DRM is becoming less and less prevalent these days as more companies are realizing that the backlash from crippling the purchases of paying customers far outweighs any perceived prevention of infringement. It's not a wholesale conversion, but new DRM-free converts are appearing more frequently, including some surprising holdouts.

The Digital Reader brings us the news that Sony, of all companies, is opening its own ebookstore in Germany, bringing with it a large selection of DRM-free books. 

The press release mentions that not all of the Epub ebooks sold by Sony come with the onerous Adobe DE DRM. Some of the ebooks, numbering in the “thousands”, use digital watermarks instead.

Apparently several German publishers have decided to go with this low-hassle security, including Bastei Luebbe Verlag, which publishes novels by Ken Follett, Andreas Eschbach, and Dan Brown (it is not clear that any of these authors’ novels are DRM free).

Rather than inject malignant coding that often fails to distinguish between paying customers and file sharers, these German publishers are opting for digital watermarking, which generally works as well as nastier forms of DRM but without the negative side effects. Booxtream is handling the watermarking for Sony, having proved its worth to publishers by providing this service to one of the biggest ebook storefronts of all time, Pottermore.

So, what convinced Sony to go DRM-free on thousands of titles? Perhaps it was observing Booxtream's success in deterring piracy without having to resort to draconian measures.

According to Huub van der Pol, the founder of Booxtream’s parent company iContact, the official release of the Harry Potter ebooks saw a decrease in piracy of the series.

Once the titles were available legally, and were easy to use, pirates saw little reason to post copies of the ebooks online.

As Hoffelder points out, you can't make that same claim about DRM-loaded ebooks. In nearly every case, the DRM is discarded easily by enterprising file sharers, or just as often by consumers, who strip their purchases of this handicap in order to move them to other devices -- or simply to make sure the publisher, bookstore or the DRM itself doesn't suddenly decide to render their purchases unavailable or useless. Some customers may download the pirated version even if they've purchased it, just to have an easily portable version unhampered by DRM. Why punish your paying customers in order to temporarily annoy/entertain infringers?

The other key to Booxtream and Pottermore's success is the simplest one to solve: make the book(s) available for sale at reasonable prices and with as few limitations as possible. Do this, and your "piracy problem" will very possibly solve itself. 

A few months ago, there were rumors that the FTC was ready to go after Google with antitrust charges, though we couldn't figure out how this made sense. At first the story was that it was abusing its search position, but there was little evidence to support it. Then there was talk of using its new ownership of Motorola to go after Google for abusing standards essential patents. But... that seemed like a really tangential way to attack Google. And, as more and more details came out, it increasingly looked like this was an effort by the FTC's chair, Jon Liebowitz, to cement a legacy. Along those lines, there were rumors that Google wasn't willing to just cave to demands for a settlement. The latest is that the FTC is likely to come out next week and say that there's no evidence that Google violated antitrust rules with favoring its own sites in search. The Justice Department could conceivably still go after Google, but it's unclear if there's real appetite there. As the report notes, Europe may be a different story. As we saw with the Microsoft antitrust effort, Europe defines "monopoly power" over markets much more loosely than the US does -- and often seems to use antitrust enforcement to punish successful US companies, rather than look at whether there's actual consumer harm. So, in that venue, it wouldn't be surprising to see Google pressured into a settlement of some sort.

We've discovering interesting things about the way our brains work all the time. Maybe someday we'll fully understand how our brains actually think, but we're a long way from that now. But in the meantime, here are a few more fascinating tidbits from studying our brains that might lead to smarter humans in the distant future.

• Studies of human brains and closely related primate brains have shown some differences that could point to specific genes responsible (or at least relevant) for the evolution of brain intelligence. Next stop, planet of the apes, folks. [url]
• Software can track what you've learned by constantly quizzing you, and apparently the best time to review something you want to memorize is right before you're about to forget it. Use it or lose it... and now you can precisely quantify when you're about to lose it. [url]
• Brain imaging techniques could replace IQ tests someday by predicting intelligence based on "global brain connectivity" that seems to correlate with the ability to perform challenging tasks. Taking the SAT in the future might not involve number 2 pencils, but instead a few hours in an MRI machine.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

We've argued before that it often seems that operating companies that decide to go down the path of suing others for patent infringement are really just opening themselves up to being hit with similar patent lawsuits themselves. It's a complete waste of time and money (all of which could be going towards actual innovation). With Apple launching patent nuclear wars all over the place, now it's been getting hit back with suits from others. The latest is that Apple has lost a patent dispute with MobileMedia, a company that Sony and Nokia dumped some patents into for the sake of shaking down getting "licensing" revenue from other companies. The whole thing is silly, and Apple, Sony, Nokia, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Microsoft and everyone else would be better served by not having to fight off all these silly lawsuits, but by being focused on making better products and competing in the marketplace.

