RIAA gets pound of flesh in court case win
I just finished reading this Ars Technica article detailing the case Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, where a jury delivered 24 guilty counts of infringement after four hours of deliberation and two days of testimony. Because the infringement was determined willful, they awarded $9,250 in statutory damages per song, for a total of $222,000 in damages.
Jammie Thomas, a single mother, was identified by MAC and IP address, and her KaZaa username tereastarr which she used with other websites. Interestingly, the plaintiff’s made the argument that the “eclectic musical tastes” reflected in the KaZaa shared music folder were consistent with Jammie Thomas’s actual tastes.
The New York Times reports the actually scary, precedent-setting part of this case:
Michael J. Davis of Federal District Court, ruled in the industry’s favor on a hotly contested technical question, saying that for jurors to find her liable, the record labels did not have to prove that songs on Ms. Thomas’s computer had actually been transmitted to others online. Rather, the act of making them available could be viewed as infringement, the judge ruled.
I hope this is appealed, as loaning a CD to a friend is also an act of making “music available for copying,” and the precedent is both technically incorrect and stifling to freedoms Americans take for granted.
Amazon’s iTunes-Compatible DRM-Free Music Store
The new Amazon Mp3 store gives you 256 Kb/s MP3 files without any DRM, for generally $8.99 an album. They are already ripping iTunes up on quality, price, and digital rights management. Expect them to continue to improve their selection (Amazon is famous for long tail) and interface, at which point no one will buy Steve Jobs’ crippled music.
Even better, Amazon’s system integrates cleanly with iTunes. You can one-click buy an album from Amazon, and their downloader will pick up the .amz file, grab your tracks, and automatically add them to your iTunes library. I’m also a big fan of the cover-flow like Album pickers they float on some of the mp3 pages:
Paul has it right when he says “Amazon MP3 is kicking ass and taking names.” You can also check out the official blog post or Techcrunch, who notes they are carrying 2,000,000 songs.
Pink Zune Released in 100,000 Units
The once exclusive Pink ZUNE has come, and they are legion! 100,000 units of the elusive pink zune will be product, according to Engadget. It’s not quite the same as the magenta zune, though, whose quantities limited less than a 1000:
Now the Zune comes in colors of white, black, brown, and pink. I’d personally hope for a metallic purple, silver, green, and blue set as well, but it seems that Apple has a monopoly on pretty mp3 playing devices. Phooey.