-peer services. Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators. The court’s decision is an important milestone in the creative community’s fight to reclaim the Internet as a platform for legitimate commerce. By finding LimeWire’s CEO personally liable, in addition to his company, the court has sent a clear signal to those who think they can devise and profit from a piracy scheme that will escape accountability.

We are gratified by the court’s careful and thorough analysis of the facts and applicable law.

Bigger question: What does this mean for the music industry? Assuming Wood’s ruling stands, this one will definitely feel good for the labels, and it would have been a very big deal had they lost. But it certainly won’t help them in fighting less formally organized P2P services or those set up outside the U.S.

Arista Records Summary Judgment Opinion

• Free MP3 Music Downloads – MP3 Warning

  Date: 2010.05.14 | Category: News | Tags: Downloads,Free',music,Warning

  
  Free MP3 music downloads are now becoming more popular with the development of internet technology. Free MP3 downloads will help you to download the latest MP3 music from the internet easily and quickly. There are many professional websites which feature a vast digital music library consisting of songs in MP3 format.
  With increasing popularity of the internet, many websites are providing services for music downloads. Websites making music downloads avaliable receive increased traffic, and thereby increased popularity. Free MP3 music downloads allow you to access any type of music such as movie songs, albums, regional songs, or religious music. The main advantage of MP3 music downloads is that users can listen to the latest music without spending a large amount of money.
  Through websites providing free MP3 music downloads, you can make a collection of the choicest music files which are free from digital management restrictions. You can play the downloaded items in many devices such as computers, iPods or any other type of portable media player. You can also burn these downloaded files to CDs or DVDs and play them whenever you like. Most of the movie songs, albums, regional songs, and religious music are available in MP3 format. Numerous sophisticated softwares available on the internet facilitate free MP3 music downloads.
  Some of the free MP3 music downloading sites are illegal sites, and are run with a mere profit making intention. Illegal sites may contain spywares and viruses that can damage your computer. These sites also have programs that can steal your valuable personal data from your computer when the download process is going on. Nowadays, several peer-to-peer file sharing programs have emerged that enable users to illegally copy songs stored in other computers. RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is therefore using Digital Millenium Copyright Act to identify these illegal music file traders. They find the music file traders by tracking the IP addresses and the time they were connected. Availing of the services provided by illegal sites is also an offence, and if caught you may have to face a series of complicated legal procedures.
  If legal, free MP3 music downloads are the easiest options to download your favorite MP3 songs. To take advantage of the free but legal service, MP3 music downloads ask for one time membership fee to get registered in the site or monthly charges for free MP3 music downloads. Once you get a membership, you can have unlimited MP3 music downloads.

  * stats from NFL.com and Footballoutsiders.com

  It was a tale of two seasons for the Steelers.  Heading into week 10, they looked like one of the best teams in the league and a legitimate contender.  And, then the wheels came off.  Pittsburgh went on a 5 game losing streak, all in close games of 7 points or less.  Three of those losses came against some of the worst teams in the NFL; in Kansas City, home against Oakland, and in Cleveland.  Big Ben also suffered a concussion during this period that sidelined him for the Baltimore game during the middle of the slide.  Despite winning their last three games to close out the season, it was too little too late, as the team finished third in the AFC North and missed the playoffs.

  The statistics above show that this team is completely departed from the Bill Cowher era.  Steelers teams of old prided themselves on punishing defense and a dominant run game.  The defense is still top notch.  But, this is a team that relies more and more on the passing game to generate offense.  On the defensive side of the ball, this team saw a big drop off in pass defense falling from 1st in Passing Defense DVOA all the way down to 14th.  While you never want to put a defense's decline on one guy alone, it was clear that cornerback William Gay wasn't ready to step up in to a starters role following Bryant McFadden's departure.  It's hard to poke too many holes into the Steelers defense, as they are consistently a top tier unit.  If you had to, pass defense is probably the one with the most room for improvement.

  The Offseason:  Free Agency and The Draft

  For the most part, Pittsburgh did not make a big splash in Free Agency.  The most well known pickup is Antwaan Randle-El (WR) who was previously with the Washington Redskins.  Larry Foote (MLB) also rejoined his old team after a brief one year stint with the Detroit Lions.  Foote was a starter for the Steelers from 2004-2008.  Other pickups include, Will Allen (FS), Arnaz Battle (WR), and Jonathan Scott (OT).  Notable departures during the offseason were Santonio Holmes in a trade to the New York Jets, and the release of Fast Willie Parker.

  The most notable transaction for the Steelers on draft day involved a trade.  They traded a fifth round pick to the Arizona Cardinals in exchange for Bryant McFadden (CB) and a sixth round pick.  The biggest household name taken in the Steelers draft came in the sixth round with the pick of Jonathan Dwyer, RB, Georgia Tech.  The Steelers used their first round pick on center Maurkice Pouncey from Florida.  You can view the rest of their eight picks here.

  Three keys to winning

  1.  Stop the run game.  Our strategy will be different from other teams that face Pittsburgh later in the season.  With Big Ben out, one of the main objectives must be to force this team to win on the arm of one of their backups (Dennis Dixon, Charlie Batch, or Byron Leftwich).  This point is further emphasized by the fact that they just lost their number one receiver, Santonio Holmes.