With the end of the year approaching, Senator Ron Wyden has admitted that he's willing to drop the hold on the renewal for the FISA Amendments Act in exchange for allowing some key amendments to be voted on. As summarized by David Kravetz at Wired:

Wyden said he would lift his hold in exchange for a Senate floor vote on an amendment requiring the government to account for how many times Americans’ communications have been accepted, and another amendment prohibiting U.S. spy agencies from reviewing the communications of Americans ensnared in the program.

If that doesn’t go over, he’d lift the hold so the Senate could vote on brief extension of the act so his amendments and others could be fully debated next year.

“I’m willing to go along with a short-term extension as long as we have a chance in the early future, in 2013, to have a debate,” Wyden said.

Of course, we've seen this before. Just last year we had a "short-term extension" on these things for the sake of debate, but the "debate" never came. Instead, everyone waits until now, when the rules are about to expire, and then demand that it be renewed, sans debate, or else "terrorism!" The whole process is really kind of unfortunate. There should have been a debate years ago, before the FISA Amendments Act was rushed into law. But, unfortunately, actually considering the implications of these laws -- and how they're used and interpreted -- just doesn't seem to be a major issue for Congress.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Republican Study Committee report on copyright reform by Derek Khanna isn't so much that it was one of the sanest pieces about copyright written from within a government, or that it was withdrawn so quickly after being published, but that Congress' response to the whole matter has been to stick its collective head in the sand and try to pretend the whole thing never happened. At the very least, you would expect people in Congress to admit that there are different views on copyright that go beyond the RIAA/MPAA view of the world. But, apparently, that's considered a "radical" thought and not allowed. The folks at EFF and Fight for the Future are now asking people to reach out to Congress and let them know that now is the time to fix copyright, rather than ignore it. Telling Derek Khanna to go find another job doesn't make the issue go away. Quite the opposite. It just highlights how corrupt Congress is concerning these issues, in that it doesn't even want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that it's been simply rubberstamping the entertainment industry's wishes for decades -- and that's created a huge mess today. The time to fix it is now, but it appears that most in Congress prefer the comfort of the sand around their heads.

As we've been reporting, there's been a movement underway in many countries to argue that something like Google News -- which displays headlines, brief snippets and links to full news stories on newspapers' own websites -- somehow violates newspaper copyrights. This makes no sense logically, especially given just how much those same sites likely spend on "search engine optimization" to try to get better ranked in search engines. The only explanation for it that makes sense is the most obvious one: the newspapers are struggling to find ways to make money these days, and they see that Google is making a lot. Hence: come up with a plan to force Google to fork over some of that revenue. Of course, the very first to do this -- years before Germany and France and others got into the game -- was a group of Belgian newspapers who sued Google for sending them traffic. Amazingly, a local court agreed with the newspapers and told Google to pay up. Following this, Google removed those newspapers from its index, leading the newspapers to freak out and demand to be put back in.

The somewhat acrimonious legal dispute continued, until now. Google has announced that the news publishers have agreed to a "settlement," where the terms are somewhat hilarious. Basically, it looks like they've agreed to drop the lawsuit... if Google will teach them how to make money online:

• Promote both the publishers’ and Google’s services - Google will advertise its services on the publishers’ media, while the publishers will optimise their use of Google’s advertising solutions, in particular AdWords to attract new readers.
• Increase publishers’ revenue - by collaborating on making money with content, both via premium models (paywalls, subscriptions), and via advertising solutions such as the AdSense platform and the AdExchange marketplace;
• Increase reader engagement - by implementing Google+ social tools, including video Hangouts, on news sites, and launching official YouTube channels;
• Increase the accessibility of the publishers’ content - by collaborating on the distribution of the publishers original content on mobile platforms, in particular smartphones and tablets;

It's good to see the whole thing settled, but, really, the settlement itself seems somewhat silly. Google's agreement to buy advertising with those publishers is the "payoff" bit (apparently to the tune of approximately $6 million -- and which allows both sides to claim "victory"), but the focus on effectively teaching the publishers how to "do internet stuff" just shows how ridiculous the original lawsuit was in the first place.

