In a similar vein, the ACTA anti-piracy treaty signed in the European parliament by member countries including Ireland last week could have wide-reaching ramifications for internet use. Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the USA are also on board and the concerns centre around the lack of transparency in the negotiations and potential criminal prosecutions for internet piracy infringements.

The concerns all boil down to one thing. Mistrust that private companies like the major music labels will be allowed to dictate the digital rights of others through vague laws. It’s quite incredulous that the music industry has been dealing with piracy online for the last 12 years and the answer to it still appears to be blocking and criminal prosecution.

Entertainment products like Spotify, Turntable.FM and Netflix don’t get to ubiquity fast enough because we live in a world where global innovation is stifled by outmoded local copyright and licensing laws. Spotify or TurnTable.FM still have not launched in Ireland and Netflix, which launched a few weeks ago suffers from a poor choice in its film catalogue when compared to the US version.

When you offer people these services but hamper them with restrictions, is it any wonder that people go back to using Torrent files to get their fix? There is no such thing as a worldwide licence but there needs to be if the innovation that Sean Sherlock claims to represent as Minister is to flourish. Like it or not, people are used to getting their media fix instantly. If that’s not addressed, we’ll still be talking about blocking and piracy in another 12 years.

Miike Snow feat. Lykke Li
Superproducers Miike Snow return with fellow Swede Lykke Li for the atmospheric and building arpeggiated synth tune Black Tin Box. It’ll appear on their second album Happy To You in March.

Tennis
First capturing the attention of bloggers in 2010 with their “couple live on a boat and make music while sailing the Atlantic” shtick, Tennis are back with a second album of more full bodied breezy indie pop songs. Set sail.
facebook.com/tennisinc

No Ceremony
Reverberating piano chords and twisted vocals combine to devastating and uplifting effect in HurtLove, the disintegrating new single from Manchester’s No Ceremony.

Iggy Azalea
She’s been called the Australian Nicki Minaj. She’s also been called the Australian Kreayshawn. She’s also been called a “femcee”. Let’s not utter that word ever again. Time will tell on that who she really ends up like but for now, enjoy her bad-attitude rap style on My World.

Santigold
Santi White is back with a block-rocking frenetic new single called Big Mouth in which she calls out Lady Gaga and appears alongside her awesome SG1 dancers in a crudely animated video. Santigold > M.I.A.

SlowPlaceLikeHome
Keith Mannion from Ballyshannon in Donegal is the lone creator behind SlowPlaceLikeHome, a project of rich instrumental electronic music which could be described as expansive, pensive and seductive. Music to watch fields by.

Alt-J
Described by one music blogger as “the dubstep of indie-rock” and counter-acted by The Blue Walrus with “pigeon-hole these Leeds boys at your peril”, Alt-J are actually ambitious in doing their own unique thing. One of this year’s ones to watch…

It’s worth reading up on why SOPA and PIPA are not ideal (If you’re stuck for time, The Oatmeal’s animated gif at theoatmeal.com/sopa explains it pretty succinctly). Their heavy handed answer to online piracy gives a lot of power to large entertainment companies to shut down and block access to sites it suspects of listing copyright infringement whether the sites exist in the USA or outside it. This means that sites such as Youtube, Facebook, Tumblr, Soundcloud and thousands upon thousands of blogs and sites could not operate as they now do. In an extreme case, Twitter could be shut down because of a single infringing tweet.

Meanwhile, opposition has begun this week to Ireland’s own statutory instrument to Irish law which may grant similar powers to outspoken anti-piracy representatives like IRMA. Stopsopaireland.com is the main hub and gathered over 57,000 signatures in opposition in its first few days. Minister Sean Sherlock is responsible for bringing in the instrument which does not need parliamentary approval and there are concerns from digital rights and law experts that Sherlock’s proposals are vague and open-ended.

Anonymous members in Sweden aimed their computers at these shores on Tuesday night apparently bringing down websites for the Department of Justice and Finance via Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks late on Tuesday night. A Twitter account @AnonOpsSweden later claimed it was a “a wake up, a warning shot.” Ireland may yet get its own blackout…

Redigi calls itself the “online music marketplace for used digital music” and offers music fans the ability to buy music from other users at a knockdown price and to sell MP3s that they don’t want. One big problem though… the music industry aren’t happy. Major label EMI have decided to sue and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have also sent a cease and desist letter to the company citing major copyright infringements.

It’s easy to see why. Redigi claims to be a legitimate service and that no copying takes place saying their technology is “far superior” to any others. But the copying of digital files certainly seems to be taking place in each transaction on the site. Whether a person uploads the MP3 to an intermediary server before it is bought, it’s still copied in one form or another and the law is unclear on digital goods. Redigi have said they will fight the lawsuit “vigorously’. Meanwhile, I would like to fight them for choosing that awful name.

Besides, social behemoths Facebook are continuing their plan to make music more social, so MP3s, nay recycled ones may be ripe for deletion in future. Last week, they launched the ‘Listen With Friends’ feature, which means if you use any of the current streaming music services like Spotify and Deezer, you can invite a friend to listen at the same time and shoot the breeze over chat. The move also challenges the popularity of Turntable.FM, the DJing chatroom that rose to prominence last year.

As ambitious as Deezer’s plans are, we’ve seen companies in the past year fall at the licensing hurdle. We7 launched last January with a similar offering and before the end of 2011 had shifted focus from a massive streaming music library to recommendation-based internet radio. No doubt that decision was informed by lower license fees for internet radio compared to on-demand streams.

Spotify is still the best hope for a major platform breakthrough worldwide. Its agreements with major labels bring with them lower license fees that allow them to expand, but not everyone is happy – independent labels have been pulling out of the service in protest at the small revenue payments offered in recent months.

