TorrentFreak Email Update

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Judge: Pirate Party Name-Ban Decision Stands Posted: 22 Jul 2011 12:29 AM PDT That "Pirate Party" is not allowed as a political party name in Russia might seem odd at first. The obvious intent was clear – to prevent groups which have the promotion of criminal acts at their core, such as the Pedophile Party, the Kill-all-Jews Collective, or Kidnappers Anonymous – but these are unambiguous terms. When it comes to the term "Pirate" then there are increasingly two meanings. The first is that of the ‘classic buccaneer’ as famously portrayed by Johnny Depp, and often found acting off the east coast of Africa. The second is a label more often thrown at someone accused (often wrongly) of sharing a data file. However, the Russian Government clearly hasn’t heard of the second definition, which is odd when you consider that events surrounding sites like Allofmp3.com became an international issue for them a few years back. As a result of this name misconception, the name Pirate Party was rejected. Furthermore, the party didn’t get all the formal notices from the Justice Ministry which would enable them to deal with the rest of the paperwork. So, in an attempt to move things on, they sued, and earlier this month, according to the Russian Pirate Party, the Judge ruled that the March rejection counts as the missing paperwork, and they should find another name. The current frontrunner is Bez nazvaniya ("unnamed") but other options include "Pirrate Party of Russia" and "Pira7e Party of Russia" according to a blog post by chairman Pavel Rassudov, which ends with the following plea: I would like to conclude with stating that our principles, ideas and our website remain unchanged. I ask the public, journalists and all reasonable people to continue calling us “Pirate Party of Russia” Fine by us, Pavel…. Source: Judge: Pirate Party Name-Ban Decision Stands

Artists Share 50,000 Free Music Albums on BitTorrent Posted: 21 Jul 2011 01:00 PM PDT When we first discovered Jamendo more than 5 years ago the site was hosting 500 albums, mostly from French artists. Fast forward to today and Jamendo features work from 38,000 artists from all around the world, who together have published 315,000 tracks across 50,000 albums spanning a wide range of genres. Impressive statistics that easily beat some established record labels. Jamendo is also one of the early advocates of using BitTorrent to share free music. According to Jamendo’s Sylvie de Lannois, one of the main reasons to support P2P technology was because the artists thought that it was a good platform to promote their work. “We were one of the first platforms to provide legal music torrents because the artists on Jamendo wanted to use the P2P networks to share their music and have it discovered. At the beginning it was also a very good solution, very reliable and economical,” De Lannois told TorrentFreak Even today where bandwidth is relatively cheap Jamendo continues to support BitTorrent downloads, in both OGG and MP3 format for most artists. However, the seeding is no longer taken care of by Jamando, but by artists and fans. Download directly of via BitTorrent Initiatives like Jamendo offer some much-needed counterbalance to critics who say that there’s virtually no ‘legal’ content on BitTorrent. Jamendo’s artists happily publish their work on all major BitTorrent sites and 315,000 tracks doesn’t appear to be an insignificant amount to us. Jamendo doesn’t see itself as direct competition to the major record labels, but rather a proponent of a new music industry that empowers artists who share their music freely under a Creative Commons license. “We are a new opportunity for a new generation of artists, we provide new tools and a new legal framework. Every day, new artists are joining Jamendo. We want to be part of a new organisation of the music distribution where the artists have the choice and can decide how they want to be diffused,” De Lannois said. Besides from offering a publishing platform, Jamendo also allows users to review albums and to donate directly to the artists if they like what they hear. For some of the popular artists this is a nice tip, but the real value of Jamendo comes from the exposure to thousands of potential fans. “Jamendo is not American Idol, the promise is not to become a star with Jamendo, we prefer to have thousands of artists who can get new fans, share their music and sometimes make some money. The most popular artists on Jamendo have millions of listens, this is the best rewards they can get.” Unlike many major labels, Jamendo puts the interests of the artists first, helping them to escape obscurity and be heard by a community of more than 1,000,000 avid music fans. So next time you hear the RIAA or IFPI complaining how BitTorrent ruins the lives of artists, remember that there are tens of thousands of musicians who disagree. Source: Artists Share 50,000 Free Music Albums on BitTorrent

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