It's sometimes cute to see the big broadband providers in denial about what consumers want (and how little they do to provide it). With Google Fiber getting so much attention in Kansas City, Time Warner Cable has been looking rather dated lately. In trying to compete, it's offering cheaper service to families with kids and increasing WiFi hotspots, but that hardly seems compelling compared to the massive speeds at low prices that Google is offering.

However, Time Warner Cable's latest strategy is complete denial: arguing that there isn't really demand for Google Fiber. The evidence? If there was demand, then Time Warner Cable would be offering a service like that already. Logic!

"If there is demand for [1 Gbps] service we will provide it," Time Warner Cable chief operating officer Rob Marcus told attendees of a conference this week while discussing Google Fiber. Speaking at the Broadcast and Cable/Multichannel News OnScreen Summit yesterday, Marcus stated that while the company may eventually have to raise speeds to compete with Google Fiber, so far the company hasn't had to.

Granted at the moment Google Fiber's footprint is minuscule. Marcus claims that Google Fiber's deployment currently only impacts about 100,000 broadband customers, and around 100,000 cable TV customers. The COO also spent plenty of time downplaying the need for 1 Gbps services, and questioning consumer demand for such speeds.

"It will be interesting to find out whether there are applications that will take advantage of a 1 Gbps service," Marcus said. "If there is, we will provide it. Our infrastructure has the ability to provide much faster speeds today. We're prepared to compete head to head with Google."

The thing is, you don't look to provide the faster speeds after the applications are there to take advantage of it. That's getting the equation backwards. And, of course, there are significant questions as to whether or not TWC could even offer such speeds. But showing up well after there are applications and services that use it, means being way late to the party.

While the US's position on the ITU discussions at the World Conference on International Telecommunications has been pretty clear from the beginning, to put an exclamation point on it, the White House put out a statement saying that it will not support an agreement that tries to expand the ITU's mandate beyond telecom infrastructure and into the world of what happens on that infrastructure. The key paragraph:

But we should not confuse telecommunications infrastructure with the information that traverses it. The global consensus for a free and open Internet is overwhelming. Millions in the United States and around the world have already added their voices to this conversation, and their position is clear: they do not want the WCIT to govern the Internet or legitimize more state control over online content. Our Administration could not agree more – and will not support a treaty that sets that kind of precedent.

This is the key point. Many in the ITU seem to want to blur the distinction between the infrastructure itself and the information that runs over it. They believe that their mandate over "telecommunications" includes the specific "communications" that run over those networks. That's a massive rewriting of history. Their mandate is supposed to be focused on the technological infrastructure, rather than how it is used.

We recently wrote about the massive increase in DMCA takedown notices concerning Google search results. They increased by a factor of ten in just the past six months. However, Julian Sanchez brought up a point that seems well worth repeating:

Funny how much less they were using Google takedowns before SOPA failed, when they were complaining about all the front-page pirate results.

Indeed. A big part of the argument in favor of SOPA was that it was apparently super easy to find infringing works via Google -- and (the copyright holders claimed) no easy way to get those works removed from Google. However, as the ensuing deluge of DMCA takedown requests shows, perhaps the real reason was that the big studios and labels (many of whom are near the top of the list of DMCA notice senders) apparently didn't want to have to actually do the work required of them under the law. In other words, as many people noted during the SOPA fight, it was a case of the big copyright players running to Congress to get them out of having to do some work. They pretended there were no existing remedies when the reality was they just didn't want to make use of them. It almost makes you wonder if they specifically chose not to make use of those remedies in an attempt to pretend that the situation was worse than it really is...

The arguments are still ongoing concerning whether or not Congress will reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act, which has enabled -- via a secret interpretation of the law, that even many members of Congress are not told about -- law enforcement to collect huge chunks of private info on Americans with no oversight or warrants. However, in a move that should raise significant concerns about allowing such widespread trolling of private info, a report in the Wall Street Journal by Julia Angwin uncovered that the Obama administration quietly changed the rules back in March concerning the National Counterterrorism Center -- allowing it to retain a giant database of information on innocent Americans. This was done over the objections of many in the administration, including the "Chief Privacy Officer" for the Department of Homeland Security.

