An article on the remix culture and the lines blurred between piracy.

I stumbled on this article a couple of years ago and the writer brings up the interesting notion of the remix. 

The remix culture is definitely thriving and as Laurence Lessig often writes, it's becoming very much a need in the way new content if reproduced. If you consider the remakes of novels into films like this year's blockbuster, 'The Great Gatsby' could we then argue that it was copyright infringement or 'unoriginal'?

Fair enough we hear you say they got permission to reproduce the story into a filmic experience, but then sampling into new music has gotten quite the stir lately and we're not entirely sure it's fair to label it as outright intellectual property theft.

Boy, is our face red.

It looks like Australia has once again made it on the map for biggest piracy offences in a recent report released by the Motion Picture Association of America.

This time, the spotlight was on Melbourne Caribbean Gardens and Markets as it was named one of the 'global hotspots' for pirated content being distributed alongside global cities like Odessa, Jakarta, Rio De Janeiro and Beijing. The markets are infamous for the distribution of illegal copies of region 1 and 2 DVDs as well as pirated copies of recently released Blockbusters which can be found at any of the 10-20 market sellers.

According to the report, while the number of sellers has decreased significantly decreased since the early - mid 2000s, there has still has been a steady rise recently. The MPAA write in the report the reason for this is the lack of enforcement and specifically blames the state and federal police as showing 'no interest in enforcing the issue despite multiple entreaties from right holders.'

Check out this piece in The Australian for a more in depth report.

Anybody visited the Melbourne Caribbean Garden and Markets?

Is Australia really showing that much of a neglect towards issues of piracy and theft of intellectual property? Or is the MPAA taking things a little too extreme?

#teamPiracy: The team that supports P2P file sharing users and Torrent downloaders.

Lets slide away from our free music countdowns and focus on some film. Here are the top 10 most popular films that are being illegally downloaded this week. From the data collected by Torrentfreak, the statistics show that the robots vs. monsters epic action film, Pacific Rim takes the leading title, followed by White House Down and my personal favourite of the list, Elysium with The Internship remaining on this list for the second week in a row.

2 Chainz Cookbook!

Ever since the birth of P2P networks and digital copies, physical album sales have drastically fallen.

However a few original approaches to promote physical sales have bloomed to compensate this fact. One of these is shown from 2 Chainz’s new upcoming album B.O.A.T 2, which comes with an accompanying cookbook with a lyrics booklet.

Although recipes for a variety of healthy, cheap meals is an odd choice for a rapper to include in his musical release, Tauheed Epps (2 Chainz) has given the audience a new medium to participate with and that is what the music industry really needs to meet the high expectations of fans. A fresh, original and, in this case delicious, outlook.

Named as, '2 Chainz Tour Bus Recipes' the cook book is a compilation of quick meals that are easy but healthy that can be put together on the go. If a touring musician on a bus can make them around their hectic lifestyles how hard could it be?

Now returning back to physical sales, many artists have tried different marketing models in the past. Whether it would be secret tracks, concert and special footage DVD's, and competitions to promote the physical sales of the musician's LP, a cook book is possibly the most bizarre yet original approach. 

Here are some mouth watering images from the '2 Chainz Tour Bus Recipes.' Enjoy!