Earlier today, Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X announced in a press release that they are in the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay, the irreverent file-sharing giant whose recent "spectrial" resulted in guilty verdicts for all four co-founders. After several weeks of cat-and-mouse (including accusations from The Pirate Bay that the judge was biased due to an association with copyright lobbyists, a threat from co-founder Peter Sunde to sue Sweden for human rights violations only days ago, and the launch of The Video Bay, TPB’s answer to YouTube), the controversial legal feud — and, indeed, The Pirate Bay as we know it — seems to be coming to an end.

What this means, exactly, is still very unclear, as ambiguous and somewhat contradictory statements come trickling in from Global Gaming Factory X and The Pirate Bay. Writes TPB in a recent blog post:

If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And — you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of [sic] us.

Meanwhile, CEO Hans Pandeya says that "[GGF] would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site."

Completion of the acquisition is expected for August 2009, "subject to GGF obtaining financing for" it.

More details are sure to be made available throughout the week. Stay tuned.

Internet fads are like memes, which in turn are like bottle rockets in a dense neighborhood: You see them shoot up from out of nowhere, explode, and dissipate just as quickly. Pets.com, Gnutella, and Friendster are examples of this. Another fine example: Rapidshare. Rapidshare is one of the last holdouts of an early internet phenomenon that, though convenient, was bound to be a problem somehow: personal internet file hosting. While the concept of internet storage was appealing, it became a rather quick source of such terrific work such as viruses, malware, and child porn. Furthermore, it wasn’t very profitable, with most shutting down by around 2002. RS survived out of sheer will and subscription fees and actually became slightly less popular than The Pirate Bay. That’s surprising, since these days, all I see on there are porn and Naruto episodes. Or worse, Naruto porn. Eewwwww.

Now, after those early days, it was inevitable that Grandpa Copyright would come walking and flail about his oversized walking stick, breaking everything to maintain order. The "collecting society" Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte, or GEMA (I don’t know how they could abbreiviate that so simply), a group of German-speaking music lobbyists, requested an injunction (their second) for the site to remove 5,000 music tracks from their collection. That request was granted this week in the Regional Court in Hamburg. The combined value of these tracks was worth €24 million (approximately $33.5 million), but does not constitute a fine against the website as previously reported by Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. Furthermore, it seems apparent that this will not completely impede the site’s business.

The problem with this, however, is that the injunction explicitly asks for those files in the list (which has not been made public) to be removed. The majority of files on Rapidshare these days are archive files, many with obscure or irrelevant names. Weeding them out would take months. Furthermore, people could simply bypass this by changing the name or using a different file type other than music track files. And given the nature of the ruling, Rapidshare may continue running as a result, and thus users can still upload music tracks irregardless.

So, either this ruling was poorly done and GEMA failed to notice this or GEMA was simply paying lip service to Grandpa Copyright. Either way, this just keeps the site alive by giving it attention. There are better ways to send your friends music illegally, nowadays. Gmail, for starters.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four from Brainerd, Minnesota, was instructed by a Minnesota jury to pay $1.92 million in damages to four major labels after she supposedly downloaded and shared 24 songs on the Kazaa P2P network. This equates to $80,000 per track. (Holy mother-****ing ****!! That is an absolute ****-load of mother****ing cash! Those mother****ing monopolistic ******* mother****ers!) "We appreciate the jury’s service and that they take this as seriously as we do," RIAA puppet Cara Duckworth said in a statement. (I’m glad you enjoy destroying other people’s lives for a few innocuous Sheryl Crow and Green Day tracks, you mother****ing, ****-filled, *******ized sons of ****!).

Thomas-Rasset argued in the trial that it was her ex-boyfriend or sons who were most likely to have committed this, err, multi-million dollar fraud. In fairness to the labels, they have said they do not intend to claim the full amount and are still happy to settle. (But they’re still mother****ing, ****-eating ****-suckers!!)