The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is where all intelligence agencies were told to send their leads, after it was determined that there was an intelligence failure that allowed the so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to get on a plane a few years ago. Then came some interagency squabbling over information:

Unfortunately, NCTC didn't have the resources to "exhaustively" pursue the torrent of leads it began receiving. So it fell behind. Late last year, after Homeland Security had given NCTC a database on condition that it purge the names of all innocent persons within 30 days, things came to a head. Homeland Security eventually revoked NCTC's access to the data and NCTC decided it needed to operate under different rules. In particular, it wanted unlimited access to all government agency information for as long as it needed it, including both suspects and non-suspects alike. In March, after discussion at the White House, Eric Holder granted their request.

In a separate blog post, Angwin breaks down the specific rule changes from the 2008 document to the 2012 document. They detail just how a system that was initially limited to protect privacy has now turned into the exact opposite of that. Among the rule changes: it used to require a focus on terrorism information. No longer. And then there are the following two changes:

Dropping the requirement to remove innocent U.S. person information. The 2008 guidelines required NCTC to remove US person information that is “not reasonably believed to be terrorism information.” In 2012, the guidelines were updated to allow NCTC to keep U.S. person information for “up to five years” and to “continually assess” the information to determine whether it constitutes terrorism information.

Adding the ability to do “pattern-based queries” of entire datasets. The 2008 guidelines explicitly prohibit analysts from conducting “pattern-based” queries that are not based on known terrorism datapoints. The 2012 guidelines explicitly allow pattern-based queries that are not based on known terrorism data points. Pattern-based queries are still prohibited for databases that NCTC has not copied in its entirety.

Or, as the original article noted:

Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited.

This all comes out almost exactly a decade after it was revealed that the feds were planning a "Total Information Awareness" program to troll through all of its databases to try to hunt down evidence of terrorism at work. That resulted in widespread public backlash and an eventual backing down from the program. This time around, since the whole thing was debated outside of the public eye (and they didn't given it an Orwellian name -- or an equally creepy logo), apparently it's just fine.

But, if you actually believe in things like basic civil liberties, the 4th Amendment and a right to privacy, this is all downright scary. It's the type of stuff that we're told over and over again the US government isn't supposed to do. And then it goes and does it anyway.

Another "YOU ARE ALL PIRATES" levy is being proposed by Austrian rights holders group Autoren. In addition to the fees already paid by consumers on blank CDs and DVDs, IG Autoren is pushing even further. And it's not just interested in physical media.

Consumers in Austria already pay levies on blank CDs and DVDs. Rights holders have been advocating to expand these kinds of fees to hard drives and other forms of storage media as well, and apparently aren’t just thinking about local storage. In its newspaper, IG Autoren wrote:

“We not only want a hard disc levy, we also want a levy for the usage of the cloud.”

Hardware makers have pushed back, calling these proposed levies what they really are: double dipping. Consumers already pay the levy on blank media and now, Autoren wants to tax the computer, the hard drive and the cloud it connects to. With the dropoff in sales of blank media, IG Autoren's got to make up the income somewhere, right? This is what passes for "fairness" in the eyes of rights holders. If one form of media dies out, along with its associated fees, it must be replaced with another. Rather than face the fact that a business model that predicates itself on the assumption that piracy is the main reason people purchase CDs, DVDs, hard drives and cloud storage is a thoroughly flawed model, IG Autoren would rather push for additional levies -- all in the name of the artists, of course.

One would think that if levying taxes on storage was such a money maker, artists would be better off selling blank CDs at their merch tables if they could collect the levy directly, rather than through a third party. In fact, for those further down on the sales chart, it just might be, considering the "trickle down" effect continues to rain dollars on the most successful artists while leaving the other 95% with mere pennies.

Not that IG Autoren is interested in approaching this logically. To defend its rent-seeking, it points to Germany, the country with some of the most screwed up concessions to rights holders' demands.

Rights holders on the other hand point to Germany, where levies are already in effect. German consumers currently pay €13.65 ($17.66) for every PC and between €7 and €9 for external hard drives. However, there is no fee for cloud storage services in Germany.

