The internet is built around the loose mesh of hyperlinks. But the results of a long-running Australian case could put that in jeopardy. The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that MP3 blogger, mp3s4free.net, was found to have infringed copyright by linking to pirated material.
The result raises all sorts of questions. And not just for MP3 bloggers, the suggestion that linking to copyright material is illegal, could affect search engines and a wide range of websites.
Even more concerning is the fact that the internet service provider, Com-Cen was also named in the case. The SMH says, “the court found that the companies, director and staff member had had the power to stop the infringement and did not do so, and so had also infringed copyright.”
The case was brought by 31 applicants, including multinational music labels Universal Music Australia, EMI Music Australia, Sony Music Entertainment (Australia), Warner Music Australia, BMG Australia, and Festival Mushroom Records, who claim that the site cost the music industry hundreds of millions of dollars. It has been running since lawyers acting for the music labels raided the home of Stephen Cooper, operator of mp3sfree.net, and the offices of Cooper’s ISP on October 17 2003, with orders authorising them to seize information on the site and logs of internet users accessing the site.
So, under Australian law, linking to pirated material, not just downloading it, is an infringement of copyright and internet service providers may be held responsible for the activities of sites they host.
This is cross posted at Morph.

The people at Morph blog asked me to post there for the next month or so. It’s a great site, the other contributors come from pretty wild backgrounds - the guys who made EPIC for example - so it’s a chance to stir up some discussion. This is cross-posted at Morph.

If you’re involved - labels, music-making, blogger, podcaster, DJ, technology, writer, whatever - I’m interested in your opinions on where technology is affecting music business.

I listened my way through many happy hours and stacks of records while I was at university. Every week, probably far more than I should have. Carefully avoiding the glare of shop assistants, who rumour had it held the best records from any imported vinyl shipment for their friends. If you didn’t dig out the music, you didn’t hear it.
Technology has democratised the process of finding music. Digital downloads, blogs, podcasts, netlabels, MP3 blogs, file-sharing, online communities, radio streams, message boards, messaging, ezines, moblogging, wireless. Probably many more, that neither my dictionary nor I have heard of yet. They make a space for people to give and receive comments on new, old, obscure and mainstream music, they even let you download it.
But that democracy has resulted in reserves of music, many times bigger than the huge record libraries at HMV or Tower Records here in Tokyo. Where 20 or 30 years ago, you could be abreast of popular music, it’s near impossible to keep track of it all these days. Not only that, but popular culture itself is changing as a result of technology.
The whole music business is slanted towards the old model of Participation via Purchase. That’s purchase of music, but the vestiges of the previous order, when sheet music ruled the industry, are still apparent in the huge power of music publishers. But the explosion of bloggers (text, multimedia), podcasts and streams, zines, indie labels and DJs (that’s right, not just limited to the tech domain), all seem to suggest that popular culture is moving towards participation by, well, Participation.
The choice of where to go next is a difficult problem, complicated and intertwined. It gets even more twisted when you get into the inertia-bound interests of major labels, so I’m going to stick to the coalface of independent labels and artists.
Should the music industry consider a new business model? It may seem crazy, but the Digital Rights Management battle being waged by the majors seems like patching up pressure-leaks on a boat that’s sinking because it’s overloaded. Not only that, it’s alienating their core customers, record buyers.
A new cottage industry? Independent acts, who rarely do more than break even on record sales, are offering free/cheap downloads, which ideally result in exposure and income from touring and merchandise sales. International networks of like-minded labels and artists could easily spring out of the indie network to give this kind of movement real clout.
As now, the biggest issue is how to filter the mass of music.
Change could be as simple as online jukeboxes, since broadband’s market penetration makes this kind of database quite feasible. Especially since GRID programming lets websites, servers and databases weave into one another. New music formats, like Weed, which allows free download and a number of free plays before the user is prompted to purchase the piece of music, also offer a way to structure music sharing online.
The explosion of podcasting in the past few months, since iTunes 4.9 simplified the process of downloading them, coupled with the iTunes shop and the iPod’s phemonenal success, Apple seems set to be a major player in the music business, but this kind of monopoly won’t be positive! Can smaller players work together to form serious competition, like British label Warp’s Bleep initiative?
MusicMusic Industry

