Wal-Mart enters the downloading arena, The national superstore officially launched it's downloading service Tuesday, after a "soft launch" failed. Wal-Mart's downloading service boasts over 300,000 songs in its database, and it grows daily. The interesting aspect about Wal-Mart's downloading service is that Wal-Mart charges 88 cents per song, while its competitors charge 99 cents a song. Wal-Mart also only offers "clean" versions of songs, with no explicit content. Some features of the service include a downloading manager, gift cars and 24 hour customer support.

The RIAA files more lawsuits.. On Friday, the RIAA filed 532 more lawsuits in Manhattan and Washington, D.C., against internet users for allegedly downloading illegal music files from file-sharing networks such as KaZaa and AudioSatellite. These new legal filings are even more than double than the 261 lawsuits that were filed last summer.

In a statement RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol said, "The debate isn't digital versus plastic, it isn't old versus new. Here's what it is: legitimate versus illegitimate. It's iTunes and the new Napster and Wal-Mart, Amazon, Dell, Real, Microsoft and others versus Kazaa, Imesh and Grokster. It's whether or not digital music will be enjoyed in a fashion that supports the creative process or one that robs it of its future."

To further emphasize the battle between downloaders and record labels, you might want to describe some specific court cases that involve your topic. You should discuss the specific details in the Napster case rather than just informing the reader about its existence. I was very impressed with your blog. However, you seem very biased to the views of the downloader. In your blogs you should argue both sides of the issue, both downloader and the recording industry. I know you are a very keen downloader and an expert in computers but it is always good to be empathetic and see things from another perspective. Another thing you should try and do is to lengthen your blogs and make them more thorough. Although, you get the basic points down in your blogs, in some cases it seems like I need to know more about the article in order to grasp the ideas you are trying to express. Overall I am very happy with the progress of your blogs and I look forward to reading more!

The war on downloading has gone international.. Our neighbors to north's court system decided that downloading music was legal, while uploading music is illegal. That decision will do little to stop the efforts of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), to launch lawsuits against individual uploaders. In a statement, the CRIA said "We invested in excess of one million dollars to date in an effort to educate young people on the issues of Internet piracy and we will continue to do so," the association's head, Brian Robertson, said in the release. "For the hardcore group, however, it appears that education has and will not make any impression. They are killing the music they profess to love. They should be aware that they may face legal consequences for their actions."

In a recent study, the RIAA has won the physcoligcical battle. A survey held by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, approximately 14% of Internet users downloaded music over the Internet from programs like "Kazaa" from the middle of November to the end of December, which is down over 50% from May, when it was originally 29%. The Director for the project, Lee Rainie, said recently, "We have never seen another internet activity drop off to this degree. The drop-off was just striking, particularly since overall internet activity goes up and up." The report might be misleading though, some people might just say don't download music anymore, when they still do.

In a huge development with regards to the fight against downloading music, The RIAA suffered a huge loss in the courts. It was decided last Tuesday that an appeals court in Washington D.C. dismissed the RIAA's subpoenas for internet IP addresses. Over the last year, 3000 subpoenas have been issued, this court decision has found that they aren't authorized by the Digital millennium Copyright Act. A spokesman for the RIAA said the recent developments were a setback, but only a "technicality". It unfortunately means we can no longer notify illegal file sharers before we file lawsuits against them to offer the opportunity to settle outside of litigation. Verizon is solely responsible for a legal process that will now be less sensitive to the interests of its subscribers who engage in illegal activity," RIAA President Cary Sherman said.

In an interesting story with regards to RIAA's fight against illegal downloading, a small indpedent record label is fighting against the RIAA. Greg Ross, founder of Brooklyn based Go-Kart Records, is fed up with the RIAA's tactics of filing lawsuits to fight illegal downloading. First, Ross wrote a letter to the association criticizing it's methods. Later, he posted 6 full albums from bands on his label on the label website.

Speaking on the matter, Ross posted on his website, "We at Go-Kart Records want to make it perfectly clear that the RIAA does not represent the views of all record labels. We feel that only by embracing technology can we gain from it, and that a battle like the one that the RIAA is fighting can simply not be won.
So, we are putting our music where our mouth is to prove a point. We believe that if you like the music you hear you will support it by going to shows, telling your friends, and buying the bands CD's. With this in mind, we are allowing people to download some of our current releases AT NO CHARGE. In other words, we are essentially GIVING these albums away!"

After posting the albums on the site, Ross reported that the site received 80,000 hits in one second, and close to 40,000 songs were downloaded. Soon, Ross plans on releasing the first all-MP3 CD, Go-Kart MP300 Raceway, on November 4.

As reported earlier Napster has resurfaced, and now Penn State will offer the downloading service to students. Starting in January, when Penn State's second semester begins, over 18,000 students will be offered Napster 2.0 at no additional cost. The cost will be covered by the school's technology fee. This groundbreaking new partnership was announced on Thursday, November 11th, 2003, in hopes to curb the rampant downloading of illegal music files by students in college campuses across the country.

"This will be the first step in a new, legal approach designed to meet student interest in getting extensive digital access to music," Penn State president Graham Spanier said. "We have already set up student focus groups at Penn State who have been testing the Napster service. We will essentially deploy thousands of testers in the spring semester to use this program and give us feedback before we roll it out for even wider student use in the fall of 2004."

iTunes expands After successfully conquering their own operating systems downloading war, Apple is tackling Windows. On Thursday, Apple launched their long awaited Windows version of iTunes, a legal online downloading service.

The online music service features over 400,000 songs and promises to add new features and more songs shortly. Steve Jobs, Apple Computers CEO, said in a press conference, "This isn't some baby version of iTunes. It's the whole thing." On the Macintosh service alone, 13,000,000 songs have been downloaded in only six months. Apple's service accounts for over 70 percent of all legal downloading. Apple is hoping to bring iTunes to much a wider audience with the Windows operating system used on over 90 percent of all computers.

Napster Returns In an update in the file-sharing controversy, Napster has returned. For those that don't remember, Napster was the first and largest free file-sharing database. It started all of the controversies and law suits. It has now returned with the familiar name, but a revamped service. The company was bought by the software maker Roxio and will make a limited debut Thursday. Now called, "Napster 2.0", the service will have over 500,000 songs from all of the major labels. It offers individual downloads($1 per song) and monthly service($10). Its now a crowded market with Apples' iTunes, Buymusic.com, MusicMatch, MusicNet and now Napster 2.0 all vying for the top spot in the legal downloading war.