The news that one of the biggest online music providers, MP3.com, has settled a copyright infringement suit with two of the five largest record labels in the US, marks a major step forward in legitimising and regularising MP3 as a viable music distribution format. Warner Music Group and BMG Entertainment are the first of the big labels to settle the suit which was brought in January of this year.

The settlements follow a US District Court ruling in April that MP3.com infringed on the labels' copyrights by creating a database of over 80,000 albums, which, when combined with MP3.com software (My.MP3.com), allows users to store music digitally and then access it via any computer.
The My.MP3.com service lets computer users with an original copy of one of the recordings in the database register that CD. The user can then listen to that album over the Internet from any computer, without having to insert the disc. The settlement, which is seen as a victory for those promoting MP3 will now allow the company to include the labels' songs in its database.
Financial terms of the two settlements were not disclosed, but sources familiar with the deals estimate that each label was to get between $15 million and $25 million to settle the suit. Under the terms of the deals, MP3.com would also pay an undisclosed fee each time that label's CD is registered by a user and another fee each time a user accesses one of its songs. The other three labels in the copyright infringement suit, Sony Music Entertainment, the Universal Music Group and EMI Group, are still in negotiations with MP3.com.
The industry may have won that particular battle but the net music war rages on and a solution to the increasing piracy of music via the net appears a long way off. As the once threatening MP3 format becomes an accepted element within the music establishment, other more sophisticated Internet-based devices are further threatening the ability of the industry to prevent piracy.
Napster is just one device that has rocked the music worlds with bands like Metallica involved in high profile lawsuits against the company and its users.
Napster has already spawned several other developments that take its basic concept to new levels. Scour.net, for example, allows users to swap video and other files. Gnutella does away with the concept of a file store and central directory and instead relies on a completely distributed directory and file system. It has even made its source code available to the open source community, and as a result, other Gnutella-like offerings have begun to appear.
And then there's FreeNet. Not only does it do away with the central directory; it also implements a completely distributed and replicated file system. Using the Internet as its transport mechanism, FreeNet automatically replicates content to FreeNet sites, or "nodes," as soon as a file is "put on FreeNet." Volunteers provide the FreeNet nodes, which collaborate to store and replicate files of any form not just music. This makes it impossible to "call back" or delete a file once it is released. Without a centralized directory, there is no central or identifiable entity responsible for FreeNet, making litigation difficult if nigh on impossible
According to a recent report on ABCnews.com, FreeNet, if it is able to get off the ground, could be the final nail in the coffin for organisations trying to prevent online piracy.
FreeNet's own position is that it "implements free speech, nothing more. It won't encourage or enable criminal behavior that wouldn't have happened without it."
Not surprisingly, the music industry is not taking the threat posed by these developments lying down. Two weeks ago a motion for a preliminary injunction was filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA). The groups said Napster is responsible for widespread copyright infringements and industry harm, as well as depression of CD sales near college campuses.
The groups presented evidence demonstrating what they described as "ongoing harm to CD sales, harm to the emerging legitimate market for downloading music, and a devaluing of music, as Napster teaches a generation of music consumers that artists do not deserve to be paid for their work, and their creative efforts are free for the taking."
And in an ironic twist, MP3.com has come down on the side of the industry in its battle with Napster. In a classic poacher-turned-gamekeeper move they've supported the motion, stating that file-sharing services like Napster do nothing to promote emerging artists and that MP3.com had not authorized Napster to distribute the music of MP3.com artists (MP3.com developed the software that lets Napster users turn CDs into small computer files that can be downloaded from the Internet).
Certainly, the net has become the most popular vehicle for unsigned bands to get their music heard by audiences and record companies. Sites offering bands and artists the opportunity to showcase their wares to a potentially massive global audience have grown in importance with companies such as musicunsigned.com and peoplesound.com playing an increasingly important role in distributing new music.
With operations in Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, Japan and Spain, Popwire.com has become one of the major online shopfronts for unsigned talent. The site allows artists to promote and distribute their music to a global audience for free and also enables consumers to search and download artists. Since the site was launched in the summer of 1999, nine acts have been successful in achieving major record deals with several more in the offing
According to Popwire.com's UK representative Jackie Stansfield there's never been a better time to be an unsigned band.
"In the past it was difficult for bands to get their music to be heard by record companies," she says. "Sending off demo tapes is a time consuming and expensive business and there's no guarantee that your music will be heard by anyone. By putting your music on a web-site like Popwire.com your music is available to anyone who wants it.
"We keep the site manageable and easy to access," she adds. "Some sites have thousands of acts available but we try to keep it at a sensible level. We have about 800 songs currently on our music files at any one time. When bands upload their material our own A&R people listen to it and if it's suitable and up to scratch we leave it for about a month. Obviously if we find there isn't a market for their music we'll take it off but the important thing is that we listen to everything."
Popwire.com are also setting up a site which is designed exclusively for record companies and A&R people to access new acts.
"It's called Cream of Popwire and it'll feature the best and most popular music on the main site," Stansfield explains. "Record company A&R people will have special access to it by using a password. It has become an important tool in record companies search for talent. Most of them now employ people full time to surf the net for new talent and our own A&R people are networking with the labels.

Net Radio

One of the many growing uses of the Internet is in broadcasting, or "web-casting" as it is more commonly known. Many radio stations now broadcast live over the internet enabling the listener to tune in anywhere in the world, through a PC with an internet connection.
It's a development that in time could revolutionise radio listenership and broadcasting in general, removing the geographical and legal restrictions imposed by traditional broadcasting methods. For the consumer, meanwhile, it opens up an unlimited choice of stations.
The delivery of audio (or video) to your computer is known as streaming a process which allows you to listen to audio, or watch video, more or less instantaneously.
Servecast.com currently provides continuous online broadcasting for many national and local radio stations in Ireland, including Today FM and FM104. Through a high-speed network running throughout Europe Servcast.com encode material into the appropriate format(s) and host it on their powerful servers, from where it can be heard or viewed by a world-wide audience
"Radio and streaming audio is fast becoming one of the big application's on the Internet," says Derek Gough, Servcast's Business Development Manager (Ireland). I think we've seen the peak of MP3 as a technology. People are eventually going to go for streaming audio and video, whether it's pay-to-listen or music for free. The technology can be used for broadcasting concerts, sports events, corporate announcements, family occasions."

Streaming Media / Radio Broadcast services can be supplied by servecast.com, the European Online Broadcast Solutions Provider. Please contact [email protected], or call (01)679683