Do you miss Limewire? Comparing whats left in the legal department.

Limewire Website Currently After A Court Injunction

     Limewire was known as a music store for free people (people who didn’t want to pay). They offered every song you could possibly see on any other music store like Rhapsody or iTunes, but at a better quality, format, and cost (free). Yet does shutting down this powerhouse mean the end of piracy on music itself. No, but it sends a clear message that paid methods aren’t enough or just don’t work. If we compare this service to others we will see major differences and ideas that other services don’t hang on to.

AAC format and what it looks like in iTunes.

     Limewire offered music in many formats. It may have not offered it in every single format, but it gave you more choice than iTunes which is AAC and works on Apple products only or Rhapsody’s low quality MP3s. The people who share on Limewire offer more choices than what you can get in iTunes. It can give you OGG, MP3, AAC, etc. Limewire gives the user greater flexibility.

     The service offered great benefits to Independent Artists.  This allowed artists who didn’t have enough capital get noticed around the world by downloaders using Limewire. The service basically offered free advertising for artists and publicity. Limewire helped to promote the work by offering it as a download like anything else. Then people started listening and sharing and the independent artists were pleased.

Amazon MP3 offers 69 cent downloads.

    

     The music is free, but it causes a rethinking. Limewire offers brand name music at a low price, nothing. This gave users an idea: Why should I pay for music that I can get for free? Next, a response, the RIAA started suing people over the DMCA act. This also caused a Renaissance in the music industry; the removal of DRM from legal downloads as they started to realize that people are downloading because they can find things for free that are better than paid. This made iTunes remove DRM and Amazon to charge $0.69 music downloads, far lower than the industry standards.

     Limewire may have caused havoc in US copyright laws, but it did change things in the way consumers get their music. As they say, more competition equals more return for the consumer.

Is the AT&T and T-Mobile Merger A Good Thing?

AT&T aka Ma Bell is coming back again. It's giving an offer for T-Mobile about 39 billion dollars to be exact. It's owner, Deutsche Telekom, is selling it because it can't make money out of it anymore due to the iPhone. Sprint and T-Mobile have been suffering ever since the iPhone came out, losing customers as people just wanted the latest gadget so it's owner got desperate. DT wants to sell T-Mobile USA. Why should it concern you? Well, you should be worried. T-Mobile and Sprint are the only ones standing up to AT&T and Verizon and those two big companies care about money not innovation.

T-Mobile was the first company to bring Android phones to the market. They sparked innovation and a true iPhone competitor and this has brought Android across all carriers, because of it's popularity. Sprint has announced it will support number porting with Google Voice natively and will give it's users the option to. Sprint and T-Mobile are needed to make the mobile atmosphere changing otherwise we will be stuck in the Ma Bell days where everything just seemed to stay still and boring.

Get rid of T-Mobile? If you do, you're getting rid of innovation and change here.

Japan - Is the Government Keeping a Secret

Japan has been struck by disaster many times before, but none like this. This disaster has destroyed the nation and has ruined lives. It has shocked the nation into what seems to be likely called Haiti's Big Brother since it has the same effect, but worse it comes with a tsunami. There's an old Japanese saying that lies come in 3's and 8's. The Japanese said a 30km radius from the reactors, but now say you should be 80km away from the reactor. Three's and eight's isn't it. Don't you think.

The nuclear situation is something the government shouldn't be counted on. When the guy in trouble says no and many other smarter people say yes, they are probably not trying to show fear and that they are stupid. They also might feel embarrassed if the ask for help. Japan is a well developed country, it's not Haiti.

Japan has felt the disaster of it's reputation.

The Fight For Bandwith

Now we all know how the government likes to intervene at things that could make the consumers unhappy. Take Wind Mobile which the Conservative government overturned the CRTC judgment that said Wind Mobile couldn't operate because it's owner, Globalive, was mostly controlled by Egypt's Orascom. The CRTC got overruled and Wind Mobile came. Now it's about internet.

The CRTC has delayed their ruling on giving internet providers the power to charge money to small providers by per GB. This would eventually get rid of the "unlimited" plan in Canada. If this were to happen then data caps would be strengthened even more. This was given pressure as the government knows who's affected: small businesses and any threat to let the unemployment rate go to down is bad for the look.

If the government succeeds to do so, not only small providers, but us consumers will also reap the benefits as we will have to offered unlimited plans as well. That means more Netflix for you.

Internet in Canada Just Got Better

Besides using the Bell Canada slogan, the name says it all. That's right after the CRTC is giving internet providers the right to charge users for over dose or going over the data cap. This was so providers can finally stop ripping themselves off. This isn't good for consumers, but the Canadian government wants change.

Canada is known for some things. Unenforced illegal file sharing and no charge if gone over data caps. This is what makes Canada, Canada and what makes the US, the US. The CRTC decision to ruin Canada can be overturned as the Conservatives are looking into it and thinking about removing it, because it doesn't look good on their image.

All in all, just sit back and have fun with your day and let politics take care of itself. :)

Canada's Economy: It's not great.

Canada, a country that welcomes immigrants and refugees from around the world and a country with freedom and a great atmosphere. Yet when I take Canada into economics, it doesn't do well on my list. Canada may be the best economy in the G7, but don't see that for too long.

Previously the Bank of Canada minister issued a warning. He said we have more debt than our equity. This should have brought a warning to all to be more careful with their money, but are we? We may have tighter lending laws, but is it useful? The US had bad lending laws and banks lent money to anyone without researching them. Look at Canada, our unemployment rate is 8%, which is high. Also, many Canadians aren't going to be able to pay their mortgage if one goes out of work or if interest rates go up. What does that tell you? Well, it says that people get qualified before, but can't make the payments later. Isn't that like the US only with a delay. Lets take Lehman Brothers as an example. They sold companies at a discount and bought them back at a higher price. At first it was a profit, but it swallowed and destroyed the company didn't it?

