Letter: POP FANS RIPPED OFF FOR NET PROFIT
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By KAREN STEVENS  I TOO tried for hours to get tickets for Take That, as did many of my friends.   But with no luck.   I felt so angry when a friend e-mailed me and told me he had seen two front-row tickets for pounds 875 on ebay.
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Buying music used to be simple: You coughed up $14 or so for a CD, and as long as you didn&#39;t bootleg it or charge crowds of people to listen to it, the music was yours.
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A consumer group in the United Kingdom has requested that authorities investigate iTunes' pricing schedule.
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There's been a mostly fantastic discussion about fair use in this neighborhood for the last few days.  It started when a photograph of Lane Hartwell's was used in a video spoof of the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire."  The first I heard of this was in a Twitter post of hers where she said she was turning off access to her entire Flickr collection because this picture was used without permission. A series of communications with the people who did the video resulted in the video being taken down. Later Mike Arrington, who is a lawyer, wrote a piece saying she didn't have right on her side, and that the video's use of her picture was probably fair use. I found Mike's piece compelling. Others took offense. It thought it was a useful part of the discussion. I understand Ms Hartwell's point of view. I hate it when people copy a whole post of mine and paste it into theirs. But then I grab bits of images and put them on my blog and people rarely complain. The blogosphere is built on being loose about copyright and fair use.  I'm doing a deal with a content company and all these issues are coming up. We haven't been able to write a contract that covers all the things they want covered and make it possible for me to do what I need to do, and they want my product to work. It's a real mess we're in. Bloggers are supposed to be radicals when it comes to fair use and copyright, but that generalization doesn't work with many creative people. Hartwell's position in some ways is like the RIAA or MPAA, who bloggers often dismiss as clueless. How can we have it both ways? How can some defend her position yet not defend the entertainment industry? There's a lot to discuss here, and a lot of the discussion on the blogs has been informative and respectful. Not all of it, but to an unusually high degree.  So, I am interested in doing an in person "flash conference" on the subject of fair use in a few weeks. I'd say next week if it weren't Christmas. Most conferences are so boring. I want to do a conf on a hot subject when it's still hot in the blogosphere. This may be a good subject for such a quickly organized conference. What do you think of the flash conference idea for this??
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P2PLawsuits.com, registered recently by the Recording Industry Association of America, serves up ads for nasty file-sharing clients. The site is described in a leaked strategy letter allegedly sent by the group. In Listening Post.
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Mayfair Gallery, a Los Angeles antique store, has filed a lawsuit against Michael Jackson claiming the pop star owes them almost $180,000, which is slightly less than half of his total bill from the gallery.  Jackson was purchasing a $37,000 urn, $30,0...
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A British band has funded its first  album entirely via a new Web site which allows up-and-coming  acts to bypass record labels and gives fans the chance to buy  into their success.
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. There should be an MS tax, no there shouldn&#39;t... (Score:2, Insightful). OK, colour me not
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Apple&#39;S iTunes caused upset yesterday by securing the Band Aid charity single Do They Know It&#39;s Christmas for sale at 79p, instead of the Â£1.49 its rivals, from Napster to HMV, are asking customers to pay.
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Record labels don't trust us with their music. They need to retune that thinking
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"Copyright officials recommended on Thursday that U.S. law be amended so that companies that rely on copyright infringement to make a profit can be held liable for their actions."  Which of course applies only to US companies.  Kazaa should be free and clear.  ...  Should have supplied a link.  I'm a BAD blogger!
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Internet auction sites exploit fans by allowing touts to sell tickets at high prices, an MPs' report is expected to say.
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The Consumers&#39; Association has accused iTunes - the music download service from Apple - of ripping off UK punters by charging them 20 per cent more than European counterparts.
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Music managers and retailers say newspaper CD giveaways harm sales and give an impression that music is free.
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Microsoft's efforts to loosen up access to closely held music owned by record labels has an unintended consequence: It punishes artists who want to share. Commentary by Eliot Van Buskirk.
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Comment is free: Decca Aitkenhead: The connection between overpaid artists and bad albums is undeniable. Record labels are failing to turn money into music
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Arts & entertainment: Â· Attack on Bloomsbury for 'profiteering' withdrawnÂ· Stores will sell book as loss leader in price war