The news this week that Napster had finally disappeared into the digital ether was a prolonged and inevitable outcome. The file sharing program changed the world of digital music forever when it began to be widely used around the world in 1999. When it shut down just two years later, the service operated in limbo. It was bought out by software company Roxio and then American electronics retailer Best Buy. Both companies attempted to piggy back on the brand name but the users had long since moved on. Last week, Napster was merged into Rhapsody, a U.S. based service which offers streaming music subscriptions.
The digital music conundrum still lives on too but conflicting opinion is as strong as ever. There is often compelling evidence published that suggests those who download music regularly buy more music. The Swiss government are in agreement. They commissioned a study which found that most illegal downloading was complementary and that personal budget for entertainment has remained constant. So Switzerland concluded that no change to current law is required because unauthorised music and movie downloading has not had a negative impact on the production of entertainment in the country.
The report also examined the actions of other countries in the same situation, from the Hadopi law in France to the three-strikes rule that has been touted in Ireland and currently in effect on Eircom’s network. That particular anti-file sharing tactic is now in jeopardy. In a decision that has been hailed as a victory for internet freedom, The European Court of Justice last month ruled that the monitoring and logging of an Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) customers would breach privacy and violate the rights of both the ISPs and its subscribers. The ruling came from the outcome of a seven year court battle between Belgian music rights group SABAM and an ISP called Scarlet. The cost of putting filtering and monitoring system was deemed to be too much of an infringement on Scarlet’s business operations.
The ruling is unlikely to affect Eircom’s blocking of The Pirate Bay website and their implementation of the three-strikes rule as that measure would only be illegal under EU law if it was applied “indiscriminately to all its customers, as a preventive measure, exclusively at its expense, and for an unlimited period.” It may have a bearing on proposals by Irish Enterprise minister Richard Bruton to amend copyright law.
While copyright, privacy and illegalities remain quagmired, the creatives continue to take advantage of the digital space. Sitting in the top 10 of the Irish download charts is Winter Song by Twitterxmassingle. As you may have guessed, the song is a Twitter-sourced Christmas charity hit. It all started from a tweeted idea by Brenda Drumm a few weeks ago which ended up with 140 people including singers, musicians, technicians, photographers, videographers, stylists, teamakers and volunteers recording the song in Dublin a week later. All proceeds will go to the Neonatal special care unit in National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street in Dublin, a decision that of course, was decided via Twitter.