The case may lead to legislative reform with many feeling uncomfortable that individuals can be penalized so highly for what are fairly minor offenses. Currently, the Copyright Act allows for “statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, in the case of willful infringement.” Nevertheless, the recording industry still has strong support in Congress, with Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers and his fellow in the Senate, Patrick Leahy (both dirty stinking Democrats), both powerful defenders of the major labels. (Those mother****ing, climate change-humping, terrorist ****-sucking liberals!)

Yes, yes, yes. The lovely little vinyl resurgence that has vindicated so many of us High Fidelity-watching (reading?), 160kbps-abhorring, laser-loathing lunatics feels pretty good, doesn’t it? But not so fast; before you go running around at 33 1/3 rpm declaring victory, you need, as Kafka cruelly puts it, “only to change your direction.”

The numbers still show a niche market for the medium of kings, for the time being. In fact, vinyl accounts for less than one percent of broader album sales in the U.S., according to Nielsen Soundscan. Ouch. Seriously? Yes. But the good news is that sales are expected to grow another 50% this year to 2.8-million units, up from 1.9 million in 2008, according to figures shared at the NARM Conference in San Diego last week. And while, yes, this still ain’t even close to the lifeboat that the major labels are pushing their own wives and children out of in order to claim their spot in, it’s still encouraging news for indie labels and discriminatin’ record stores everywhere. Indeed, last year independent retailers accounted for 70% of total vinyl sales, but they already account for a hefty 67% halfway through this year.

And while percentage increases are beginning to cool year to year, absolute gains are steadily increasing. In 2008, the format added just under 887,000 units, a 90% gain. By the end of 2009, another 938,000 are projected to sell - a milder 50% gain. See?? Weird. But weirder still may be the market feedback on just who the heck is buying all of this wax. In April, at the MUSEXPO in Los Angeles, a number of executives pointed to fans purchasing vinyl without owning a turntable — merely for the memento, which they probably need to go with their vintage Rolling Stones t-shirts from Target. Also, check this: one of the best-selling vinyl albums is Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy (TMT Review), which MUST be getting snatched up by collectors, because it surely isn’t being listened to by fans of actual music. Anyway, a more detailed ranking can be found on slide 25 of this Nielsen Soundscan presentation.

And then there’s the other question that mankind can’t help but ask: what happens next? What happens after 2009? Well, check this nonsense. According to one veteran executive with expertise in the format, future growth will be challenged by limited manufacturing capacity. "All plants are producing as fast as they can, and are still behind on fulfilling orders," the executive shared. So why not ramp capacities upward, and meet the blossoming demand? Not in Obama’s America! Turns out that manufacturers are hesitant to pour capital into something that could end up being a fad. Retailers may also shy away from paying for new racks or reconfiguring floorspace. "No one knows if this rally will sustain, so no one wants to invest money in new equipment to ramp up production capacity to meet increasing demand," the source continued. "Therefore, we’re probably stuck where we are for the foreseeable future as far as market share."

Yeeek. Yeah, we wouldn’t wanna go around putting our faith in something as tainted and stained as Capitalism, I guess.

The Pirate Bay has lost its change for retrial. Now, let’s get this straight… the sentencing judge who ruled against The Pirate Bay in their recent court case is apparently not biased, even though he’s a member of several groups that lobby for the rights of copyright holders. The ruling by a Swedish court means the four men convicted of operating the file-sharing site are unable to have the case against them thrown out.

Seriously, this sounds like a justice system delivered by those freedom-lovin’ North Koreans. The Swedish court’s argument was that the judge in question, Thomas Norstrom, “joined the associations to keep abreast of copyright issues and that it found no evidence of bias.” Unfortunately for the founders of The Pirate Bay, this throws a real spanner into their appeal since they were going to base it on Norstrom’s connections to these lobby groups.

I’m no expert on the rule of law in Sweden, but surely it must have occurred to somebody that there was a serious conflict of interest in this particular case. Kim Jong-il salutes you Sweden!