Mix tape culture was basically a boot in the backside for the alternative counterculture in the ’80s. Despite the record industry’s comical Home Taping is Killing Music campaign, mix tapes were the heart of so much of the decade’s music. Their importance is only just being registered. Thurston Moore’s written a great coffee table book about them, even. But without them the international noise scenes would never have happened, people traded tapes and then sponsored each other for tours. Hip hop, house, jungle, all these were definitely built around the mixtape. It’s something that feels a bit lost in this new decade of CD mixes, iTunes playlists and MP3 downloads.
Anyway a cat called Richcolour is working on getting his mixtape collection online. Mastermix.org is a collection of hip hop, house and soul mixtapes on MP3 for download, mostly sourced from mid ’80s London pirate stations. And everything from Orlando Voorn to Troublefunk and Jazzy Jeff to Double Dee & Steinski’s classic Lessons.
Music

I hear text blogs are passe, so last year, there’s only so much you can say in 300 words, now MP3 blogs are the only way to really connect about music.
It’s probably all true. But I like trying to say it, in some ways I prefer reading people talk about the music they love too, rather than just providing a list of downloads with accompanying spiels.
Still those sites are invaluable ways to hear new sounds, especially here in Tokyo where the shops have an aversion to letting you listen to CDs. Levins lists a bunch of the best MP3 sites on his great blog, you should read the Manitoba interview he has up too.
If you’re after something a bit more electronic, check out De:Bug’s podcast site. It’s one of the best local music mags in the world, based in Berlin, so the podcasts are on point. Madstyle’s Chillusion EP is great, Frank Bretschneider, Monohm, Nero, there is so much top new electronic music.

I find myself at the Australian Music Online website regularly. It’s one of those rare Australian government projects that works. Maybe it’s because they’re affiliated with the funding bodies that steamroll a lot of the bands or that they aren’t dependent on commercial advertising.
The band interviews are pretty similar to the rest of the sites out there. But the music industry pieces are great - they pin down the people who actually run things. And it’s fascinating stuff.
They recently had my brother chatting about the workings of his label Elefant Traks, but they have have interviews with A&R, PR, managers, bookers, writers and basically everyone in the industry.

Five months since I left my weekly radio show in Australia. Radio too - it’s not that easy to catch radio without a tuner (travelling with an iPod and a laptop) and without knowing the local stations. But I’m dying to hear some good radio… so podcasts?
Any good ones? I’m open to different types of music - indie, electronic, house, hip hop - as long as it’s interesting, well-produced and new.
Hit the comments up with some hot shows.
Music, Podcasting, Podcasts

You would have to be an obsessed format fetishist to be still resisting the move from hard copy music (vinyl, CDs, etc) to hard drive storage (MP3 players, etc). It’s hard to argue with the logic - music’s easy to access, search and play, though hi-fi is still a long reach for most users - and indeed I’ve been dragged (flailing my arms to grab anything on my way) across to the itunes side by its convenience for travelling.
So what’s the potential for a purely online label?
There’s no doubt that online releases get rid of some big costs involved with running a label. No need to press up CDs, it side-steps the labyrinth of distribution (especially for international scale releases). It’s just about inevitable that labels will move there eventually. But are the consequent losses in immediate revenue to much of a compromise at the moment?
Well there are a few online labels out there. And not all are simply profile raising exercises to get the artists signed to a bigger label.
One of the coolest I’ve found is Tokyo Dawn Records, who are oddly enough based in Berlin instead of the Japanese capital (I discovered them by accident while searching for Tokyo beatmakers). TDR started in ‘97 as a net-label, but have branched in the past few years to release the odd CD or LP.
Their releases are broadly similar to people like Goya, Bugz, Delsin, Sonarkollektiv and Madlib. But they’re marking their own territory, and from my listening sound good, albeit sometimes with lower production values (which may in any case be more closely linked to the MP3 format I’m listening in). Deep lazy downbeat hip hop with tough cool production, dubby electronic grooves, broken beat that flirts with techno and breakbeat. All in all, extremely listenable.
They’re very much into the Open Source ethic too, so most releases are available free P2P or even directly from the site, in a range of media types.
Some of the better known names on board include Alex Cortez and Dharma One. But it’s worth delving deeper, as the lower profile acts are equally exciting. Check out label boss Prymer’s jazz funk flavoured mix sets or the premo new LP from Comfort Fit that Straight No Chaser described as somewhere between Sa-Ra and Bugz In The Attic. It’s a free zipped download.
Category: Music