Leading Youtube to Music File Conversion Website Shut Down By Music Industry

In a development that's clearly of interest to music lovers, youtube-mp3.org, once the top website for converting Youtube videos into MP3 files, was shut down earlier this month following an out of court settlement between the site's owner and the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. The website www.youtube-mp3.org had been one of the most visited websites on the Internet according to an article in Torrent Freak magazine. But checking the location only shows a dead link, the site having been taken down.

About a year ago, Philip Matesanz of Germany and PMD Technologies UG, the owners of the website had been sued by a number of record companies, charging that the "Defendants are depriving Plaintiffs and their recording artists of the fruits of their labor," while raking in money from advertising. In the agreement between Matesanz and the companies, the domain had been handed over to RIAA and it's owner making a payment of an undisclosed cash settlement,  the recording labels agreed to halt further prosecution, and the defendant accepts the blame of the charges against him.

While this is the end of www.youtube-mp3.org, these music companies feel the problem of "stream ripping" shouldn't have gotten so far to begin with, complaining that Youtube needs to take more responsibility in trying to stop them.  As it turns out, Youtube did threaten legal action against the website, as well as the video downloader TubeNinja.

For those whom had been depending on youtube-mp3.org for their music, such as possibly some Second Life DJs, they will now have to find another way to get new music.

Sources: The Next Web, Torrent Freak

Bixyl Shuftan

"Six Strikes" Internet Rule Likely Installed Monday

By Bixyl Shuftan

Internet Privacy activists expressed worry when on Monday February 26, the "Six Strikes" rule was set to go into effect. Devised last year, the rules involve the "Copyright Alert System" set up by the following Internet Service Providers: AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

Under the system, copyright owners are supposedly alerted to people downloading their content without permission, and they can alert the ISPs to the people targeted by the system. The first alerts are warnings. After a few warnings come "mitigation alerts" which depending on the ISP results in temporary reductions in Internet speed, a downgrade in the service tier, redirection to a page for a period of time, or other measures. After six alerts, there are no more, but each supposed violation is recorded in case the matter is taken to court.





Critics point out that the system is imperfect, that in wireless Internet "hot spots" that an innocent user could potentially be tagged as illegally downloading even if he/she wasn't as open wi-fi signals allow for their IP address to be used by others. Also, there are methods for determined pirates to avoid the system, such as cyberlockers, streaming sites, offline swapping, and others. Then there are privacy issues. Electronic Frontier Foundation director Corynne McSherry called Six Strikes, "just a great big expensive system to snoop on and intimidate people" whom she felt were mostly behaving themselves. She called it's recording of violations, "a private copyright system, and it doesn't have the protections and balances that the public copyright system has." It has also been noted that the system's software to identify copyright violations was inspected and approved by a former lobbyist of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

In early 2012, RIAA was among those trying to get the US Congress to pass the SOPA bill, which alarmed critics who stated it's vague language threatened to shut down the Internet as we know it. It was in the months following it's defeat that the Copyright Alert System and Six Strikes was set up. It was supposedly to be enacted in late 2012, but was delayed by the damage from Hurricane Sandy.

Sources: The Guardian, Torrentfreak.com, Theverge.com

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Club Alliance Discusses Reports of ISPs to Police Music Downloads This Month

Earlier this year, the SOPA and CISPA bills in Congress raised fears about Internet censorship and the loss of privacy. In a recent meeting of the FCA (Furry Club Alliance), a group of music clubs in Second Life, some DJs and club staff brought up some other Internet news from earlier this year. A number of Internet Service Providers were set to begin policing downloads on July 1st.

An article on Cnet.com in March discussed about an agreement between several ISPs and RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, to adopt policies to discourage illegal music and software downloads last year. The White House was also involved in the deal. "During a panel discussion before a gathering of US publishers here today (March 14)" RIAA's CEO stated most of the ISPs in the program were set to "begin implementing the program by July 1st."

The program has been called "graduated response." Those suspected of illegal downloading will receive one or two notices. If the downloads do not stop, confirmation notices are sent, and "the accused customers will also be informed of the risks they incur if they don't stop pirating material." Further flags for illegal downloads can bring on a list of penalties, or "mitigation measures" as RIAA calls them, such as slowing down the ISP's customer's Internet connection speed, or web access suspended.

The issues with the plan were brought up in a dottech article, such as false accusations, punishing multiple users on a network when only one is downloading questionable material, and privacy concerns, "What gives the entertainment industry of America the right to bypass these basic American rights?" On the plus side, "none of the ISPs have agreed to permanently shutdown subscribers." Plus "there are bound to be services and software that crop up to beat the system, for those that are really bothered by this." Forbes.com listed Apple as having patented a technique to fool trackers.

The people at the FCA meeting talked about the bill, "so basically the government is trying to screw us again, does that sum it up?" Adrianna Aeghin advised calm, "No ISP is going to analyze all the datastreams in use at any one time, EVEN if they're participating, which I think most won't. So they're mostly only going to look at people they have a reason to expect. … I really don't think this is going to be a problem for SL DJs. … Too many people are in a blind panic over this." One DJ at the begining had wondered if she would have to stop playing music in Second Life. But as the discussion went on, she felt more assured.

The group decided to take a wait and see stance, keeping an eye on the news to see if anyone was going after users for downloading music, and not jumping to conclusions over any rumors and whispers.

In other news, two of the men in Washington who helped defeat SOPA, one Democrat, one Republican, spoke out last month, calling for some form of Internet "Bill of Rights."

Sources: cnet.com, dottech.org

Bixyl Shuftan