When music's like fanfiction

This is a fascinating example of the upside of file-sharing: Chuck D and the Fine Arts Militia release a 3-minute song and invite everyone to pass it around the Net and "view, copy, mix, remix, sample, imitate, parody and even criticize it," the Washington Post reports. The result - as with fanfiction, where people write their own stories about famous authors' characters - "has been the creation of a flood of derivative work ranging from classical twists on the hip-hop piece to video interpretations of the song. The musicians reveled in the instant fan base. They were so pleased that they recently decided to publish their next entire album, due later this spring, the same way, becoming the first major artists to do so." This is a great illustration of why, just on this one case pitting media companies against P2P services, the US Supreme Court has its work cut out for it this month (see "P2P Update"). It's not black and white; P2P services are used by both seasoned copyright "pirates" and innocent fans who just want to experiment with music - sometimes embodied in the same individual viewed from different perspectives. BitTorrent itself is a fascinating test case, Washington Post tech writer Rob Pegoraro points out in a separate piece. He explains how this extremely popular, newest-generation P2P tech works.

Meanwhile, the litigation beat goes on worldwide. Several major Dutch ISPs agreed to help in a crackdown on customers suspected of file-sharing, the Associated Press reports. And France is sending mixed signals: While a French teacher accused of sharing 300GB of music files has been fined $13,200, The Register reports, a French court of appeals released a 22-year-old file-sharer "after he was sued for copying nearly 500 movies ... burning them on CDs and sharing them with friends." "Sharing with friends" (for non-commercial use) was the reason cited for his release, the Audionautes.netblog reported. [Thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing these cases out.]