That’s not the start of some terrible geek in-joke but a question that Grooveshark founder Sam Tarantino has always been happy to answer, and for good reason.

Tarantino, the company’s current CEO, sees his streaming product as very much like a music-only version of YouTube. Just like its Google-owned counterpart, anyone can upload content to Grooveshark in order for the world to enjoy that same material on their machines.

But as Grooveshark has made clear to TorrentFreak in the past, the similarities don’t end there. Just like YouTube, Grooveshark is very aware that some users may upload content to which they don’t own the rights. So, in common with YouTube, Grooveshark abides by United States law and when someone notifies them that a copyrighted track has been uploaded, they take it down.

YouTube’s problems with rightsholders during the past few years (notably Viacom) have been widely documented but the company has largely sorted out its differences with rightsholders and has become a valuable marketing machine and source of revenue. Despite fighting lawsuits with several major labels, Grooveshark has always believed it can follow in YouTube’s footsteps, and now there are signs that against the odds they just might achieve their goal.

Grooveshark has just announced that it has reached a settlement with Sony/ATV Music Publishing. The agreement, which puts all legal disputes between the companies behind them, sees the signing of a licensing agreement to make Sony/ATV content legally available from the Grooveshark platform.

“We are excited to add Sony/ATV Music’s impressive array of songwriters to our catalogue further advancing our mission to empower creators with the best audio platform in the world,” CEO Sam Tarantino said in a statement.

According to research from Informa, Sony/ATV is the world’s largest music publisher accounting for 30% revenue market share in 2012.

The licensing deal is the second in less than four weeks for Grooveshark. Earlier this month the company announced that it had settled its differences with EMI Music Publishing with the signing of a licensing agreement. According to Informa, EMI is the second largest music publisher with a 20% revenue market share in 2012.

So where now for Grooveshark?

Even on the back of May’s ‘consent judgments‘ no announcement has yet been made in respect of settlements or licensing deals with Universal or Warner. Furthermore, the company still has to shake off some unpleasant problems such as being the subject of a Danish ISP block and being censored by Google. TorrentFreak also asked the BPI if Grooveshark will remain a target in the UK, but we’ve yet to receive a response.

The big question now, however, goes back to the difference between YouTube and Grooveshark. The former proactively screens for infringing content based on lists supplied by rightholders and even has a deal with Universal that allows them to take down, seemingly, whatever they like.

Does Grooveshark aspire to be just like YouTube in all ways in the name of survival? Time will tell.

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

Today we can add a VP at one of the major RIAA labels to this list, which is quite unique and yet another game changer.

Speaking for himself, EMI’s VP of Urban Promotions Craig Davis said that the two pending anti-piracy bills are not the way to move forward.

“Personally, I feel that the method they’re using is incorrect. All it will do is cause headaches and issues for everyone,” Davis noted.

While the EMI VP opposes PIPA and SOPA, he does admit that piracy is a problem. However, Davis thinks that the problem can be better solved from within the music industry itself. In other words, the key to solving piracy isn’t legislation, but innovation.

“I do believe that a person should be compensated for their work. I feel that piracy is a big issue, and things like Spotify will assist in combating this problem,” he said.

Reiterating this point, the EMI VP refers to comments that were recently made by Gabe Newell. The Valve co-founder said that piracy is a service issue – once you give people what they want it will mostly disappear.

“Gabe Newell is correct, it’s a service issue not an issue of money. Sales have gone up from sales concerts and merchandise, it’s obvious that our fans still love music. We’re just not giving them their music in an easier way,” Davis noted.

Adding to the above, Davis also commented negatively on DRM in a separate question that he was asked on Reddit.

“Personally I’m not happy with the way DRM is right now. We need to re-evaluate technology to find a better way to give you music,” he wrote.

Davis’ take on the piracy problem stands in clear contrast with the policy of the RIAA, who tend to prefer the repressive approach over innovation. Defining piracy as a service issue, however, is in line with the things we, and many others with us, have been saying for years.

People are happy to pay as long as they get what they want.

This is also illustrated by the fact that people are willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for premium access to file-hosting sites, often to download content that’s not available at all legally, or only in inferior quality. In recent years the music industry has caught up quite a bit by removing DRM and launching services like Spotify. But the movie industry is lagging behind, especially outside the US.