The European Commission is currently considering reforms to copyright law to better apply it to the digital age. IG Autoren apparently believes means this means it should be able to apply its levies, ones that began back in the analog age of cassettes, to cloud services and any other technology that could conceivably hold an mp3. And it's not just IG Autoren. As reported back in October, a coalition of rights holders sent a submission stating that they were "entitled" to remuneration for personal copies. Fortunately, the commission's paper pointed out that cloud services actually reduced the number of copies made, making a private copy levy "less appropriate."

If the past is any indication, these rights holders will likely be granted a levy on hard drives and other storage devices, but cloud services may be a tougher battle. Considering many services offer limited free accounts and are likely unwilling to foot the bill for a €7-9 levy, this means these services won't be available (at least not the free option) in countries collecting this fee. The end result of this rent-seeking is fewer options for the public simply because a handful of rights holding organizations feel they're "owed" a cut from anything that can conceivably hold copied files.

Back in 2008 we were amazed that prosecutors in Italy were seeking to put four Google execs in jail, claiming that they were liable for a video that was uploaded to Google video, showing some kids mocking another child who is autistic. Google even took down the video after being notified of it -- and the video itself was evidence used to go after the kids for their actions. And yet, for reasons that still make no sense, prosecutors deemed that four Google execs should be found criminally liable for the fact that some kids uploaded that video. The execs in question did not taunt the child. They did not make the video. They did not upload the video. They were unaware of the video's existence. It is solely because they work at Google, and Google was a tool used by these kids to incriminate themselves, that prosecutors went after them.

Making matters even more ridiculous, three of the four execs were then found guilty and given "suspended" 6 month jail sentences (meaning they didn't actually have to go to jail). A reading of the ruling by an Italian legal expert noted that the judge appeared to confuse different parts of the law to come to that conclusion. Part of the issue was that because some users "complained" in the Google Video comments, prosecutors claim that Google should have known and taken down the video (because, they apparently think that people at Google read every single comment).

Google appealed, of course, and Italian prosecutors are still arguing that the execs belong in jail for reasons that still escape me. At best, all this is doing is telling tech execs to not do business in Italy, because the country apparently has completely wacky secondary liability laws that mean you might be criminally liable (i.e., face jailtime) if anyone uses your service to do something mean to another person. The easiest way to avoid that kind of liability: don't do business in Italy at all.

Well, well. In response to all of the earlier criticisms of the ITU, and as part of its "social media strategy" to stave off ongoing criticism, ITU officials had made a few promises leading up to the World Conference on International Communications (WCIT). Among them: (1) changes to International Telecom Regulations (ITRs) would be done via consensus, rather than simple majority vote and (2) that the whole thing was not about internet governance. In one move, the ITU appears to have proved both of those claims to be blatantly false. Late into the night in Dubai, as there was continuing "negotiations" over whether or not any new regulations would cover internet communications, Mohamed Nasser al Ghanim, the ITU summit's chairman, claiming he wanted to get "a feel for the room" took what initially looked like an informal vote on whether or not the ITRs would cover the internet, backing a proposal brought forth by Algeria (and backed by Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Nigeria). After the vote showed a majority agreed to expand the ITRs to cover the internet, al Ghanim announced:

"The majority is with having the resolution in...The majority agreed to adopt the resolution as amended."

This took a lot of people in the room by complete surprise, given that there was repeated insistence that the focus was on consensus, and not a simple majority vote. This clearly went against promises by ITU boss Hamadoun Toure. As Declan McCullagh summarizes in the article linked above:

"In the true tradition of the ITU, we will not vote on any issues," Toure told reporters over the summer. "Voting means winners and losers, and this is not simply acceptable. And we believe that we'll come to an agreement on all of the issues." Toure had said last week that the summit "is not about Internet governance."

As the reality of what al Ghanim did began to set in, some delegates began to protest. Spain, in particular, noted "had we known that it was a vote, we might very well have acted differently." al Ghanim then, ridiculously, tried to pretend the vote was not a vote:

But after Spain objected, al Ghanim responded by saying, "no, it was not a vote," and that he had instead been looking for a "feel of the room."

That, obviously, is completely ridiculous, since he then used "the feel of the room" to say that the resolution was adopted, despite significant concerns about it.

