Reaction To Eircom decision

News of Eircoms forced decision has gone worldwide. BoingBoing starts with "Irish ISP will disconnect Internet users after three unsubstantiated copyright claims."Reddit picks up the thread and basically decides that Eircom should be bombarded with false allegations on government Internet Addresses. Three unsubstantiated claims and they're out. 

One Reddit user went as far as to create a blog http://cutoffireland.blogspot.com/. "You guys want to indiscriminately cutoff your citizens internet connections, well the rest of the world can just block your whole country from their servers. I urge the same for any country considering letting these horrendous 3 strikes policies fly." At the end of the post is an encouragement to admins worldwide to block Irish IP's followed by a very long list Irish IP's.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, well known for mounting lawsuits against the RIAA in support of ordinary internet users, gave a more sober view. "The Irish Recorded Music Industry (IRMA), the local recording industry organization, and Irish internet service provider Eircom announced a settlement this morning, ending a lawsuit in which IRMA was demanding that the ISP pro-actively discriminate content on their networks." The nub of the argument is Eircom couldn't afford the lawsuit so it folded resulting in this woeful settlement.

The article also reprinted a part of the settlement as obtained by Irish tech journalist Adrian Weckler. The settlement says that the ISP will, when given a list of IP addresses by the music industry:

1) inform its broadband subscribers that the subscriber's IP address has been detected infringing copyright and

2) warn the subscriber that unless the infringement ceases the subscriber will be disconnected and

3) in default of compliance by the subscriber with the warning it will disconnect the subscriber"

The BoingBoing article ends on a somewhat positive note. Ronan Lupton, chairman of Alto, which represents telecoms operators other than Eircom, said the agreement “is not one enforceable on the rest of the industry given the direct nature of the action against Eircom”. The comments followed are recommendations to change to various ISPs. 

Depressing that it's our country that has been hoodwinked and bullied into making this ludicrous 3 strikes decision. The decision worldwide has not yet been made, but for our county it has been made for us. 

Big four music labels and Eircom in piracy deal.

"A landmark settlement today at the High Court in Dublin between big-four music labels Warner, Sony BMG, EMI and Universal and internet provider Eircom will give the labels the firepower they need to curb music piracy.
Eircom has agreed to implement a 'three strikes and you’re out' policy against illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) downloaders, while also agreeing to work with data provided by the big four labels to help them pinpoint and pursue illegal downloaders and uploaders." - read the rest of the article on Silicon Republic.

Eircom was Irelands national phone company, so as far as I know Eircom owns most of the communications infrastructure in Ireland. If there is any internet activity in Ireland regaurdless of your ISP it will go through an Eircom exchange somewhere. The UK last week announced that they would not force ISP's to give up the users private information, the RIAA recently announced they would not be sueing individual downloaders anymore but in backwards Ireland the old boy courts are still agreeing with arguments from back in the mid nineties.

Rather than acknowledging the change the Internet has made to their business models and try to invent new ways to make money for musicians, they try and legally force people into buying habits from the 60's and 70's.

Being honest this argument is already dated. As the RIAA tries to make inroads with p2p sharing the world has moved onto hosting sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload etc. I think these kinds of services make it very difficult to persue piracy through legal processes. Firstly the silly claims of $70000 compensation for 70 tracks will end. With rapidshare you only download so courst cannot claim crazy money for possible uploads. The only ground then is to claim sharing as theft. They make a analogy between illegally downloading music and stealing a loaf of bread from a shop. The RIAA are arguing that I have deprived them of a sale if I download illegally. However this applies an analogue argument to a digital age. If I download a track illegally I have not deprived them of a sale. That digital loaf of bread is still on the shelves I have not stolen it I only have a copy of it. Also it will be very difficult to argue with certainty that I would have ever bought the album.

Modular Boys - PushMoveClick - Friday @Twisted Pepper

OK so it's a bit naff hyping your own gig on your on blog but what the hell. You don't get much of a chance to see live analogue electronic music in Dublin and I'm guessing a lot of people that read this blog might be interested. 

All live improv electronic music and then downstairs plenty of quality Dubstep from local and import talents. RSD, Jamie Vex'd, Crysis, Colz, 16Hz & Johnny Oakley.

Boss RDD-10 Modularized (?) Faceplate

Front Panel Express - rdd-10

I was just looking about for little bit of gear and I came across this on Flickr. "This Boss RDD-10 digital delay used to be in a 1980's half-rack. Now thanks to a custom milled aluminum panel from Front Panel Express, it has a new form factor and a 1960's cold war era look!" - thanks to gadgetrygy

sweet looking :) - click on the link to get a bigger view.

