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![]() Volume XXI, Issue Number I November 19th, 2022 ![]() Libraries Are Launching Their Own Local Music Streaming Platforms It's not Spotify, but some cities now host music platforms with their own local flavor. Claire Woodcock If you’re fed up with streaming behemoths like Spotify, there’s now another place you can go to discover new music: your local library. Over a dozen public libraries in the U.S. and Canada have begun offering their own music streaming services to patrons, with the goal of boosting artists and local music scenes. The services are region-specific, and offer local artists non-exclusive licenses to make their albums available to the community. The concept originated in 2014 when Preston Austin and Kelly Hiser helped the Madison Public Library build the Yahara Music Library, an online library hosting music from local artists. By the time they completed their work on Yahara, they were confident they had a software prototype that other interested libraries could customize and deploy. “That became kind of the inspiration for building MUSICat,” Austin told Motherboard, referring to the software platform he and Hiser created under a startup called Rabble. Now, public libraries in Pittsburgh, Nashville, Fort Worth, and most recently New Orleans have launched their own community-oriented streaming services using MUSICat’s open source software. Joshua Smith works at New Orleans Public Library and has been embedded in the city’s rich music scene for over a decade. He oversaw the launch of Crescent City Sounds with help from a team of curators that represent local artists and business owners, music journalists and historians and more. “They helped me get the word out to the music community,” Smith told Motherboard, noting that their community status helped spread the word that the library now accepts digital music submissions. The website of Crescent City Sounds showing a grid of album covers for music available to stream. The website of Crescent City Sounds, a local music streaming platform hosted by the Edmonton Public Library in Alberta, Canada Smith says that for this first round, the curators accepted albums from artists that were released in the last five years, and that while living within city limits wasn’t necessarily a deal breaker, not gigging regularly in the area was. To be considered, applicants needed to submit at least one track from their album. “The goal of this was to make every round that we add albums to it to be as reflective of the local music scene as possible,” he said. “Personally, I was looking for things that are less what you think of when you think of New Orleans music because people think of us in a certain way. There's an incredible diversity to the music scene here. And, you know, just the diversity of the city. So we're trying to make everything as reflective of that as we could this round.” Crescent City Sounds now has 29 albums and artists. Smith hopes that in future calls for submissions, the curators can reach out to artists to fill in collection gaps. However, the collection that debuted in October includes genres that range from traditional jazz and brass bands to surf rock, funk and hip-hop infused Mardi Gras Indian music. “Mardi Gras Indian music is a thing that nobody knows of or thinks about here, and it’s really cool,” he added. “It’s kind of this weird, secretive, amazing thing [in New Orleans]!” Smith is referring to Flagboy Giz—an active masking member of the Wild Tchoupitoulas tribe who submitted his debut album, Flagboy of the Nation, for consideration in Crescent City Sounds’ collection last spring. He says each selected artist received a $250 honorarium to license their music to the New Orleans Public Library for five years—a far cry from the fractions-of-a-penny per stream paid to independent artists by platforms like Spotify. This honorarium and licensing agreement is roughly the standard for public libraries following Rabble’s process model. Austin does insist that libraries using MUSICat meet the basic criteria of paying artists to license their work to their libraries. But for everything else, Austin notes that these pre-established models are guidelines, not guardrails. “We offer a platform that pulls a core piece of this puzzle together,” Austin said. “We give them a great tool set for that, and we give them a process model that has sort of proven virtues that they can know about in advance. But the collection that’s created and the community around it, and the places that it can go, that’s much bigger than we are.” One example of a public library that took MUSICat and ran with it is Capital City Records— the music streaming platform of the Edmonton Public Library in Alberta, Canada. An early adopter of MUSICat, the library’s collection has grown to amass over 200 local musicians. The project also created opportunities for the library to engage in spin-off projects like limited run of vinyl pressings and running library-focused music events throughout the city. Dan Alfano, manager of digital initiatives at Edmonton Public Library says he appreciates that the client-customer relationship between Rabble and the library works more like a partnership. He described work on a series curators wanted to add to the website more information about Edmonton’s local music history and scene legends. “The folks at Rabble basically helped us create this page as we were working with this other volunteer-run organization to get this local history project up on the site,” Alfano said. “So we have meetings talking about what the profile should look like, what are the various sections that we need to add and really just some web design. It might not sound like much, but it was huge, just to have the ability to go to them and say, ‘Hey, we've got this really cool thing. What do you think?’ And them saying, ‘Yeah, let’s try it out!’” While over 2,000 artists are featured on one of MUSICat’s music platforms, Austin says the company wants to continue forming partnerships with libraries on the local level. So for music lovers looking to jump ship from Spotify, he has a clear message: “This is not Spotify for libraries,” Austin said. “It’s a little different. The localness is kind of key. I don't think we could, for example, use the same strategy on the same fee to license on aggregate collection, which was all the local music from all the libraries available on the music hat app, right, like something like that would need to, it would need to be about the local collections and take people to them and let them play that music in context.” And maybe that’s exactly what we need. https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d34...ming-platforms ![]() India Lifts Download Ban on VLC Manish Singh India has lifted the download ban on VLC, more than nine months after it mysteriously blocked the official website of the popular media playback software in the South Asian market. VideoLAN, the popular software’s developer, filed a legal notice last month seeking an explanation from the nation’s IT and Telecom ministries for the block order. The Ministry of Electronics and IT has removed its ban on the website of VLC media player, New Delhi-based advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation, which provided legal support to VideoLAN, said on Monday. VideoLAN confirmed the order. “This ban was put into place without any prior notice and without giving VideoLAN the opportunity of a hearing, which went against the 2009 Blocking Rules and the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. This was strange because VLC Media Player is an open-source software which is used by nearly 80 million Indians,” IFF said in a statement. Indian telecom operators began blocking VideoLAN’s official website, where it lists links to downloading VLC, in February of this year, VideoLAN president and lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf told TechCrunch in an earlier interview. India is one of the largest markets for VLC. The vast majority of people rely on VLC’s official website to download the popular application. “Most major ISPs [internet service providers] are banning the site, with diverse techniques,” Kempf said of the blocking in India. In light of the blocking, the site immediately observed a drop of 80% in traffic from the South Asian market, he told TechCrunch. Last month, VideoLAN and Internet Freedom Foundation used legal means to get answers and redressal surrounding the ban. India’s IT ministry never made public the order of the ban, yet all telecom operators in the country complied with it. In its legal notice last month, VideoLAN sought a copy of the blocking order. Indian telecom operators never disclosed why they were blocking the VideoLAN website, but some speculated that it could be because of a misinterpretation of a security warning from earlier this year. Security firm Symantec reported in April this year that the hacker group Cicada, which has ties with the Chinese government, was exploiting VLC Media Player as well as several other popular applications to gain remote access to the victim’s computers. Kempf said he was never contacted by any government agency. VLC, downloaded over 3.5 billion times worldwide, is a local media player that doesn’t require internet access or connection to any particular service online for the vast majority of its features. A block on its website didn’t considerably impact the existing install base of VLC. But by blocking the website, India was pushing its citizens to “shady websites that are running hacked version of VLC. So they are endangering their own citizens with this ban,” Kempf warned. https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/14/in...ad-ban-on-vlc/ ![]() Police Dismantle Pirated TV Streaming Network with 500,000 Users Bill Toulas The Spanish police have dismantled a network of pirated streaming sites that illegally distributed content from 2,600 TV channels and 23,000 movies and series to roughly 500,000 users. The law enforcement action took place in a joint operation involving the Spanish police and EUROPOL, resulting in the arrest of four operators in Malaga. Additionally, 95 resellers in Spain, Malta, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, and the United Kingdom have been identified. The pirated TV network used numerous websites to advertise and promote subscription-based streaming services, listing unlimited access to channels from different platforms. The live streams from these platforms were decoded with stolen or abused accounts and passwords and then re-broadcasted to the subscribers' video player clients. The resellers bought the subscription packages from the organization operators and resold them to thousands of people in their local countries to profit from the price difference. "The profits obtained, which amounted to around three million Euros per year, were laundered by the organization, acquiring movable and immovable property in the province of Malaga and diverting funds through Spanish companies to bank accounts located in tax havens." Policia España. During the searches in the suspects' locations, law enforcement found ten administration panels connected to 32 streaming servers spread across France, Spain, and the Netherlands, that hosted the content mentioned above. The police disconnected these administration panels, taking the pirate platform offline, and seized computer equipment, 2,800 Euros in cash, and vehicles worth approximately 180,000 Euros. The authorities will continue investigations to determine if further core members of the pirate network are operating in Spain or other countries. According to the police announcement, the pirated streaming network had been operating since 2012, constantly evading detection by setting up new shell companies. Notably, investigations on this content piracy case started in 2020 after a complaint filed by the Alliance for Creativity (ACE). ACE is an intellectual property protection coalition that recently shut down 42 websites in Latin America for illegally streaming soccer games to millions of users. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...500-000-users/ ![]() Feds Arrest Russians Accused of Running the Largest Pirated e-Book Library Textbook piracy platform Z-Library sunk by popular TikTok hashtag. Ashley Belanger Last month, the alleged masterminds behind Z-Library—an e-book pirate site that claims to be “the world’s largest library”—were arrested. According to a press release yesterday from the US Department of Justice, Russian nationals Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova have been charged with “criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud and money laundering for operating Z-Library.” “As alleged, the defendants profited illegally off work they stole, often uploading works within mere hours of publication, and in the process victimized authors, publishers, and booksellers,” Breon Peace, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. At the request of the US government, Napolsky and Ermakova were arrested in Argentina on November 3. On the same day, the US government seized “a complex network of approximately 249 interrelated web domains,” the press release said. For many less web-savvy users, the domain seizure essentially shut down access to Z-Library’s 11 million e-books, but anyone on the dark web knows it’s still up and running—suggesting that while arresting Napolsky and Ermakova has stifled Z-Library, it has not shuttered it, and it could come back. TorrentFreak reported that it’s still unknown if the pair has been involved with Z-Library since the start. Michael J. Driscoll, the assistant director in charge at the New York Federal Bureau of Investigation field office, seems to suspect they have. Although the indictment is only focused on the duo’s alleged criminal activity between 2018 and 2022, Driscoll said that they are believed to have “operated a website for over a decade whose central purpose was providing stolen intellectual property, in violation of copyright laws.” “Intellectual property theft crimes deprive their victims of both ingenuity and hard-earned revenue,” Driscoll said. “The FBI is determined to ensure those willing to steal and profit from the creativity of others are stopped and made to face the consequences in the criminal justice system.” If Napolsky and Ermakova are charged, the indictment said that they will be required to “forfeit any property, real or personal, constituting, or derived from, proceeds obtained directly or indirectly as a result of such offenses.” TorrentFreak reported that Argentina has not yet received a request from the US to extradite the accused Z-Library operators, but that will be the next step toward shutting down Z-Library. TikTok hashtag triggers Z-Library shutdown Z-Library has linked eager readers to millions of free e-books since 2009, but it wasn’t until Z-Library began recently trending on TikTok that authors protesting the piracy decided enough was enough. Last month, The Authors Guild complained to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, detailing the growing popularity of the TikTok hashtag #zlibrary—viewed by 19 million TikTokers—and providing author impact statements. Romance writer Sarina Bowen told officials, “Z-Library is killing us.” “A book we release in the morning is up on Z-Library by lunchtime,” Bowen said. “This isn't the only site that hurts us, but it's the site that keeps showing up in TikTok videos.” “The hashtag #zlibrary on popular social media platform TikTok has 19 million views,12 in reference to the countless videos posted by college and high school students and others across the world promoting it as the go-to place for getting free e-books,” The Authors Guild wrote in its October complaint. After the DOJ announced the charges yesterday, the Authors Guild “welcome” the news. “The arrest and indictment of Z-Library operators is one of the biggest breakthroughs in the fight against online criminal e-book piracy to date,” said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild. “We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and to the FBI for all of their hard work in not only shutting down the site but also finding and apprehending the perpetrators.” Students lose preferred source for free textbooks The arrest has surely impacted Z-Library’s reach for now, but, of course, it hasn’t ended e-book piracy online. In the Authors Guild’s initial complaint, they noted that Z-Library isn’t the only e-book piracy site, pointing out another popular example in the Library Genesis Project (Libgen). However, Z-Library has perhaps the most user-friendly interface to find and discover books, and its most dedicated users are still finding ways to access it on the dark web. Ars confirmed it’s still available on Tor, and Reddit users have been sharing tips to help others keep the free e-book downloads flowing. TorrentFreak suggested that Z-Library could also stage a comeback through new domain names. The Authors Guild said that the US government domain seizure has at least resulted in some harm reduction for its authors. For some cash-strapped college students, however, Slate reported that the disappearance of Z-Library has resulted in a scramble for a new source of free textbooks. Authors Guild CEO Rasenberger wrote in a statement that “we are not unsympathetic to the plight of those college and other students who have perhaps felt forced to resort to such illegal pirate websites and other free sources of textbooks to help them manage the extremely high cost of higher education.” But while offering sympathy, the Authors Guild does not accept responsibility for how expensive textbooks can be. “The exorbitant cost of education should not be borne by authors and publishers but by the universities, and it should not be used to justify reliance on foreign criminals for textbooks or to trivialize the immense personal and economic harm Z-Library was causing authors who are trying to make a living under increasingly difficult and hostile economic circumstances,” Rasenberger said. The future of Z-Library will remain uncertain until the US extradites and tries Napolsky and Ermakova for alleged crimes. If the charges hold, it may not bode well for other pirated e-book sources—especially the ones that are already on the FBI’s and the US Attorney's radar, like Libgen. “This Office is committed to protecting the intellectual property rights that enable creative and artistic expression, and holding individuals accountable for threatening those rights,” Peace said in the DOJ's press release. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ebook-library/ Until next week, - js. ![]() Current Week In Review ![]() Recent WiRs - November 12th, November 5th, October 29th, October 22nd Jack Spratts' Week In Review is published every Friday. Submit letters, articles, press releases, comments, questions etc. in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Submission deadlines are Thursdays @ 1400 UTC. Please include contact info. The right to publish all remarks is reserved. "The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public." - Hugo Black
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