Last week, millions of Europeans voted in elections for the European Parliament (with turnout expected at a democracy-lovin’ 45%). Of course, this should be a time for the disparate nations of the European Union to debate how Europe should engage with an increasingly hostile Russia, how its future energy needs can be secured, and how to respond to Islamic extremism. The Green Party, on the other hand, hopes to obtain votes by promising to help millions get their favorite music absolutely free. They have already shown themselves to be on the side of dastardly file-sharers by blocking legislation that would make it easier to disconnect alleged pirates from the internet and opposing a law that criminalized forms of copyright infringement.

Your correspondent was seriously pissed at finding out about this particular policy after he had casted his all-important vote (Liberal party ftw!), naively going into this election wanting to vote for a party who campaigned for greater European cooperation and advocated reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (Euro elections are exciting stuff). Oh well… just have to wait another five years, by which time of course all file-sharers will be locked up in jail and the state will be monitoring all websites its citizens visit.

We here at Tiny Mix Tapes like to keep you abreast on all matters copyright-related without making pirate jokes. This is why our news feeds are set to Swedish newspapers, even though we don’t speak Swedish. The past two days in Sweden have taken an interesting turn on all matters copyright on two fronts.

First, the political. Across Europe, elections for the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative body, were taking place over the last few days. Much of the press spotlight has been on the UK, where Labour was crushed in elections by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. But we don’t care about Gordon Brown and his ratty YouTube smile. We care about copyright, and that’s why we’re in Sweden: The Piratpartien (The Pirate Party), a party dedicated to copyright reform, scored fifth in the overall election with over 7% of the vote, higher than more significant parties such as the Left and Christian Democrat parties. This means the party is guaranteed a seat in the European Parliament, to be taken by the activist Christian Engström in the fall.

Immediately, the effects are very limited. Even if the proposed Lisbon Treaty was implemented, the most the the Pirate Party could pick up is two seats out of over SEVEN HUNDRED. The influence it has on the parliament will be minimal, at best. However, the impact over the longterm is much more significant. If one were to translate its place and vote percentage into next year’s Riksdag (Swedish parliament) election, it would gain about 20 seats. For reference, the last Riksdag election was determined by precisely that many seats. In politics, they call that being a "kingmaker," which means the party could significantly influence policy. And though many more votes are at stake, the Pirate Party has a lot of momentum: It is the second largest party for the 18-34 age bracket and has the largest youth wing in Sweden (which means a lot more in Europe).

It also helps that the Pirate Bay trial remains in the news constantly, which brings us to our next front: Legal. Yesterday, in the appeals case for the Pirate Bay 4, the Svea Court of Appeal heard arguments from the Stockholm District Court, whose judge, Tomas Norstrom, presided over the trial. One of the key issues with the appeal concerns the judge, who was a member of two known Swedish pro-copyright organizations. TPB attorneys presented a case a few weeks prior that the judge’s membership allegedly made him biased against TPB.

So what is the Stockholm District Court’s defense of his pro-copyright membership? In a statement to the court, "The memberships are simply a means to gain increased knowledge of copyright legislation issues and are not therefore grounds to establish bias," and that "it is imperative that judges remain abreast of the issues." With all due respect to the Who guitarist, this sounds like the "Pete Townshend" defense: Claiming you were involved in inappropriate/illegal activity for "research" purposes. It’s also trying cheat your way out of the system.

We will keep you posted with updates on each as the trial continues, and stay tuned for our new feature column, "Michael Engström går till Bryssel." Or not.

