DJ Arrested For Selling Pre-Release Promo CDs On eBay

from the ridiculous dept

Just days after a US court ruled that selling promo CDs sent out by the recording industry is perfectly legal, Techdirt reader cram writes in to let us know of a DJ and music reviewer in London who was arrested for doing exactly the same thing. The only difference in this case was that the guy was selling the CDs before they had been released. Still, this seems positively ridiculous. As we had just noted, while some places do treat pre-release leaks differently, UK law does not. Furthermore, he's being charged with theft and money laundering. He was turned in by the IFPI, which apparently thinks that jailing the folks who promote your product is a good thing. What's not entirely clear from the article is whether this guy was sent these CDs by the labels in the first place. However, it does sound like he got them as part of his role as a DJ and reviewer, since the IFPI even mentions that "people who have access to pre-release music by virtue of their job," should watch out. If he really was "stealing" them, that's one thing -- but if the industry was sending them to him to promote the CDs, then hopefully the UK courts will react similarly to the US courts and quickly throw this out. Once they've sent him the CDs, they're his. They're no longer the record label's. That he was arrested for selling something willingly given to him to promote seems ridiculous.

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Democratic Parties: An Interview With UCLA Computer Scientist Kevin Eustice

from the the-lowest-common-denominator-dj dept

If the ecstatic attention techblogs showered on the nascent Smart Party system last week is any indication, there are thousands of geeks out there who, like me, got their first peek at an iPhone and immediately began fantasizing about a spontaneous, democratic, distributed jukebox that would emerge anywhere friends with shiny gadgets gathered. Smart Party polls all WiFi-enabled music players in the vicinity to figure out what's on user playlists, and then plays music off a central system (even pulling tunes directly from each user's device) tailored to the taste of the group. It's like a DJ who automatically knows what will most please the crowd. But as far as UCLA computer science grad student and Smart Party co-creator Kevin Eustice is concerned, plebiscitary soundtrack software is just a tiny part of a broader project, aimed at crafting an open architecture that will enable a whole range of mobile, location-sensitive social networking applications. Below the fold, my interview with Eustice on music, math, and the future of ubiquitous computing. If you're reading via RSS or from the front page, click on "Read More" to get the full interview.

Julian Sanchez is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Julian Sanchez and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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