Implementing harsh anti-piracy laws and disconnecting file-sharers from the Internet doesn’t change the mismatch between what the public wants and what the industry offers. Improving availability, quality and other service issues can probably make a much bigger impact.

It’s good to see that some people in the industry are well aware of this, but we doubt that the RIAA would make itself obsolete by agreeing.

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

The case had been brought by the major labels (headed by EMI) against local ISP UPC in an attempt to force it to block Internet piracy.

“It is not surprising that the legislative response laid down in our country in the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, at a time when this problem was not perceived to be as threatening to the creative and retail economy as it has become in 2010, has made no proper provision for the blocking, diverting or interrupting of internet communications intent on breaching copyright,” Justice Charleton’s judgment began.

The Judge noted that by not having this legislative mechanism in place, Ireland is non-compliant with its obligations under European law.

To address this situation and to appease the labels, late 2011 the government promised to publish an order early this year that would allow rightsholders to go to court to prevent the country’s ISPs from supplying a service which could provide access to infringing sites.

But despite the promises from Ireland’s Minister of State for Enterprise, EMI – who previously threatened to sue the state if they didn’t take the action promised in the previous paragraph – seem to have run out of patience before January even completes its second week.

Yesterday, EMI Records (Ireland) filed a lawsuit against the Irish state for failure to correctly implement certain provisions of EU copyright law.

Lawyer and lecturer at University College Dublin, TJ McIntyre, believes that the labels will rely on a principle under which damages against a state are possible if three conditions are met.

“First, that the result prescribed by the directive should entail the grant of rights to individuals; secondly, that it should be possible to identify the content of those rights on the basis of the provisions of the directive,” he writes.

McIntyre adds that the third condition, that there should be a “causal link” between the breach of the State’s obligation and the losses suffered by (in this case) the labels, could prove problematic.

“Establishing a causal link between Irish law and filesharing will be difficult, particularly given the evidence from elsewhere that blocking is ineffective,” he concludes.

Site blocking could be a last resort for the record labels. Following an investigation into the legality of a 3 strikes-style regime operated by Irish ISP Eircom, in December the country’s Data Protection Commissioner ordered the practice to be brought to a halt on privacy grounds.

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

The ruling handed down by Judge William Pauley yesterday confirms that MP3tunes “did not promote infringement” by allowing its users to store music online. According to the judge, MP3tunes also correctly terminated accounts of repeat infringers and complied with DMCA takedown requests that were sent to their music search engine Sideload.com.

Through Sideload.com users can search for music hosted on third-party sites and add those to their MP3tunes lockers. Among other sites it searches external file-hosting services such as RapidShare.

EMI characterized these sites as known “piracy havens” and argued that MP3tunes should not therefore be eligible for safe harbor protection under the DMCA. Judge William Pauley disagreed with this assessment and ruled that the file-hosting services linked to by Sideload.com are not “illegal” by definition.

MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson is pleased with the verdict, which he says is a clear victory for cloud hosting services.

“We’ve always operated our music service in a responsible manner and because of that the Judge determined that MP3tunes has protection under the DMCA as a service provider for both MP3tunes and Sideload.com,” he told TorrentFreak.

“Few companies have been able to stand up to the record labels’ attacks and get rulings from the court on key issues relevant to the future of the internet music and this 29 page ruling will set new precedent if it remains standing,” Robertson added.

While the ruling was mostly in favor of MP3tunes, EMI did also score a small win.

The judge concluded that in addition to removing links from the Sideload.com search engine, MP3tunes should have also removed the associated files from the lockers of its users. In addition, several MP3tunes employees were found guilty of copyright infringement as they stored EMI songs in their own accounts.

“We are pleased that MP3tunes and Michael Robertson have been held liable for infringing hundreds of sound recordings and musical compositions through their Sideload and MP3tunes website,” EMI said in a response. “At the same time, we’re disappointed that the Court found that MP3tunes was entitled to a safe harbor for some of its conduct under the DMCA.”

Although yesterday’s decision is an important one, it has to be noted that both sides still have an option to appeal. EMI has already hinted it will, and MP3tunes says it may also do the same to score a win against EMI on all fronts.

“EMI initially alleged that MP3tunes infringed 33,000 of their works and this ruling cuts that list down 99% to about 350 works and even then only in two narrow aspects. Even in those areas we would suggest that the facts are inconsistent with the court’s ruling and are exploring appeal options,” Robertson said.

