Michael Geist – ACTA Internet Chapter Leaks: Renegotiates WIPO, Sets 3 Strikes as Model.

Yes, his analysis is more reasoned than my headline.

It still appears  that this treaty seeks re-shape American law and also the laws of all other signatory nations.  Noticeable NON-signatories include Russia and China, where a huge percentage of the world’s piracy happens.

If you are a US citizen, please have a look at the EFF Alert for ACTA and see if you can help.

MOG has been around for a while in the music blogging/socializing sphere and they have just launched a streaming music service.  (US only for the moment, others soon come)

This link is to the overview page and the guided tour. Free trial now going on (it lasts one hour) and after that the pricing is $5.00 a month or 6 months for $25.00  You can stream unlimited songs per month. You can add them to playlists and save them in a number of useful ways. A particularly interesting feature is the “Artist Radio” and the associated “slider”.  Start with an artist and load the player, then move the slider from “(artist) only” to “related artists” . The slider moves in increments, adding in more and more related artists as it gets further away from the starting point.

Artist list is good, with all the majors and plenty of indies represented.  I tried a small chunk of some things I’ve listened to in the last few days (stuff that was at the top of mind) : Tackhead, Misty In Roots (but only one track from the live record), Venetian Snares, Guy Clark, Pet Shop Boys, Skream, Rusko,  Dengue Fever,  and found entries for all of them. A few were represented only by a couple of tracks, most were represented  by full records.  Some odd omissions of course (no Undertones?).

MOG All Access Tour

(Tech note: The MOG streaming service is VERY heavily script-oriented. If you are surfing with any heavy security or privacy barriers in place you’ll have trouble. I had to use my most promiscuous settings to make it work smoothly)

The original report is here:  http://www.enjoythemusic.com/Magazine/manufacture/0909/, it includes many caveats…

If you have ever had trouble playing media on the web, this is the one for you. It plays everything. I’ve never hit anything it can’t play. Also, it takes up waaaay fewer resources on the computer. It does not load a ton of extras like Apples awful Quicktime and MS Media player.

See a longer article about it at Cnet. Ans download it her: VideoLAN – Download from mirror

SO, get ready to have you ISP monitor your traffic on behalf of the RIAA and to have your iPod checked at the border… (Obama Administration Declares Proposed IP Treaty a National Security Secret | Threat Level from Wired.com.) Perhaps we should start a service where people can upload pictures of their record collections so that you could show the border guard a picture of some collection and say “See, I really do own all of the items on my mp3 player.”

Can we at least agree that too much use of *any* musical “trick” can become annoying?