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The Digital Songstream: Mastering ... - Google Book Search

This book is a guide – as its title might suggest – to all things digital when it comes to music. It serves as not so much an analysis on copyright in the music industry as a whole, but rather as a set of legal and technical guidelines so that one may participate in the consumption and production of such music without infringing on copyrights. In other words, it describes for the reader all of the ins-and-outs of the digital music industry so that one may know where in the law his practices may reside.

Hill’s book has entire chapters devoted to the assessment of what is legal, what is not, and how to go about participating in said sanctioned musical practices. He identifies a list of acceptable file-sharing websites, and offers his own commentary on why others are forbidden, as well as why these are acceptable. The book begins with a basic introduction into the technologies and methods used in the digital realm and then goes deeper to list available services and to comment on the merits of various practices. His advice is clear and he condones no illegal activity, yet he makes clear why certain people might be motivated to circumvent copyright laws in terms of digital music. He further lists specific file types and programs that are used in these practices and he identifies useful software. He finishes the book with another broad chapter about the “Conscience of Digital Music” as a whole as well as his prediction of the future of the industry.

Hill’s technological knowledge is a key aspect of this book that has allowed me to delve deeply into the details of digital music production and sharing. He explains these issues in simple terms, while still conveying the complexity of their implications. In writing this final paper, the technological terms and details from this book will provide much-needed expertise in a field that I am not necessarily well-versed in. In my analysis of the acceptability of digital sampling, I must first know how the practice works and what techniques are involved; this book offers me this knowledge, which is key to reaching a conclusion in my final paper on what sampling is acceptable within copyright law.

JSTOR: Virginia Law ReviewVol. 89, No. 4 (Jun., 2003), pp. 734-740

This is a publication by the Virginia Law Review. The section focused upon for the purpose of my research paper is section C: The Kazaa era: 2001 - present. The article provides some unbiased description of the two technologies FastTrack and Gnutella. It focuses on some of the key developments in the filesharing domain after napster specifically the kazaa network. It explains how the technology descriminates between fast connections and slow connections. The article also addresses the issue how lately there appeared an effort by filesharing technology developers to write code that would reflect the copyright law. In the sense that the technology worked in such away as it is hard to place the blame on the developers. It also raises the point that the more files there being shared the better it is for the network performance and in essence for the developer. The other part of the article addresses how the music industries made every effort to stress the similarity between napster and kazaa and the other FastTrack networks. The article goes on to make reference to the Mgm v. Grokster case. Specifically it provides insight to how these technologies may have won out against the recording industries. The article quotes Judge Wilson, who presided over the Grokster case in the ninth district appeals court. The judge said essentially that if the companies were shut down, the users of the network(s) would still be able to do what they were doing.

This article is important for my research paper because it provides basis for an important analysis. For example, it was later seen that the movie industry in fact did win in the supreme court (see Mgm v. Grokster source). So although Judge Wilson ruled in favor of Grokster by saying that the technology was not similar to napster and that even if the company was shut down the users of the software would still be able to do what they were doing, it was later seen in the supreme court that Grokster actually lost. Today it is known that IsoHunt and the like are being sued and so if it is somehow possible to establish the similarity between IsoHunt and Grokster the same strategy may be applied to get IsoHunt shut down. The article also raises a few other important points such as that these networks continue to operate as long as there is more and more content being shared.

How the Grokster Decision has Affected the Recording Industry

Kazaa to settle file-share lawsuits: FIRM AGREES TO LAUNCH LEGAL SERVICE, By: Boudreau, John, San Jose Mercury News (CA), Jul 28, 2006

In “Kazaa to settle file-share lawsuits: Firm Agrees to Launch Legal Service” John Boudreau looks at the recent court decision that forced Kazaa to pay $115 million to the record industry almost a year after the Grokster decision. Mitch Bainwol, head of the RIAA is quoted as saying that this decision is a definite victory for the recording industry yet every time popular services like Kazaa are shut down, new ones spring up almost instantly. As part of the settlement Kazaa agreed to install filtering software to block users from swapping copyrighted files. Boudreau points out that in 2005, there were approximately 20 billion illegal downloads and that other services like Limewire, Streamcast, and eDonkey are still active. Eric Garland, an executive from BigChampagne, which is a research firm that tracks online downloading and file-sharing activity found that almost 9 million people are online at any time engaged in file-sharing. He believes that victories such as the Grokster decision and the Kazaa decision are a small step in recuperating the record business, which has seen CD sales drop 30 percent since the launch of Napster in 1999.

Michael Gartenberg, a research analyst for Jupiter, believes that the key to building the recording industry back up is in changing the culture of online piracy. He asks: “How are we going to convert these people who believe everything should be free into paying customers?” Thus far, record executives have been unable to definitively answer this question. Boudreau’s article takes a somewhat pessimistic look at these court victories as only a small step in legislation that is unable to change a culture that believes that music should be available for free downloading.