Ramadanman & Hessle Audio Mix

I don't post DJ mixes too often but this one has been on constant rotation for the last week so I thought I'd post it up. It's a label promo for Hessle Audio mixed by Ramadanman. I was a little worried that Dubstep was going the way of Drum&Bass after Bad Company. A slow descent into the funkless square beats of dance floor heavy metal. I like ruff n' stoopid tracks as much as the next guy but I love a little sunshine in the mix or what's the point. So I asked Colz from Smokeless Fuels for a few DJ's to check out. He suggested Ben UFO and Ramadanman. Ben UFO, while being a talented diverse DJ, was a little too housey overall and not enough electronic space funk for me. The Ramadanman Hessle Audio promo is killer. Lovely beats, plenty of space, dark, sunshine and all in between. You can read all about the label and Ramadanman HERE.

Download: Ramadanman - Hessle Audio mix for RA(right click + save target as)
Filesize: 79MB Length: 57:26

Vids for Ableton with APC40 and MAX for Live

A demo of the new APC40 from Akai. This controller looks killer and beats hands down all other controllers. Not sure if it beats an MPC for fun. I'll have to have a hands on of the APC40 to see. Looks like a lot of fun though. I heard mention of $400. DJStore have them on sale for £399. If that's the case I can see plenty of these things showing up at live gigs in the next few months.


The new MAX for Live to extend Live using MAX/MSP patches. Between these two and the MOTU Volta there seems to be much more to be excited about this years NAMM than there was last year.

MOTU Volta First Vid

Volta First Look from stretta on Vimeo.

The first video of the Motu Volta. The Volta is priced at $195 which is not so much for such tight intergration with your DAW. Of course it brings you back to the computer screen but for this type of thing i'd say it'd be worth it. My little MOTU Ultralite means I am going to have 8 CV in/outs. The auto calibration of oscillators is very handy looking saves a lot of time. The only problem for me is so far it's a MAC only AU plugin :( I doubt it'd be a reason to sell off my Kenton Pro-Solo but for the studio I guess it's a no brainer. - thanks to Stretta for the demo.

... now if MOTU would just being out some LINUX drivers for their soundcards.

MOTU Volta-CV out via AudioInterface

So plenty of tasty looking stuff coming out of NAMM...this one caught my eye (via Bleepology):
MOTU have announced a piece of software that allows you to send CV out via a compatible audio interface with DC coupled outputs (e.g. MOTU Traveller 3, RME) for control of analogue synthesisers and modular systems. There's been a bit of info online as to how to hack something like this together yourself but they seemed to have a high attrition rate on the audio interface (shorting capacitors etc.) so it's nice to see official support.

More at Bleepology

Ableton + Max/MSP + Akai = :D

Things are looking rosey for Ableton users in 2009. Both Cycling 74 and AKAI having been working in concert with Ableton to create new tightly intergrated environments. Ableton, Max and Akai samplers... it really doesn't get much better :)

Ableton & Cycling 74 earlier today released details of the promised intergration between the two enviroments. It looks pretty sweet as well.  "We've been working with Ableton for more than two years to bring Max and Live together. From the outset, our goal was to create the concept of a dynamic Live device that would make the application itself seem editable. The result is not just another plug-in specification but an entirely new kind of workflow that manages to combine the interactivity and fluency of both applications without compromising anything." - DavidZicarelli

In short you can load a type of Max/Msp patch in Ableton as a device and then still have it editable in Max. It's kind of a MAX for LIVE. In the picture above you can see a new icon on the degrader effect in Lives effect lane. Pressing this icon open's the patch up in MAX/MSP for further editing. Cycling 74 have updated their front page so you can read all about it there, including David Zicaelli's article.

Next up is Akai's new APC40 a new controller interface for Ableton. The difference between this and other controllers is that it was again designed in concert with and for Ableton Live. You don't have to do any mapping it works straight out of the box. According to Akai's blurbing it's a solid piece of hardware. Over on Akai's page you can read an interview with the CEO of Gerhard Behles where he talks about the the partnership between Ableton and Akai.

These two new partnerships set Ableton up to straddle a very large area of electronic music. From hardware based production to laptop to modular environment. For me personally it's great news I love Ableton, Max and my MPC. The addition of the new APC will help me integrate my entire studio, hardware and software, loop and modular based production.