  2. Establish the passing game.  There aren't really any glaring weaknesses to this Steelers defense, so you have to pick your battles.  In order to open up the run game, we need to establish the short-intermediate pass game.  Keep this aggressive defense honest with short passes and a good blend of running back and wide receiver screens.

  3. Ball security.  Don't commit turnovers.  With Big Ben absent, I'd expect this one to be a low scoring affair.  Limiting interceptions and fumbles is always important, but it needs to be an emphasis in this matchup.

  I think we're in for a close one, but will ultimately pull this one out.  The suspension of Big Ben is the difference here, as it limits their ability to exploit our God-awful pass coverage.  I think the score remains the same as last year, except it ends with us winning.  13-10 Titans.

download Dream Theater mp3
–>

Aalborg Hospital’s ICU and anaesthesia department has already undertaken a preliminary study, with Dr Per Thorgaard concluding that noises such as slamming doors, beeping equipment and ambulance sirens were counterproductive to patients’ wellbeing.

“Patients informed us that, in particular, wailing sirens, engine noise, rattling sounds and electronic noises from equipment are the worst ‘stressers’. On the other hand, sounds such as human interaction had the most calming effect,” said Thorgaard in a report by Copenhagen Post.

The Aalborg study was carried out by placing microphones into patients’ ears in order to record what sounds they were subjected to on the journey.

“Many noises in ambulances during transport – especially the sirens – cause maximum stress to cardio-vascular patients. And stress is toxic to these patients, so it’s crucial that we minimise the negative sounds in the ambulances,” said Thorgaard, who anticipates a nationwide rollout of the initiative if feedback is positive.

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 As a music application developer, I  have long been vexed by a problem that has made building and releasing a music application very difficult – where do I get the music? A music application needs music – but adding music  to an application is very hard.  I really have  just a few choices:  (1) I can use unlicensed content and hope nobody notices, (2) I can try to make the deals with the labels, (3) I can restrict my app to non-demand radio and pay per-stream royalties,  or (4) I can just skip the music.  None of these options is very appealing to me – If my application gets popular I will either get sued by the labels or swamped by music licensing fees.  It is better for me if no one notices my app at all. Even resources like album art and 30 second samples are tightly held by the content owners.

What a crazy world!   We are at this incredible point in the history of music with millions of tracks at our fingertips. Now more than ever, we need new ways to explore, organize and share music – but any kind of creativity in this space is stymied.  I could build the coolest music app in the world that could help millions of people connect with music, but without a source of legal content, my application will never see the light of day.    In my last year while working at the Echo Nest, I’ve seen some really amazing music applications made by very creative developers. These are apps that would make your jaw drop – but you’ll never see them. The apps are languishing on the virtual shelf because there’s no good way to get legal content for the apps.

This weekend at Music Hack Day San Francisco we are going to change this. We are going to make it possible for developers to build applications around music content and release the applications to the world without having to worry about music licensing.  To do this, we are working with Play.me a new digital music service that offers on-demand music.  With the Echo Nest / Play.me program a developer can write music applications using all of the usual Echo Nest APIs – and include streaming content from the millions of songs in the  Play.me catalog. Play.me is very generous with its content giving a user 5 hours per week of on-demand music (once a user goes beyond their 5 hour allotment, full-streams are replaced with 30 second streams). Play.me’s strategy here is simple – they hope that by encouraging innovative applications built around their content they will attract more paying subscribers who get access to unlimited streams.    The Echo Nest and Play.me platforms are well integrated letting developers write apps that take advantage of all the deep Echo Nest data – artist similarities, news, reviews, blogs, bios, images, video and even our deep track-level music analysis for every artist and track in the Play.me catalog.  This is a big deal for music application developers.  We can finally build applications around real music without having to worry about being sued or going broke paying licensing fees if our apps get popular.  And if our application brings new subscribers to Play.me, we can make money through an affiliate program.  (Here’s the fine print – Play.me is currently US only (sorry, rest of the world), and to hear the full streams you need to register with Play.me (you just need an email address, no credit cards required))

There are already some apps that have been built on top of the Echo Nest / Play.me APIs:

MusicExplorerFX – The  award-winning Music Exploration tool.

Slice – a music exploration and discovery application for the Android Platform

PlaylistPathfinder – a novel application that creates playlists by finding paths through the Echo Nest artist similarity space.

I’ll write in more depth about  these apps in subsequent posts – but the story for these apps are nearly identical – they were cool apps that were languishing on the music shelf because there was no way to release them with licensed content.  Now the apps can be released to the world and even help the application developer make some money.

Over the years, we’ve seen many different ways for people to discovery new music come and go.  When I was growing up, the radio DJ was the primary way people people discovered new music.  The DJ was the tastemaker for the generation.  For the next generation, I think  music apps will be one of the primary ways people discover new music.

If you have idea about a cool new music app, but have been stymied by the problem of how to get content for your app, check out this program.  More details will be forthcoming during Music Hack Day San Francisco.