Canada Gets It Right... Kinda

I ate my Spaghetti O's too fast and my stomach is mad at me, so this post may lack a little flavor. I'm sorry, I just don't feel well.

The Canadian Court of Appeals ruled against the music industry, denying it access to the identities of 29 individuals who had over 40,000 files available for download on P2P services like IMesh and Kazaa. Many are calling this ruling a victory on behalf of the privacy of individuals, but don't get ahead of yourself. While it did prevent their identities from being revealed, the 27-page ruling also gave an outline for how the industry should go about presenting its evidence in the future. This will allow prosecutors to present better organized cases, which might make rulings in favor of the music industry more common in the future.

In the meantime, though, it's a small victory for file sharers in Canada. I doubt the victory will last long given the fact that the industry now has a better footing for future cases, but at least for now there's some hope.

As for the United States, sometimes I just don't know what to make of all this. I started downloading music four years ago as a junior in high school. The first song I ever downloaded was "The Good Fight" by Dashboard Confessional. It took 30 minutes to complete, and I used Audio Galaxy. Back then, it never occured to me that I was doing anything wrong, and to this day I still don't think I am. I've done my fair share of studying up, and I've looked at numbers and figures and I still have yet to see difinitive evidence that file sharing is hurting the music industry. What's more, as I reported a while back, all of the money the RIAA has won from lawsuits has stayed in the pockets of the RIAA. Not a dime has reached any of the artists the RIAA claims to be defending. CDs are expensive, and so many people take a cut from it that next to nothing makes it to the artists their either. Simply put, until I see a good reason not to, I'm going to continue to download music.

But yeah, I've said that before many times and I'm sure you're getting sick of reading it. I'll move on.

In other news...

Wow. Is Willie Nelson running out of ideas? Apparently he's releasing a reggae album entitled Countryman sometime this summer. I know exactly where you can put it in your CD collection: between William Shatner's Has Been and William Hung's Christmas album.

It sounds like Beck's new video for "Girl" is going to be pretty awesome. The concept is taken from Al Jaffee's fold-in artwork on the back cover of Mad Magazine. Basically what that means is that they show something like a sign and then eliminate some of the elements so that it says something different. For example, a sign that says "Beauty and Grooming Supplies" becomes "Beauty Lies." Get the idea? It sounds rather dark. I look forward to seeing it.

Boston.com talks to Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley about walking the fine line between indie rock and major labels.

If you have a few thousand dollars and are emo enough to want to bid on a smashed guitar signed by Conor Oberst, start counting your coins. A guitar he smashed during his most recent tour is up for auction on Ebay, with proceeds going to help fund the lung transplant for Omaha boy Jason Woods. I just checked in and with 25 bids it is up to $1075.00. Go check out the signature, too. Oberst is so emo, he drew a heart and three exclamation points. What a guy. If you're into that kind of thing, make a bid.

The webcast of The Arcade Fire's performance on Fabchannel has been archived, and you can watch it to your heart's content. Also, scroll down to the bottom of the archive for a very old webcast of Doves.

And speaking of both of these fantastic bands, Doves was on Conan last night. It was a great performance, although not as visually entertaining as The Arcade Fire, but I wasn't expecting it to be. The Arcade Fire does a lot of visual entertaining, but Doves focuses most of its effort on the listening experience. They played "Black and White Town," as I expected, and it was fantastic. Jimi has super long hair these days, and their keyboardist is pretty good looking. My boyfriend taped it and we're going to watch it again tonight.

Upcoming Columbus Shows

5.27 - The Killers w/ Hot Hot Heat and Robbers on the Street - Promowest Pavilion
6.01 - Gang Gang Dance - The Wexner Center
6.02 - The Wrens - Little Brothers
6.03 - Tokyo Rose - High Five
6.08 - Modest Mouse - Promowest Pavilion
6.13 - Iron and Wine - The Newport
6.16 - Comets On Fire - The Wexner Center
6.29 - Black Eyed Peas w/ Talib Kweli - Promowest Pavilion
8.11 - Ben Folds w/ Ben Lee and Rufus Wainwright - Promowest Pavilion
8.31 - Coldplay w/ Rilo Kiley - Germain Ampitheater
9.06 - Of Montreal - TBA

Daily Downloads
Today I bring you a few covers from the audio lounge at ofmontreal.net:

Of Montreal - Know Your Onion (Shins Cover) (mp3)
Of Montreal - Delinquency (V Twins Cover) (mp3)
Of Montreal - Cover Me In (Broadcast Cover) (mp3)