A meeting that was called for British musicians to discuss UK government proposals on how to tackle illegal file sharing has come to a consensus that file-sharers should have their bandwidth “squeezed” for persistent copyright infringement. The congregation of more than 100 artists came to the agreement that file sharers should not have their Internet accounts suspended.
Artists including Lily Allen, George Michael, Annie Lennox, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason signed a statement. It calls for two warning letters to be issued to users when they are caught sharing music illegally before their bandwidth speeds are restricted for certain purposes.
The idea would be to “render sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic e-mail and web access functional.” Lily Allen, who was the target of quite a large amount of criticism for running her mouth on the issue while technically breaching copyright law on the exact same website, was applauded by the audience for her campaign to “alert music lovers to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry.”
Jim Killock, executive director of digital rights activists the Open Rights Group, said that the artists had addressed the symptom, but not the cure, adding that the only answer was to “license products to compete with file-sharing.” However, he said major labels are being too cautious to approve some new services.
Result for: guitarist
Activision has announced that the upcoming Band Hero game headed to the DS will come with a new drum grip peripheral.
The game is headed to all the major consoles and like previous band games, will allow players to play along to music as a drummer, guitarist, bassist or singer.
The DS version will have a touch drum pad that is inserted in the GBA slot, making the game incompatible with the new DSi.
David Nathanielsz, ‘Band Hero’ executive producer, says, via GI.biz that “the reason for adding the peripheral was to make it more comfortable to rapidly tap the game’s drum patterns.”
The game is set for a fall release and will likely retail for 49.99 USD.
Result for: guitarist
The popular rock bands Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction as well as the new band Street Sweeper (started by former Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello) have each contributed two tracks to a free EP that is available now for free online.
The bands hope the EP will bring more attention to their upcoming summer tour.
‘Whores’ and ‘Chip Away’ are from Jane’s Addiction’s 1987 debut album, and were notably produced by NIN frontman Trent Reznor. ‘Not So Pretty Now’ and ‘Non-Entity’ are additions from NIN. Street Sweeper has added two brand new tracks, ‘The Oath’ and ‘Clap For The Killers’.
All you need to download the EP at http://ninja2009.com/ is a working email address.
This is not the first time NIN has released a free EP online. The band is currently offering The Slip for free in “high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE.”
