MySpace has lost a lot of ground to Facebook over the last few years and, now with its purchase of imeem, hopes to transform itself into an entertainment destination. The music networking site was acquired for between $8-10 million and Wired reports the majority of this is for imeem’s key staff to help with MySpace’s aforementioned transition.

The acquisition represents a significant loss considering Warner Music Group "injected an estimated $30 to $35 million into imeem." News Corp are hoping to utilize the talents of iLike co-founders the Partovi brothers and imeem founder Dalton Caldwell to help the site "become more popular as a place to watch videos and listen to music, which has always been its core strength." imeem currently streams music from all four of the major labels although a "source tells CNET that one of the labels exited imeem a few weeks ago."

So, Rupert Murdoch, major labels, and social networking in an all-in-one entertainment venture. I think I’ll pass on this Unholy Trinity, thanks!

Another week, another Ticketmaster scandal. This time, the ticket giant is accused of holding back tickets for Taylor Swift and Keith Urban concerts and distributing them to fan clubs and other exclusive communities instead of putting them up for public sale. Specifically, thousands of tickets were dispersed to American Express and fan clubs for different concerts in Nashville, severely reducing the odds of an average fan being able to score tickets to the shows. Out of 13,300 seats for the Taylor Swift show, around 1,600 tickets were available to the general public when tickets went on sale, and 5,000 of the 13,300 tickets were held for American Express customers due in part to a deal the credit card company has with different artists. For Urban’s concert, 14,900 seats were available, but more than 10,400 tickets had already been sold before the public on-sale date, most of which went to Urban’s fan club and to American Express.

This issue has caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., who introduced the Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing Act (BOSS ACT!), in hopes of putting an end to absurd ticket holds. "When you have a highly desirable product with incredible demand, all kinds of shenanigans go on," Lefsetz said in an interview with WTVF-TV. "Listen, the whole business is smoke and mirrors. Because no one is policing them telling them to tell the truth."

In 2007, Tanya Andersen was exonerated in a lawsuit brought against her by the RIAA. The child labor-exploiting, baby-eating, SUV-driving music industry argued that the defendant had downloaded gangster rap over Kazaa, a P2P file-sharing application. She countersued in the same year, claiming that the RIAA had attempted to prosecute her maliciously.

Unfortunately for Ms. Andersen (and millions of internet users who hate child labor, eating babies, and SUVs), Judge Anna J. Brown has ruled that "the RIAA had sufficient legal justification to initially file suit against Andersen, saying that they could have ‘reasonably believed’ that she was responsible for sharing copyrighted tracks on a P2P network in 2004." Andersen originally claimed that the suit should never have been brought in the first place, saying there was no way of knowing who the person was "behind the computer when the MediaSentry investigator detected KaZaA user gotenkito’s shared folder."

There’s still a chance of the RIAA getting a kick in the nuts, with the court yet to decide on whether the organization’s conduct was appropriate in attempting to secure the prosecution of Andersen.

Verizon, the last bastion of hope for aggrieved file-sharers, has begun issuing copyright notices. Internet users who illegally download songs may receive a letter on behalf of the RIAA warning them “that such activity is illegal.”

Many liberal web surfers will be disheartened at this move to the dark side by America’s second-largest phone company. Previously, Verizon “opposed antipiracy legislation important to the film and music sectors.” They also stood up for an alleged file-sharer when they refused to disclose their name to the RIAA.

A Verizon spokesman said “We recognize the importance of copyright and the need to enforce those copyrights.”

This all fits in with the global move to greater enforcement of intellectual property over the internet. Indeed, an Iron Curtain is spreading over the interwebz — ironic considering the recent anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall!

So The Pirate Bay shut down its tracker today. That shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone following the shenanigans surrounding the Swedish-run website, which has been battling foreign media companies for years. A big verdict was handed down to the site on April 17, 2009 (TMT News), ruling all the involved parties guilty of facilitating copyright infringement. Each Pirate Bay member was sentenced to a year in prison and had to pay a combined 30 million Swedish krona fine ($3.5 million in U.S. dollars).

But what should come as a shock is the site itself is not being shut down. The owners of The Pirate Bay have opted to continue running the site without a tracker. Briefly, a BitTorrent tracker is what currently powers the technology. A tracker does not house any content itself, instead it contains information about all the places where you CAN get the data, mainly end-user computers. Trackers have been the source of litigation for just about every site that’s been shut down, as it can be successfully argued that, while the trackers do not house copy-written data themselves, they facilitate the transfer of said data.

