RIAA offshores its snooping

Many were delighted to see RIAA sheath the sword it's brandished against downloaders, promising to lighten-up and go back to helping the Music industry get a life. Now comes word from WSJ that RIAA is offshoring its file-snooping to Copenhagen-based DtecNet Software. Could it be because RIAA's previous investigation-prior-to-litigation vendor, MediaSentry (SafeNet), had itself become a bit of a lightning rod for rights issues? Meanwhile, MusicRow mag reports that illegal downloading continues to rise, and legal downloading is doing well, as exemplified by Nashville dowload site NoiseTrade.

Steal this Music

VU's release today: "...First-year students in the 'Stealing in Music City' seminar at Vanderbilt University must devise a workable system for distributing music that delivers content for a reasonable price and allows songwriters, artists and other stakeholders to get paid. “We are challenging the students to re-invent the music industry for a fair model of music distribution to compensate artists, consumers and labels,” said Holling Smith-Borne, director of the music library at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music..." On Nov. 12, also, Gov. Phil Bredesen signed into law a copyright-protection bill intended to discourage illegal downloading and sharing of content.