HollywoodIdiocy.com

Well, the Qtrax site is back to allowing downloads of the client software, which has turned out to be powered by the Songbird Media Player, already in v0.2 beta release. While the point-to-point unlimited “free and legal” downloads haven’t been enabled just yet, I am pleased to say the media player performs well.

Using a bunch of stuff I’ve ripped off my CDs for play on my shoddy 1GB MP3 player, the sound quality is as decent as any time I’ve played the same tracks in RealOne or WMP. The nice bit, though, is how slim and fast the app performs. The download is only just over 9MB in size, installs quickly and when I pointed it to my “My Music” folder that contains a modest library of just over 300 ripped tracks, the program read and incorporated them into the My Library area so quickly, I wasn’t sure it had really worked; but there they were, ready to play.

Those are the positives.

On the downside, the media player has not yet successfully connected to the Qtrax site to enable any of the “artist-related information” searching promised in the initial beta release. Perhaps the servers are overwhelmed, though, and this’ll settle down once more folks have the player downloaded and installed.

Another downside is the player’s hit-and-miss performance on picking up artist and album information. For example, I get sermon CDs at the house of worship I attend and like to rip them into MP3 format for convenient listening; even though I manually entered all the information for those CDs and it works in RealOne and WMP, Qtrax’s Bluebird player is extremely hit-and-miss on capturing manually-entered information like that, which leads to my files being far less organized than I prefer in Qtrax.

Even so, the app feels light, fast and responsive and considering the increasingly bulky performance of RealOne and WMP, not to mention iTunes, Qtrax Songbird is at least in the running from a performance standpoint. The black user interface feels clean, usable and smooth, though rather light on features so far, and I haven’t tested it out to see if I can use Qtrax to rip songs off my existing audio CD library, though it doesn’t appear to be a feature that’s enabled just yet.

In the final analysis, Qtrax Songbird Media Player v0.2 beta has a long way to grow before it lived up to its promise, but it’s a nice start. Only time will tell if Qtrax is actually the 25 million-plus downloadable songs, “unlimited free and legal” app that it boasts it intends to be, but so far, so good. At least the music player performs well, and the ads? Well, they don’t bug me yet, or affect playback performance, so who cares?

EMI, Universal and Warner Music - the same companies that only a few months ago charged Minnesota native Jammie Thomas the equivalent of $9,250 per song for every song she’d allegedly downloaded for free - have changed their mind about free online music downloads. According to the Times Online (UK), those companies as well as many other recording companies, have decided at last to embrace file sharing technology.

The reversal came as the music industry announced the introduction of Qtrax, a digital music service that promises a catalog of 25 million songs that users can download and keep for free with no limits. The catch if that Qtrax’s digital jukebox will feature some advertising - kind of like radio ads - and both artists and record labels will be paid based on download popularity. Nearly every song available will allow unrestricted use through the service. If Qtrax takes off, it could pose a serious threat to Apple’s iTunes digital music store, which charges 99 cents per track.

If this all ends up being as good as it sounds, maybe music aficionados can finally spend their hard-earned sawbucks on something other than a Brandi Carlile single; like maybe some wholesale fashion jewelry or an HDTV.

The only question remaining is whether Jammie Thomas is going to be let off the hook by the men in music-industry black suits.

While the music industry isn’t exactly Hollywood, necessarily, record companies today have proved they’ve gone insane. And because their lawyers front celebrities, juries get blinded by the stars and suddenly justice isn’t blind, it’s got star-struck 20/20 eyesight.

I’m writing, of course, about Brainard, MN, woman Jammie Thomas, who was found guilty today of violating copyright law and was ordered to pay the filthy-rich record industry approximately $9,250 per song for 24 songs … roughly $220K in total financial penalties, though that’s not an exact figure. Sounds like a woman who’s gonna need a cash advance… and then some!

Defense attorneys claim Jammie was not the responsible party, attributing the acts to either a hacker or family member. But the jury bought the prosecution’s case.

Now, yes, common sense tells us all that downloading music and other copyrighted material for profit is bad, bad, bad and evil, evil, evil. Artists ought to profit from their work.

But is going after private citizens like Jammie the answer? The music industry has something like 26,000 lawsuits pending against individuals just like Jammie, and spendy lawyers who want to be paid, too. In fact, the music industry is probably losing money pressing this issue against 26,000 private citizens, because I’m sure their $500 to $1,000 an hour lawyers make the cost recovery laughable.

And can they actually collect from Jammie? A $220,000 settlement from a Brainard, MN, woman of modest- to middle-class means? Not likely. Even if they garnished the 30-year-old woman’s wages over the next 35 years of her working life before retirement, I doubt they’d collect the full amount. They’ve also likely ruined her employability for life, as well, in all likelihood.

Over 24 songs? That’s not just ridiculous, it’s idiotic.

Here’s a better, more sensible idea: Order her to 10 years probation. As terms of that probation, she must only buy music in the future from iTunes.com or other legal download sites, and must never install a file-sharing software on her computer again.

Back that up with a suspended 11-month jail term, which can be invoked each and every time she violates the terms of this probation.

And charge her a year’s wages in punitive damages, no more, no less. Amount to be determined by the job she holds at the time of conviction. Allow her the time of her probation - 10 years - to pay it off in full; if she pays it off sooner, she could apply to have probation lifted early.

That would be an amount she could conceivably pay and wouldn’t permanently ruin her life. If she behaved, it would be over in as little as five years; if she was ever convicted a second time on the same charge, the charge level could grow from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor. On a third conviction, perhaps a felony would be appropriate.

And can you imagine explaining THAT to prison inmates?

JAMMIE: Why you in here?

DOTTIE: Killed my husband because he was cheating on me. You?

JAMMIE: I, umm... downloaded a couple Britney Spears discs.

DOTTIE: Britney? Girl, you ain't in here for Run DMC? You my #($*@ now!

Not a way to impress fellow inmates in ‘Da Big House.

But I suspect a one-time offender wouldn’t be very likely to re-offend. Especially when a decent 160GB music and video iPod Classic only costs $349 or so, and on iTunes, each tune is $0.99.

Granted, some may consider a buck per tune a bit pricey, but you can buy an entire CD and put it on your iPod at no extras cost because it’s yours - you bought the CD. And that’s a lot cheaper than $9,250 per song. By a long shot.

* Photo credit: Jammie Thomas exiting court. (AP Photo/Julia Cheng)