Free Republic

From today, feel free to download another 25 million songs - legally   Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent, in Cannes   After a decade fighting to stop illegal file-sharing, the music industry will give fans today what they have always wanted: an unlimited supply of free and legal songs. With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and...

How many copyright violations does an average user commit in a single day? John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, calculates in a new paper that he rings up $12.45 million in liability (PDF) over the course of an average day. The gap between what the law allows and what social norms permit is so great now that "we are, technically speaking, a nation of infringers." Tehranian's paper points out just how pervasive copyright has become in our lives. Simply checking one's e-mail and including the full text in response could be a violation of copyright. So...

Recording Industry Sues 532 It Says Were Swapping Music Online Mar 24, 2004 By Alex Veiga / The Associated Press/ LOS ANGELES (AP) - The recording industry has sued 532 people, including many using computer networks at 21 universities, claiming they illegally shared digital music files over the Internet. The latest wave of copyright lawsuits brought by the Recording Industry Association of America marks the first time the trade group has targeted computer users swapping music files over university networks. The RIAA filed the "John Doe" complaints Tuesday against 89 individuals using networks at universities in 10 states. Lawsuits were...

What 'serious moral goal' justified the murder of British Consul Roger Short in Turkey? For two years now, it's been apparent that increasing numbers of us are living in entirely self-created realities. For example, when I switched on the TV last Thursday, I saw US President George W. Bush being warmly received at Thanksgiving dinner in Baghdad. By contrast, Wayne Madsen, coauthor of America's Nightmare: The Presidency Of George Bush II, saw a phony stunt that took place not at dinnertime but at the crack of dawn. "Our military men and women," he insisted, "were downing turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce,...