So how the hell is this torrent shizz gonna work without a tracker? And the Hydra replied: DHT, PEX, and Magnet links. I’ll explain each briefly, then use a hot analogy to show how they click together like sexy Lego.

 DHT is a technology that predates BitTorrent, and it’s currently available in just about every torrent client out there. It works by building a web of data behind the scenes, which can provide information on a needed basis. Think of it as a phone book (remember those?) split apart. Every household has a chunk of the worldwide phone book. Whenever you need some data that’s not in your piece of the phone book, you shout real loud until somebody hands over the relevant chunk of the book.

 PEX is a fairly new technology that still has some kinks to work out. It works in a similar fashion to DHT, but instead of compiling data, it compiles clients/nodes/people. So to continue our phone book analogy from above, instead of running around screaming your head off until you get what you want, you politely go ask your neighbors if either they have the chunk you need or if they know somebody who does. If your neighbors have no clue what you’re talking about, you’re still free to run around shouting until you find it.

 Magnet links are the last piece of the puzzle. They work by providing a link to the data, rather than to where the data is located. So, to keep with this phone book angle, let’s say you don’t even know the page on which the information is held. Using either method described above, you ask for the page that contains the relevant information. Somebody will eventually tell you the page, then you’re free to either run around like a nut or ask politely. It’s up to you.

Now, you might be thinking "this is boring," and you would be correct. Stay with me for another paragraph, because the interesting part in all of this is that The Pirate Bay is taking the first step towards a continual night terror for the media industries. There is NOBODY to sue except the end users. The Pirate Bay will house magnet links only. Magnet links don’t contain any data outside of a random string of numbers and letters. The Pirate Bay is no longer running the service that allows people to connect to each other. All that is handled within your torrent program. I wouldn’t doubt it if the next step is for the torrent programs to include some kind of search capability, making The Pirate Bay and other sites irrelevant. It took about 10 years, but we’ve finally come full circle with a quality replacement to Napster. Since all this new technology is based on open standards and protocols, anyone can design a program that will be play nice with the existing data. So even if Vuze or uTorrent gets shut down, another program can pick up the slack; it’s all the same phone book.

Pitch-correction technology developers Antares, progenitors of that infamous little auto-tune cult empire, want us to get one thing straight right the fuck now: the term “auto-tune” is NOT as ubiquitous as we all auto-tunitively assumed it was.

In order to set about the task of auto-tuning our perceptions, then, they recently sent their lawyers to auto-tune their trademark of the term in the face of a competing App created by developers Steamboat Mountain Designs (heretofore called “AutoTuner”), forcing the company to auto-tune the name of their auto-tuner.

Why all the fuss? Well, if you auto-tune your memories real quick, you’ll recall that Antares recently lent its auto-tune technology to the auto-tunious “I Am T-Pain” auto-tuning App for the iPhone, in auto-tuned conjunction with App developers Smule. As Digital Music News reports, Steamboat initially pointed in their defense to the hundreds of thousands of Google results for the phrase “auto-tune.” Yet in the end, the company — being much smaller and less rich than Antares because they AREN’T the owners of an omnipresent-yet-trademarked term like “auto-tune” — was auto-tuned into complete and auto-tuned accordance with Antares’ request. Steamboat Mountain’s developers have consequently auto-tuned their App’s title to “RoboTuner” instead of “AutoTuner” rather than bankrupting themselves in court and having to then plead (in an unpleasingly un-auto-tuned warble) with the federal government to step in and auto-tune them out of debt.

So, on that auto-tuned note, look for the newly auto-tuned "Robotuner" in an App Store near you. It’ll be on the shelf in the auto-tuner isle, right next to all of the other auto-tuners.

Did you know that the entire Beatles catalogue has never been licensed for sale as a digital download? It’s true. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any trace of The Beatles on Amazon, iTunes, or anywhere else... except for BlueBeat.com, which has been audaciously selling Beatles tracks for 25¢ each.

When EMI and Apple Corps got wind of this, they screamed… they cried… and they sued. EMI has reportedly filed a lawsuit against BlueBeat citing “copyright infringement and misappropriation of pre-1972 sound recordings.” BlueBeat has yet to comment on its predicament.

