Minnesota Woman Ordered to Pay $222,000 in Music Piracy Case ~Rollingstone

(Rollingstone) A federal court has reinstated a $222,000 damages award against a Minneosta woman accused of illegally downloading 24 songs, Reuters reports, handing the music industry a victory in a case stretching past its sixth year.

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minnesota, rejected Jammie Thomas-Rasset's argument that the fine – $9,250 per song – was excessive and violated her due process rights under the Constitution. She has said her ex-boyfriend or two young sons were probably responsible for downloading the songs.

The court's decision was the latest step in the music industry's lengthy battle against Thomas-Rasset. She was one of 18,000 people the Recording Industry Association of America sued between 2003-2008 in an attempt to discourage people from downloading songs from filesharing sites like Kazaa. Although the RIAA had initially accused Thomas-Rasset of downloading more than 1,700 tracks, the industry group sued her on behalf of six record labels in 2006 over two dozen songs.

She lost her first trial in district court in 2007 and was ordered to pay $222,000, though the verdict was thrown out over faulty jury instruction. The jury in her second trial awarded the record labels $1.92 million in damages, an amount the court reduced to $54,000.

The record companies exercised their right to a new trial and won $1.5 million from a third jury, an amount the court again lowered to $54,000. The labels appealed, and a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit unanimously reinstated the original $222,000 fine from her first trial.

Thomas-Rasset's lawyer called the judgment "punitive" and said he would likely appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The RIAA applauded the decision, saying it was "looking forward to putting this case behind us."

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Diplo helped Snoop to make 'adult' record

(irishexaminer) Snoop Dogg chose Diplo to produce his reggae album as he is his only friend who knows the genre.

The rapper - rebranding himself as Snoop Lion for the project - wanted to make a more "adult" record, and called on Diplo after being impressed with his work.

Speaking at the launch of Red Bull Culture Clash, Diplo told BANG Showbiz: "He hit me up, I was like the only person he knew that knew anything about reggae, and so we just met a couple of times and it became a really good idea to do this.

"We worked before on his last album, and he said, he wanted to do something that's a bit more adult."

Diplo said Snoop got excited after he played him a song by his dancehall project Major Lazer, which convinced him to adopt a reggae sound.

He added: "We played him 'Get Free' which, at the time, we had just finished, and he loved the way it sounded and wanted to do something like that. We were both on that proper reggae vibe, and we just went down it."

The producer eventually went to Jamaica with Snoop to finish recording the album, to make it as authentic as possible.

He said: "We went to Jamaica to track the vocals, and we needed instruments that we couldn't do that well in America. "When we work on a record that is that big we do a lot of pre-production, we're getting ready to go to Jamaica and make every second of being there count."

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Trap Music Explored

We feel like everyone and their mother is talking about Trap music.  However, we think it is an amalgamation of everyone from hip-hop finding traction in a new genre and music bloggers trying to stay fixated on the next "new thing".

Whatever the fixation we found the above video interesting because who do they use for source material??? Non other then EDMBoston.com. you can see a screen shot of our site at the 2:51 mark.  We encourage you to read our explanation on What is Trap Music here

PS does the voice over not sound like the voice from Inside Jails tv show?

(youtube) Certified Trap is a revolutionary web series on Trap music and it's growing influence on other genres. Our goal was to reach out to influential players on both sides of the fence utilizing key relationships from the two most credible brands in the business, LiveMixtapes.com (Hip Hop) and Mad Decent (EDM) to explore the possibilites. Episode 1 bridges

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'Dance Music Is Over-Saturated Right Now’ ~Diplo

(ThisIsFakediy.co.uk) When Major Lazer made their entrance in 2009 with 'Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do', Diplo and Switch were unknown quantities to the majority of those the album reached. But to followers of the EDM and house scenes, the prospect of two of the biggest producers in the game getting together for an LP was tantalising. 

Switch's consistent hand in the early days of what-would-commonly-become-known-as fidget with tracks like 'Get Ya Dub On' and 'A Bit Patchy' made him a household name, well, in the right circles. At the same time, Diplo was becoming synonymous with his trademark blend of ludicrous and brilliant originals ('Smash A Kangaroo', anyone?) and infectious remixes (his remix of 'Bingo Players', a good start), oh, and his ridiculously hip label, Mad Decent, too of course. Long story short, nobody knew quite what to expect from Major Lazer, but those in the know expected something special.

And it was. Sort of. To some people. But maybe not those in the aforementioned 'know'. The debut album rode, and was partly responsible for, the crest of the rising wave of house and electro becoming accessible to the populace. There was barely a club in Britain, nay, the world, which did not blast out 'Pon de Floor' at some point. The mainstream embraced Major Lazer as newcomers, potentially helped by Beyoncé's penchant for that track (she used it for a snazzy version of 'Run The World'), Blackberry employed Diplo to...

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Pretty Lights Electric Zoo 2012 Review

By Shikhar

Even though Pretty Lights is playing at the Garden in Boston for Halloween, it was not enough to keep me from seeing his complete set at Zoo (it’s just a good rule of thumb most people should follow: Nighttime + festival closing + Pretty lights =  DO NOT MISS, well maybe for Daft Punk).

The main stage was nowhere close to empty yet not so packed that you could not move a muscle.  The perfect formula for what I like best. I decided to observe the opening of the set from the grass right outside of main stage and soaked in his awesome setup in its entirety. Pretty Lights slowed the entire momentum down to that of hip hop and hit the crowd hard with his vocal samplers combined with rough hard hitting tones.

Let me take this space to just mention my growing admiration for Pretty Lights fans, people who love pretty lights are fanatically in love with him and that passion just oozes out on the floor when Pretty Lights, aka Derek Vincent Smith, takes the stage.

When he dropped Total Fascination the crowd’s reaction was priceless, it literally looked as if a 10,000 volt current ran through the veins of every single person in attendance. No one bothered to remember how tired they were at 10pm after raging since 1pm, everyone just jumped, twisted, and gyrated their body to the beats and sang along. The only thing that was equally good as the music Derek was spitting out, was the crazy light show going on. Instead of the regular strobes and led’s shooting at the crowd, Pretty Lights was wowing audiences with his signature shapes and views of cities, skyscrapers and lasers, which formed a cloud over the crowd.

He kept going for the majority of the hour non-stop with other hits that included ‘still night’ and ‘finally moving’ with occasional shout outs to New York and Electric Zoo. However, the best part of the night was at the very end when he just stopped the music and had a heart to heart with the fans.  Derek asked every one if he should hit the Zoo with another song and boy did he HIT them with a song. Music cuts back in with the intro to ‘I know the truth’ and the entire crowd, with yours truly included, literally lost their mind. Everyone sang along to the vocals and that howl before the drop was one of the loudest I’ve heard live in person at a show.

The show was everything I had imagined a perfect Pretty Lights would be like, now I am pumped to see him again in Boston!

Read our full Electric Zoo Day 1 Review here

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