Exeem is a new file-sharing application being developed by the folks at SuprNova.org. Exeem is a decentralized BitTorrent network that basically makes everyone a Tracker. Individuals will share Torrents, and seed shared files to the network. At this time, details and the full potential of this project are being kept very quiet. However it appears this P2P application will completely replace SuprNova.org; no more web mirrors, no more bottle necks and no more slow downs. Exeem will marry the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program. Currently, the network is in beta testing and already has 5,000 users (the beta testing is closed.) Once this program goes public, its potential is enormous.

Shared Media Licensing, based in Seattle, offers Weed, a software program that allows interested music fans to download a song and play it three times for free. They are prompted to pay for the "Weed file" the fourth time. Songs cost about a dollar and can be burned to an unlimited number of CDs, passed around on file-sharing networks and posted to web pages.

Each time the song is downloaded by a new listener, the Weed file resets itself so the same rules apply: three free plays, then pay. The music can also be transferred to Windows portable media devices.

One analyst said the Weed service is an admirable idea and is important for the growth of digital music. The challenge is building the traffic for Weed services.

A posting in Robert Fripp's online diary provides some fascinating inside information on the poor and starving but caring, sharing music industry. Fripp and obscure but legendary band King Crimson have parted company with EMI/Virgin over digital download rights; not, apparently, because Fripp is agin downloading as such, but because he has just a couple of minor quibbles about distribution of the royalties.

King Crimson and Fripp never granted any digital download rights to Virgin, as the technology didn't exist when the original deal was struck in 1993. This expired at the end of 2003 (we presume the "2004" in Fripp's diary is a typo), with existing stock sale being permissible until 30th June 2004. King Crimson downloads however started appearing on iTunes Europe and OD2 in July, while various "partners" appear to have been selling back catalogue well after the cut-off date.

But hang on, what kind of process is going on where a company shares digital music it doesn't own with other companies? Good lord, it's not illegal filesharing, is it? Not unauthorised distribution, is it? Will EMI have to sue itself?

In this month's issue of Wired Magazine, there is an included CD featuring songs from The Beastie Boys, David Byrne, among others. The unique thing about the CD is that all of the tracks are released under Creative Commons Licences, making them legal to share.

The music labels, accustomed to bullying teenagers, appear to have pissed off the wrong man. New York attorney general Eliot "The Blitzer" Spitzer has served up subpoenas to the major labels, as he digs for information on their relationships with promoters who are thought to pay radio stations to play certain songs, according to a report in The New York Times.

The paper states that Universal Music Group, BMG, EMI Group and Warner Music Group have all been asked to turn over contracts and billing records that show their ties to these so-called song middlemen. This method of paying promoters goes around a federal statute most commonly known as the payola law that forbids bribing radio broadcasters.

Spitzer's investigation shouldn't be too troubling for the labels. It's thought that the payola practice has died down significantly from its glory days many years ago. In addition, the labels have faced a worse attack before when the federal government charged them with and made them pay up for large scale CD price-fixing operations.

CD shipments are surging this year, but not enough to erase previous years' declines in the music business, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

"We are rising out of a deep hole and still have a long way to go," RIAA Chief Executive Mitch Bainwol said. "Piracy, both online and on the street, continues to hit the music community hard, and thousands have lost their jobs because of it."

Some studies have said these networks have had little actual effect on sales, however. Record industry critics have noted that the economic recession, as well as growing competition for home entertainment budgets from DVDs and video games, likely helped contribute to the falling music sales.

Major movie studios and record labels on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Grokster decision, which had absolved peer-to-peer networks of responsibility when their users download copyright material without permission.

"There is no reason the Supreme Court should review the Grokster decision," said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a public-interest advocacy group. "That case was based on the principles established in the 1984 Betamax case, which has lead to the largest and most profitable period of technological innovation in this country's history. Consumers, industry and our country have all benefited as a result."

"What if millions of people a day were entering other peoples' homes and stealing property in the U.S.?" asked Motion Picture Association of American President and CEO Dan Glickman in announcing the petition. "How would citizens react? The fact is, every day copyrights are violated in similarly massive proportions over peer-to-peer networks such as Grokster and StreamCast.... Now is the time for the courts to review these businesses that depend upon violation of copyright."

The American Conservative Union (ACU), which holds influential Republican activists and former senators on its board of directors, is running newspaper and magazine advertisements that take a humorous jab at the so-called Induce Act--and slams some conservative politicians for supporting it.

The original version of the Induce Act said that anyone who induces any violation of copyright law could be legally responsible, a phrase that has alarmed Silicon Valley manufacturers and led Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to say he would consider less sweeping alternatives.

The ACU's advertisement claims the Induce Act "attacks consumers' right to use technologies" and enriches "Hollywood fat cats." It is running in conservative-leaning publications including the Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times and National Review.

Altnet, a company that sells music and other digital goods through file-swapping services, sued the Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday for alleged patent infringement.

In the summer of 2003, it announced that it had purchased patent rights to the process of identifying files on a peer-to-peer network using a "hash," or digital fingerprint based on the contents of the file.

Altnet's lawsuit says that antipiracy companies Overpeer and MediaDefender are still on the hook, however. Overpeer is a "spoofing" company that posts millions of false or corrupted files on networks such as Kazaa, trying to make real files harder to find. Media Defender uses "interdiction" techniques, which essentially clog networks with requests that block real download efforts.

In its complaint, Altnet said that RIAA executives had been notified several times in 2003 about the patent, but that the trade group has continued to support Overpeer and to conduct its own enforcement efforts on the Kazaa network without permission.

The bill specifies up to five years' jail for anyone making over a thousand copyrighted works available for download. That's if the infringer is profiting from the action: ordinary P2P users would face up to three years simply for making their collections available.

The committee asks Congress to discourage the P2P networks from deploying the "guns don't kill people" defence.

"Publicly available peer-to-peer file-sharing services can and should adopt reasonable business practices and use technology in the marketplace to address the existing risks posed to consumers by their services and facilitate the legitimate use of peer-to-peer file sharing technology and software."

The bill also makes it illegal to use a video recorder in a cinema to capture a movie.

The chairman of the House Committee which nodded through the measure, Rep James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis), was paid $18,000 by the Recording Industry Ass. of America to make a trip to Taiwan and Thailand in January 2003, a breach of the House ethics rules, say critics.