To be continued.

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

TV-industry insiders have admitted to uploading shows to BitTorrent in advance to generate buzz, and bands do the same even though they have a hard time admitting it.

Aside from using file-sharing sites to bring attention to new material, they are also used by the music industry to make critical business decisions. As we’ve shown in the past from leaked information, record labels use ‘illicit’ download statistics to determine what singles to put out next.

Although file-sharing networks are clearly seen as a valuable marketing tool, the entertainment industry prefers not to admit this in public and especially not in courts, where they have to convince judges how evil these sites are and that piracy is in fact killing their industry. This can sometimes lead to embarrassing situations of which we have a brand new example today.

In the ongoing battle of RIAA record label EMI against music search engine MP3tunes, a recent court filing reveals that EMI was actively marketing their music on RapidShare. Interesting, yes, but also quite embarrassing since EMI was labelling RapidShare as a known ‘Piracy Haven’ in the same case.

“In defense of the Sideload.com music search engine, MP3tunes told the court that EMI promoted bands by distributing free MP3s online. EMI told the Judge our position was ‘pure fantasy’ claiming that EMI never distributes free MP3 songs online,” Michael Robertson of MP3tunes told TorrentFreak.

“Thanks to our users we quickly amassed a list of more than 1400 such fantasy EMI songs that were available online and in depositions they finally admitted they put free songs online so they would spread ‘virally’,” Robertson added.

Faced with this new evidence EMI decided to change its position and argue that MP3tunes’ website Sideload was linking to ‘suspect’ places such as RapidShare. However, this was not a particularly strong argument as the defending party had evidence that EMI was using the file-hosting service to market tracks from their own artists, including their best selling act Coldplay.

“They say we link to RapidShare which they called a known haven of piracy. However we uncovered internal emails where EMI themselves put songs on RapidShare and sent emails to others instructing them to download them from RapidShare. With EMI spreading files far and wide, their experts grudgingly admit that it’s impossible to tell which links are authorized and which are not,” Robertson said.

The text above is taken from page 9 of a recent court filing. Unfortunately all the juicy details about EMI’s use of RapidShare are “filed under seal” since the record label claims they are corporate secrets and as such can’t be made available to the public.

In the sealed document, MP3tunes’ lawyer refers to an EMI employee placing music on RapidShare and sending emails to bloggers and marketers telling them to get the song from the file-hoster, TorrentFreak was told. This is of course a painful revelation for EMI as they themselves claim that RapidShare is a piracy haven, blaming MP3tunes for linking to it.

EMI is maintaining a double standard when it comes to file-sharing sites, to say the least. It seems that they themselves can use the service to promote their artists, but as soon as others make this information accessible they try to shut them down in court – a repeat of the same file-sharing hypocrisy we’ve seen in the past.

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

In March 2009 she left EMI to concentrate on her company ‘Ruth Katz Consultancy Ltd’ which according to the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office website engages in the following activities;

Advisory, negotiating and representational services; legal services; anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting services; lobbying services; protection of copyright relating to music; investigation services in relation to intellectual property; information and advisory services relating to any of the aforesaid services.

However, Katz didn’t forget her old company. Indeed, she’s currently working hard for EMI trying to contain pre-release music piracy. But that isn’t all she’s doing.

Katz is currently engaged in an education program for primary school children, ostensibly to teach them about music and creativity.

These lessons are being trialled in six schools in the UK and if successful could be extended throughout the whole country. So what is the problem with educating children as young as five about creativity and making music? Well, nothing, but Katz isn’t exactly being upfront about what she’s trying to achieve.

While her current Linkedin profile says Katz has “initiated an education programme for primary schoolchildren to teach them about the broader aspects of creativity and making music,” it didn’t say that before the UK’s Mail on Sunday contacted her about her lessons.

So what did it say a few minutes earlier? Google cache to the rescue;

I have initiated an education programme for primary school children to teach them about copyright and anti piracy. The project has tremendous support from music industry associations most notably the IFPI and UK Music, the EMI Music Sound Foundation, the government department ~ the DSCF along with other music related industries. A pilot programme involving seven schools will go live in September with a full roll-out to English primary schools in September 2010

Busted.

Katz said: “I’m financing the project entirely myself because I believe it’s an important subject.’

In England alone there are more than 17,000 primary schools. If she’s successful and gets her classes rolled out to them all, that’s going to cost a huge amount.

