At TorrentFreak we have a policy of doing proper fact checking on everything we write, but occasionally we make a mistake. When this happens, we’re more than happy to make a correction, and today is one of those days.

Regular TorrentFreak readers may remember the article on Moses Avalon, the well-respected music industry expert who predicted that TorrentFreak would have to shut down because of new legislation being mulled by the US Government.

Although the proposed legislation is related to the streaming of copyrighted material, Avalon somehow believes that news sites like Wired, Slashdot and TorrentFreak would also be rendered illegal.

At the time we wrote a rebuttal, claiming that Avalon’s musings were absurd, but the man himself disagreed. Moses, who claims to have worked with Bob Dylan, Madonna and Britney Spears, whose blog has 100,000 readers, and who makes regular TV appearances, stood behind his prediction.

Aside from news sites, one of the ‘illegal’ services listed by Avalon was Grooveshark, the music streaming service that has a licensing deal with EMI among others. We assumed that this, and the fact that it has operated as a US company for years without being sued into oblivion, would not make it a prime target.

This week, however, Google booted the Grooveshark app from the Android market over licensing concerns, following in the steps of Apple who made the same decision a few months ago. Avalon went bananas upon hearing the news and told his readership how wrong we were with his rant titled “TorrentFreak Face the Music: Grooveshark is Doomed.”

Although the Grooveshark issue has nothing to do with the legislation Avalon referred to in the first instance, we are of course more than happy to admit that Grooveshark is indeed not “fully licensed” as we initially wrote. In fact, from now on we will become true followers of Moses’ gospel, even though that necessarily means the end of our existence.

Like Mr. Avalon we now believe that everything that remotely relates to P2P, licensed or not, is doomed. This means that apart from TorrentFreak, Wired and Slashdot, the music subscription services iMesh and Bearshare will also, as predicted by Avalon, be shutdown in the near future.

To some the inclusion of iMesh and Bearshare on Avalon’s list might seem odd because the two services are promoted by the RIAA, but considering their P2P stigma that appears to be irrelevant.

We did of course ask Avalon why the RIAA would be promoting such illegal services, and thankfully he was willing to comment. “The RIAA can list whomever they want, as ‘approved’ but believe it or not they do not actually speak collectively for all the labels,” he told us.

“If you believe the RIAA to be underhanded and unreasonable, then there is no which thing as ‘RIAA Approved’. If you believe they’re honorable and good for their word, then you are exposing a rather large gap in your site’s position and philosophy,” Avalon’s musings continued.

So there we have it. A leading music industry expert is claiming that the RIAA is for some odd reason promoting illegal music services, against the wishes of the major labels. Now that’s something we have to believe in, don’t we?

We would like to thank Avalon for opening our eyes; TorrentFreak will never be the same again and hopefully that will permit us to stay online. In addition, we would also like to retract our earlier statement where we said that Mr. Avalon was a classic narcissist. That is, if he can please stop asking us to interview him for a feature article on TorrentFreak – the answer is ‘no’.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Borg are known, “both within and beyond Star Trek fandom for their relentless pursuit of what they want to assimilate,” says Wikipedia., and increasingly, Assimilate or Die seems to be the choice facing the commercial p2p application operators, with Bearshare as the latest company to go over.

Casualties in the p2p wars so far include it, Grokster, iMesh and LimeWire, with Morpheus, Blubster and Warez as the hold-outs. Sharman Networks’ Kazaa, which recently announced a $115 settlement deal, is a case by itself.

Kazaa became the p2p application, walking in the open door when Big Music crushed the original Napster. But it almost single-handedly introduced spyware to the Net to become a pariah within the informed p2p world, also being relentlessly pursued through the Ausralian courts by the Big Four labels who accused it of being a facillitator of ‘illegal’ file sharing.

Alone, it was a lost cause and Sharman associates Altnet, a peddler of a DRM application described by Freenet creator Ian Clarke as a lame duck, and Brilliant Digital Entertainment were in equally dire straits. But Sharman and its friends both achieved their ambitions and saved the day by ‘settling’ with the cartels, reaching an accord they’d been seeking for years and indeed, Altnet is already being touted on a Big Four site, re-introducing its so-called Global File Registry.

And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a shiny new (and ‘legal’) Kazaa will appear soon, ‘legal’ in this context meaning compliant with the desires of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the Big Four record label monopolies, with the major Hollywood studios close behind.

Meanwhile iMesh was in effect the first former independent p2p company to ‘settle’ with the Big Four Organized Music cartel, reopening as an “approved” p2p “network” soon afterwards.

In July 2004, the Big Four agreed to let iMesh continue operating, “even with millions of copyrighted songs being traded online – while the new service was being developed,” said CNET at the time. “In return, iMesh agreed to pay labels $4.1 million” and, there was, “genuine excitement about the offering,” the story had the Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) boss Mitch Bainwol saying.

Now, “iMesh, Inc. subsidiary MusicLab LLC today announced the beta launch of the newly acquired BearShare software in an authorized peer-to-peer application (P2P) – BearShare 6.0,” says an iMesh press release, going on:

“Continuing its commitment to the authorized P2P marketplace, iMesh offers consumers a compelling service inclusive of the traditional benefits common to the P2P file-sharing experience, while assuring compensation to registered rightsholders through the new BearShare application.

“With the acquisition of BearShare assets in May 2006, including its expansive user base, iMesh further solidifies its position as the largest globally active authorized P2P service.”

iMesh is run by ex-Sony Music boss Robert Summer.

One wonders what’ll happen to the Bearshare database with its priceless and confidential personal information on millions of former users? Similarly, wonders what’s to happen with the Kazaa user data base?

Kazaa was by far the most-named application in the vicious sue ‘em all marketing war run by the Big Four’s RIAA in the US and other so-called ‘trade’ organizations elsewhere in the world.

Meanwhile, BearShare 6.0 will include the introduction of a ToGo portable music renal service under which users pay to borrow downloads which disappear as soon as they stop paying.

“The service offers consumers both a subscription plan and a la carte options for premium content, with the ability to download and burn music and videos,” says the statement.

It’s free for 30 days, “and will transition to a subscription plan thereafter,” it adds.

Back to The Borg, they’ve, “become a powerful symbol in popular culture for any seemingly unstoppable force against which ‘resistance is futile’,” says Wikipedia.

Is that the case in the peer-to-peer world? Certainly, with The Borg controlling the mainstream lamescream media it seems to be.

But in Star Trek The Borg always eventually come unstuck, thanks to their untrammelled greed, and in the real online world, for the first time in history ordinary people are completely by-passing the traditional corporate press, using blogs and web sites to disseminate unspun, unfettered and accurate news and information to each other.

And with this parallel universes are building with corporations which thrive on consumer control, lies and deception in one, and communities which foster openness, truth and innovation, in the other.

Stay tuned.

p2pnet

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.