Canada also doesn't have much to offer to the world. Look at our logging industry, we have it but nobody is buying. Banking, forget about it how would they survive if Canada increased interest rates from the lowest rate in years. Mining, at least there's some hope there until gold collapses soon. Medical, what do we have there? We have a low number of drug or research companies. The list could go on forever and with Canada having a low money supply and a high deficit. I think it's safe to say its only a matter of time.

Lets look at housing for a moment. People borrowing money that they know they can't pay back if interest rates were to rise. A bubble in markets like Vancouver and Toronto. The average home price at $344,000. Interest rates at all time lows, I think we get the picture. The housing market is at a bubble right now. The federal government has created it and is trying to stop it from popping, but it will devastatingly. The bubble will pop like how people said the Dot-com bubble would't pop or how banks were too big to fail in the US and the US housing market. They said it wasn't possible, but it happened. They tried to stop it, but it happened. How about Japan? They had a bubble and they barely borrow money to buy anything. They save money rather than Canadians and Americans. Look at their housing market, it collapsed too. Yet Canadian analysts say it's not possible, but what happens if the TSX would crash 200 points in one day. What if the Bank of Canada rose interest rates? What would happen analysts? What would happen!

They say it's impossible to try and trick you into spending more to sustain the economy. Canada could've crashed earlier and not be in such a big mess than if it were to crash now. Look it interest rates rose, the housing market would be full of foreclosures. People aren't saving a lot anymore and more people are out of work to pay their bills and mortgages and are taking a lot of debt. People try to lie to themselves saying it's a good investment without thinking of the side effects.

If the crash were to happen, it would've happened earlier as Canada wouldn't have hit hard. The harder you fall, the more you lose than to have done it earlier in life or history. It's the same with economics.

Should We Put A Price on the Polar Bear

The polar bear is an amazing bear for all of us to see. It's white and shiny fur makes it unique and endangered. This bear lives in the arctic north which makes it vulnerable to global warming. Yet, should we demote the bear to a price. Well thats what the Canadian government is doing.

The government has sent EcoResources Consultants to go tally up the cost of protecting the bear. This will help the government to determine whether or not the government should protect the polar bear or not. In essence they're trying to see how much a polar bear would cost to the economy. This might be good, in my opinion, it will show the government that the polar bear is important and has a value with only 15,000 left in Canada. If we don't do this, what will happen when everyone forgets about the polar bear? Won't there be a zero dollar price tag for it then?

Currently the bear is not protected in Canada, but not all are keen to this idea. In the meantime EcoResources has until February 2011 to present it's report telling the government whether it should protect it or not.

The So-Called Wikileaks War

Wikileaks is a site with a purpose like any other: to allow whistle-blowers to release their information confidentially. Wikileaks previously wasn't a popular site until the release of many cables by Julian Assange that gained worldwide attention apparently.

Since the release of the latest cables the world has come to look at Wikileaks in a bad way. US diplomats are calling Assange a terrorist and is planning to use his site for terrorism. This came forth after the cable which showed the US having people spy on countries like Russia, Iran, and Canada. Assange released the cable and others possibly to show the world is corrupt and not as pretty as most hope to perceive it to be. Assange is said to be facing charges or espionage, but all he does is make documents available. The main leaker's are soldiers who are now warned by the government to not use any CD's, memory sticks, or DVD's.

A group named Anonymous is trying to combat the US, by saying Wikileaks is something that is needed. The either shut down temperarily or slowed down sites like Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and Moneybookers. Apparently it has changed it's focus to now trying to release all the cables that Assange hasn't done yet. A "so-called" member told the world it has changed it's focus as apparently the sites aren't having the impact they want to happen.

Assange is currently in prison facing charges of espionage and sex charges. Assange is computerless and unable to release the cables. Now everyone must be thinking, why not shut this site down? Well this site is hosted in Sweden by PRQ, a controversial hosting service founded by Pirate Bay founders. The reason is simple: Sweden has protective laws for journalists which prevent Wikileaks from being shutdown.

Wikileaks to me is not something the world should wash away, but embrace. Wikileaks has shown that the world is not as pure as you think and what may be a smile, may have the devil's heart.

iPiracy - The World May Actually Need It

I am planning to launch a site on internet piracy or iPiracy for short. Here I will talk about how internet piracy is good in some ways. An example is OiNKs Pink Palace.

OiNK was created a few years ago as a music only torrent site. The site was private and had high quality music songs of every format you could imagine from MP3 to OGG. The songs were also in higher quality than what you could get at iTunes at the time. This marked a shift as people proved that they weren't going to pay for something with poor quality and DRM with it as well. OiNK eventually grew and grew until the US government came in. They shut it down, but all was not lost. iTunes eventually increased their music quality, but didn't have every format you could ever think of, nope that is something Apple didn't do.

Another one was the Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay was the worlds largest torrent site with the most members and torrents indexed compared to other torrent trackers. The Pirate Bay got into trouble recently. They shut down their tracker and their founders and funder were sent to jail for intellectual property infringement aka copyright infringement. Nothing came out though from this.

What makes me mad is that why don't we stop iPiracy by making things better and cheaper. I mean if we did it with cars how come we can't do it with piracy. Some people do it because they don't want to pay, but some people do it because the stuff they can buy is not worth their money. Would you want a lower version for 99 cents or a higher quality for a dollar. It's your choice.

I believe in paying, but that doesn't mean people can abuse that. I believe that if piracy were to be gone, you would need to make the things people download cheaper or more worth their buck then right now where internet piracy is going up, not down.