The folks at the Internet Society are, quite reasonably, not at all happy about the situation, and called out not just the sudden and unexpected vote, but the secrecy surrounding it as well:

The Internet Society came to this meeting in the hopes that revisions to the treaty would focus on competition, liberalization, free flow of information and independent regulation - things that have clearly worked in the field of telecommunications. Instead, these concepts seem to have been largely struck from the treaty text. Additionally, and contrary to assurances that this treaty is not about the Internet, the conference appears to have adopted, by majority, a resolution on the Internet. Amendments were apparently made to the text but were not published prior to agreement.

Given that the ITU's moves here more or less confirm many of the fears that have been raised about the whole WCIT process all along, and show that Toure's statements were simply untrue, why is it that anyone believes that the ITU has any credibility on this subject any more? The whole idea that we're now allowing countries with horrid human rights records, and with little to no experience in supporting innovation-enabling technologies, to control direction of these discussions suggests that the entire ITU process is broken beyond belief.

Remember when Righthaven used to demand the URLs of sites it accused of infringement, based on nothing but wishful thinking? Apparently the UK "anti-piracy" group FACT has taken that to a new level, reaching out to numerous sites it believes are guilty of encouraging infringement, and asking them to hand over their sites... or face a lawsuit. This is only slightly nicer than having the government come in and seize the domains, but barely. Considering that FACT was the group that ran the privately funded lawsuit against SurfTheChannel's Anton Vickerman, it at least suggests that they might actually take various sites to court. And, in response, many sites are just handing over the domains. That's gotta be cheaper and easier than fighting, and that seems to be a lot of what FACT is banking on. Still, demanding a URL as a condition of not getting prosecuted really does seem like bullying activity that borders on extortion. You'd think that FACT would have better things to do these days than go after websites it doesn't like with expensive threats.

For all the talk about how difficult it is for musicians to make a living today, and how there are all sorts of challenges, it's quite interesting to see that other people in other professions are increasingly looking to the growing number of success stories to see what they can learn. Music manager Emily White recently alerted us to the fact that she's taking some of the lessons learned working with artists like Amanda Palmer, and applying them elsewhere as well. For example, Olympic gold medalist swimmer Anthony Ervin recently began a "comeback" attempt, and needed to find support to go "on tour," competing for the US on the World Cup circuit. Apparently, expenses for such a trip are entirely on the athlete. So Ervin started doing what artists often do: connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy:

But what’s more spectacular than the times, places, and races is Anthony’s unusual and creative marketing campaign and his unorthodox methods for connecting with fans and formulating his own brand. It’s something we’ve never really seen before. And as some of the post-Olympic sponsorship money begins to dry out for elite swimmers, it could be a precedent going forward -- a way to generate and self-brand and connect with fans, a way to keep going.

A big part of this was an IndieGoGo campaign last fall, which raised $12,704, by really reaching out to his fans. And, as with typical crowdfunding campaigns, he's let some of his unique personality come through with the campaign and the possible awards. Since he's well known for dabbling in music as well, he offered to write people their own songs. And, of course, he also has offered up private swimming lessons for big donors as well.

What struck me about this is an entirely new way for swimmers to fund some of the more expensive swim tours out there. By providing creative incentives – like singing a song, or making a phone call – Anthony is literally giving back to the swim community dependent on the amount of support he gets. Also, throughout the Tour, Anthony’s journey is being updated. So not only can you donate, and then receive an autographed postcard, but you can also feel like you’re on the World Cup tour with him. Check out his Tweets, or his website. He’s uploading pictures of him talking to kids in Sweden, traveling around Russia.

It’s almost like Anthony has embraced some of the rock band roots he has and created his own “rock tour” of Europe, partially funded by his very own street team of loyal supporters. What’s amazing about all this is that bands have been doing this for years. Start-ups, films, photographers, long-distance athletes, too. And now, we’re seeing Olympic swimmers take to the Internet, to help fund their travels and excursions and training.

Of course, some may argue that there's nothing "new" here. And, to some extent, that's absolutely true. Lots of people are doing crowdfunding for different things these days. But it's still neat to see that these kinds of ideas are permeating into different areas where they haven't been used before, and that people elsewhere are taking their cue from some of the success stories in the music business. At the very least, it suggests that, perhaps, those embracing these new music business models aren't just on the right path, they're blazing a nice trail for tons of other areas as well.