Songwriters Association of Canada proposes P2P solution

The Songwriters Association of Canada is proposing a similar solution to the P2P issue as was imposed when the recordable media tax was introduced many years ago. The proposal would have Canadian ISPs (Internet Service Providers) charge each subscriber $5 a month for the right to legally trade music, the fee would then be distributed amongst the artists and content owners. According to Ars Technica "The proposal also hopes to encompass all forms of not-for-profit sharing under the same legal umbrella, whether sharing is done via P2P, wireless networks, e-mail, CD trading, or exchanging hard drives. The proposal excludes tracks obtained from music services like the iTunes Store and PureTracks, since these tracks are governed by their own licensing and value-added incentives." So basically all Canadian Internet subscribers will pay for the thieving ways of the P2P users! I'm not so sure this will go over too well with consumers, but if it becomes reality expect people to want to get their moneys worth...

Skype pointing finger at Microsoft and me?

While the folks at Skype do admit to finding a previously unknown bug in their software as the result of last weeks outage, the bulk of the blame seems to be pointed directly at Microsoft and Windows users. In their Skype blog post, What happened on August 16, the company states "On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update." Shame on us all for wanting to apply those critical updates!

Whistle blower draws filesharing investigation in Scotland

The BBC is reporting that a Honeywell plant in Motherwell, Scotland has been raided by police and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) after receiving an insider's tip that thousands of illegally copied music files where being housed on company equipment and shared by employees. BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said in a statement that failure to put an anti-piracy policy in place "could expose the company, and the employees concerned, to the risk of civil proceedings or a criminal investigation." Honeywell says it has a policy in place and is cooperating with the investigation. I wonder how many companies have even considered such policies? Universities certainly have addressed this, so are the music associations now turning their sites towards companies rather than individuals? If policies are in place, how many companies are really enforcing them?