This is it. I can already hear the strains of our readership’s Crystal Castles ringtones as our Toby Keith-listening step-daddies and Josh Groban-adoring mommas frantically call our new-fangled smart phones about this DRM (pronounced "derm," right mom?) Download changeover thing that their neighborhood Wal-Mart store just sent them an email about. I might as well get you up to speed now, so you can calm the old folks down and get them off the phone before they invite you and your girlfriend to another dreadful dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

So, basically Walmart.com’s music download store went DRM free in February of 2008, and surprise, surprise, now they’re telling customers that they can no longer support the DRM-laden downloads that they eagerly sold them prior to the inevitable transition. This is, of course, no surprise to us young folk. You may recall that iTunes offered a paid upgrade to MP3s after it made the DRM-free transition and still supports the tracks it sold with DRM. And other download services like Napster and Rhapsody were forced to extend their transitions after complaints from consumers. Wal-Mart’s changeover is, if anything, a little overdue.

But still, consider the email that got sent to Wal-Mart’s customers, which states that on October 9, the company will shut its servers "that support protected songs and albums purchased from our site." Unless you back up your files by burning them to CD, you will "no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash." Okay. Now, think about how your mom uses the term CD and DVD interchangeably all the time. See? This is gonna be a mess. Below is the full text of Wal-Mart’s email. After you read it, you should probably look at your Google Calendar and free up a Saturday sometime soon, cuz you’ve got some DRM songs to burn and some grade-C steak to choke down. Oh, and don’t pick up a 10 pack of CD-Rs... from Wal-Mart.

Full text of Walmart.com’s email:

We hope you are enjoying the increased music quality/bitrate and the improved usability of Walmart’s MP3 music downloads. We began offering MP3s in August 2007 and have offered only DRM (digital rights management) -free MP3s since February 2008. As the final stage of our transition to a full DRM-free MP3 download store, Walmart will be shutting down our digital rights management system that supports protected songs and albums purchased from our site.

If you have purchased protected WMA music files from our site prior to Feb 2008, we strongly recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you will be able to access them from any personal computer. This change does not impact songs or albums purchased after Feb 2008, as those are DRM-free.

Beginning October 9, we will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com. If you do not back up your files before this date, you will no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash. Your music and video collections will still play on the originally authorized computer.

Thank you for using Walmart.com for music downloads. We are working hard to make our store better than ever and easier to use.

Record companies love to sue! There’s nothing quite like cornering some dastardly file-sharer with a class-action lawsuit. However, it seems that the Dutch have got pretty well fed up with the labels’ lawyers taking the world and his wife to court every time an illegal download is made. The Usenet site FTD.nu is suing BREIN, the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA, arguing that "FTD only facilitates communication between people who quite legally download from Usenet. FTD does not facilitate or carry out any upload and therefore can not be held liable.” (via hypebot)

FTD have asked the court in the Netherlands to clarify a number of points, including the idea that downloading is legal even where copyrighted material is the subject of the download and that revealing content to users on Usenet via FTD is legal without the permission of copyright holders. I can already see label executives shuddering at the thought that the court might rule in favor of FTD. Maybe they shouldn’t have been so aggressive with their never-ending lawsuits.

In the 2009-10 academic year, the University of Tiny Mix Tapes will be offering a new musical economics course entitled "Recession Busting." Students will learn the theories and concepts around tackling an economic recession with Professor P (Ph.D in Competitive Alternatives to Pitchfork Media) and Associate Professor Squeo (Ph.D in News Editing of Pretentious Websites).

The first module will examine the impacts of tax breaks for small live music venues. Using Seattle, WA as an example, students will discuss whether giving money back to musicians helps to lift cities out of recession.

 Background information: On May 11, 2009, the Seattle City Council voted to take another vote on exempting small live music venues from its admissions tax. The exemption would only apply to clubs with a capacity of less than 1,000 and where shows took place at least three times a week with a minimum of 16 performers.

Nightlife Music Association President Quentin Ertel says, "Is it going to keep the doors open for clubs that would otherwise go out of business? Probably not, but it is going to get a very pro-music tone for the city and that can’t be a bad thing."

Students will need to grapple with a wide variety of musical and economic data to arrive at their own conclusions on the merits of these tax breaks (while listening to each mix of the Chocolate Grinder).