Another Thursday night. After-work drinks at the local shithole usually end with a half-eaten donair and a piss-poor sleep on the sofa, but tonight there was something different in the air for our hero. Most asked after the fact say it was a mix of pickled eggs and contraband Drakkar but for some it was much more magical. He spies a few interesting faces, one in particular among a group of well-ridden regulars. Feathered hair AND red denim skintights... BA-BAM! Normally a free G&T would be enough to corral one of these cougs back to the lair but something told him that additional help might be required to snare this particular cub. He slides off his bar stool and walks as erect as a salacious Greek novelty keychain toward the digital jukebox secured to the back wall. Coins dispensed, his eyes dart through the flipping CD covers with quiet conviction. His hand stops automatically on the button and his fingers instinctively press "31-03" on the grimy number-pad. Walking confidently back to his barstool, he flashes a "done deal" smile at his soon-to-be conquest and thinks to himself, "I can’t believe they have Bob Seger’s ’Night Moves’ here!"

I can. And if you have ever had your ears held captive by one of those dreadful digital bar jukeboxes that invariably spin the endless likes of Steve Miller, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and, yes, Bob Seger as selection staples, so can you. It doesn’t have to be this way. I have frolicked in suds-soused sounds that came from good digital bar players crammed with French yé-yé, au currant British indie labels, or ’50s rockabilly rarities and ’60s and ’70s soul treats. With the announcement of renewed investment digital media leader Ecast, the prospect of better bar times seems all the more likely.

Ecast, "the leader in place-based interactive media," knows that people will always need booze, especially in the most depressing of economic times, and has secured $17 million in funding to keep full-tilt drunks and mild social drinkers alike happy as clams. The company provides bars and restaurants with a network of 10,000 touchscreen, internet-connected digital jukeboxes, generating profit by displaying more than a billion ads monthly. In addition to contributions from current investors Foundry Group, Escalate Capital Partners, DCM, and Crosslink Capital, the $17M comes from Ecast’s new investing partner and electronics giant LG. Ecast presently has label rights to Sony BMG, Warner, and Universal material in addition to some independent imprints distributed through IODA. Could the licensing rights to Load, Orange Twin, or Ecstatic Peace! be far behind? Probably not, but one can dare to dream. It would be better than having to sit through "Under Pressure" a dozen times a night. Narrowly better.

Fellow readers, you may have been horrified by recent news concerning the leaking of ACTA treaty proposals (TMT News), primarily led by the Obama/Biden administration’s industry-fueled intentions for a "graduated response" (a.k.a. three-strikes) policy and for ISPs to actively monitor user activity for signs of piracy and force disconnects. But there is some hope: Last week, after an all-night session to reach a compromise, the European Parliament and Council of Ministers reached a unanimous agreement on the EU Telecoms Reform Package, a set of laws to be imposed on the EU for the sake of increasing competition for ISPs and telecoms. The compromise in question, importantly, added protections to internet users, in particular file-sharers.

In legislation crafted by none other than the Swedish Pirate Party’s Christian Engström, the compromise did not prohibit the addition of the troubling three-strikes policy, an issue likely held firm due to the ACTA negotiations. However, the agreement did not demand the policy, either. More importantly, the agreement added grounds that would, in the event of such a policy’s implementation, protect users from unjust disconnection and forced compensation. Users would be availed the right to privacy, as well as the right to "a fair and impartial judicial review."

This addition of due process and judicial protection was a surprising yet positive victory for the Party, who will have member Amelia Andersdotter joining the European Parliament when the Treaty of Lisbon goes into effect December 1. Most importantly, it marks the first significant strike against the impending ACTA treaty. When the world’s nations return to the negotiating table in January, these new laws will be put at stake and may force the Obama/Biden administration to compromise or back down on many of its proposals. The likelihood of compromise is high: The next round of negotiations is taking place in Stockholm, home territory of the Pirate Party.

There is hope for us yet.

Negotiations are currently underway in Seoul, South Korea on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and apparently the internet chapter of this copyright treaty has leaked. And what do you know: its details are enough to make any freedom-lovin’ American apoplectic with rage. Amongst the proposals are international provisions to ensure that ISPs follow “notice and takedown regimes,” that policies are put in place to “deter unauthorized storage and transmission of allegedly copyright infringing content” (according to EFF), and that ACTA signatories enable legal action to be taken against those who break technological protection measures (such as DRM).

In other words, this is about extending government control over the internet all within a global framework.

ACTA began in October 2007 and aims to introduce international standards to tackle counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works. As summarised by Boing Boing, ISPs would “have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material” and “cut off the internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability.” What’s key here is that internet access could be denied and content blocked simply because an allegation is made. No evidence has to be produced to justify the claims. Is there anything more un-American?

The Obama administration purportedly refused to disclose the text of the treaty “due to ‘national security’ concerns.” HMPH!