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A follow up to my first post about the protest movement to save digital-only radio station BBC6 Music. A second day of protest was held in London and royalties organisation PRS for Music publishes stats showing the station is more supportive to a wide range of musicians than other stations.

Second blog post on the role music can play in politics, and how it is spread via the internet

Fourth and featured blog post in my series on Protest Movements.

What do technologies which main function provides a platform for the illegal sharing resort to once the crack down starts? Even though these companies did not directly share the copyrighted sources, they did provide the technology for their users to do so. In the case of Lime Wire, they seem to be choosing plain ignorance of the law to continue their open networks. They have countless years of promises to music executives to create filters, and screening for pirated downloads, but have constantly chose to not follow through. Once again they seem to be choosing the, "we will do it now," stance, but it seems it may just be empty promises once again and the ultimate end to the most popular site for illegal music sharing.

EMI can't sell Pink Floyd singles online. Could be a precedent for other copyright/authorship cases. 

A 'Digital Economy Bill' was passed by the House of Lords recently, and this article look at its implications for internet users whose freedom to share files will be punishable by a severing of their internet connection.

The US Federal Communications Commission has been dealt a major blow in asserting its right to regulate net neutrality with a district court ruling the FCC had "failed to demonstrate" its authority to interfer with activity undertaken by internet service provider Commcast. Comcast had been moving to restrict the internet access of customers using peer-to-peer sharing software, which uses large amounts of bandwidth and is a common mode of illegal video and music piracy.

A Brazilian judge has fined Google in Brazil over a comment posted by an anonymous user stating that a priest is a paedophile. Raises the question of who is responsible for defamatory comments - the publisher (in this case Google) or the poster. Reminds me of a similar case of one of my fave blogs, Kitsune Noir - a music and design blog from the US. A poster made a critical comment about a design that the blogger had written about and the designer threatened legal action against Kitsune Noir.

Apple is one of several companies being sued for an alleged iTunes patent breach of an idea which is an online store for music downloads, some of Apple's other applications are also being sued for other patent breaches. Apple's operating Systems & Safari are also being sued by a Monkeymedia for breaching patents which dictate ways of displaying varying amounts of data through user control.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the major music companies has won over a lawsuit against Limewire (a free peer-to-peer file sharing that shares almost everything;Mp3,Videos,Ebooks, softwares etc). This case was first brought up to the court in 2006

Apple's market value has overtaken Microsoft's for the first time ever. Article looks at the impact of Apple and Google on Microsoft in the areas of search, online advertising and music in particular.