Financing it all her herself? Yeah, right.

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

Per-Eirik Johansen has been in the music industry for many years, and was noted for his ability to develop some prominent artists. At one point elected as chairman of the IFPI, it was during Johansen’s time as a director at EMI that he bore the brunt of a backlash against the copy protection his company put on CDs.

In 2004, five thousand people lobbied EMI to remove this DRM, with news site nrk.no calling Johansen’s office 27 times over two broken interview promises on the issue. Eventually he conceded, “I have neither the desire nor the ability to give out discs without copy protection,” while indicating that only EMI London could make such a decision.

“We always listen to consumers,” he objected. “I can inform you that over the last five months, in EMI we have sold about 400,000 CDs with copy protection in Norway. In the same period we have received 28 complaints from consumers.”

“What we are talking about is a tiny, tiny little thing,” he said. But did he really believe that it was so insignificant?

No longer working for EMI, in an interview with Joakim from Norway’s Dagbladet, Johansen – unrestrained from the shackles of a forced corporate line – speaks freely, noting that while he took a salary from EMI he felt obliged to defend their stance.

He now believes the music industry’s fight against piracy has been useless and says he disagrees with the assertion that illicit file-sharing is the same as theft. Referring to an earlier EMI anti-piracy initiative, Johansen noted, “The message of that campaign is that there is a reason why we have copyright, and I agree.”

“But the main thing is that a whole generation already violates copyright, and the only thing we can do now is find better solutions,” he says pragmatically.

Now, as the 49 year-old manages his own label, Johansen looks back on some good times with EMI, particularly those where he discovered and developed new artists. But times have changed. “Now that companies’ earnings have gone down, and you cut down on people, people no longer have the resources to drive this work,” he said.

Johansen still has optimism for the industry, pointing out growth in the live concert market and showing enthusiasm for new models to make money from music. “I am extremely optimistic. There has been a revolution, and in the wake of this, it is very chaotic. Today there is an entrepreneurial spirit that is both healthy and exciting. We do not know how the industry will look in a year or two, but I am convinced that the future looks promising.”

Noting that as a whole the music industry hasn’t fallen in value, Johansen says it is the recording section that has suffered most after it did nothing for too long and failed to adapt their business model to the new era.

“No one has ever won a battle when fighting against new technology,” he said.

Time to embrace it then.

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

Quantifying its ‘losses’ in court, the four labels claimed illegal downloading costs the Irish music industry 13.8 million Euros every year, and since Eircom has 40 per cent of the ISP market, it must be held responsible for causing the industry losses of between 4 and 5 million Euros. Further details about the case are available in our previous report.

The case, which was due to run for 4 weeks, was cut short this evening after just eight days. According to an RTE report it has ended after a fairly shocking and unexpected development. The ‘Big Four’, headed by the IFPI, have reached an “amicable” settlement with Eircom.

In an agreement believed to be a world first, EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner will start tracking the IP addresses of alleged infringers and supply the details to the ISP. Eircom has agreed that it will ultimately disconnect infringers from the Internet.

Essentially, Eircom has agreed to implement a “3 Strikes” regime against its own customers. On the first allegation the customer will get a warning. On the second allegation they will be informed that if they do not stop their activities, disconnection will follow. On the third, it’s Internet blackout time.

The Chairman of EMI said he now expects other ISPs to follow suit – serious pressure will be brought down on them immediately.

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

EMI offered a deadline – either the IFPI reduced the costs associated with membership by 31st March 2008 – or EMI would leave. Now, after a few months of negotiations, it seems some sort of deal has been struck enabling EMI to stay as a member.

An IFPI spokesman said the organisation had been able to a agree a “sensible, appropriate and reasonable reduction in our budget.”

It won’t be just EMI that gets reduced rates either. The other major members – Universal, Sony and Warner will all benefit, says Jean-Francois Cecillon, president of EMI International:

“We undertook to work with our colleagues in the other major labels and with (IFPI boss) John Kennedy on a cost saving plan for the IFPI. Together we have been able to find solutions which we believe are achievable whilst maintaining what the IFPI does best in representing our industry.”

Separately, the IFPI just announced it has successfully shutdown a Direct Connect hub in Chile, specializing in metal. If they feel that this type of action is the most effective way of spending EMI’s money, no surprise they wanted to leave.

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