Perhaps the most important thing for new services gaining ground this year will be Facebook’s Open Graph. You used to wear your favourite band t-shirt so the world knew your individual music tastes. No longer Sonny Jim! Zuckerberg’s company is already putting the songs you’re listening to on almost all of the above services right into your Facebook news stream, right in front of your friends’ eyes so maybe he holds all of the access keys to popularity already.

1. Rebecca Black
The modern story of a 13 year-old tween pop star. A Youtube-uploaded video for a song called Friday received over 60 million views in a month. The majority of people hated the auto-tuned track and its silly lyrics and thus, helped spread it even further. Black has so far had the last laugh, with an appearance in a Katy Perry video and healthy interest in her more recent music videos from a tween audience.

2. Fenton!
One owner loses control of his dog in London’s Richmond Park. As the dog herds some deer, the howls of a man who is also about to lose his mind were heard around the world, thanks to the internet. “FENTON! FENTON! JESUS CHRIST!”

3. Chuck Testa
A hilarious advertisement filled with awkward acting for a taxidermist which spawned a catchphrase (“Nope! Chuck Testa!”) and a series of images based on the idea.

4. Mario
A real-life short film version of Super Mario Bros where the two plumbers are doing too many mushrooms and star pills and attempt to get the princess back.

5. Jetpack Fail
17 seconds of the best live news broadcast fail of the year. “And it starts right nowww….. nggghhhh (splash)”.

6. Darth Vader kid advert
The clear winner of the orgy of Superbowl adverts involves a kid in Darth Vader costume attempting to move objects using the force until his father tricks him into believing he can actually do it.

7. Castletown Donkey Racing!
Pure comedy gold from 1994′s Castletown Donkey Derby featuring thrills, belly-aching spills and a finish line incident that you just couldn’t make up. Ireland’s funniest video viral of the year.
Watch at Youtube

8. The Lonely Island and Michael Bolton
Serial comedy song pranksters The Lonely Island are joined by Michael Bolton who almost ruins their “in da club” song with his obsession with the Pirates Of The Caribbean’s Jack Sparrow.

9. The Trinity Orchestra cover Daft Punk
The student-run Trinity Orchestra play a medley of Daft Punk’s hits in the exam hall of Trinity College and receive nearly half a million views for their trouble. One more time.

10. Dark Side Child
No top ten is complete without a cute kid video. Beating Emerson laughing at his mother sneezing at the post is this evil cackle emitted from a young child after realising that being evil to toys is way more fun.

An idea that spread from Twitter hashtags and beyond over the course of a few years, First World Problems really came into its own in 2011 when it came into common lexicon. These tongue in cheeks sentiments highlight the trivial inconveniences of modern life in a self-aware fashion. Favourite whines include “I tried to spread butter on my toast and the bread fell apart”, “I’m so tired of eating at all of the restaurants near work”, and “I want to change the song on my iPod but it’s too cold to take my gloves off”. See more at whitewhine.com and knowyourmeme.com/memes/first-world-problems.

In the field of endlessly recyclable image macros, Hipster Ariel  came out on top. Pair an image of The Little Mermaid with some black-rimmed glasses and you’ve got hipster-baiting caption gold with Ariel saying things like “The sea was just too mainstream”, “I got legs just so I could wear skinny jeans”, and “Don’t call me Ariel, my name is Helvetica”. Other image macro series that shone include Business Cat, Conspiracy Keanu, Dating Site Murderer, Baby Kanye, Musically Oblivious 8th Grader, Sad Hipster and Hipster Dog. Are you seeing a trend? Special mention goes to Feminist Ryan Gosling, a clever flip on Gosling’s perceived sensitivity which pairs highbrow idealistic chatup lines from Gosling with photos of him looking dreamy.

Thank goodness for Photoshop and the many free image editing programs out there. Their common usage has given us some of the most enduring and hard to forget images of the year. Take Chicks With Steve Buscemi Eyes the pasting of the actor’s famously sunken peepers over the faces of many a famous female celebrity from Christini Ricci to Adele to Paris Hilton. Positively retina-burning. On a similar tip, Michele Bachmann’s wide-eyed stunned gaze which featured on the cover of Newsweek sparked off a slew of crazy looking cut and keep-in-your-memory-forever faces.

Stock photography also provided a well of inspiration this year with Women Laughing Alone With Salad and Women Struggling To Drink Water being favourites in highlighting the preposterous nature of stock photography catalogues.

Closer to home, the successful presidential campaign of Michael D Higgins was marked with edited campaign posters and many Photoshopped images taking advantage of his diminutive stature while Ireland’s win over Australia in the Rugby World Cup was celebrated with Keith Earls’ flying try placed into endless other scenes.

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.

An interactive musical map of Colombia.

The 25 least influential people alive…

Autotune your phone calls.

Emusic have debuted an iPad app that focuses on music scenes.

Canadian born folk via Alan Lomax field recordings from the young Al Spx, whose voice has a rich blues, soul and folk heritage.
soundcloud.com/coldspecks

The Beatles 8-Bit
After tackling the music of Kraftwerk in chiptune form, the Gameboy-obsessed 8-Bit Operators are back with a collection of Beatles covers called Wanna Hld Yr Handheld, Vol. 1 which focuses on the avant-garde and electronic side of the Fab Four.

Nujabes

Jun Seba, a Japanese producer who sadly died in a car crash last year has posthumously released his final album Spiritual State of uplifting instrumental music to much acclaim.
hypem.com/artist/Nujabes

WZRD

Rapper Kid Cudi has been immersing himself in punk rock of late and his WZRD project and collaboration with Dot Da Genius and Brake is the first taster of that absorption with its stoner rock histrionics.
Listen at Earmilk