Victory for Technology!

According to this article published this morning, the behemoth of business, Wal-Mart, has caved to pressure and removed DRMs from their products and shut down all DRM services.

What a great day for technology and tech-activists.

For those who don't know, DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, a wonderful (sic terrible) relatively recent development in the quest for corporate control of your actions. DRM hit the mainstream media mostly through Sony produced CDs and Apple's iTunes MP3s, but the issue has now spread throughout the business world.

Fortunately, companies are feeling the pressure from consumers and technology rights activist groups, such as Defective By Design who describe themselves as "a broad-based anti-DRM campaign that is targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors."

I suggest that all of you check out their recent campaign against DRMs, found here, that stands against the Bush administrations support of the RIAA and the MPAA in their quest to further the usage of DRMs.

Stand up for your rights online and at home!

- Torrent the Love

Pirates and COD3

So this recent article off slashdot.com caught my eye.

Apparently, Activision is suing some regular, every day people who pirated some copies of Call of Duty 3, seeking settlements between $1,000 and $100,000. 

That's ridiculous, in the humble opinion of this blogger. I understand that these guys broke the law by making these copies, but this is nothing if not excessive.

Proof positive that we need to rethink the way we persecute-er, I mean prosecute- pirates.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Here are a few sites that you may already know about, that I think are great additions to any music lover's bookmarks:

3Hive.com

I stumbled upon this gem during random late night Google searching a few years ago and

 instantly fell in love. 3Hive has an unbelievable collection of links to artists distributing their music for free on the Internet.  They have everything from country (ew) to rap, electronica, rock, and trance. A must have.

Pandora.com

A definite for music lovers, Pandora is my favorite online radio service.  All you do is input a song/artist and the site does the rest, concocting an endless play list of like minded and

 sounding artists and songs.  Like satellite radio, but better and free.

Torrent the Love

Hello and welcome to my new blog, Torrent the Love.  This blog is focused primarily on your online rights, file sharing, the music industry, and just a sprinkling of philosophy.

A little about myself: I'm a self proclaimed dork, as I'm sure many of us on the Internet are, and love all types of music (save country. Please, no country. Anything but country.) I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and love technology.

I also happen believe that the recording industry, the RIAA, and artists need to wake up to the new media out there and rework the way in which music is produced and consumed.

Full disclosure: this blog is NOT here to encourage the illegal "pirating" of software/music/media etc. This blog is, however, about free and LEGAL music you can consume, and to have a frank and necessary discussion about the current state of music and p2p sharing.

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

- Torrent the Love