The second trial confirmed the first for the 32 year old mother in Minnesota who illegally downloaded 24 songs. $80,000 per song - ouch. Lots of reasons she was found guilty and the RIAA continues to find, sue and settle with illegal downloaders and reasons that the fine was so high - read more on Yahoo (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tec_music_downloading).

Three main points to make:
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The Rhapsody Blog (blog.rhapsody.com) is a worthy follow for fans of music and Rhapsody. One of the nice things is that they give away music just about every day in the form of contests and free downloads. The last three free downloads are Poison’s - “Every Rose Has it’s Thorns”, Whitesnake - “Here we go” and Green Days’ new single - “Know Your Enemy”. Here is the link of the free mp3 downloads - go there now http://blog.rhapsody.com/rhapsodys-song-of-the-day/

Pricing for digital music just became WAY more confusing. With Apple iTunes new variable pricing (as low as $.69 per old song and $1.99 for new songs), a reasonably complex process - buying downloading installing playing music - just became even MORE complex and confusing to people who just want to listen to music. Economists call this price discovery, I call it a pain in the ass. I don’t want to spend my time looking for the best deal on a new album or a single track which is why I like Rhapsody. The new U2 album? Heard it on Rhapsody - and I didn’t pay an extra penny. Classic Van Morrison live album? Heard it on Rhapsody and didn’t pay any extra.

iTunes did a great thing when they launched and had pricing at an easy to understand and calculate $.99 per song for everything. Variable pricing will be a rat hole of confusion and online tools to scope out the best price for a particular song which takes away from the fun of discovery.

Yes, It’s really good. Is it great? Not on first listen. The first single “Get On Your Boots” and first track on the album “No Line on the Horizon” don’t portray the full album. There are elements of these songs that I like, but they tend to lose momentum in the song. All of the reviewers are fawning all over the fact that U2 has “reinvented” itself again, going with a harder edge and alternative feel. Personally, I’m not that crazy about the new sound with all of the minor keys, change in melodies mid-song.

The Tracks on the album:
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I really liked Beck’s version of Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat at the the end of the Academy Awards. It played during the movie clips for films coming out in 2009. It’s a classic Dylan song on Blonde on Blonde and I can’t find the Beck version on Rhapsody and it’s not on Modern Guilt (latest CD) so I hope it’s on a new album coming out or maybe he’ll release on iTunes/Rhapsody/Napster/Internet.

I’m so excited to see Bruce at the halftime show at the SuperBowl! I’ve been listening to the new Working on a Dream album on my new Mac Book Pro (speakers are much better than my old Dell D610) and Love it. I think it’s a Top 10 Bruce Album (I should rank my favorites one day). It’s great that my Rhapsody account works in the Safari browser on Mac - I wish they’d make a Mac version of the jukebox software. I digress.

The Bruce Springsteen album is great. It doesn’t have the raw energy of his earlier works, but Bruce can still write a great tune and incredible melodies.
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Looks like the Recording Industry Association of America is changing it’s strategy of suing individuals who are caught downloading pirated music. In a recent statement, they stated that no new lawsuits will be filed against individual - I guess all of the bad press, high cost and ineffectiveness of the campaign has come to roost. The new strategy involves working directly with Internet Service Providers to “warn” people of illegal activity.

The truth is that the downloading networks have gotten progressively worse over the years and to both find and download a significant amount of clean music is more difficult than ever. File sharing has never gone mainstream and you can’t stop people from swapping CDs and ripping them onto their computers.
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I just read a nice article from Portfolio.com that talks about Apple’s dominance in the music distribution business and how it won’t last. I’ve read a lot of these types of analysis and personally believe that services like Rhapsody, Napster and Zune pass are the way of the future. No per song fees, access any music anywhere, single monthly fee is the model that will allow MORE music discovery, MORE enjoyment of music, a WIDER spectrum of listening and a sound music industry that is MORE fair to the artists.

The main point of the article is that it will take Apple to convert to this model in order for it to really take off. It may not be Apple, but someone big or something really discontinuous needs to happen in order for the broader public (ie - everyone with an iPod) to try the services. Here is the link to the article - enjoy.

I just downloaded the latest build of Rhapsody (build 4.545). I don’t see any changes to the interface so I’m guessing there are updates/improvements under the hood. I haven’t seen any technical notes either and very little chatter on the RealNetworks forums. It’s an easy update and all of your previous settings are kept, but if you haven’t updated yet - you might want to hold off until the early adopters pipe in. I’ll post my thoughts after using it for a few days.

I’ve been playing with the new version of Zune Software 3.0. It includes Zune Collection (manages your music collection), Zune Marketplace (purchase music), Zune Social (share music with other Zune members). Each section has sub-categories and there is a Zune Pass overlay (a subscription service).

Things I Like about Zune 3.0
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